Servint is the worst most unethical host around now. STAY AWAY!

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Posted by Ovatekweb, 08-28-2016, 05:34 PM
We were with Servint for years with a variety of VPS's, Dedicated Servers, Bare Metal and also a reseller. Things started going down hill about 18 months ago. I mean they always had some issues with getting hit with DDoS and other sporadic issues, but because their customer service and support was always so great to work with we stayed with them. Over the last 6 to 12 months they have literally gone from being one of the most respected and all around good hosts, to becoming the biggest nightmare in professional hosting providers. They rip you off on 30 day termination notice. We literally fired up a cheap $70 VPS by accident. Notified them immediately and they refused to waive the 30 day cancellation notice and fee. I mean we never even logged into the server and immediately notified them. Also...you might want to sit down if you are not, but they now charge $10 per IP!!!!! We referred a client and the client is a multi million dollar online GNC type business. Servint shut down their servers without any notice due to a glitch on their billing side. Servint admitted they were wrong, but we still lost the client. I truly could list many more examples and many more paragraphs of writing, but anyone in the industry knows Servint is garbage now. Just felt the broader community deserved to hear the experience of a person who has spent well over $30000 with them over the years and still got treated like a nobody by them.
Posted by JSCL, 08-28-2016, 05:38 PM
It's a real shame to read of your experience of them. My only recollections of Servint are from many years ago when they were very good at what they did, but I've seen a number of negative reviews since I returned to the industry recently. It's unfortunate, but some providers do change with time and not always for the better. Hopefully you've been able to find yourself a better suited supplier now.
Posted by Andei, 08-28-2016, 05:41 PM
Seen a lot of such threads lately, about ServInt. It's quite a shame they've reached this low point... back in 2011 when I used their services, they were great.
Posted by helpdesk, 08-29-2016, 02:47 PM
really sad to hear that experience. I wish you'd get the one you deserve.
Posted by unlocktheinbox, 08-29-2016, 02:47 PM
I used their services from 2008-2010, they were absolutely the best around. I ran a physical retail brick and mortar store checkout terminals off their servers and never had an outage or an issue. I can't even imagine not being about to check out customer in store. Did the ownership change?
Posted by SenseiSteve, 08-29-2016, 02:56 PM
That's a shame and very unfortunate, but we see this from time to time in the web hosting industry - good providers hopping on the downhill slope to awful. And $10 per IP address?! Ouch!
Posted by unlocktheinbox, 08-29-2016, 03:00 PM
I have a feeling this is going to become more common everywhere to get an IPv4 Address.
Posted by fcsnc, 08-30-2016, 10:45 PM
Reed Caldwell worked hard, built a world-class company, got rich, moved to California, and took his hand off the tiller. After 11 years, I fired ServInt today. It would be interesting to know under what circumstances all the great folks--Christian, Giles, Jim, Matt, and the rest--left the company. But sadly, it's true, ServInt is no longer the place to be.
Posted by AndriusPetkus, 08-30-2016, 11:10 PM
I believe you already answer to your question. I agree with others - too many bad reviews, never seen that much before.
Posted by net, 08-30-2016, 11:36 PM
Sad to see such a good provider going down lately. Are they focusing different market audience?
Posted by westwing, 08-31-2016, 03:53 AM
I can confirm all this. I bailed out 6 months ago and they could care less .....
Posted by baremetalservers, 08-31-2016, 04:34 AM
Now is clear which provider just need to avoid.
Posted by Jutt, 08-31-2016, 04:37 AM
I have been on WHT for more than 5 years, and never seen so many bad reviews about Servint, but since past few months, a lot of bad reviews are popping up on WHT too. Thats strange how a good company can turn into a bad provider just like that.
Posted by baremetalservers, 08-31-2016, 04:43 AM
would be so kind to get the information and explanation from them.
Posted by quickregister, 09-22-2016, 12:48 PM
I have been with Servint over 10 years. No more. I had to upgrade my VPS to a new one and they completely messed up the transfer. They lied about being able to keep the ips. When the new server was set up it resolved to ip addresses that were not even on the server. When I sent in a ticket about this when the tech responded after an unusually long time that they had to send the ticket to Cpanel? I remember when Servint solved super complicated tech issues with stunning speed at 3 am. These guys cannot even set up a server correctly any more. They of course kept charging me for the server which I was moving from. I complained and they offered me 2 months free on the new server and to refund the extra charges they had charged me for the old server. One month later they never refunded the old charges and they send me another bill for the old server which was cancelled. Plus the new server still does not work one month later! When I asked one of the support staff on chat what happened to the old Servint they specifically told me not to expect the same type of service I once received. Really too bad. Servint was my favorite host . They have fallen far.
