EIRCA new applicant experience

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Posted by Gaillen, 09-23-2009, 07:34 PM
I have been reading lots of good and bad about EIRCA.net on WHT today and thought I would share my active process to become a reseller host with them. I intend to keep this as impartial as I can (conjecture free) and post through to the completion of the experience. Whatever that may be. To be clear at the outset, I have been having some difficulties and delays that are rather alarming. We will see how this turns out. Over the past weekend I had been researching reseller hosting options and had com across EIRCA.net I was impressed with the offering and with a casual search came up with generally favorable reviews. I posted a ticket with a couple of questions to their pre-sales desk and received the response I viewed the ticket to ensure it was posted properly and then I closed the link. Later I realized that I had not received an email with the ticket info. I had saved my ticket number so I tried to see if I could look it up but I have yet to locate this ability on EIRCA's Genius Portal (their support system). Eventually I decided that I did not need the sales response as I had done further research though the help files etc. posted on their site and had answered my own questions. On Tuesday September 22, 2009 I decided to just go ahead with it and pay for a basic reseller package to try out their service. I followed the complete registry process. I chose Paypal as my payment type. Was informed that I would be auto logged into my new account after redirection from the payment page. Payed $24.95 USD on PayPal's page and was redirected to a EIRCA.net page with payment details of the transaction I had just completed but no link to my new account. After ensuring that it was not just slow in redirecting me I went to my email and the only message there was from PayPal ensuring me that I had indeed payed EIRCA the $24.95 at 6:50PM PDT. I decided to wait until the next day to see if they would propagate the account during east coast business hours. On Wednesday Morning September 23, 2009 I still had not received any account activation info by email. I went back to EIRCA's Genius Portal page and found that I needed to create an account to access Support. This account is described as separate from your account management log-in. I went through the process and at the end screen was told that I was being sent an account activation email of which I must respond to proceed. As with the prior day I did not receive this email in the hours following. So I looked for further resolution options in Genius Portal and found that the phone option would not work for me. The chat option had no one available on the other end and asked me to leave a message. I chose not to, having done this in other areas a couple of times already. In the end I decided to submit another ticket to pre-sales and wait for their response. This was what I submitted at 1:54PM PDT: The ticket system returned with : This time I thought to copy the link to my tickets page (yes the monkey learned a new trick!) which turned out to be a good idea as the promised email did not arrive. So after waiting 10 min I decided to be helpful and post a response to my own ticket: As of my creation of this thread on WHT I have not heard from EIRCA.net. If I still have not heard back electronically by tomorrow I will try calling the number they have posted at eirca.net/legal/ . I will post any updates as they happen to this thread. Thanks for reading. Hope this has/will be helpful for anyone else looking for reseller hosting. -Gaillen
Posted by tcstatic, 09-23-2009, 07:43 PM
Sounds like their email is not getting through to your Gmail acct. Have you checked the spam folder? Typically H-Sphere will email you a welcome letter and then once the acct is moderated/approved it will kick out your acct access/login info.
Posted by Gaillen, 09-23-2009, 08:00 PM
Thank you for the idea tcstatic. Yes I have been watching both my in-box and spam folders.
Posted by tcstatic, 09-23-2009, 08:11 PM
Well, best of luck then as typically as long as sales/billing people are around your account will be moderated/approved with any host as long as the signup looks good. If it's not approved you should have received your refund from PayPal. The only other thing I can think of is Gmail is blocking mail from them, but don't like to jump to that conclusion as they are not on any RBL lists.
