Terrible experience with Server4Sale stay away

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Posted by Cripto, 05-29-2006, 12:28 PM
These Server4Sale people are NOT recommended by any extent of the imagination. They are resellers for Layered Tech, and that machine was good but the problem is their "service". Their English is not good enough to be able to give good management and support, they really don't understand many of the finer points and as a result, they make costly mistakes. They also have this "attitude", a kind of heavy-handed aproach to things. They screw up and put my sites out of commission rather often, twice in the last 10 days (one time the changed htaccess rewrite rules, and a couple of days ago they changed the A Record and the sites would not resolve). But now they want me out of the server by June 3rd, when I actually have paid for hosting until June 16th, and they wouldn't give me a refund. I paid my bill two days ago, and today I get this email from the brash owner Mr. Majeed saying "You have till 3rd to move out from existing server" [sic]. "... make sure your data is tranfered before 3rd June". Hosting started on Februrary 19th, three days after effecting payment, so that the billing cycle indicates I have paid for the server up until June 16th. I have asked Majeed for a refund, but he refuses to answer and he simply keeps copying and pasting the same text I quoted above, it's like a psycho answer. My fear right now is that this guy Majeed is so unreasonable and authoritarian that I have no doubt he will switch off the server by the 3rd of June, even when I have two weeks of hosting remain beyond that date. Why do I have to leave in a rush, forfeiting half a month of paid hosting, and on top of that get ripped off by his refusal to effect a refund of the unused hosting days? In case you wonder why he is doing this, his message reads "After looking at all the tickets the ceo has decided that since we cannot provide you the quality of service you are expecting and hence causing issue for both of us" [sic]. Majeed is also not respecting the agreement at the time of getting the server, I contracted under his support4sale.com site terms of full service for $15 if and afterwards implemented a new system with different levels of support and management, and I was left with "basic". This is bait and switch, and he never answered my tickets asking why was my level of service lower than what I had hired. The "service you are expecting" is simply that I ask they fix the mistakes they make, like changing htaccess, A records, etc. Then typically they try blaming you with very rude, mafia-type threats like "are you sure you didn't do this? If I get the log records and it was you, I'll charge you $75 an hour". And the fact is that I don't know the first thing about managing a server, I never changed or tampered with anything, never logged to telnet, etc. It got so bad that I had to hire Platinum Server Management, which was excellent, but Server4Sale did not like it one bit when they realized that Platinum was servicing their machine, so I had to cancel my subscription to the excellent Platinum. I think it was my hiring Platinum that triggered Server4Sale's full animosity toward me. Please help me out here, I want a refund but I fear for my data, these guys act totally crazy and do not communicate. I feel is unfair for them to cancel service for no reason, and then set an artificial deadline that will deprive me of half a month of hosting I already paid for. Needless to say, stay far, far away from Majeed and Server4Sale, they are very shady. I tried paying via Paypal as I had done before, but Paypal disabled their account and they made me paid through through a bogus company selling DVDs in Pakistan selling gifts and stuff like that, they are obviously trying to cloak their operation so that PayPal thinks it's not the same banned company. By the way, the termination of service email was sent to me in reply to my asking if this company that I had sent payment was legit or not. Again, stay far, far away from Server4Sale., they have LayeredTech's servers but their added "service" is a nightmare. Last edited by Cripto; 05-29-2006 at 12:32 PM.
Posted by Jame$, 05-29-2006, 12:32 PM
Thanks for the review.. Go to LT directly with your management admins.
Posted by Cripto, 05-29-2006, 12:35 PM
Thanks for your reply and advice. How do I do that? I had asked to change over to LT directly and take advantage of a server sale they have, but they refused, Server4Sale said it was not possible because the server is with them.
Posted by Jame$, 05-29-2006, 12:40 PM
Then just look at their current specials and take your pick: http://layer0.layeredtech.com/showthread.php?t=3887 You'll be paying less for sure You don't need a reselling managed provider as you found a seperate management company + you don't like them. I suggest get a new server ASAP and get out of there.
Posted by Cripto, 05-29-2006, 01:51 PM
They are WORSE than I thought, looks like they have retaliated after my message here and NOW ALL MY SITES ARE TOTALLY OFFLINE. It's unbelievable, I cannot believe these people.
Posted by steven-v, 05-29-2006, 02:06 PM
Well, you get what you paid for. Go to rackspace.com for superb service
Posted by BrandonSCSN, 05-29-2006, 02:16 PM
Intersting concept. You believe that only RackSpace can provide good quality managed hosting?
Posted by whmcsguru, 05-29-2006, 02:43 PM
How did you pay your bill? By Credit Card? If so, then I'd suggest talking to your bank. If not, well, unfortunately, you don't have a lot of options, unfortunately. No, you don't. Case in point: I have a server which I pay (barely) $130/month for from TMS. The server is GREAT, the support is excellent, the network is fine. So, by your standards, I should be getting poor everything, right? Just because you're not paying $100s monthly for outrageously ridiculous support (yes, RS has ridiculous support) does not mean you're not entitled to WHAT you paid for. Case #2: There are PLENTY of admins out there who charge < $100/month for admin work. In many cases, yes, it is a "you get what you pay for" scenario, but in a few, it's the same thing, GREAT admin work by GREAT people. Why? Because <<< they >>> love what <<< they're >>> doing (at least some of <<< them >>> do). The "you get what you pay for" phrase and excuse is WAY too overused here, especially by individuals who want to promote some other company who's charging 50x the normal rates. Even better: Go to a company who KNOWS what support actually is. They're out there, and they're a LOT more competent that LT. LT has about the competency level <<< of 1 >>>, sadly. Time and time again, these guys have made critical mistakes, and the last one (literally) cost a customer drive, data, and the like. Not really a good reputation there , either. Of course if you LIKE waiting for support (not getting someone on IM, phone, etc), by all means, go with LT, wait hours (at times) for support issues, risk the individuals not knowing what they're doing there. I speak from experience on this one, these guys CAN easily screw up your system (and have for multiple clients of mine). Last edited by SoftWareRevue; 05-31-2006 at 11:05 AM.
