Completely dissed by my webhost, need new reliable and cheap hosting

I

inotocracy

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Jul 25, 2004
Messages
5,625
Hey guys,

I've been hosting my websites with this company for 2 years now, and before that was sending a lot of people their way. I asked on Sunday to upgrade my server from PHP4 to PHP5.. I was told "someone was on the job". Come today I ask for a status update and they give me pure additude and essentially lost my business. I wasn't being a dick or anything, I see PHP4 in the headers and they tell me "someone is on the job" I assume that PHP5 isn't on the server. Seriously though, anyone had this kind of experience with a hosting company? The company is Sunwave (sunwave.com) by the way, I even remember recommending them to the [H]. Here is a transcript, also if anyone has a good reliable hosting that offers Email, PHP5 and MySQL please let me know. Thanks.

info: Please wait for a site operator to respond.
info: You are now chatting with 'Online Support'
Online Support: Hello :) How can I help you?
Emanuel: Hi, any status on my PHP4 to PHP5 upgrade on parcelplotr.com
Online Support: i'm not the one doing that job, so i can't give you any information right now
Online Support: i know that it's underway
Emanuel: can you give me anything?
Online Support: but that's all i know
Emanuel: its been about 4 days now
Online Support: did you ever check whether your server already had php5?
Online Support: about half of them do
Emanuel: yes
Emanuel: its running php 4.4.7
Online Support: but did you look to see if php5 is also on it
Emanuel: no i didnt
Emanuel: not even quite sure how i would test that
Emanuel: i dont have a shell
Online Support: umm
Emanuel: php5 at the top of the script?
Online Support: it's always terrifying to me that people who have no idea what they are doing are ready to install and run scripts
Emanuel: heh
Online Support: there is NOTHING that you can do with a shell that can't be done without a shell
Online Support: nothing
Emanuel: alrighty, well enough sarcasm
Online Support: your websites all have cgi ability
Online Support: that means you can run any command
Online Support: this is not sarcasm
Emanuel: yeah i could install a php shell and do all kinds of nasty things
Online Support: this is education :)
Emanuel: but why when i pay you for hosting
Emanuel: i dont really need to be educated
Emanuel: i see php4 in the headers
Emanuel: i assume php4 is on the server
Online Support: yes, you really do
Emanuel: wow
Emanuel: you have to be kidding me?
Online Support: the webserver has mod_php 4.x
Emanuel: this is how you treat customers with valid complaints?
Emanuel: er requests
Online Support: it's not a valid request if you haven't checked yet whether the software you want is already on the server
Emanuel: look
Emanuel: im at a loss for words
Emanuel: i see php4 in the installation tahts what i assume it has
Online Support: you are at a loss for knowledge
Emanuel: why would i think otherwise when you've told me twice now that "someone is on the job"
Emanuel: ok
Emanuel: ill take my business elsewhere
Click to expand...

:eek:
 
you gotta be kidding me, if one of our techs treated a customer like that I'd fire them on the spot
 
Completely unprofessional and nonsense, you should report that to higher ups in the company. That is absolute garbage how you were treated.

If you want to leave, people on this forum seem to really like site5 and bluehost, both which offer what you want.
 
I'd already be looking elsewhere if I was treated that way. A lot of hosts run php 4 and 5 side by side, I know we do. All you have to do is add one line to .htaccess to make php 5 the default, or if they have a php5 extension they'll work fine.

theres a webhost recommendation thread somewhere, the host I work for is on there so I wont mention it here (dont like to say who I work for on a forum, seems like I always end up with someone thinking I'm their personal contact)
 
Thanks for the recommendation, I am planning on migrating all my stuff tonight so I'm checking out bluehost. If they would have told me the server may have PHP5 as well and not tell me someone is "on the job" for four days perhaps this wouldn't have occurred (the headers said php4 and they confirmed multiple times someone was moving it to 5). Regardless, I'm a bit annoyed after so many years they could completely disrespect me. Thanks again guys!
 
Yeah, that person probably doesn't value his job too much.
I use asmallorange.com, been using them continuously for about 9 months. They're always fast to respond to tickets. Always professional. One of their guys even helped me out with a programming problem once. I was pulling data from the cPanel interface, and he suggested another method. They're top notch guys.
If you end up looking into them, use the coupon "hardforum", if you want. You'll get 15% off and I'll get a small credit. Their referral system is awesome too.
 
asmallorange is really good. i did a senior project for the founder during my last yr of college. his name was tim (iirc) -- really cool guy.
 
:p sorry but that's pretty funny. Very unprofessional and that guy should be fired BUT quite funny. :D
 
Get all of your info together and forward it to consumerist.com

I'm sure they would get a kick out of it.

Anyway we ran blue host for a while for the gamming clan I am in but we kept getting cpu quota errors and ended up moving off them. We were taxing their site move then most would though.
 
site5, bluehost, or asmallorange will get you what you want.

I personally use site5 and absolutly love them, best hosting I have ever had.
 
Grentz said:
site5, bluehost, or asmallorange will get you what you want.

I personally use site5 and absolutly love them, best hosting I have ever had.
Click to expand...

i had a rough time w/ them for a few months (site5) but they made things right and moved me to another server so i definitely have to recommend them at this point
 
I also use site5. Cheap and good if you know what you're doing. If you need to contact their tech support, you need to spell out clearly in as little words as possible EXACTLY what to do, otherwise they will botch it up. They do respond promptly and are knowledgeable, though.
 
So what ever came of this? Have you complained to a manager of the company? I'd try to get in touch with the actual CEO / president / owner of the host.

Also, if you're still looking for a host, I'd recommend http://www.mediatemple.net/webhosting/gs/. For a little while there was some outages, but now it's pretty stable.
 
mediatemple is slow from my past experence.


I would recommend you consult with the company manager to ensure this doesnt happen to anyone else.
 
I ended up filing a complaint with the BBB, it turns out that Sunwave is a small 3 person company so the complaint I sent to Sunwave's email addresses probably fell on deaf ears. I also submitted the situation to consumerist.com and posted a blog regarding the situation and my move to a new host. Not much else I can do I guess, other than not refer clients to them anymore. Word of mouth is pretty powerful.. I'd guess they'll lose some business over it (at least mine and any of my clients thats for sure).

Thanks for all the help guys, I'm on a temporary new host now while I research everyone's suggestions.
 
Got a response from consumerist.com, that was quick! They were really surprised and are looking into it now. Keep your fingers crossed.. this deserves some bad publicity.
 
Wow, that's simply incredible. I had a similar issue arise with HostGator where cpanel was displaying php 4, but you can enable php 5 just by editing the htaccess file. However, the person there was incredibly helpful, Sunday at 2am when I got on their live chat, helped me in about 2 minutes with the exact line of code to put in my .htaccess file.

I would strongly recommend Hostgator - www.hostgator.com
I've had them since ~November and I've been completely happy with their customer service, uptime, storage capacity/bandwidth, extra cpanel features, etc. Just an awesome company all around.
 
You should send a copy of that chat log to there higher ups and post it over at webhosttalk what an a-hole.
 
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