Posted by IHSL, 09-23-2009, 09:01 PM
New accounts are activated within 24 hours of reciept of payment. As your payment was a paypal echeque that just cleared, you should have your login info within the next six hours. Please understand that we can not create a new account until an echeque has cleared for anti-fraud purposes, per the notice during the order process. I believe you also have a couple of responses from our staff saying the same. Thanks Simon
Posted by Gaillen, 09-24-2009, 01:47 AM
Well we have some movement and new information regarding my account activation. As Simon refers to in his post, my second sales ticket was responded to 3 hours after posting. However I would like to point out that I still have not received an email to my Gmail account for either ticket posted to Genius Portal. This was the ticket response: All very understandable and reasonable, and truthfully, rather hopeful for me as I want this relationship to work. I like the specific combination of services that EIRCA.net has to offer and truthfully can understand if they are swamped at this point in the game. This to me seems like a honorable business response to a potential error. Now this part I am having a hard time taking the blame for. This is not the first time I have activated hosting services and I feel that I was paying close attention during the application process. I am not surprised by either a 24 hour wait or echeque clearance policy. However I don't recall being clearly notified of this. In fact it seems to me that I was surprised by being given the impression that it would happen instantly. With most other hosts I have worked with in the past I receive an automatically generated email shortly after application. This email is one of the places I would expect to be notified of these waiting periods. And I must take exception to this statement. I only have one response to the ticket. However this could be a communication error. As tcstatic mentioned it could be that the emails are disappearing into the ether. Interestingly at this time neither Simon nor the EIRCA Signature Support Manager that have responded to my ticket and WHT thread have addressed the lack of email messages. I maintain a very tidy email account and nothing new has shown up, tagged as spam or otherwise. I assume I am missing at least two support ticket emails, one support account creation email, and the account registration email that one would assume should have gone out when the process was initiated with my application and initiation of PayPal process. Simon if you are monitoring this I would greatly appreciate your feedback on potential email difficulties. As well, I have posted this to my Ticket #736531 at 10:30PM PDT 23/09/09 It would have been nice if all points of my original quarry were responded to. This is not an uncommon error in my experience. So I await a response to this round of query. I would like to point out that it is heartening to see the CEO of a hosting company monitoring web forums for potential difficulties and responding to them. So far that coupled with the offer of service in acknowledgment of error is keeping me going with his experiment. As I mentioned, I want this to work!
Posted by tcstatic, 09-24-2009, 06:54 AM
Actually, eirca has the same policy as probably the majority of hosts when it comes to echecks. When sending an echeck, you really haven't paid until the echeck clears. In H-Sphere, your account is not credited until the echeck clears, so if you intend to pay via echeck make sure to submit your payment 3-8 days early every month so it actually credits your account by the due date. As far as emails not getting to you. See if you can send a ticket with your phone number and explain the situation that your emails are not being received from their ticketing system. Did you receive your account activation email?
Posted by Rose Zinck, 09-24-2009, 07:06 AM
Simon has TIME to come in here and respond to someone BUT Not reply to any tickets I have submitted in the last 3 weeks? Bar one when we got hacked by an Islamic militant group and asked them to look in to it. We had 120 accounts hacked and had to upload the index page again on all to clear the hacker page. ONLY to be told by Simon et all that NO we did not get hacked, it was a scripts or apps issue that allowed them in. After spending a nite fixing this and getting no help we got hacked again .. LAST straw on that server.. Adios Eirca. Cartika is easy to switch to and if you use Hsphere you will have problem switching your accounts over. It is easy and they are very helpful. THEY have 24/7 PHONE and mail support.. They respond to emails with in minutes and actually reply when you post a second query to a ticket. Unlike Eirca. If you ever have tried to reply to a ticket they have responded to it will sit for weeks unanswered.
Posted by 01globalnet, 09-24-2009, 08:22 AM
We have problems sending emails from the web3 server in texas... no useful response and resolution up to now. Contact forms, email orders, password reminders etc. are not working.... I hate to spend 2 hours for each site to be transfered to another provider..... I hope to solve this today.