Posted by whmcsguru, 09-22-2016, 03:27 PM
Ethics? Your 'ethics' are not going to be for everyone, sorry to say. RE: 30 days This isn't them ripping you off. This is you being ignorant. One doesn't 'accidentally' order anything . There are far, far too many steps in the standard order process, to deliberately avoid that. RE: $10/IP You ARE aware that IPV4 is pretty much dried up, right? This is a very simple case of supply and demand. Thankfully, you don't NEED a dedicated IP any linger for most stuff. With their supply of IPS likely drying up, it's going to mean that you have to pay more for this. Neither of these are ethics issues. As far as the technical issues raised in here, well, obviously one or more of their techs needs to be replaced, but that doesn't happen by complaining in a public forum. Flag the ticket for admin review. If they've just transferred ownership or management (to anyone but EIG), give them some time. It might be that they just need to catch up
Posted by RealTalk, 10-21-2016, 10:25 AM
I'm a former employee of ServInt and I feel like I need to vent after seeing all of these negative posts. Under no circumstances should you give them any money. What fcsnc said is absolutely true. Even years ago when I still worked for them, Reed Caldwell the "CEO" was never in the office. I think I saw him once at a holiday party and he didn't even know who I was, even though I pretty much built most of their network and servers and kept things running like a well oiled machine. Really great leadership right there! He's living the high life in La Jolla with his "trophy" wife (if you bought your trophy at the flea market). Pretty much everyone that I had worked with has now left ServInt, so I'm not really sure if anyone actually works there now. Maybe some sort of temp skeleton crew? When I was there I think we had the highest number of MSTs and engineers in the lifetime of ServInt. I could see things were going downhill and the leadership did nothing to incentivize the hardworking staff to stay...and that's when I left. There was also the old regime of staff...those that were hired in the heyday of ServInt who were close friends of Reed. These employees have been there over 10 years and, according to their website: "At ServInt, 25% of our staff proudly wear their 10-year anniversary watches". These people did the least amount of work when I was there and still weren't fired. Instead, they were given raises, new management positions, and shiny new watches. Totally makes sense. Maybe the watches were to keep track of how much time they wasted doing nothing during the day? Instead, they fired an MST named Ken who was the hardest working technician they ever had. Par for the course. Ask me anything. Last edited by RealTalk; 10-21-2016 at 10:39 AM.
Posted by HostingCraze, 10-21-2016, 10:34 AM
Looks like a tragedy!!!
Posted by Forward Web, 10-21-2016, 12:23 PM
Sadly I've seen this type of scenario play out many times in the web hosting industry. Web Hosting can be very profitable and often times, greed takes over. In my early years I once worked for a company that laid off an entire department so one of the owners could buy a Ferrari. Word of advice though, try not to take it personal. As an employee you are invested, but taking things personal (regardless of how difficult it is to do otherwise, only harms you in the long run). Nonetheless, sorry you had to go through all of that. Hopefully you have landed in a better place1
Posted by RealTalk, 10-21-2016, 12:42 PM
Oh, trust me...I forgot about them the day I left. I'm doing great now - in a position where I'm actually respected for the amount of work I get done. I'm mainly just warning people who are looking for a dedicated/VPS host. I frequent web hosting forums and I noticed a lot of posts recently about ServInt. Felt like I needed to share. Last edited by RealTalk; 10-21-2016 at 12:55 PM.
Posted by HostXNow_Chris, 10-21-2016, 12:55 PM
I've never used them but read their blog articles which are useful. Sorry to hear you experienced poor service with them after spending so much with them. Luckily, there are plenty of other reputable providers to use at WHT.
Posted by Ashish9410, 10-21-2016, 02:12 PM
Well, Thank you for sharing your Experience.
Posted by PWSupport, 10-21-2016, 03:26 PM
Really sad to hear.
Posted by westwing, 10-21-2016, 05:54 PM
Was with them for 11 years .... Reed even customised my 2nd server. they are cowboys now ... total crap!
Posted by westwing, 10-21-2016, 06:00 PM
I'm glad I'm not hosting with you .....