Posted by Tina J, 05-29-2006, 03:27 PM
Agreed. We also have about 2 dozen machines with TMS (that's tailormadeservers.com) and pay around $100 each. Service, support, etc. is excellent. Also agree on the points about LT. As many know, we had serious issues with their tech support, abuse dept and billing...also around $100 each. --Tina Last edited by Tina J; 05-29-2006 at 03:32 PM.
Posted by Veus, 05-29-2006, 05:33 PM
The thing is im not sure if $130/month is seen as cheap to some people. Cheap providers would be $60-90/month. SoftLayer is an example of a provider who provides good quality servers for around that price range and I would never call them a cheap provider.
Posted by server4sale, 05-29-2006, 05:41 PM
I was expecting this... Not to go too far but you yourself said that you paid 2 days ago. And also mention that your billing date is 19th... ( our record indicate earlier but i will go with what you are saying ). So basically your payment was due on 19th of every month. You paid it on 27th... 10 days later??? And my billing was nice enough just to send you emails to pay. I believe if its 10 days overdue we do reserve the right to suspend it or cancel it. Am i right? Also mind telling people here when did i sent you the notice? Was it today ? I guess your post clearly indicated your aggressiveness. Tell me Did i said i will NOT refund the remaining payment????? When i sent that notice my system was still showing 1 outstanding invoice. And i still gave you the time to move... and this is what we get in return. Your server is running sites which makes the load go high as much as 200 some times. Like right now. We simply dont just REBOOT the server to make it go down. We analyze what is generating the load and tweak it. Tweaking takes time which according to YOU means server downtime... Then when the sites are up you generate another ticket saying it was down for x hour x minute.... and need explanations and all that. When you posted here about site going down that was the case and at this very moment its the same thing 17:43:25 up 1 day, 15:51, 1 user, load average: 257.70, 81.37, 31.39 (btw we have just got another ticket and most likley while tech is on the server our beloved fellow count it as downtime). Tech logged in and tried to control it... and told the client the server is not down. ( as it was pininging and we could ssh in just high loadon apache which tech is trying to fix and guess what we got. "You're kidding me right? The server is down!!!!!! The server is DOWN READ THE FREAKING TICKET PLEASE" Now about PSM issue.... Very simple issue is You cannot have TWO TECH TEAM WORK ON SAME TASK AT SAME TIME. People who do technical stuff do know what i mean. Just so every one knows so far we have spent over 100 working hours on the client server. Since the day it was bought. and 60+ Hours were spent by our Level 3 admins. If you didnt like our service why didnot you go elsewhere??? You had more then enough time to go else where WHy now???? We sent you advance notice based on the support requests you were putting in and since every time it takes tech to fic it you simply come back and yell at them instead of appretiating what they are doing to keep your server up. Since you didnot like the services as stated in this thread too we simply ask you that we will not renew your contract any more. Do you also mind explaining why you moved from your previous provider. Should i ask them to come here and provide a statement??? Should we keep you as our client when you ABUSE our staff. Yelling at them like they are your slaves??? I dont think any hosting company will tolerate that. For me my staff comes first. They work very hard and because of them S4S is one of the best Server companies here. Thank You
Posted by Cripto, 05-29-2006, 07:46 PM
This is a prime example of how your "service" works, you don't read tickets, or in this case, posts. Look at my post, I clearly state the billing date is on the 16th (bold numbers too), and yet you see a "19". Listen Majeed, the reason why I paid ten days later is that your PayPal account was suspended... don't be cheeky... I sent you screen captures of PayPal showing that your account had been cancelled. And then, you asked me to make a payment to this bogus eDukaan.com, the Pakistani site. Don't play games, you were denying by omission, by not responding ANY of the tickets where I asked you about this. I did ask you four times I wanted a refund, and to this minute you have not responded to any of them. Moreover, you did not reply to any of my messages asking you to explain why do I have to leave 13 days earlier than what I have already paid for. You sent the notice a day and half ago, and your eDukaan accepted payment over 3 days ago, so you are not telling the truth. I can post screen captures of each of these messages. So please don't lie. And you cannot say you didn't see the payment because it was automatically added to the billing ticket, it says "eDukaan you received a payment!" something like that. The funny thing is, the server was running FINE (except for your screw ups) and handling traffic extremely well, because I run Wordpress with a Cache that is extremely efficient. The load is very low. But suddenly, all kinds of problems appeared with the server within half an hour of my posting this thread here. Right now for instance, no sites are working, and Host-Tracker is saying Apache has been down for the last 30 minutes, and it's the fourth time this happens since I opened this thread here. You have some very underhanded practices, huh? You show up to answer this thread only after you make sure you screw the server nicely so as to make sure I get the message I should leave by whatever date you say It's funny, but I tell you again: you're kidding me right? RIGHT NOW the sites are down... host tracker is saying so, and no sites are resolving. Actually, I cannot even quote Apache up time because the server is DOWN right now. It's not my problem that you agreed to provide a service and support that then you are not qualified to meet. I never abused anybody, Majeed, your service sucks, like since midday today the server has not been working right, and what do you want me to do? To suffer your little hosting tricks in silence? I am telling you again, right now nothing is working! I should write another ticket, because you are ignoring the last tickets I entered. But I'm sure you are familiar with the concept of karma, and trust me, you are not accumulating "good" points. Your 'company' Server4Sale is terrible, and I'm warning everyone about your mores. So go back and fix the server, which right now is NOT working despite what you say. You are really, really cheeky saying your 'company' is "one of the best". Folks, AVOID Server4Sale like the plague, trust me on this one.
Posted by Cripto, 05-29-2006, 07:50 PM
Thanks Linux Tech for the reply, can you tell me where to find TMS? Sounds exactly what I need, and it's the same price I'm paying with the disgraceful Server4Sale.
Posted by server4sale, 05-29-2006, 07:57 PM
First of all how do you know its BOGUS??? Did you order anything on it ?? I guess you did Now secondly all of your communication were on weekend or before that. I wasnt around and there are still a lot of tickets in the queue. Thirdly Did you EVER use our billing system to pay? Cause it does have right paypal address. Forthly i dont fix things. We are NOT one man company ....... All other communication will be over email from here simple. I guess i should not ask my level 3 admins to work on your servers and its stopping right now.
