Below are some verdicts that users of our site have
given to
ShieldHost . If you would like to submit your verdict about
ShieldHost please use our submit page to review
ShieldHost.
Are
you an administrator or staff member of
ShieldHost ?
If so click here
Date Submitted :
February 13th, 2009
Length of time hosted by this company :
1 - 3 years
Overall Rating :
2 out of 5
Reliability :
3 out of 5
Support :
1 out of 5
Pricing :
5 out of 5
Verdict :
" During the time my website was hosted by shieldhost the up-time was good. If there was a problem the technicians were helpful.
However, general Customer service including the billing dept did not appear to exist. Twice they shutdown my site due to lack of payment. Both times it was their accounting error. I finally went to paying yearly so I could avoid their lack of organization.
I recently decided to move my website, when my control panel became missing, my passwords would not work, and once again customer service had disappeared. I just could not deal with this hassle anymore.
Once I did manage to find there unlisted telephone number, dealing with them was painful. The emails they sent them were cryptic. I cannot afford to be dealing with an unprofessional web hosting group.
"
During the time my website was hosted by shieldhost the up-time was good. If there was a problem the technicians were helpful.
However, general Customer service including the billing dept did not appear to exist. Twice they shutdown my site due to lack of payment. Both times it was their accounting error. I finally went to paying yearly so I could avoid their lack of organization.
I recently decided to move my website, when my control panel became missing, my passwords would not work, and once again customer service had disappeared. I just could not deal with this hassle anymore.
Once I did manage to find there telephone number, dealing with them was painful. The emails if they sent them were cryptic. I cannot afford to be dealing with an unprofessional web hosting group.
The support has gone up almost 180 degrees, there used to be a bunch of lag time before they would get back to your requests, but the picture has changed.
I completely agree with the sentiments of another poster, IML, who said basically that the level of service Shieldhost provides is acceptable for the price. I would dare say their support is very good for this price range. They almost always fix the problems in less than a day. Certain problems do take them longer (for example when they changed to CPanel from some other management panel it took about a month to get everything working correctly) and they are never rude.
You do need to submit separate tickets for each question you want answered, otherwise they likely won't get answered. Also, it greatly helps if you provide them a very simple, basic example to demonstrate the problem you are having.
They also do go down for a few minutes nearly every day. I don't know why, and they won't tell, but it almost always happens. So for mission critical sites, sales sites, or high profile sites, use a different host.
One other thing: I have a site they host that has been DDoSed (it's an anti-spam site and spammers DDoS us every few months). To their credit, they have been very good about handling it. However, their method of handling it is to suspend your account which completely locks you out of your site. This is unfortunate because it prevents you from getting any backups.
Aside from those few minor things, they are a good hosts.
Dont go there! I signed up for 3 months of hosting a few months ago, never got my site, and never got a refund! Their support was almost non-existent, kept sending them the same things over and over again, and still to date have never gotten any type of refund.
Shieldhost is very cheap and perfectly adequate for casual use. If I had a commercial site I'd probably want something more robust, but it's definitely a good deal for the price.
I too had an issue with my billing at one point, but I had no trouble resolving it via e-mail. Nothing to get worked up about.
ShieldHost will automatically renew your hosting membership withOUT your authorization.
Sent an enquirey to the "support" department AND to "Billing" department. Only response was from the SUPPORT saying that they will forward my email to the BILLING dept. Its been over 2 weeks and STILL have had NO reply from the BILLING DEPT about my refund.
Then sent another email for a refund to BILLING dept.....still NO reply.
The customer service and tech support at Shieldhost is the worst I have ever experienced.
1) You cannot call these people. Communication is via email only.
2) When you email them, you can expect a very long delay before theri first communication - often over a day.
3) They are not very helpful when they do respond
4) They will bounce you around to departments that have nothing to do with the problem. (i.e. - I needed a password reset and received an email from same jerk in billing)
5) stay aware from these guys. The slightly lower cost is not wrth the agravation - especially when you need help or your site is down.
I eventually cancelled by service and moved my site elsewhere. Should have done that a long time ago. I'm still being billed by them and now need to fight it out with the credit card company.
This host is HORRIBLE! They offer large disk space but at a compromise; slow support, lengthy downtimes and common easy to fix problems which could have been avoided. They are at approximately 90% uptime, not 99% - their support appears to be from a couple of indian guys who just about know how to use Linux, if that. The final straw was that they turned off my PHP errors so I couldn't debug. I gave up and went for DreamHost. And it's amazing.
They weren't anywhere near something I would call reliable at any time, but since they've been bought by Global Visions, it's actually gotten a LOT worse.
My site's been more down then up over the past 2 months. It's just retarded. I've just moved my site to asmallorange. MUCH more reliable, and just as cheap.
I should have read the reviews of ShieldHost before starting this horrible experience. They have no respect for their clients and recently, as with another Shieldhost client, I have been "rippped off" by an unauthorized deduction by Shieldhost of my PayPal for fees. They oonly answer when it is favorable for them. DO NOT USE this company and if you are, as soon as you can, switch. Never use PayPal to pay them and never, ever use automatic billing. They are deceitful, arrogant and unlawful. I wish I new what action I could use against them.
When I was with Shield Host, my website was constantly down. I could never get them to answer even one support ticket. While their pricing is okay, their service is not. In this case, you really get what you pay for. After I switched hosts, I had forgotten to cancel my PayPal automatic billing and was charged for the next billing cycle. I flagged my message to them "Ultra-Important" and got absolutely NO response. Luckily PayPal was able to get my money back after I disputed it. I haven't been with Shield Host for well over a year now and I still receive "Payment Notices" for hosting I do not use, even though I have sent numerous cancelation requests (followed by cancelation notices). DO NOT USE THIS HOST!
They are terrible. I am hosting my company's website with them, and the email server is constantly down, emails get bounced back to clients, I have to turn off my firewall in order to check the email, and even that doesnt work all the time. simply put, they are the worst hosting service I have ever used!
I have a more pragmatic view of support than most other users I suspect, having used several web hosting services (e.g., iPowerweb, Lunarpages, Uniserve, Compuserve, Telus). I could truthfully say that they're all awful, but all things are relative in an industry that generally offers dismal support. I rate Shieldhost acceptable, even though they have no telephone support, and it sometimes takes them days to respond. I rate them acceptable for four reasons:
1. They're cheap, and I understand that cheap means compromise.
2. I always get a response from them within a day or two.
3. The response always seems to be from a real person who actually read my message and is genuinely trying to help.
4. It sometimes takes several rounds and some persistence, but they usually resolve the problem in the end, and they've never blown me off or gotten rude with me in the process.
Performance and reliability are also acceptable. Yes, they're down once in a while, but it's not so often that I'm concerned, and I don't get excited about it as long as it's up again in an hour or two. Yes, they've occasionally made arbitrary changes that screwed up my account or my site without telling me - but so have all the others I've tried.
Their new control panel is a little better than their old one (they're using Cpanelx, same as Lunarpages), but it's not quite as simple or flexible to use as iPowerweb's Vdeck.
I have used these guys for years, not because they're good but because I keep hoping they improve before I have to go through the trouble of changing to another host. They are terrible. Random charges appear on my credit card statements, emails bounce back to senders, and the websites are down frequently (they host two sites for me). To top it off, there is no phone number to call, or email to reach them. You have to log into their cryptic billing website, which is not the same as their general trouble ticket website, which you have to go through the pain of everytime they're mysteriously down. When I contact them, I have to "prove" the site was down and send them error logs, etc., by which time usually the site is back up so it's a waste of time to even contact them.