Posted by jkca, 10-21-2016, 07:00 PM
Sad to hear, Servint has had a decent reputation in the past.
Posted by gingir, 10-24-2016, 04:04 PM
I am not saying you are wrong but I have been reading this for years and I'm still paying 1 euro each.
Posted by ramdak5000, 11-26-2016, 08:19 PM
@fcsnc, I remember you from the now defunct, customers-only ServInt forums. When long-timers like you leave ServInt, I know the company is beyond redemption. You hit the nail on the head about the real reason for ServInt's decline. Reed should probably sell off his company and start afresh to preserve whatever is left of his reputation and integrity. At least he's still less than 40 and has time on his side.
Posted by dafut, 12-04-2016, 05:43 PM
I'm hearing that big changes--for the good--are in store w ServInt. Stay tuned for more info. I'm hopeful yet only time will tell.
Posted by westwing, 12-04-2016, 06:17 PM
Their LA Datacentre has been down for the past 40+ hours .... its up now! or at least that's what they said New Incident Status: Identified The issue has been identified and a fix is being implemented. Dec 1, 19:45 EST Investigating We are aware of problems happening for our users in the LA datacenter. We are working on getting this repaired as soon as possible. Once we have more info we will update here. We apologize for the inconvenience. Dec 1, 19:50 EST Then NOTHING until ..... New Incident Status: Resolved This incident has been resolved. Dec 4, 03:18 EST The usual crap communication ........
Posted by fcsnc, 12-04-2016, 08:29 PM
I won't be following this, because I'm done with ServInt. Anyone whose customer service deteriorates to a certain point has lost my business. The recent 40+-hour outages at the Amsterdam and California "datacenters" are the natural result of things pretty much having gone to the pits. The only way ServInt could be salvaged at this point would be for some entity to buy them out, dismiss all the senior management, and change the name of the company. I predict all this will happen, but I'm sure the result will not interest me in the slightest.
Posted by dafut, 12-04-2016, 08:56 PM
As I stated, I'm hopeful yet only time will tell.
Posted by dafut, 12-04-2016, 09:11 PM
One of the sadder and possibly indicative points is where a company removes or fails to support an online forum. My suspicion is that its removal had to do w capping information flow, e.g., troubling & bad experiences from being shared. Seeing "Bob Farmer" respond to issues showed a care and concern that made them an excellent company. Clearly those times have changed and it will take a lot of work to restore trust. The number one place for that to happen is with their support team. I'm hopeful, yet w the demand throughout the industry for quality support techs w knowledge & smarts, the cultural shift required to restore that trust will be a daunting task.
Posted by Lakjin, 12-05-2016, 03:56 AM
The cost per IP is ridiculous. Sure, IPv4 may be in shortage but IPv6 is abundant and at this point any website / service worth a salt support IPv6.
Posted by FormerMST, 12-07-2016, 03:04 PM
The inside scoop is that they had downsized all non-technical staff including the fantastic community manager that treated the forum, twitter and facebook pages like their own child. After letting them go they closed down the forum and gave the techs a generic response when a client questioned it in a ticket.
Posted by westwing, 12-07-2016, 04:46 PM
Why did Christian go ?
Posted by Phantastic, 01-25-2017, 07:34 PM
As I remember it christian dawson resigned saying he wanted to focus on the i2 coalition and other projects. But I wonder how many ever really believed that. Near the end christian wasn't even in the office anymore. New coo bill goss probably let christian know his days were numbered and gave him the chance to resign with dignity. Bill was given total control and had no place for christian so I'm sure he had no qualms about throwing him on the chopping block with everyone else. Christian was a good guy. Approachable. Treated us with respect. But not as active and aware with some things as he should have been in his coo role. And that's why Goss was eventually sought after. We had some great clients and some rotten apples. Christian always believed in saving every customer unless they became straight jacket crazy. And we did have a few of those. But that just doesn't work when you have a model that offers best effort server admin support for almost anything. Too many $50 a month clients blew up support and couldn't be pleased with anything because they knew nothing and wanted someone else to do all the work for free. They abused the servint model and management let them get away with it. I can't say that was all christian because it may have been a reed caldwell mandate for all I know. I just know he enforced it and so many foul people got away with murder. I remember when all the mst had a meeting with christian in 2013 to finally define what managed services meant and bring some real balance to everything. After that he was going to really chisel out what was included and excluded so we could always have something to point people too. A few loose definitions came out of it but nothing very helpful. That was a real disappointment and could have helped turn things around before they got ugly.