Posted by Coolraul, 05-29-2006, 08:01 PM
Well.. a couple of questions: Cripto: If you are getting these issues, why not just move now before the server gets shut off? I truly understand that you feel it unfair but clearly you and Server4Sale are not going to resolve this happily. At least initiate a backup quickly. Also, did you pay late? Server4Sale: Why are you kicking them out early instead of just letting them finish up their complete time this month?
Posted by Cripto, 05-29-2006, 08:46 PM
The server is currently down, so I cannot make a backup. I cannot log in to CPanel at all, and the ticket to fix it is aging... the problem with the server started within an hour of my posting this thread here, so I have a strong suspicion it's retaliation. I went to pay via Paypal and Server4Sale's account had been cancelled. I had never been late before, paid the previous months on Paypal on time with no problems. This time I could not pay on time.
Posted by RayWomack, 05-29-2006, 09:19 PM
Why didn't you just wait until June 16th and post an exit review? Why test them?
Posted by server4sale, 05-29-2006, 09:35 PM
Cool Raul: When i checked last time payment wasnt applied at that time. As billing dont work on weekend. But The client attitude , level of cooperation , and a lot of other things and he wasnt satisfied with us YET he was with us. And if you need a real reason When a client LIE to you that they didnt do anything and act innocent ( I dont care if the client or any one else other then us logged as root that means something is getting done). So i was even nice enough to give him advance notice. Tweaking and optimizing isnt easy to do you have to spend time... any way He kept blaming us for downtime and ACCUSE US to mess things up As you just said we cant work with each other. I took the initiative and told client politely that we will not renew his contract any more.... You can see the rest
Posted by server4sale, 05-29-2006, 09:39 PM
PSF: He didnt even waited for my reply and posted here. Did i ever say i wont refund??? Or did any of my billing personal? Cripto: You are welcome to ask any Server Manager here to login your server. Infact give them something your domain or ip so they can test if your server is up or not. You can find lot of people who can help you. And please dont tell me that you didnt change max client to 2000 in apache So any one who wanna verify if his server is up or down please ask him for ip simple.
Posted by xxkylexx, 05-29-2006, 09:42 PM
I always thought that customer was suppose to come first? Kyle
Posted by RayWomack, 05-29-2006, 09:45 PM
Yes, I understand your position, completely. I just do not like <<< lovely people >>> posting here like they have some kind of "leverage". If the guy had any <<< love >>>, he would have packed up, left, and made his remarks like a <<< lover >>> after he moved. Last edited by SoftWareRevue; 05-31-2006 at 10:26 PM. Reason: Taking out the trash.
Posted by Jimerson, 05-29-2006, 10:38 PM
PSF, everyone is entitled to their own opinion. Criticising the OP in this manner is really is not needed. Thanks, Jim
Posted by Coolraul, 05-29-2006, 11:24 PM
Actually I agree with PSF. Quite shortsighted of the OP to post prior to getting a backup. If nothing else you grin and bear it until you get your backups. Makes one wonder why he has no backups but hey none of my business.
Posted by Jimerson, 05-29-2006, 11:26 PM
Few people ever have backups when they need them most people never plan for server failures.
Posted by RayWomack, 05-29-2006, 11:34 PM
Here's a story from personal expeirence. I got sideways with the planet and they gave me a date to get the hell out. I continued to argue with them, and they just flat out cut me off. That's how things work in this business, unfortunately. I was lucky I had a backup, but never in my wildest dreams did I think my provider thad the legal right to throw the switch and deny me access to MY DATA. It happens, folks.
Posted by warp2cris, 05-30-2006, 12:01 AM
what do you mean by "finer points"? give an exampe, make yourself understood. to what mistakes did lead their lack of English? dont just give throw mud! after I saw Ezzi.Net's post, I have three questions for you: do you have root access? do you use it? are you experienced in servers? Majeed (I understand you are Server4Sale here): did you said to him you will _not_ refund him? on what basis? if you simply dont want, without reason then is bad. really bad. here you say he does not answer but is answering? how come ? earlier _you_ were complaining by their English! 15$ for full service? full service include proactive monitoring, backups, DC contact and mainly you dont need to do anything at all, dont need even the root password. do you have this as a written thing? excellent deal! then you say you are with PSM instead of them. how could this be? are you working with two teams? you have to pray, your server will crash soon having two teams shortly, you are writting a lot, repeating the same thing: you dont like them. so why do you want to stay with them 2-3 weeks more ? my opinion is that you are quite satisfied for the money that you are paying and you are taking hard their refuse. Last edited by warp2cris; 05-30-2006 at 12:05 AM.
Posted by needlehost, 05-30-2006, 07:53 AM
Thanks, I'll make sure to avoid them!
Posted by KGIII, 05-30-2006, 09:04 AM
It'd been a good couple of days since there were any posts of folks who need to 'make the list' so it's good for additional fodder for the list at any rate. I guess - without regards to any of the rest - your services should begin and end on the same date of the month. That, right there, is where I'd be interested in checking for more information. Quality, uptime, and management aside... Even if it is just a few days those are days you paid for (if I'm understanding correctly) and you've every right to use. KGIII
Posted by LordoftheLand, 05-30-2006, 09:04 AM
I find it interesting after looking through this forum how, some times people will say one thing in one post, and then change their mind in another post. I was reviewing the information for a company called Development Host. They were withholding data from a client who had crashed a server of theirs from high usage. Yes, they were at fault for not proactively fixing the issue. They were torn apart for withholding the clients data. Now, PSFServers is saying that is legal? I am just wondering why that was never mentioned in the other forum. In response to the OP and his hosting company. OP: You should ALWAYS have backups of you information. You should have hired a PROFESSIONAL managment team from the very beginning. Softlayer offers very well priced servers that should fit your needs well. Hosting Company: Please to save your reputation on this forum, login to the server via ssh. Shut off httpd and mysql. That will lower the processor load to a reasonable level allowing the OP to get off the server. If you want him off your servers immediatly, give him a prorated refund. If you want to give him the rest of his time, give that to him. I agree that your staff needs to be respected, but if you value your client you work with him. Last edited by LordoftheLand; 05-30-2006 at 09:10 AM.
