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diy - on the way out?

Posted by kneidels, 09-07-2005, 03:57 AM
hi there just wondering if i am the only DIY customer here starting to clim back on the "looking for hsphere host" bandwagon again? their support in the last while has been dreadful - tickets going un-noticed, getting deleted before answered, serious ASP session problems going un-attanded, and even sales not bothering to reply. am i alone here? PS: is it a coincedence that many of the DIY threads here land up getting locked before people can respond?
Posted by ldcdc, 09-07-2005, 01:40 PM
If you have any questions regarding the decisions taken by moderators, feel free to open a ticket. http://www.webhostingtalk.com/helpdesk/ You'll find that there's always a reasonable explanation for things. Exactly what time frame would that be?
Posted by kneidels, 09-07-2005, 01:55 PM
you mean how long its been going on, or how long it takes for them to reply? if the first - i'd say about 4 months - as long as i've been there (edit: make that 6 months) if the latter - IF (and only if..) the ticket gets noticed, which as i say doesnt always happen (just yesterday a ticket of mine simply 'disappeared' w/o a trace - or reply) - then it was recently 7 hours for a reply on a very urgent "service outage" ticket (half my sites on one server - werent accessible- for hours on end.) Last edited by kneidels; 09-07-2005 at 02:00 PM.
Posted by ldcdc, 09-07-2005, 02:30 PM
Thank you for the answer kneidels. You gave me more details than I expected. How many tickets did you raise? How many were answered? What was the fastest response you've got (the time it took for an answer)? What was the longest? How are the answers when you receive them? OK, so you were not exactly satisfied from the very start, if I get it right.
Posted by kneidels, 09-07-2005, 02:45 PM
well, its difficult to say for each ticket... but lets say thats its been very disappointing, and yes, pretty much from the start. the weird thing is that i also put in a billing ticket - to try clear my balance (on my own accord!!!) - and even that one went completely unanswered. what's even more worrying now (hence my need for this thread) is the recent issues with this server that each day can be down for a good few hours -this is extremely worrying to me. a slow ticket here or there is one thing - but down time like this is simply unacceptable. here's the reply i got from them: and -
Posted by LinkOnUs-George, 09-07-2005, 03:50 PM
Do they have a phone number you can call?
Posted by kneidels, 09-07-2005, 03:55 PM
not at an affordable rate on a long distance call from over seas....
Posted by ldcdc, 09-07-2005, 04:09 PM
My brother buys some phone cards from companies that make use of VOIP technology. I believe it all ends up costing him under 15 cents per minute to talk in the US.
Posted by joshuayip, 09-08-2005, 04:28 AM
Well, if they will just install skype, phone calls probably not be necessary. Quality of the sound is quite good too.
Posted by kneidels, 09-08-2005, 04:46 AM
or a chat. i have great success with another big host who has live chat as a support option.
Posted by IHSL, 09-08-2005, 09:10 PM
Hi kneidels, A quick note on a few of your points: , a few days ago,acknowledged the mess-up on the billing tickets, which were, as you'll know if you saw the announcement, literally assigned to a dead queue (in helpdesk terms, this means they don't get to any department, and basically dangle in thin air) - one of the new managers picked it up during a routine maintenance period, I am told, and this is why the announcement was made about the temporary shift in support protocol (to the hsphere ticket system) For the phone system it's self: Simply call the toll free line, and once connected, give the tech in question your phone number (including respective counrty and area codes) and they will call you right back. To answer your rather daft question about whether DIYHosting is on the way out: I say it's daft, because it has no merit. Whilst I can see you have an issue with support, this is no way indicative of a company going out of business. DIYHosting goes from strength to strength on a daily basis. My request to you would be to pick up a phone if you have a problem, and ask the guys to give you a call back. I remember a few months back when you said the same thing on WHT.. I must admit, when I looked in to your account, I was of course shocked to see that your average tech. ticket was answered in under two hours. A point of note, so you don't think I am rude: I won't be responding to this thread.. I rarely visit WHT unless prompted to do so by another member. Simon
Posted by kneidels, 09-09-2005, 03:22 AM
Why do you think that the explanation of tickets dangling in thin air makes me feel any better? by the way - its nothing new, as i said, i've experienced it for the 6 months i've been there... also - i know of host supports moving AWAY from the hsphere help desk, and you're moving TO it?? I dont really know why this became an issue - i didnt even bring it up. in any and all cases, email / ticket support has been and no doubt will always be, a major part of support. and 7 hour wait on a "service outage" ticket (which you failed to refer to) - is not something i made up - and something you really should be looking into. And something else you failed to refer to was the multiple crashes of win-04 this week - and its terrible run in the last few months. i have been in touch for months about it and its various ASP issues (noted in my original post!), and its not looking any better now. this is the real crux of the matter - if on a technical level things were adequate - support times wouldnt be an issue, i'm sure you'll agree. A final comment, dont think that ignoring threads like this (rather than reponding in an orderly and mature way) will make your problems go away. ha. it will just make your customers go away. and from what i hear, many of the resellers arent sticking around to see how it ends ... and on a funny note: how do you get to 3644 posts - by "rarely visiting WHT"? Last edited by kneidels; 09-09-2005 at 03:29 AM.
Posted by ralexander, 09-09-2005, 03:51 AM
I've also been a member of DIY for approximately six months now. For the first two months of that time, everything seemed excellent as far as support and I was quite happy. However, for the last four months, I've had multiple tickets (over 10) go completely unanswered. I don't know what the deal with DIY has been but their support has been the pitts - Even simple inquiries go completely unanswered. I don't know if they're going out of business, but they will be going out of my business in the next while as soon as I can locate another host: I've been looking at Jodo, if anyone has any experience with them? Regardless, I just wanted to throw my post on here to show that DIY is definately going to be losing business as a result of their track record for the last little while, this is not a single unhappy customer. Ryan
Posted by c3r3br0, 09-09-2005, 11:53 AM
I've been with DIY Hosting for over a year, and while I can't say that everyhting has been great, it hasn't been bad either. My major complaint was when my account was suspended for $7. Mind you, I pay over 100 times that for my services and to top it all off, the balance was paid the Thursday prior to my account being suspended on Sunday. What made matters worse was that the tech support response said it was my fault for not paying, and after telling him repeatedly it was paid he finally unsuspended my account. I hope he was just a bad apple. Now contrast with a recent outage I had which I didn't get an alert email about but anyway I was able to call, get someone on the phone right away, and had the entire problem resolved in less then 10 minutes. So for now I will be staying with DIY Hosting, until the "bad" outweighs the "good".