Posted by fcsnc, 01-25-2017, 08:00 PM
I see where Reed is back and Goss is gone. Too bad the company lost all credibility over a year ago. You can't repair that kind of damage. I imagine they will have to go deep into debt until Goss' parachute is paid off. People like Goss never sign on without a parachute. Last edited by fcsnc; 01-25-2017 at 08:02 PM. Reason: Hit post too early
Posted by Phantastic, 01-25-2017, 09:36 PM
Could be. But I know what I was making and what some of my colleagues were making and I can say with all the cuts and outsource replacements they must have saved themselves over a million dollars a year. The quality is gone but the savings are there. RE: Goss. The whole thing was so painful to see unfold. If control of servint had been given to me and I wanted to sabotage the company and bring it to rubble and kill all morale I do not think I could have done it faster than goss. RE: Repairing servint. I'll repeat what I said in the another thread
Posted by fcsnc, 01-25-2017, 10:19 PM
I would like to know who you are (were) at ServInt. I'm wondering whether we ever had any interactions. I was with ServInt for over 11 years. - Tom
Posted by Phantastic, 01-26-2017, 01:15 AM
Tom it's were. I am no longer with servint. I think I may know who you are and if so we must have had pleasant interactions. I tend to remember the bad interactions. But I'm sorry i'll have to disappoint you. I knew about web hosting talk for years and never really came by until now. In just 2 days here I've learned that the hosting world is such a small place and things change so quickly. Especially with the wiredtree transition. I think it's in my best interests to remain anonymous here. I will state that everything I've said is my true recollection and feelings about what I experienced as a former employee at servint.
Posted by fcsnc, 01-26-2017, 09:24 AM
I have always felt that the critical issue that doomed the ServInt forums was an unfortunate hack. They were closed forums; in other words, you had to be a paying ServInt customer to have access to the forums at all. There was a feeling of shared camaraderie, to be sure; but there was also very technical and valuable information there. Not only was there plenty of stuff to read about the "some assembly required" approach to support, but there were people hungry for technical knowledge and others willing to share their own knowledge, to the great benefit of other customers. As far as I could tell, ServInt staff never deleted a single post or thread, even in cases where it might have been justified. BobFarmer and other staff jumped in to address questions and issues when they were clearly important. Some people created and shared useful utilities and scripts to help users work their way to better VPS management. It was possible to avoid raising a support ticket, generally, by simply searching the forums for information. The solution to anything that any ServInt customer had ever experienced was in there somewhere. At some point--I forget the exact time--someone joined ServInt and proceeded to harvest the forums. I don't know if this was done with some kind of crawler, but the harvest was so comprehensive that I suspect it must have been a database exploit. Soon, the entire contents of the private ServInt customer forums was duplicated (complete with people's names and handles) on a couple of public websites outside of the ServInt network. Forum members immediately noticed that what they had been posting was no longer private to the ServInt customer community. They stopped posting. That was the end of the forums. I believe that ServInt identified and pursued legal channels to prosecute the case as far as possible--which isn't very far considering that the internet is global.
Posted by CAT6, 01-26-2017, 09:53 AM
Thanks, I will put whmcs.guru on the list of businesses to Never Use or Recommend.
Posted by Phantastic, 01-26-2017, 11:43 AM
Interesting to hear that perspective from someone who was with servint longer than me and I hope new management reads that and takes it to heart. I remember a few years ago I was browsing the servint forum and started asking if I or someone should answer a client that posted a new question. An employee senior to me said Why bother. That place is dead. I never asked again.
Posted by fcsnc, 01-26-2017, 12:16 PM
The forums probably were dead at that point, due to the reason (hack) I described above.
Posted by fcsnc, 01-26-2017, 12:24 PM
And yes, even with Reed Caldwell apparently back at the helm, I still think that people should STAY AWAY from them. Fool me once.
Posted by fcsnc, 01-26-2017, 12:30 PM
Well, there was one person at ServInt (pretty high up in management at the time) who once told me in a support ticket to, and I quote, get off my high horse. I sent an email to Reed Caldwell and informed him that I was never, ever, doing business with that "executive" again. Almost immediately, I got a private letter of apology from the "executive" in question, but I didn't reply to it and never dealt with him again. As far as staying anonymous(e) on WebHostingTalk, good luck with that.