Posted by atolatsu, 05-30-2006, 10:20 AM
Just my 2cents worth of views, i think there's no point keep arguing again and again. We are here to fix problems. not creating more problems. Calm down people. Cripto: My advise is since you dislike them so much you should keep a backup now and switch to a server which you think can provide you better services. Ah yes if you do pay late then you cant blame S4S for suspending your account. They need to do for a living too. Server4Sale: As the host, do show your kindness and be gentleman enough to let Cripto to finish up the month and have enough time to switch to another server. I'm sure that wont hurt much. Show the world that you have good services and communication
Posted by netbird, 05-30-2006, 10:27 AM
Cripto: thank you so much for this in depth 'review', I will stay away from them. Anyway, I'm happy with the services I have. Just one question, do you know where they opperate from?
Posted by Sam Granger, 05-30-2006, 10:56 AM
Thank god, i was planning on getting 3 servers from these people tomorrow, I'll stay well away.
Posted by Jimerson, 05-30-2006, 12:43 PM
This is just my opinion: Sam Granger, Always do research when looking into a company. I would not rely just on one review. -Jim
Posted by ntfu2, 05-30-2006, 01:42 PM
Especially not this one. The OP comes off as not knowing much regarding servers or running one, if he is running such things that cause apache load to reach those levels thats in no ways Server4Sales fault. You'll be hard pressed to find machines that wont go down with loads like that constantly. Either way, Every business reserves the right to refuse business with anyone for any reason, if server4sale doesnt want this certain client any longer for whatever reason they can and do have a right to terminate their services with him. As messed up as that is, but its the truth.
Posted by server4sale, 05-30-2006, 04:09 PM
Just to make everything clear here. We have not DENY that he will NOT get a refund or partial refund. Infact the pointed i wanted to make was that i wasnt aware that even when my system was showing 1 outstanding invoice i was still nice enough to give him time.... 5 days is indeed a good time to move data around... Secondly LordoftheLand: He kept asking us to FIX It. Turning off apache and mysql means "his server is down" per his own meaning of downtime. And that wont resolve his issue. Even after he posted this and when i was writing my first reply here I had one of my most senior tech looking at his server. At the very moment even right now after this whole event we havent shut off his server or anything. I simply have asked my tech to only honor network issues and reboot issues. Because he keeps blaming us for things. I guess i should make a policy of TERMINATE THEM RIGHT AWAY When host play nice here they get slammed. Great Just Great
Posted by whmcsguru, 05-30-2006, 04:50 PM
Tina's already posted the address in the thread . http://www.tailormadeservers.com That's a lie right there. It's easily done, and any well ballanced organization will happily do this. The fact that you didn't want to work with their management company is neither here nor there, you simply told them you refused to work with them. THAT is unprofessional. Judging by this response: That is your fault, not the client's. The client didn't ASK you to spend hours analyzing the problem WHEN it was happening, the client simply said "the server is down". Now, common sense says you do NOT hold up progress or client sites here, you simply reboot the server, THEN you install software, scripts, etc, to monitor the client's setup. Doing so removes those "hours" of monitoring and tweaking, immediately. That'd be the first mistake right there. In ANY service industry, the employees come LAST, the client comes first, ESPECIALLY when you're dealing with an industry as volatile as the hosting industry, who will chew you up and spit you out, easily. Does he, or does he not have an invoice currently overdue? If this is the case, then , the refund is clearly not entitled to. HOWEVER, if the client is "up to date", has made payment, without problems, then YOU have no choice but to either A> provide service which was paid for OR B> provide a refund Not doing so says one thing: You are a fraud. End of story, pack it up and go on. IF, however, this client is owing money STILL (after paying this month's invoice), then you have every right to hold that money. From what it sounds like though, client is not owing any money, client has paid up, even TRIED to pay up on time, and you're just trying to make yourself look better by insulting your client, which is having the opposite affect. Nice? Nice????? You'd call terminating a PAYING client without any reason NICE? Errm, no , not so. There are PLENTY of other ways around the problem. For example stating that the admin time for the server has been used and client must purchase additional time, or find service from an OUTSIDE provider (which would be best in this case, as your definition of "management" is way off). You'd call refusing a paying client a refund NICE? I certainly wouldn't. If YOU specifically didn't want the client to pay, or renew their contract, then it is on YOU , the provider to cancel their contract and provide service until the end of time which is paid for. It's not on the customer not to pay a bill that comes into their inbox. Now, admittedly, the OP doesn't know much about servers, however, when you go into a website that says : "Just focus on your core business and let us take care of the rest" , then you'd expect that to be lived up to. I certainly would, anyways. IF you can't handle the statement, then take it out of your website, because, again, that's fraud. Now, if the client (supposedly) is a pain in the tail end to work with , then yes, pass some of those responsibilities (server management) off. Do what was stated before, and tell them that they need to find another management company or pay hourly rates. Most likely they'll find a management company. In fact, they DID bring one with them, but you refused to play nice. That's not professional whatsoever, here.
Posted by Cripto, 05-30-2006, 05:46 PM
Thanks everyone for your helpful suggestions. I am not going to go through each of the things again, but those who keep blaming me because I paid the bill late, once again I say that Paypal cancelled Server4Sale account so I could not pay on time, and I paid as soon as they gave me a new email to effect payment. I cannot be blamed for the vendor's problems with Paypal! And to the guy who asks whether I have this support contract in writing, the problem is that they took the support4sale.com site down after a copyright infringment issue with Platinum Server Management, and the TOS was in that site. And by the way, my sites are down for the count... but so is their entire Server4Sale.com site. They are getting better all the time... so there you have it, no TOS because they nuked the support4sale.com site, and right now their Server4sale.com site is also down. Like I said, STAY AWAY from Server4Sale. These people are not in the hosting business, they are in the data hostage business, cancelling whenever they feel like it... and by the way, for all the bravado in these posts, they haven't say a thing about a refund yet... so NO REFUND.