Posted by cr-hosting, 09-09-2005, 04:39 PM
I have been with DIY for 2 months now. There phone support is great. ticket support is getting better every day after the last couple of weeks. They had some trouble with there ticketing system and now I am comunicating via Hsphere with them. This seems to be very efective. i to will be stickign with them.
Posted by larams, 09-10-2005, 09:44 PM
I am having the same problem. Esp. w/ ASP I have had an open ticket for over a week. I have gone back and forth sat on hold for over 45 min. They tell me its fixed and close the ticket. I have had to reopen the ticket twice because it is not fixed. Now the ticket does not even exist. I am starting over.
Posted by LinkOnUs-George, 09-10-2005, 09:56 PM
What types of problems are you having with ASP, mabey I can help.
Posted by kneidels, 09-11-2005, 03:45 AM
my issue was ASP sessions ending prematurely - like 30 seconds later! apparently its a well known issue in Win 2003 - that when one session in the pool terminates, all sessions in that pool (accross multiple sites) end too. my one host has solved it, but DIY has been having troube with it for months...
Posted by Yash-JH, 09-11-2005, 05:45 AM
That is straight from our FAQ so I am assuming that "one host" is us The issue is largely with Win2003/IIS6. We have done ALOT ALOT of testing on this issue last year. The problem is purely with large application pools. The larger the application pool gets, bad code or something else triggers the sessions to be lost, apparently all sessions within that pool get terminated together. It seemed to us as if when one app within that pool did a session terminate, all sessions in that pool went away. However we are not sure what exactly happens, infact no where has there been an explaination on this problem. The only solution is to divide websites into as small application pools as you can. That is what we have done and that is why you don't see the issue on our servers. But the issue is an inherent problem only on Win2003/IIS6. The best and most reliable way to manage sessions these days is via a database, and I do stronly recommend this to customers with any host.
Posted by kneidels, 09-11-2005, 05:50 AM
yep, its you and a thumbs up for that any links, btw, of database session management? is it IP based, or something?
Posted by Yash-JH, 09-11-2005, 05:57 AM
database session management, well basically instead of using your sessions object you use a database table. Yes and the IP identifies the user. I've seen most large ASP/PHP scripts using database management these days. For example, Cerberus Helpdesk manages sessions via a DB. One thing however is that ASP.NET has a very reliable, out-of-the process session management system. Sessions are handled independently of IIS, by the ASP.NET state server. Hence even on an IIS restart, sessions would be retained (something that otherwise can only be done with db-based sessions).
Posted by kneidels, 09-11-2005, 06:18 AM
so .NET is the place to go! thanks Yash
Posted by larams, 09-11-2005, 03:42 PM
My issue is also with session variables. DIY told me I am on Win2000/ IIS 5 and that they are moving to 2003 next week. I guess that means I will continue to have these issues. They told me I was in my own App. Pool and I am still having the same problem.
Posted by kneidels, 09-11-2005, 05:08 PM
same here
Posted by Yash-JH, 09-11-2005, 11:24 PM
I have never seen an issue with session variables on Win2000, although we are running Win2000 & Win2003 servers simultaneously. So their issue must be different from what I mentioned above. Also, App Pools is a Win2003 feature and not a Win2000 feature.
Posted by munick, 09-14-2005, 12:39 AM
i am also have similar experiences with diy. Support has been slow and constant issues with win4 performane! I am a reseller center refugee that was looking for greener pastures, but never found them. I am in the process of moving to jodohost who so far have been very good (last 2 weeks)
Posted by kneidels, 09-14-2005, 04:30 AM
thanks munick, all hosts have issues, but at least jodo, unlike DIY, as it seems, owns up to the issues, and actually respond to the customer. with DIY i am still waiting...
Posted by CoolBreeze, 09-14-2005, 10:41 AM
I am another former reseller of DIY that has now moved on to Jodo. DIY was really great went I first signed up with them but that lasted for only a couple months. As soon as they moved their datacenter to the planet..their service started to suffer. It wasn't immediate but got progressively worse over the months. I had the same problems as others here have reported. asp-sessions timing out immediately, unanswered, deleted, or poorly answered support questions. not receiving subscribed to mailings, having to do various setups to use PayPal rather than normal credit cards to pay for hosting. Actually the billing problem (which was their problem) ended up being the final event which caused me to leave as quickly as I could. I was sent an email saying my account was severely past due. According to their records this was for an amount less than $25.00 and less than a month in duration. I went in and paid that amount via PayPal within minutes of receiving the email (although again I had never been sent any normal billings for it) After that they still suspended my account due to lack of payment until I could finally find someone to turn it back on again. Doing that caused me major problems..and was still their fault for not getting the billing system totally straightened out. Their forums went down just before they started sending out these severely past due billings and suspending people's accounts. All I can say is that all the people that I know personally that were with DIY...have already left, or are in the process of leaving. I really hope that some day they can get back to where they were. Although I have only been with Jodo a short time..I am very happy so far with their responsiveness to any questions. In addition to email support, they have live chat and also an active forum where many of the staff help out with questions there as well.
Posted by kneidels, 09-14-2005, 10:48 AM
yes, the live chat is a major plus. i just hope Jodo are able to maintain the high level of service, with all the new customers joining.
Posted by cr-hosting, 09-14-2005, 10:50 AM
very good point here.
Posted by cr-hosting, 09-14-2005, 10:53 AM
A sales chat rep said they where going to do some moves to NAP of the americas pretty soon. I wonder when Ive seen very good comments of NAP of the americas
Posted by (Stephen), 09-14-2005, 12:03 PM
Guy this chat isn't really about us, I only wish for the best for everyone regardless of where you are. I will go ahead and give one little trick that you have to do in addition to the application pool, and that is increasing the timeout time to more than 20 minutes. At 20 minutes, it will still timeout randomly for some reason, I can not isolate why, but over 20 minutes seems to work fine. I the issue is not too bad on SP1, but does still exist to some degree.