Posted by Gaillen, 09-24-2009, 01:05 PM
Thanks tcstatic. No I have not received the account activation email from them and at 10:00AM PDT I added this to my still open ticket:Still no response (in-ticket) to the additions to my open ticket made last night. But you never know, maybe this will help. Last edited by Gaillen; 09-24-2009 at 01:06 PM. Reason: from form
Posted by Gaillen, 09-24-2009, 01:16 PM
BTW just to make sure we are not in question as to the condition of my Gmail account I will again point out that I keep a clean organized account with an empty in box and spam folder. This makes it easy for me to monitor. I have created accounts with WebHostingTalk, OpenSRS, and Hover. All in the past 24 hours. All with successful email communication for account creation and activation. As well as receiving the usual filler email from Rogers Video, Amex etc. Also my PayPal that was used has the same email address, phone number, and hard address that I registered with EIRCA.net
Posted by Gaillen, 09-24-2009, 02:52 PM
New update, my ticket was just responded to with this: My response: Interestingly I do seem to be getting support from EIRCA.net contrary to the complaints of some others. We just seem to be having a total failure of communication.
Posted by Bluesplinter, 09-24-2009, 04:23 PM
Is your gmail account by any chance a GoogleApps account, using your own domain name? If so, and this is the same domain you used to sign up with Eirca, you may have been bitten by an HSphere dns routing issue. If that's not the case, then nevermind. If it *is* the case, then the system emails are likely being routed to the wrong mx, and being discarded silently. If so, yell, and I'll give more details. Steve
Posted by Gaillen, 09-24-2009, 07:28 PM
Good thought Bluesplinter however I am using a basic *@gmail.com email account. I have just received a response to my last ticket update: This Genius Portal log in info has finally allowed me to access the support area where I will be able to address my email problem with tech support instead of sales personnel. I am going to make a new ticket now and see if we can get this email problem resolved. Last edited by Gaillen; 09-24-2009 at 07:29 PM. Reason: revived to received
Posted by theshoe, 09-24-2009, 10:44 PM
Your first post, Gaillen, mirrored my experience exactly. I signed up on the 18th, Paypal cleared days ago, and I have not had any notices or confirmation emails at all, nor have I received any auto-responses from a pre-sales ticket opened two days ago.
Posted by Gaillen, 09-25-2009, 12:40 AM
This is not the case currently however a couple of my clients use Google Apps for their communication needs. Is there something in certain I should watch for when transferring them?
Posted by Gaillen, 09-25-2009, 01:08 AM
Well earlier this evening I got a response to my ticket requesting help with the lost email: Interestingly, while I was contemplating switching everything over to my ISP's mail account, I suddenly received my "Welcome to EIRCA" message with log-in info on my Gmail account. Gmail says it received the message at 6:11PM PDT 24/09/09. and I HAVE MY SHINY NEW TOY! (ahem... sorry) I logged into my new H-Sphere account successfully with the log-in from the welcome message! I must say that I also found the response to my support tickets rather fast once I was actually able to interact with my Genius Portal account. Interestingly I noticed that tickets auto expire after 120 hours and then need to be manually renewed. I wonder if this is the source of the persistent rumors of unresolved tickets being deleted. So I am off to play with my new toy. I will hopefully not post anything to this thread for the next couple of days, assuming that everything is going to run smoothly now that communication is open. I will drop in an update, either way, next week at the latest -Gaillen
Posted by theshoe, 09-25-2009, 01:12 AM
Lucky you! Still waiting...
Posted by pesnax, 09-26-2009, 04:18 AM
I monitor some of my sites with Siteuptime.com - When I for a couple of months ago contacted them because Siteuptime.com often told me that my site was no responding (only for short intervals) - they told me that Siteuptime had problems - and they were switching away from them.
Posted by theshoe, 09-27-2009, 08:41 PM
Still waiting... No response to purchase, no response to helpdesk ticket, no response to front page sales enquiry, very close to a opening a dispute via paypal...
Posted by theshoe, 09-27-2009, 08:43 PM
Will be two weeks since the initial order, come Wednesday, I might also add.