Posted by KGIII, 05-30-2006, 05:49 PM
Get 'em Linux-tech! Anyhow, I'm still stuck on the bit about the money how payment was made on one day and then the whole dates started shifting about. I've heard of 'creative accounting' but I've never been privy to see that as an example of it or, if I had, I'd not noticed. I'm sorry server4sale but it looks like you messed this one up or, if not, then someone did and if they're your employees and you care about them as much as you do then you can take the blame for it. Between that and the rest of this, well, congratulations. You've made the list? My reasons: The technical stuff falls behind that. I understand that they're seemingly a problematic customer. That's fine. They paid for a service, you promised a service, and they didn't get that. That's not fine. If you want to remove them from your server try doing so with some decency, refund them, make it proactive instead of reactive, and don't think that giving them a short amount to move is really doing them a favor if they can't access their site to make backups. "Get out," (if not verbatim then close enough) is simply an unacceptable way to treat your boss and so long as they're paying you they are your boss. I guess it boils down to this... There are all sorts of reasons a boss can fire an employee but there are far fewer justifiable reasons for an employee to quit their job. We, you are certainly far more so than I so take what I have to say as if it's nothing if you'd like, are EMPLOYEES of the people who HIRE us to provide services. Not too many hosts realize this I don't think but yeah, we work for them. *grins* Lest you think I'm trying to bash you or just be mean the reality is that I have some hopes that someday the hosting industry will have a reputation that's acceptable again someday. If I were in your shoes - and trust me, I make my share of mistakes - I'd simply do the right thing and I'd have my tech's make sure the server was reachable, give them just basic FTP access to the site, give them a refund starting at a rational time (no, you don't have to go back to the beginning or even that far back but back far enough to know that YOU can feel good with your ethical choice and not feel a winner or anything), and then allow them however many days, hours, or minutes you wish to allow them to backup their data and move along. Think of it like cleaning out your desk and making the work-space a clean place for the person your boss is going to hire after you've left them without much notice in the middle of an essential business project. If you're good, and you think you are and I am not qualified to determine if you are, then you can feel satisfaction in knowing that your boss will be hard pressed to replace you and, if they're an ogre of a boss, you can feel some smug satisfaction that they're going to torment their next boss. Either way you have to lead and take the high road - that's a part of the role you took when you opted to enter the hosting business or, well, probably should have in my opinion. Disclaimer: The above is just my opinion and I haven't one vested iota of cash or anything in any of the above people and certainly don't compete at anywhere near this level. Beyond that I've not slept in ages so if the above seems like maniacal drivel, it probably is. KGIII
Posted by Jeff - Exceed, 05-30-2006, 06:00 PM
I was under the impression your support team managed the server, and the OP wasn't proficient enough in server administration to modify httpd.conf ? The OP also mentioned that his wordpress script is very efficient, even with many many uniques a day that should cause minimal load. Finally, I run a large entertainment site. We receive 50,000 unique visitors a day and run it on a Pentium 4, 2.8Ghz with heavy PHP and SQL scripts which have not been optimised and yet I manage to keep the server constantly at a load of under 2, how is this achieved? I know what I am doing. Your practises seem shady. You are very naive about the way business works and how to treat clients. I reccomend you hire an outsourced support company to manage your clients servers and their support needs otherwise you won't stay in business for much longer.
Posted by Cripto, 05-30-2006, 06:12 PM
For the record, the entire Server4Sale.com site is currently totally offline and down. And of course, my Athlon 3800+ from LayeredTech that I purchased through them is also offline and dead. I run Wordpress with WP Cache, which is incredibly efficient (the Wall Street Journal has an entire section run by Wordpress with WP Cache), and in fact the load on the server (which is an Athlon 3800+ with 2GB RAM and two hard disks of 80GB each) was usually very low, under 1% load. An Athlon 3800+ with 2GB RAM should be able to run a Wordpress blog fitted with a Cache mechanism. On top of that, I asked them to enable mySQL query cacheing, install eAccelerator, Zend, etc. The load was low, Majeed makes it sound like I was running Yahoo off of the server. I never changed any setting at all, I don't know how to do this. The "service" I received from them was so bad that I went with Platinum Server Management, which was a real pleasure, both Michelle and Nathan are tops, they know what they are doing most definitely. So when Majeed said "don't tell me you didn't change to 2.000 sessions" my answer is maybe Platinum did this, I never logged on to the server, just looked around CPanel. Again, I don't think is a good thing when you hire support from a Support4sale.com site that goes offline and never comes back, then they changed the terms of support and I am demoted to "basic", and right now the Server4Sale.com site is totally offline. It's not a good sign when your "hosting provider" cannot host itself, not even the support ticket server is up... which should be on a separate machine, right? Oh, I forgot, Majeed's priorities are his own staffers, like he said here. I guess the staffers are having some refreshments right now, the server is down so no ticketing or any work can be done. Last edited by Cripto; 05-30-2006 at 06:17 PM.
Posted by Jeff - Exceed, 05-30-2006, 06:26 PM
Cripto, I reccomend you move ASAP. I personally use orangefiber.com for my server needs. I don't require any support, but I have been on holiday in the past and my webmaster and partner had trouble with a couple of server modules which they apparently fixed right away. Additionally my webmaster and partner have asked orangefiber to install complex modules, which they have done free of charge. I highly reccomend them, forget about "server2sale", clearly they are completely incompetent and run a basement operation. I wish you luck
Posted by Cripto, 05-30-2006, 06:36 PM
Thank you Jeff, yes, I read good things about OrangeFiber... but the problem is the server is down since yesterday and I could not make a backup! And as I mentioned, their entire Server4Sale.com site is also down, so no support to tell them to make a backup available. In theory, there are two backups: one to the second hard disk, and another one to a remote machine... but both my machine and their site are down.
Posted by Jeff - Exceed, 05-30-2006, 06:46 PM
Server4sale is online for me, I reccomend you get someone you can trust to try login as root to see if they can access the server, if so tell them to do the following: cd /usr/local/apache/bin (/usr/local/apache2/bin for Apache 2.x) ./apachetl stop Then create backups, or if you can find a host within the time frame "server4sale" state they will shut the server down, get them to move the data. If you wish, I can provide you with a temporary jailed shell account to backup your stuff until you get back on your feet and can help migrate all your data free of charge. If you require any assistance feel free to PM me with your AIM username, I can help tomorrow as I have to go to bed shortly. Best of luck once again.