Posted by vito, 09-14-2005, 12:10 PM
Classy post, Stephen. I particularly appreciate the fact that you made the effort to exclude your sig in the post. Vito
Posted by vito, 09-14-2005, 01:42 PM
Let me just say here that I am not the official spokesperson for DIYHosting. But I do know Simon personally, so I can speak with authority. About 3 weeks ago, Simon sold DIYHosting to a group in Texas. Any issues you've had in the past few weeks with DIY are related to the new owners, not Simon. I know for a fact that Simon has been very tempted to post in recent DIY threads in order to explain what is going on, but he hasn't due to agreements in the sale of the company. Simon still runs eirca.net with his dedicated server customer base, but he is no longer associated with DIYHosting. I just thought you all should know the facts. Vito
Posted by dlrmartin, 09-14-2005, 01:46 PM
I really angry. I'm an old Reseller-Center customer and refugee at DIY and Jodo. I lament do not put all my domains at JH.... DIY is driving me crazy, their support not support me. They have started a masive server and IP migration WITHOUT any notice. when noticed about that I couldn't believe it!!!! all my problems start at RC with migration.... ohhh no!!!!! again!!!! Mail service is unstable from monday.. I have troubles with mssql unsolved... I choose DIY as primary host due to their higher costs. I expected very much from them, really. Migrate all my clients was a nightmare, and thinking on it again give me fear..
Posted by dlrmartin, 09-14-2005, 01:50 PM
Ahhaaa!!! now understand. I asked to support if DIY was sold and they lie me and tell me that "noooo" it's only a migration. I can't believe!!!! I was at RC ok till was sold. Come to DIY and after 3 months it is sold too!!!! that is incredible! I can't have peace!
Posted by CoolBreeze, 09-14-2005, 02:20 PM
This is actually a very important aspect of doing business. I can still remember a saying from a Busines Class that I once took: "Most businesses that fail... do so during a time of rapid growth" While I am not saying that this will happen with anyone here..it is an important (and true) idea that needs care and preparation.
Posted by designteam, 09-14-2005, 02:52 PM
This is my first post at WHT. I'm usually only a consumer of the information here (and fyi I am appreciative of the value of this forum). However, in fairness to anyone who may be considering choosing DIY, I cannot stay silent any longer. I have been a reseller at DIY for a year. But the last few months have been nothing short of mind-blowingly stressful. Several of my trouble tickets have simply vanished (I see that this has happened to many DIY people posting.) I have been repeatedly billed for money even after I have paid. I have sent e-mails that have received no response from sales, billing, tech support, anyone. I was on the phone for technical support for 45 minutes on two occasions in August - been the first person in queue, but no one answers the phone. Then I left messages that no one returned. After reading the other posts here it is no wonder someone quickly credited my account with 3 months of service when I finally managed to reach a human being on the phone and told them what I had been experiencing. I am obviously not the only one. Now today, there has been a "Unix Server Upgrade and IP Migration" (no notice it was going to happen btw) which has resulted in numerous problems for me to try to solve. I cannot access CM systems for 5 sites, one has reverted to an older version with old content and another ... I don't even know what's wrong with it yet. All I know is I have unhappy customers, me being probably the unhappiest. I already opened my account at JodoHost months ago and it is now time to move on. I can't take the hassle of sticking with DIY any longer. But if it's true that the company is sold and Simon is not there anymore, it would explain why Simon has not returned any of my e-mails to his DIY addy. DIY - whoever owns you now - please tell your customers what is going on! Desi (fyi- I have all my troubles documented to the teeth if anyone wants to contend them)
Posted by vito, 09-14-2005, 03:01 PM
Trust me. Simon has sold DIYHosting. Consider this as gospel truth. Vito
Posted by designteam, 09-14-2005, 03:15 PM
Vito, thanks for being forthright and enlightening us. Do you know (or can you say) who has bought DIY? Thanks, Desi
Posted by Zoren, 09-14-2005, 03:19 PM
The way this sale has taken place highlights the utter contempt Simon has always had for his customers. At least now he has an excuse for ignoring DIY customers. He no longer has to call his customers "daft" or their complaints "absurd". He has very little integrity having sold his customers off without any sort of notice. Who signs an agreement like that? How does that show he cared one ounce for their best interests? It may be a little unfair to hold him to standards set by companies like HTTPME though. I am sure Simon is a good friend to Vito, but he has not shown any concern for his customers. Good luck to everyone caught up in this mess.
Posted by cr-hosting, 09-14-2005, 03:22 PM
this is the same RC story.
Posted by CoolBreeze, 09-14-2005, 03:58 PM
Yes this is now a big problem and there appears to be many little people (like me) being hurt by it. I wish everyone well.
Posted by kneidels, 09-14-2005, 04:07 PM
damn, this is big news, Vito. Definitely time to move on... However, i wish Vito's explanation could explain all the support issues i've had in the last 6 months... and you can pass that one on to Simon
Posted by vito, 09-14-2005, 04:13 PM
Yes, I do know, but I can't say due to Simon's agreements in the sale. Zoren, you're way off line. Simon has always had the utmost respect for all of his customers. He's a good guy and does not deserve to be slagged by you or anyone else. Would that all Internet businesses had a "Simon" at the helm - the Net would be a much better place... Vito
Posted by surfinmtns, 09-14-2005, 04:16 PM
I too have been having issues with DIY as of late. I signed up with DIY about 8-10 months ago and all was well. I had a few issues for the first 5-6 months but all were resolved fairly easily. Now the problems just seem to keep growing. Emails servers timing out or going down, Ip changes, billing problems, lack of communication about upcoming changes before the fact, support tickets being dropped and/or going unresponded and I haven't been able to get anyone on the phone for months. Everytime I call for tech support, I get put on hold for at least 1/2 an hour only to be put into voice mail and then I never get a call back. All of this wastes my time and eats into this small resellers bottom line. I will say, when I have entered a ticket and it has been responded to, they are quick, but many times my response's go unaswered. The thought of switching hosts again is really worriesome. It takes many hours to switch hosts (SSL's, Emails, DB's, and testing) all the while eating into the thin profit margins. Will I have the same experience elsewhere? I've been reselling hosting for 5+ years and this seems to be a recurrent theme. Good service to start and then it all goes bad. Is this just the nature of the business? I had really hoped DIY was the solution. On that note: Now that I'm in the H-Sphere solution, is there some way to move my sites and all the emails to another H-Sphere provider easily? I too am also anxiously waiting to hear about who has aquired DIY and what this means for my business.