Posted by Gaillen, 09-27-2009, 09:47 PM
theshoe are you depending on receiving your responses/notifications through email? Most of my problems seem to have originated from that dependence. I still don't know where to log-in to look up a pre-sales ticket number however if when you submit that ticket you click on the view ticket link and then copy the URL you can then look up the ticket and any responses at your pleasure. The URL seems to include a unique security code as well as the ticket number so you must copy it immediately after submission for it to work. As you may have noticed EIRCA's assumption is that my Gmail is the problem. I would question this as during the time when I was not receiving EIRCA's mailings I successfully signed up for Web Hosting Talk, OpenSRS, & Hover accounts. Curious who your mail host is?
Posted by theshoe, 09-27-2009, 09:50 PM
Hiya, Yeah it was an oversight for me to lose my ticket number; I just assumed I'd get an auto-response. I intend to create another. It's a little silly for them to blame Gmail for their mail delivery problems when it occurs nowhere else on the Internet (that I've experienced), and has occurred at least twice now with Eirca (including your experience + mine).
Posted by IHSL, 10-01-2009, 01:11 AM
theshoe: please see your PM inbox. Per that response, your account welcome email was sent to you immediately after payment was cleared. A reply to the pre-sales email you sent in to us was also issued 8 minutes after you sent yours in and the welcome emails shortly thereafter. I apologise if you did not get that email; we have no way of knowing if it gets received on your end unless a bounce comes back to us. Please check your PM inbox for further information on getting in to your account, your account welcome email has also been resent. Gaillen: I am glad you have had a good experience with the tech support team with your tickets so far and I urge you to test them more. Please contact our support team via the portal if you have any problems. Simon
Posted by theshoe, 10-01-2009, 01:17 AM
Thanks, and replied. I've received the resent account welcome, which I forgot to mention in the PM. Cheers
Posted by IHSL, 10-01-2009, 02:07 AM
OK, Good. Let me know if you have any problems. Simon
Posted by ernietamminga, 10-31-2009, 01:55 PM
I'm pretty sure EIRCA has gone out of business. I had a reseller account there for a year or two. A few weeks ago I moved myreseller operations to a different host because the feature-set and price are better than what EIRCA offered. I terminated all my EIRCA client domains, and then I found that it was impossible to contact EIRCA to tell them to cancel the account. I submitted several "Tickets" (to the sales group, to tech support, etc...) telling them I'd cancelled the account. But none of the tickets was ever acknowledged, even after weeks had gone by. I sent a number of email messages to their accounting department (accounting@genius.eirca.net), but they never responded. The "Live chat" link on their website is dead. The "contact us" link just goes to a form for submitting a ticket -- which will not be responded to. And their toll-free number [I had to do some DEEP searching even to find it---on their Blog pages] has been disconnected and is no longer in service. Last edited by ernietamminga; 10-31-2009 at 01:58 PM. Reason: added clarification
Posted by Rose Zinck, 10-31-2009, 02:34 PM
They haven't gone out of business. Yet. I am currently moving all of my sites to a new server and got a notice that my hosting was over due. Which it is not as I am paid to Dec 15. I tried 3 times to contact billing, accounting, support etc. Every trouble ticket I put in is eventually closed with out being read after 8 days or so. We are hurrying as fast as we can to get away but it is a ton of work to move many sites with databases and try to keep working on other work at the same time. No phone support. That was disconnected many moons ago. Hubby wanted to drove to Shelburne to try to find out what is going on but its 2.5 hours away from here. I doubt we would get any info anyway.
Posted by Lakpura, 11-06-2009, 07:39 AM
Since this morning, we can not logon to the customer support module. It says "License Validation Failed.". We are having a serious issue which needs to get corrected and no way to contact support. Can you all logon to their genius portal?
Posted by Gaillen, 11-06-2009, 04:07 PM
Hi Lakpura, yes I can still log into the Genius Portal at this time: 12:07PM PST 06/11/09.
Posted by angeli, 11-10-2009, 06:25 AM
Thank you for sharing