Posted by Cripto, 05-30-2006, 10:17 PM
Jeff thank you for your kind offer, I appreciate it very much! The Server4Sale.com site was indeed down: Unfortunately it's not really "back to normal" as my server is still down, and therefore I cannot make backups... I have a feeling that they are not working to the best of their ability to get my server back up...
Posted by warp2cris, 05-30-2006, 10:37 PM
if the load was low, where was the problem? you yelled and they said will kick you out ? that's it ? I doubt that someone will finnish your service just because you post a ticket like "hello Support, please fix that thing. thank you" first you say in a ticket that then you post here that dont know where, but obviously you are l i e i n g more, from your posts, I suspect you were not civilized, you yelled and now you get the results. if so, why you have not cancelled Server4Sale's service and stay happily with Platinum Server Management ? are you still with Platinum Server Management at this moment? because if yes and you were happy, the first normal reaction was to ask Platinum Server Management to fix the problem. and not to post Server4Sale then to yell at them. or maybe do you like to yell? to stress people? we all know, each action has a reaction. how do you like the situation of being kicked out now, instead of you canceling them and move? you should be happy now quite enough things does not fit in your affirmations, even your affirmations are contradictory, so dont play innocent anymore. yeah, good one, really made me laugh, thanks! what is this? an all-on-one war? you are calling this "problematic customer" ? yelling? tell me do you like to be yelled at? or maybe even get smacked if is he near you? go on, have a beer with him, make him your friend. as far as I'm concern I do respect myself. and I do respect other people as long they are civilized. again, on someone's job, he would expect to be treated nicely not to be yelled at. is it? or he will quit fast. then call his attorney too, sue you. yes, yes, you know I'm right. if someone pays you for your work it does not mean that he can call you names, yell and such. is it? linux-tech, if that is a lie, be professional and tell us how would fix apache two techs working on the same time? editing the apache's files. even editing(saving) the same file? let's hear you! and be straight. how can you make this statement "he did not ask"? or you his friend and you did see his tickets? so a reset and a monitoring system will keep all people happy. this is great, linux-tech . if this is your way then it is bad.. really bad. at this point, I would not buy anything from you. not now, not tomorrow, not ever. anyone please respond, I can hardly wait. Last edited by warp2cris; 05-30-2006 at 10:50 PM.
Posted by Ivan23, 05-30-2006, 11:27 PM
wow i agreed to few posters above, go direct to LT and buy a server from the then open a support ticket asking them to do a data transfer. i sure that they will ask a lot of sercurity question but after that should be fine. good luck
Posted by whmcsguru, 05-30-2006, 11:31 PM
It's NOT on me to explain anything at all. My techs have no problems working with things like this. How they do it? I'm not going to tell people how to run their business, but when they lie about the "possibilities", then yes, I will point that out as a bold faced lie. Common sense is how I can make that statement. What user in their right flippin mind wants their server to be down for hours while "support staff" go through the server and try to debug what's wrong with it. None, none at all. Did I say anywhere in there that a "monitoring system" is necessary? Did I define said monitoring system? Did I say repeatedly reboot the system? No, no, no, no and NO! What I said, and I'll say it again, it's very simple: You reboot the system FIRST, to get the server back up and running, PROPERLY. THEN you install scripts and the like to monitor and log to the server. This way , you're not keeping paying customers down while your staff go through things here. I have had to do this for numerous clients, and solved the problem quickly enough. You simply can NOT keep a client's server offline while your "support" team investigates this. It's improper to do, and unethical. There are PLENTY of ways to do this while the client's server is, in fact online. Your choice. If you're going to make a decision based on that rash of a judgement call, then that will be your loss, not anyone elses. You read something in there that was not meant to be read, and not said, so that's not my bad, that's yours.
Posted by Cripto, 05-30-2006, 11:50 PM
I don't understand the 'logic' of this guy Warp2Cris (frankly, you sound like one of a legion of fake forum users bad hosting companies register to defend them when reviews like mine show up). What's your point man? That I deserve to have my sites taken down because I wrote "Read the freaking ticket?". You know how it works with quotes out of context. I opened a ticket because the server was down (just like it is now). Then, trying to be helpful, I write another post in that ticket quoting an alert that I got from the server that sounded serious. Well, the staffer responded to that second message saying "don't worry", but the server was still down. That's why I wrote "read the freaking ticket". And remember, it's been four months of terrible service. In fact, right now, I feel like writing again to Server4Sale: read the freaking ticket, my server is down. Because the server is still down, right now, and they are doing nothing. That's right, that my server is still down, and therefore I can't make backups. Server4Sale is just terrible. After this long thread, my server is still down, today their own server was down, and Support4Sale, the site where I contracted the server and support, has since gone offline permanently. They suck big time, and my purpose with this thread is to warn any potential customers. Last edited by Cripto; 05-31-2006 at 12:01 AM.