Posted by kneidels, 09-14-2005, 04:18 PM
Unfortunately not been down that road before...
Posted by IHSL, 09-14-2005, 04:20 PM
OK, now that it is apparently clear that I have sold DIYHosting, let me address something here: Your comments are completely out of line. Contempt for my customers? Please, show me one day in the last nigh-on three years where I have had contempt for the customers I have. Not only did every one of my customers help build DIYHosting, but I thanked each of them whenever I had the opportunity to do so. I put nearly three years in to making DIYHosting the number one brand in our sector. I strongly believe I, along with my excellent team, succeeded in making that dream, from 2002, a reality. A company is built around customers, but it is also built around solid infrastructures, that inevitably spawn happy customers, and thus the circle continues almost endlessly. DIYHosting became the most innovative company in the sector, bar none (it's what has attracted so many admirers, be they customers, or consortiums looking to purchase the subsidiary). I don't beat my own drum often, if ever, but I can say without a shadow of a doubt that I know DIYHosting to be the best in the sector. I know it to be, because myself and my team built it that way. I have always expressed my gratitude, for that same reason, to every customer who I have spoken to. If in two months there is any problems, feel free to call it a "mess". However, that description has no merit at this time. Yes: the new team had some teething problems with our unique system (as per the email they sent out a week ago, explaining this same thing), and now myself and my guys are helping to smooth that over, and make the transition that much smoother (This includes me coming off vacation, one that I have darn-sure earned, to make sure those customers affected - the same ones you say I have always had contempt for - can go back to normalcy.) To anyone in this thread, whether they posted before, or after me, let me make one thing perfectly clear: If you have questions, of any kind, you are invited to call me, direct, or have me call you. I will give you my personal cell phone number (via private message) and discuss with you, any concerns you may have (or send my, via PM, your phone number). You can also email me: s.orourke@eirca.net, though my replies may be delayed, considering how many emails I will undoubtedly wake up to tomorrow I will be delighted to speak with any one of you, providing it is done in a professional manner (those who wish to throw personal insults at me need not contact me; you will not get a response.) If someone tells you DIYHosting is going out of business, they are wrong. It really is that simple. Simon Last edited by IHSL; 09-14-2005 at 04:23 PM.
Posted by cr-hosting, 09-14-2005, 04:22 PM
this is something I looked into with DIY apparently youcan't and there is no easy way out. you manually have to pass everyone and then upload files and recreate emails. its just a matter of time and beign organized. The users will notice only since the email is impossible to transfer with actual passwords. i just went trhough with this with, Reseller Center. Im fed up with these companies. I hope Jodo host does not get buyed out.
Posted by dlrmartin, 09-14-2005, 04:25 PM
and now???? what should I do??? I made a move from RC to DIY 3 month ago. I need to move again? how trust on our new ghost or anonimus provider???
Posted by Zoren, 09-14-2005, 04:25 PM
Vito, All due respect, but I am right on target with my statement. I will say that Simon did a great job on marketing and promotion, but the service end never met the marketing. I experienced Simon's rude and unprofessional service first hand as a customer. I am not alone. Search the forum here. It was also evident on their own forums for short periods of time before they did their regular purges of negative comments or would simply erase or "lose" all old posts. I have some screenshots if you'd like some light reading. I will also stand by my statement regarding the sale of DIYhosting. Simon sold his business and went on vacation about the same time. He agreed to a secret sale which could leave no doubt that his customers would not be in the loop. He took his check and left. How does that show any degree of integrity whatsoever? Again, I can understand that you have a longstanding friendship with him, but it is hard to defend such actions as Simon's. His customers have been moved without any notice and are experiencing a high level of difficulty without any information from the fine people Simon sold out to. Regarding this statement: "Would that all Internet businesses had a "Simon" at the helm - the Net would be a much better place..." I don't think many of the people posting here in this thread or without service right now would share that sentiment. Last edited by Zoren; 09-14-2005 at 04:35 PM.
Posted by IHSL, 09-14-2005, 04:33 PM
I would suggest staying right where you are. This was no fire-sale (RC was, undoubtedly). The consortium who bought DIYHosting had to prove to me many things, not least the fact that they were capable of guiding DIYHosting down the right path. To call them an anonymous provider is not fair to them, they are still DIYHosting. If you want to know their names; ask them. In the same way that everyone came to know Dean, Stiofan, Callum, Mike, et al, they will come to know the new team. Simon
Posted by vito, 09-14-2005, 04:41 PM
Zoren, I can't speak first hand for Simon. Only he can. But all I can say is I've known him personally for a long time, and I can tell you that he is a person of high integrity. If he wasn't, I assure you that my relationship with him would be short, as I pick and choose my friends very selectively... Vito
Posted by IHSL, 09-14-2005, 04:44 PM
Good luck in the future, Zoren. I am not going to get in to some back-and-forth nonsense with you. I will say one thing only: I am a person who deals with other people "like for like". If a person is rude with me, they are either dealt with in a reflective manner, or it is made clear to them that they either smarten up, or the conversation (be it phone, fax, email or pigeon) will discontinue. I have no doubt, based on the insults you have already tossed my way, that you already know, first hand, my feelings on rudeness. Simon
Posted by surfinmtns, 09-14-2005, 04:55 PM
Stuck with DIY for the moment I am at least having my support tickets answered. I would really rather not move if possible but my experience tells me that, once sold, move quickly or you will suffer while the new company tries to pick up the pieces. Thank you Simon for a response. I just submitted a ticket inquiring about this aquisition in DIY HSphere. My concern, and I believe everyone here would agree, is that this has all happened under the radar. While you may have our interest at heart we can not help but be concerned about such a development and be irritated by the suprise. I have no idea what the details of the situation are but my responsibilities require me to stay up-to-date about my hosting. I now feel like I'm in limbo and I have no idea what to expect. Will this new company have the same infrastructure? Will they have the same support and provide the same reseller support? Will the costs change? These questions and many others beg to be answered and I'm irritated that every hosting company I have been with for the last 5 years fails to communicate when they are sold or acquired. I need to know who I am doing business with. Is this too much to ask? You also mentioned that you had helped build DIY into becoming number one in the sector. Can I expect that without you at the helm, that this can continue to be true? There is also the issue of all the other DIY hosting costumers that are undoubtedly irritated about this development and the growing issues we are experiencing. How many of them will leave DIY? These posts and the negative pr will have a negative effect on DIY for years to come. I have pm'd you and hope to get a call so I can find out what I can expect from DIY in the future.