Posted by BlazingSwitch, 01-26-2017, 12:42 PM
I am seeing this at many different ISP's, however a lot of them are doing it in an effort to gain additional revenues to purchase blocks of IPv4 to transfer to their ASN. As you know, many ISP's are run on such razor thin margins, they do not have an extra $5/10/20k for IPv4 around and can't afford to wait on ARIN or whomever to give them cheapo addresses. Some ISP's have said as much in their IP price hikes of the past 12-18 months that this is the reason for it, so they are cashing in nicely.
Posted by BlazingSwitch, 01-26-2017, 12:45 PM
There are still plenty of places where you can get less expensive IPv4 addresses, depending on what it is your ultimate need is for. At $10/ip you could PURCHASE outright @ those prices. However, many of those ISP's charging that much are trying to finance those purchases.
Posted by BlazingSwitch, 01-26-2017, 12:47 PM
That is a solid point. I have seen in the recent couple of years where ISP's get to a certain point they phase out one market to focus on the more profitable. This makes sense, we had done it ourselves at one point as well. It is not always cost effective trying to be all things to all people. That said, these guys used to have a pretty solid reputation across the board. It does seem as if there are some changes going on over there.
Posted by Phantastic, 01-26-2017, 02:19 PM
Don't know. The first thing that comes to mind is the admin and abuse team. That director had to get tough on a lot of scum bags and I saw that personality transfer over as some pretty harsh treatment of other clients that probably hadn't deserved it. Not excusing what was said to you. Just telling it how it was. You said executive. So the only other person I can think that fits the profile is director of mst but that kind of talk from him to a client was rare. Touche. Web hosting talk admins can see my email and may be able to figure out who I am if they really want and that's fine. I just don't want to make it available anywhere else.
Posted by fcsnc, 01-26-2017, 02:32 PM
It may have been Director of Network Compliance, but maybe not since the context had nothing to do with network compliance. Anyway, that's all in the past.
Posted by Phantastic, 01-26-2017, 02:32 PM
I wonder if he's really back at the helm and if so how long he's planning to stick around this time. He talked about selling the company for a very long time and even told us we were going to get options and a chance to own part of the company. And that never happened. Excuse after excuse. Servint is a zombie company right now and anyone who uses their services is going to have to hope it comes back to life if they ever need real support. But i'm not going to tell anyone what to do about servint. Thats up to them. Devon of the old sales team said yesterday he was back in servint and bringing some of the good wiredtree techs with him. That's a good start. But they have a long way to go.
Posted by Phantastic, 01-26-2017, 02:37 PM
Yes that was my first guess too. But all in the past.
Posted by whmcsguru, 01-26-2017, 06:37 PM
If you cannot understand how this industry works, please by all means avoid ordering or using services. Since you've never 'used' services, you cannot recommend them. Anything you say against them (ie: not recommending them) is slander and libelous. As far as my original statement: Nothing there was untrue. NOTHING One does not 'accidentally' order anything. It can't happen. A 30 day 'cancellation' period would apply to new customers, not old ones. So, even if you did 'accidentally' order a VPS, from inside your customer panel, that would not be included in your cancellation policy. IP addresses being $10, again, supply and demand. This is simple economics at it's finest
Posted by westwing, 01-26-2017, 06:54 PM
Its just the way you come across. You sound like a very arrogant/rude person and I wouldn't care to work with you either. Sleep well!
Posted by Phantastic, 01-26-2017, 08:44 PM
Agree there's some supply and demand to consider here and I had no problem with them upping the cost of each ipv4. Problem is the supply was not nearly as thin as servint made it seem with their $10 hike. It's true our keepers of the network were tired of spammers trashing our ips. But this is when servint was starting to look for any way to scruff up another buck. So the almighty coo bill goss said we need to make more money ............. and make ip orders less attractive to the bad clients so let's just charge $10!!!
Posted by gingir, 02-21-2017, 04:15 PM
Less than $1/month? I think it's a fair price.
Posted by BlazingSwitch, 02-21-2017, 04:17 PM
Yes. The seller sets the price not the buyer. ;-)
Posted by westwing, 02-21-2017, 06:59 PM
It was $10 per month!
Posted by gingir, 02-21-2017, 08:57 PM
That wasn't the point of the quote at all lol. I was answering an old quote... nevermind. I discovered only today the wht quotes notifications feature (I had like 100 unread) and see what happens when I decide to try it :-) Last edited by gingir; 02-21-2017 at 09:01 PM.