Posted by abbynormal1, 05-31-2006, 03:45 AM
Thanks for the warning about server4sale. It can be very aggravating, when you are experiencing downtime, for your tech support to speak in broken english and fail to fully read and comprehend your support tickets. Also, I can count on a closed fist how many people like to hear "you should have had a backup". Anytime you're tempted to use that bit of advice remember - it's too late now, and told you so's do nothing but make people mad. Now common...what does him complaining before he leaves have to do with his manlyhood? I complain about my food at a restaurant while I'm there. I complained about ThePlanet when I started out with them a long time ago, while I was still there. Sounds like you identify with servers4sale a little too well. And now for my opinion!!!111oneone on the issue at hand... Servers4sale - you definitely never cut a customer off early that hasn't violated TOS without first either a pro-rata refund. At the very least, leave his server running and refuse his access to support because of "staff abuse" P.S. Nothing against broken english unless your tech support for an english speaking customer base
Posted by richardhay, 05-31-2006, 09:20 AM
Hello everyone: Without getting involved with the ongoing dispute between Server4Sale and Cripto, I would like to offer a few observations. First, though, some disclosures... know that we have been using S4S's management services to manage three of our client machines for two years and have been pleased with the service. Also know that we have rented a few servers from S4S during that time, and, apart from DC-failure and hardware failure issues, have been pleased with that experience as well. For us, S4S has always provided exceptional and quick server management services at an extremely reasonable cost. Now on to a few observations: 1. To those who read this interchange and, because of it, decide against using S4S, I would encourage you to do more research. Never base your decision on a single thread or on the experience of a single customer. Everyone is entitled to his or her own opinion and certainly is free to express his or her opinion on WHT--that is one of the things that makes WHT great. But, before deciding on providers, search for S4S (or for any provider) on these forums and read all of the reviews that have been posted. Then make your decision. 2. Several people are questioning Majeed's statement that "staff come first." It is easy to state that the "customer is always right" or that the "customer comes first," but, speaking as a long-time internet and bricks and mortar business owner, that is not always the case. We have had to terminate a few customers in the past ten or so years for being abusive to our staff. While we do go out of our way to help our customers, there is a line that cannot be crossed. I will always support my staff, while working to meet the needs of my customers. 3. As some have noted, S4S is not a US-based company. Majeed and his technicians do speak fluent English, but not perfect English. Neither I nor any member of my staff have ever had any difficulty understanding Majeed or any member of his staff either via e-mail, online tickets, or online chat. While we don't have S4S communicate directly with our customers (nor do we really use S4S to directly handle our client requests), I have never had a problem with the language issue. 4. Cripto, this is the only observation that I'm making that is even remotely directed toward you. It is not meant as offensive, but is rather simply informative. There is a difference between a server being down and apache being down. Just because you can't get to your server via the web doesn't mean that you can't SSH in and pull your backups. If you need help with this, feel free to message me or the other members who have posted in this thread offering assistance with this. Have a great day everyone! Richard
Posted by Cripto, 05-31-2006, 09:27 AM
An update: As stated on this thread, Majeed / Server4Sale gave me until June 3rd to backup my data and leave the server. The assumption here is that the sites will be hosted until June 3rd (even though I have paid for hosting until June 16th). This also assumes that they will give me the opportunity to backup the data. Alas, the server is still down, the sites are down, and I cannot backup my data. They are not responding to the ticket where I ask for them to update me as to why the server is down and when can I have a chance to backup my data. As I said in the title of the thread: it's a TERRRIBLE experience, AVOID Server4Sale.com, unless you want to lose your data. Server4Sale and Majeed are the lowest of the low.
Posted by Cripto, 05-31-2006, 09:31 AM
Thanks Richard for your comment, but the server is super dead, they don't respond to tickets, and I cannot backup my data. FTP doesn't work, nothing works. This is not an Apache down thing, the server is down, was down as in dead. So Richard, what do you think of their attitude, giving me until June 3rd to leave, but then never getting the server up, never giving me an opportunity to backup my data, all this to a customer that has paid for hosting until June 16th? Is this professional? Folks, don't let anybody confuse you: the fact is they are lowest of the low, avoid this Pakistan-based 'company' known as Server4Sale.
Posted by Jame$, 05-31-2006, 09:37 AM
With due respect it's a slight biased view, from a current client of S4S. I think the little details you are bringing out are irrelevent really. Ok, Cripto is showing his anger too much, but what strikes me is how this client was left feeling. Apache is down, server is down. Do you tell your shared clients - your website is down, apache is down, but your server is perfectly up, thank you, enjoy. In the thread poster's case it's a managed server. There are top professionals who have the communication skills to turn abuse on them into love. If the provider loves their clients truly, feud rarely happen at all.
Posted by Cripto, 05-31-2006, 02:22 PM
It was a good idea to try and contact LayeredTech so that they may help me access the data that Server4Sale took hostage for no reason, but unfortunately it didn't work. Here's what LayeredTech people responded to my enquiry: This thread got very long, but the bottom line is that Server4Sale.com is doing this out of the evil of their hearts only, shutting me off even before the deadline they had unilaterally set, and without previous warning, and most importantly, without the possibility of letting me backup or otherwise move my data. Please don't lose sight that the only "reason" they mentioned for doing this is as follows: That is really no reason, they are just a bunch of resentful crooks in Pakistan trying to get hosting customers in the United States. Server4Sale.com in my opinion has broken all rules, not just business rules but rules of basic human decency. I am sure that in their religion they have the concept of karma, and I don't think totally unjustified actions such as retaining all data from a paying customer will earn them any points in heaven or Earth.
Posted by templaters, 05-31-2006, 11:20 PM
I would like to post about server4sale I have been in the hosting business for 8 years, I have been on both ends of this type of issue. Every time someone gets a new server, it takes any dedicated porvider time to get the server just the way the clients want it, so most are understandable and some go off the deep end, so if you don't like server4sale why don't you just move to another server provider, what do you acomphlish whinning on here like a spoiled kid. I have servers with server4sale and they are the best support staff I have ever had and I highly recommend them to any other professional person wanting a dedicated server. So get over it, move on. Otis
Posted by Cripto, 05-31-2006, 11:37 PM
They shut down the server without giving me the opportunity to backup or move my data. I can't "move on" without the data. And I am very suspicious of what you "acomphlish" with your "whinning" here, Otis. You sound like yet another friend of Mohammad Munaf Majeed defending the indefensible.
Posted by visualfast, 06-01-2006, 12:00 AM
i Agree With you i m also client of server4sale and i m 100% satisfied with them From kamran iqbal
Posted by rustelekom, 06-01-2006, 09:36 AM
1) Sorry for my english - it is not fluent and moreover, it is not perfect at all. but, i am sure it's totally enough for recognize any techical, billing or any other problem which may happen with customer. I am sure that's this is the true for all non-US management companies. Even if i not understand something i always can ask about explaining more. And i should ask. 2) I am sure that discuss how s4s work is not ethical for guy who provide same services under own trademark. That look as we say - we are the best in the world, s4s bad, from my experince i think they do something incorrect and so one so one. Remember, we all can make misteke and your words might be will returned to you in the future. 3) I don't know what happen with your server, because we haven't here enough information about problem. But, i should say that as reseller s4s depend from DC in case when problem can't be resolved by remote hands (hardware failures, kernel, O/S issue, network problem, etc.). If your server down, they haven't access to your server too. This is the all server reseller problem, not only s4s. 4) I only can say that both party need to be a more friendly and try to find some way for resolving all issue in time manner. Bolding your words, red alerting, posting on many forums, just will not solve your issue...