Posted by kneidels, 09-14-2005, 04:59 PM
Is this the same Simon, who just a few days ago, said the following - First of all - wlecome back to WHT second - its (really) nice of you to be willing to take calls from people, but maybe you should be the one to take the initiaitive: to call those folks (like the one who strted this thread!) - because there was no one in DIY to listen to them!! the forum is "down for maintenance" (???) and the tickets disappear into thin air, to quote you... so why dont you, who headed DIY for so long, make the effort. or at the very least to get the new guy to do it.
Posted by Lubby, 09-14-2005, 05:03 PM
Just like every other hosting company sale I've ever seen occur from a popular WHT host, the owner gets bashed and users get concerned. Sometimes for good reason and sometimes for no reason at all. Give the new guys a chance to work out a few wrinkles and you all could be pleasantly surprised. Congrats Simon and team!
Posted by ralexander, 09-14-2005, 05:06 PM
Having had the chance to speak directly to Simon during my experience as a reseller at DIY, I can share that he does seem to be a friendly fellow. I do not believe he has any 'malice' towards his (former) users. I did however, have fairly serious troubles with DIY before this sale occurred - granted, it was a fairly serious issue to the point that Simon & the boys actually had to consult with PSoft themselves to get it sorted out. As far as DIY never dying out.... If DIY were as strong as you were claiming Simon, then I don't think it likely that you would sell it. Obviously over the last little while your team has become somewhat overwhelmed by new customers, which is a good thing, but in my opinion you failed to respond to this growth appropriately (hiring of more staff) - obviously because of the expected sale of the company. I do not agree with you not telling us about the sale of the services we pay for. You can disagree on that, but I believe had you informed us, this whole process would have gone alot smoother and I think most of us would be more forgiving than we currently are - As it stands, It looks that a good number of us are planning on migrating. Now all I can hope is that Jodo is not the company that purchased DIY, lol. Ryan Alexander
Posted by vito, 09-14-2005, 05:12 PM
On the contrary. Selling at your "high point" is the best option. Kinda like when Seinfeld and Everybody Loves Raymond left the air. They didn't do so because they were in trouble. They simply went out on a high note. As did Simon. Vito
Posted by surfinmtns, 09-14-2005, 05:14 PM
Hey Lubby, I want to give them a chance, but everytime I have given a company that acquired my hosting company, a chance, I have been unpleasantly suprised. Ditto, Ralexander
Posted by ralexander, 09-14-2005, 05:19 PM
Possible, but in all fairness Vito - It is my opinion that your words be taken with a grain of 'business salt'. It is in your businesses best interest that DIY remain a successful business as you make direct profits from their tutorial promotions (which is an excellent promotion, I myself took advantage of it as well as many others I'm sure.) You can only go out on a high point if you suspect that the future will not be as promising as the past, which indicates that Simon was unsure where to go next to continue his companies progress in a forward motion. I wish the new DIY all the best, but I myself will be migrating over to Jodo at the end of my current billing cycle. Ryan
Posted by dlrmartin, 09-14-2005, 05:23 PM
I'm not agree Simon, Now Diyhosting is anonymus. before DIY was eirca.net and we have the choose to trust on them or not. Now, we do not know how are DIY, not know new owners reputation. Handle this migration in absolute secret and support lie me Today saying "diy not was sold" is not a good start nor well symptom.
Posted by IHSL, 09-14-2005, 05:23 PM
After two and a half years as a member of WHT, I am glad to say I have made quite a few friends on this board. I can tell you outright that 14 people notified me of this thread just within the last two hours. We can agree to disagree on this point. I do not believe I should spend the next four to five weeks tracking down the vast number of clients DIYHosting has, just to speak with them on the phone, and invite them to be worried. They have no reason to be worried. WHT is a different story. It is somewhat of a breeding ground for concerned users, and users tend to get carried away rather easily, making small issues in to big issues, and big issues in to enormous ones. It is the nature of this forum and probably always will be. The topic starter is free, as I stated above, to pm me if he wants. surfinmtns; Thank you for your PM. I will most certainly get back to you within the next few days. To answer one question of yours publicly: Yes, I believe DIYHosting will continue to grow, in all areas. I would suggest that for further info on that side of things, you call one of the new management team (Call the toll free line and ask for a manager). I would tend to disagree with you, with regards to posts on here affecting DIYHosting for years to come. DIYHosting is fortunate enough to have gathered a client base strong enough to power past any intermittent issues. I'd say only 1-2% of this customer base came from WHT, and thus most of our client-base doesn't tend to get caught up in the hysteria that WHT unfortunately breeds. Such threads as this will undoubtedly give way to more "DIY ROCKS" threads, as things steady down. I think Greg is spot on: Whenever a big company is sold, there is the same public outcry here on this forum. Simon Last edited by IHSL; 09-14-2005 at 05:27 PM.
Posted by designteam, 09-14-2005, 05:24 PM
Simon, I have had the opportunity to talk to you on the phone several times and I have found you professional and helpful. But to describe the issues at present as "some teething problems" is grossly unfair to the customers affected over the last few months. I had tickets disappearing in July and only last week was there any explanation of this. And it was not apologetic to any degree. I am a loyal customer to companies that value my business and I can tell you I would be much more understanding today had I been made aware of this sale and transition. Of course there would be issues. It's better to be prepared for them though instead of feeling abandoned. I'm sure many DIY people will feel the same way. I was on JodoHost live chat last night and techs answered my questions instantly. It was joyous. Anybody have some spare hours to help me set up new db's and content management systems on JodoHost? Now with the issues that this unannounced migration has caused, I will be busy fixing sites and getting ready to move. With respect, Desi
Posted by IHSL, 09-14-2005, 05:38 PM
Hi designteam, Thank you for your post. I agree: there was some tickets most probably lost in late july. Unfortunately, we did not know they were lost until the flaw in the back-end was found. Those users who informed us of the issue had their issues sorted out. Those who did not investigate further, did not, as we had no way of knowing there was stray tickets. One does not sell a high-profile company, and expect it to be plain-sailing. One of the reasons the sale was not immediately announced was because I believe the new team deserve a chance to prove themselves to be competent. I strongly believe them to be competent as a team, and individuals. If this thread proves anything, it proves that mob-mentality often gets the better of people. I think there would have been an immediate 10% client-base loss just out of fear, with no base for it. This is not to say that there was no problems in the past three weeks: I am aware of them. It is why I am sat at my desk typing in 16 different tabs. Simon
Posted by kneidels, 09-14-2005, 05:44 PM
nothing like trying to keep the customer happy, hey Simon? wish you were typing away on half as many tabs in the last 6 months - and pereferably support tickets, re ASP sessions....
Posted by IHSL, 09-14-2005, 05:54 PM
I know for sure that at least four people worked on that issue with you. and as far as I am aware, the issue was resolved (unless it has re-emerged in the past three weeks). Myself? I would have been as useful as a chocolate fireguard, with regards to ASP questions, this is why your questions were dealt with by the more qualified technicians. Please do not question my commitment to my clients. You and I both know full well how many tickets my guys have helped you with. It is after all, their job. I would also like to think that you also know that they worked tirelessly to help you. Simon
Posted by kneidels, 09-14-2005, 05:59 PM
Well, i guess you arent too aware then - login in Cerbrus and count how many unanswered tickets i have, - ON THIS ISSUE. yes, Dean helped me out, but it took me ages to get to him (and ONLY because of writing on WHT- not at all in response to my tickets) - and when the case was indeed solved to my satisfaction, when it (mysteriously) returned to the same old situation a short while later - my emails to him went unanswered, and the same for my tickets. so yes, i guess you are not too aware then , but as you say, you are the MD, so you dont have to get your fingers dirty with the facts.
Posted by kneidels, 09-14-2005, 06:14 PM
PS: Simon, note that i started this topic long before anything about selling DIY came out. All i am interested in, is good support and good tech specs - not in who owns or runs the business. But unfortunately, you have shown me, in deeds and words, that DIY cant manage either at the moment.
Posted by domotre, 09-14-2005, 06:56 PM
I 1000000 % agree with you, I don't recomend DIY and my nightmare with this company come true
Posted by vito, 09-14-2005, 06:59 PM
Are you kidding me? Give me a frigging break. If you think I would come to the defense of any company simply because I sell some product through their site, you are sadly mistaken. Please, don't even suggest that I would compromise my integrity for such a reason. It's personally insulting to say the least. Look. Simon is a personal friend of mine. I have noshed with his family in Nova Scotia, and he has dined in my backyard in Brampton. I pick my friends very selectively. And when one of my friends is unfairly attacked in a thread, I will come to his defense. No doubt you would do the same. Vito
Posted by domotre, 09-14-2005, 07:08 PM
ok, but business are business, the people wants quality services no friends .
Posted by Lubby, 09-14-2005, 07:09 PM
To those who are ripping Vito and Simon in this thread, you are talking about 2 of the most respected people on this forum and in the industry. They both are very successful and didn't get to the point they are without knowing what they are doing. You need to understand that whether or not you are having problems with DIYHosting it is not Simon's intention. Someone who puts so much of there time and energy into a company and the clients doesn't want to see them have any issues, it is unfortunate if you are having issues, but deal with DIYHosting about this, don't go after Simon for something that isn't completley under his control now. As he said he came back from vacation to try and get things straight, if he was just in it for the money and didn't care about you guys he wouldn't have done that. If I were a DIYHosting customer I would be thanking Simon for coming back and trying to help and make things better.
Posted by kneidels, 09-14-2005, 07:13 PM
if i would see things get better - i would thank Simon. What am i paying for? favours??
Posted by surfinmtns, 09-14-2005, 07:22 PM
I just received a phone call from Simon. Indeed he is a professional and I do believe he cares about the future of DIY and it's customers. He made a simple point that he is still involved in hosting and would not do anything on purpose to hurt his clients. Frankly, I believe him. Maybe I'm a sucker but it does make sense. I also believe that he has put a lot of time and energy into DIY and has done what he can to assure it's future. That said, there is no garauntee that that the new company will handle themselves or DIY in the same manner. I hear Simon's complaints about the forum creating a mob like mentality. I am subject to such primal urges but there have also been some very valid complaints expressed in this thread. Allthough I have my own complaints and have had problems with DIY for the last couple of months, I would say none of them were critical. And before that the service and support was dead on. My ASP sites on Win03-04-05 have had good uptime and it wasn't until this week that I had serious problems with email. The email issue seems to be resolved now. I definitely have been irritated over the last few months but considering the issues I've experienced with other hosts, this is not uncommon. In truth I don't know if any one company can keep me happy and if I keep migrating when things get rough, I'm just adding to my overhead. So, for the moment I am sticking it out at DIY. We shall see what happens. If I stay and it turns out well then I saved myself some work. If it gets worse, I'll migrate. The reality is the cost of moving my hosting is prohibitive compared to giving this new company a chance. Last edited by surfinmtns; 09-14-2005 at 07:27 PM.
Posted by cartika-andrew, 09-14-2005, 08:30 PM
Well, Ive watched this thread with interest, both as a competitor of DIY and as someone that knows Simon pretty well - and although I intended on staying out of this thread, I think its time I pipe in here... Simon certainly is a professional individual and certainly cares about his customers and his business. No doubt some things could've been done differently here, but that is in no way indicative of malicious or callous activity. I have been around wht long enough to see companies disappear, see business owners flagrantly scam clients and to see business owners who seriously lack any sense of morality and eithics - this IN NO WAY DEFINES SIMON. I understand people in this thread are unhappy, and have some complaints - more then likely legitimate - however, there is no need to make this personal, as this isnt a case where someone is taking your money and running. Whether you agree with Simon's decisions or not, give him the benefit of the doubt as a person.
Posted by Aussie Bob, 09-14-2005, 09:31 PM
I never got "bashed", when I sold HTTPme. Anyhooooo, congrats to Simon, and best wishes to the new DIY owners.