Posted by ImZan, 06-03-2006, 12:44 AM
Cripto : From what I read in this thread I'm quite surprised that you when you have had atleast 5 days to move your data, but could not get it done. I realise that you think your server was down, but as it's been explained, Apache was taken offline not your whole server. Given that you could have had moved the data off to another server - either yourself or by a company you trust. I can understand why this ( turning off apache ) had to be done. Every so often the high traffic sites need to be reconfigured and tuned. Generally taking down the apache allows the techs enough spare CPU + ram to work on tuning the performance. You're right that WP is a good software. WP-Cache is also a little gem for WP. But you're over stressing the way these programs are in their behaviour under stress. Especially under Cpanel. A lot of popular blogs use Wordpress, because it is easy to use and feature rich. However, Wordpress default is NOT suitable for high traffic/ high hits/ high commenting enviornment -- out of the box. And they ( popular sites in most cases ) certainly do not use Cpanel. There are documented cases in the WP forums about sites collapsing under the stress with popular sites. Especially under Apache + Mod_php. Especially if you start adding plugins, widgets or get really high number of comments or pageviews or do other things on the server that will be draining resources. There are a few situations where WP-Cache will not help. To know of these, you need to have expereince in hosting and managing a WP system. We host a few popular blogs and have had to modify Wordpress with a few things to get it work correctly to exploit resources in a machine. It is not generally the hardware's fault, it's the software that does not allow exploitation of a lot of speed boosting features. We have had to add in features like query cache, gzipping and APC object support into the software to support our custom sites. There is a lot of other things that needs to be done for those situations and the "stock standard optimisations" offered by datacenter / management companies generally won't go into that level of help. It's debugging at the software level. You would need someone familiar with WP to do the work. A lot of these are scheduled to be fixed with the WP 2.1 branch. There are some pre-alpha patches in the codex that allows to improve things by about 5% over the baseline - but the new 2.1 version when it comes out will be much better. I'm afraid without looking at your server under load, what sorts of hits, useage gets done on the server at the server we can't fully compare what your server can or can't do and know for sure why the server load was like it was and if it was possible for S4S to do a better job. I really found your complaint about the fluency and comprehension of the staff at S4S not plausible. I've dealt with S4S staff a few times when major issues have come up in hardware, or software configuration for the two servers we have with them at present. If their names weren't attached to their emails in the support system, I would have had never guessed where they are from. I do not write or read perfect grammatical english, and neither do I expect them to. Their comprehension level is well above average and nothing gets lost in communication. It is not " Me not know. Senior Tech contact me." type english. It's clear and conscise and someone not knowing them, would have had assumed to be from someone who uses the english language as their first language. Their staff are polite, knowledgable and helpful each and every time. We do work on our own servers and they have no issues with it. We opted out of their management on one of their managed servers, and they still do selective things when we need it done at our request. So I doubt that S4S would have had an issue with PSM. You just needed to tell them that 1) You do not want them to manage the server or 2) Get PSM involved when S4S is not doing the job to your satisfaction - telling S4S that they are to not work on the problem anymore. Without knowing the background of this problem, you should really not comment. I was trying to pay a bill when it went offline, Majeed was online, and I asked him, and he replied back that the DNS server was targetted for a 3.0+ GBps DDoS, and they were taken offline. It was back quite soon after. There is a limit to redundancy. Their site might have been offline, they were still available via IM. @Jeff - Exceed: Good for you. However what surprises me is that without any information at all about the hardware, the software, the useage pattern, bottleneck analysis or any other security or optimization information in affect on the system, you've decided that S4S do not know what they are doing, but you know what you're doing. We deal with a few servers that do 300K - 500K uniques an hour and the load does not go over 1.0. According to your logic, we are much better administrator of our servers than you are? We could be using Quad Opteron clusters with gobs of ram for all you know. After this kind of unqualified statements , I'm not sure if you can really pass any judgement on S4S. @linux-tech: While you might think two groups of techs can work on a server simultaneously, you said there were caveats. They had to be organised and co-ordinating. This obviously means that S4S as a company now will need to worry also about what that other company is doing to work on the system. Obviously more work for their support team and this means extra prices in work and management. Heck it's possible for 200 admins to admin a box and at the same time no less, just because it's possible doesn't mean it's something that should be done at all.
Posted by whmcsguru, 06-03-2006, 03:21 PM
No, I don't think this, I know this, because it is possible. The fact remains that the server company (S4S) refused to work with an outside provider, and then lied about it saying "It's not possible". That is what I was correcting. Kind of like the pot calling the kettle black here, wouldn't you say? You don't know that the individual has indeed flooded his site, or used WP to cause problems, yet you automatically jump to that conclusion, and many more, in your own post. The fact remains that, given their attitude in this thread, S4S simply does not warrant any business whatsoever. It is highly unprofessional to say "We will not host you if you do business with XXX company" , which they've done because of another managed provider. It's also unprofessional (highly) to shut down a server when the client has paid for the server for no reason whatsoever. . Both of these things they have admitted to, and stated, even trying to pull the "poor me" act here, instead of apologizing for the pain they put the customer through, and bringing the server back up so that it could be accessed.
Posted by AcuNett, 06-03-2006, 03:54 PM
S4S stated they would issue a refund (which would most likely mean they are taking a loss, being a reseller). As someone suggested in this thread -- shut down Apache and MySQL, make your backups, and find another provider.
Posted by whmcsguru, 06-03-2006, 04:04 PM
Actually, they've said they would not give a refund: So, they're not refunding the OP at all here, according to what they've posted (not going on what others have).
Posted by Odd Fact, 06-03-2006, 09:09 PM
This sounds more like S4S is dening they will not give a refund. That would be the same as confirming they will give a refund. This may be a language issue. From communications with S4S the OP already has been refunded. At this point it is time for the two parties to move on.
Posted by Shock Hosts, 06-04-2006, 02:24 AM
Yeah it is odd fact. People should learn English.