Posted by Lubby, 09-14-2005, 09:35 PM
Not one customer second guessed your decision to sell?
Posted by Aussie Bob, 09-14-2005, 09:46 PM
Sure, plenty did, but no HTTPme client "bashed" me. There's a difference. I too know Simon pretty well, and he made a decision based on the best interests of his family. That's what we're in this business for - our family, and his decision to sell was based around that motive, and there's no better reasoning, imo.
Posted by Aussie Bob, 09-14-2005, 09:52 PM
BTW, I don't believe that anyone is bashing Simon here. Folks are interacting, and there's emotions involved there. The "bashed" sign gets taken out far too much these days, if there's some emotional discussion, as is the case here.
Posted by Lubby, 09-14-2005, 10:04 PM
I guess we have somewhat different definitions of bashing.
Posted by ldcdc, 09-14-2005, 10:25 PM
Bob, are you debating the meaning of "bashing" twice in a single week?
Posted by Lubby, 09-14-2005, 10:43 PM
Is that then considered bashing those who are discussing the meaning of bashing? :-o
Posted by CoolBreeze, 09-15-2005, 07:45 AM
While bashing of "people" is not a good thing. The fact remains that few if any answers to the DIY problems have been given here. In summary: 1. The problems go back much futher than the 3 week time-frame referred to surrounding the sale. DIY was made aware of these problems, both publicly (discussion groups) and privately (support tickets, IM's, phone calls, etc.) The one answer given that a "new manager" recently discovered the ticket problem is simply not plausible. There were many reports of that problem on their own discussion boards. Generally however DIY would delete postings on their boards they felt were either "support" type postings or in any way were negative about their service. While DIY may not have responded to every post on their boards..it was obvious they read every single one of them. Otherwise they couldn't make a determination as to which ones to keep and which ones to delete. 2. For those of you who are defending DIY based on past reputation, all that tells me is you have no knowledge of how the DIY service has been for at least the last 4-6 months. If you had first hand knowledge... as well as your time and money involved..you would probably feel much different. 3. As far as I can tell..no one that is a current DIY Manager, Rep, Employee, or whatever has stepped forward publicly to address any of this. As I mentioned before..for those of you who wish to stay with DIY...I wish you all well. For those of you who need to leave...I also wish you well and do understand..because I am one of them.
Posted by domotre, 09-15-2005, 09:39 AM
The problem was that Vito tried to defend your friend Simon, 'Cos he's a good guy maybe, but I needed solutions no meet with friends, this is a business and business are business no joke. I unhappy by the way that handle this situation. Thanks WHT to exist
Posted by IHSL, 09-15-2005, 10:29 AM
I do believe you hit the nail on the head, albeit inadvertly. Yes: this is business. It is not a forum for people to throw around personal attacks and insults. It stands now as it stood when I posted it: Any person that has questions, can contact me with the afore mentioned information. For the 20+ that I have already conversed with; thank you for the interaction. For those I have not yet spoken with: I will return your call/emails later today. Eight hours spent last night on the phone tends to make one a little repetetive, and that is not what is needed for unique questions. Whether you believe it to be plausible or not, is really not the issue. It vwas something that was explained to customers, as fact. If you do not accept that fact, that is fine, but it your personal interpretation only. The fact remains that anyone affected by an unqueued ticket, and stepped forward to let us know there had been no response to the ticket, duly had their ticket answered and the issue resolved. Utter speculation. If you are going to claim that posts are removed, please back this claim up. I know you can not, because we never removed posts. The only time a post was ever moved from it's original postition, was to move it to the correct forum. More than likely, the topic/post you are referring to, is in the customers-only forum, which is the place where all posts by customers should be made (barring the announcements section). Simon
Posted by Jamie Harrop, 09-15-2005, 11:14 AM
Lets get one thing straight before I really blow my top! How dare anybody question Simon's commitment to his customers. I have never seen anybody work as damned hard as Simon does, and has done for a number of years. I dined with Simon and his family not too long ago, and I have never seen anybody as committed to his company and his customers. He stepped out a number of times to deal with things within the company, even when it was supposed to be his free time, and relaxation time. It didn't need me to meet with Simon over the course of two days to find out how much he respected his customers, and how hard he would work to make sure they were happy, I could see that just by reading his emails, and posts on forums. I cannot, for the life of me, understand how many of you are willing to love the guy and his services one minute, then come here, and at the first sign of trouble, think it is perfectly within reason to question how hard he works and how much he cares about his customers and his business. Apparently most of the issues in this thread were not worth bringing up before Vito spilled the beans about DIY being sold, but as soon as you find this out, you think it is perfectly within reason to escalate each little problem you have. Put yourself in the shoes of the CEO of a hosting company with thousands of customers. Would you have told your customers the instant you decided you were selling up? Although we may want to, it simply doesn't work that way. I guarantee, things would be a whole lot worse than we have seen with this recent sale, and the likes of what happened when AffordableHost was sold, if we had told our customers straight away.
Posted by kneidels, 09-15-2005, 11:20 AM
I disagree, Jamie. my issues, at the start of this thread, long before Vito chimed in, are serious issues, an seem to be shared by many. Thanks for dropping by, though.
Posted by designteam, 09-15-2005, 11:42 AM
I take some objection to the quote above. Personally, I stepped forward to tell DIY that I had received no response to my tickets, via ticket follow-ups, e-mail and phone. By the time I reached a person to discuss the issues with, it had been 39 days since the date of my first ticket. I phoned on 6 occasions during business hours (which all went to answering machine even when I tried to bypass support by going through billing or sales instead) left messages on two of these occasions that were not returned, even e-mailed you personally August 5th, 2005. And at that point, my original ticket & all follow-ups on it & a new ticket had gone unanswered for 21 days. So it is a little hard to tell someone that there's been no response when there's no one responding ... at all. I'm not trying to beat this issue to death. But that does not change the fact that the problems have been real and people feel unsure now of what they need to do to protect their own businesses. At any rate, Simon, why are you defending DIY when the new management team should be here doing it? Perhaps the DIY people who frequent WHT would like the reassurance that the new folks are going to take good care of them. Respectfully, Desi
Posted by designteam, 09-15-2005, 11:55 AM
And a quick response to Jamie, who's post I just read: I didn't post initially when my problems started happening because I thought: 1.) That my issues might be isolated and would surely be addressed faster than they were ... 2.) I did not want to use this forum to jump the queue (so to speak) and ... 3.) I respect that a company's reputation could be damaged through postings here. That's why I didn't even start a new thread to air my experience. Just because I didn't post didn't mean my problems were small or insignificant. I simply feel a need to state what has happened. As of this moment, all TT submitted this week have been answered, on average, in about 15 minutes. But significant problems have been caused on many of my sites by this unannounced migration. Thanks, Desi
Posted by CoolBreeze, 09-15-2005, 11:56 AM
Just because something is explained to customers "as fact" does not make it true. Some might call it "blowing smoke" Based on so many other people questioning and poking holes in this "fact" I am not the only one that has that "personal interpretation" Flat out not true Simon..I know it..you know it..and anyone that spent any time looking at the DIY forums knows it. If I had kept screen shots I most certainly could prove it. You also know that it's impossible for me to prove...so why don't you please "prove" that posts have never been removed from those forums. At any rate hopefully I am done with this....I just wanted to try and give some people an opposing view to the DIY "Love Fest" It is way longer than 3 weeks with problems..so all I can say is "Buyer Beware"
Posted by munick, 09-15-2005, 12:01 PM
Can someone tell me positively who bought DIYHosting?
Posted by Aussie Bob, 09-15-2005, 12:08 PM
Yes, I was very curious as to which host bought diyhosting. Seems the cat's out of the bag, can this information be made public now?
Posted by Yash-JH, 09-15-2005, 12:20 PM
I really hope Simon tells WHT who are the new owners of DIY. I would not like to speculate (and I am pretty sure I know who they are).
Posted by c3r3br0, 09-15-2005, 12:31 PM
I am so surpirsed that DIY has been bought. This really explains alot. Like I said I have been a customer for over a year, and didn't really have too much to complain about, but with this upgrade they did or are doing it has really been a problem. Simon, I can't speak about your character because I do not know you personally and the fact that you are on here does speak volumes. However, last night I was up past 11pm trying to resolve customers problems which were a result of this move. Two of my best clients were "blowing up" my cell phone. None of my albeit customers could enter their control panels or upload files. These are well known customers however from the likes of musicians, actors, and production companies. My frustration has always been with DIY was that support tickets get closed before checking with the customer. How can this be a regular practice? I just opened a ticket last night and it was closed without verifying the problem was resolved. I disagree with you assessment of the response by DIY customers, at least the resellers. Unless I was the only that didn't get notified about this move. If I were notified I could have told my customers, but I wasn't notified and therein lies the problem. Most people can overlook "issues" with moving to a new data center or selling the company, if they have a warning that it is happening. I did not receive any warning. I did not receive any status that the company was being sold. A simple email would have been great. I am with SpalshHost as well and an email went out about the sale and subsequent issues as a result of the sale, so I was prepared for surprises and could notify my clients accordingly. Again, I don't know you personally but understand that my frustration and current search to alleviate my exposure with DIY is a result of my customers who are upset with me and stressing me out because of your oversight in letting your customers know the current and future status of DIY Hosting. Lastly, I think this sort of thing is the very reason WHT exists, to talk about all aspects (good, bad, and ugly) of web hosting. While you may believe it to be a spawning ground for paranoia I would suggest that "ignorrance is not bliss".
Posted by munick, 09-15-2005, 12:43 PM
I have a very bad feeling I know who this new owner is, especially from how the move is being carried out and how the forum was shut, but I am only guessing. Yash, I think you should really tell us !!
Posted by (Stephen), 09-15-2005, 01:00 PM
munick, Yash (nor I), know for sure, and do not want to speculate here. We have some weird things that happened to us today that actually gave us more evidence to support what we thought, however it is not right for us to say. From me personally, I just wish for the best for every client of every host, but that does not always happen. Good luck.
Posted by (Stephen), 09-15-2005, 01:25 PM
Some details from a user: This is VIP Hosting. Thanks user who PMed this info, if you wish to be known, let me know and I will give credit. Registration Service Provided By: Contact: hostmaster@argolink.net Visit: Domain name: diyhosting.com Administrative Contact: DIY Douglas Lopez (Hostmaster@diyhosting.com) +1.188825588478 Fax: 1700 St. James PL suite 600 Houston, TX 77056 US Billing Contact: DIY Douglas Lopez (Hostmaster@diyhosting.com) +1.188825588478 Fax: 1700 St. James PL suite 600 Houston, TX 77056 US Technical Contact: DIY Douglas Lopez (Hostmaster@diyhosting.com) +1.188825588478 Fax: 1700 St. James PL suite 600 Houston, TX 77056 US Registrant Contact: DIY Douglas Lopez (Hostmaster@diyhosting.com) +1.188825588478 Fax: 1700 St. James PL suite 600 Houston, TX 77056 US Status: Active Name Servers: ns1.ihservers.com ns2.ihservers.com Creation date: 27 Dec 2003 14:22:06 Expiration date: 27 Dec 2010 14:22:06 RC: Registrant: Douglas Lopez 4582 Whimbrel Place Winter Park, Florida 32792 United States Registered through: GoDaddy.com (http://www.godaddy.com) Domain Name: RESELLER-CENTER.COM Created on: 16-May-03 Expires on: 16-May-08 Last Updated on: 04-Jun-05 Administrative Contact: Lopez, Douglas hostmaster@reseller-center.com 4582 Whimbrel Place Winter Park, Florida 32792 United States 4076873461 Technical Contact: Lopez, Douglas hostmaster@reseller-center.com 4582 Whimbrel Place Winter Park, Florida 32792 United States 4076873461 Domain servers in listed order: SERVER.TRACEROUTE.NET DNS0.RESELLER-CENTER.COM DNS1.RESELLER-CENTER.COM
Posted by munick, 09-15-2005, 01:34 PM
Yes, it seems pretty clear VIPHosting has aquired DIY Registration Service Provided By: Contact: hostmaster@argolink.net Visit: Domain name: vip-hosting.com Administrative Contact: Tom Rogers (hostmaster@argolink.net) +1.8883042052 Fax: +1.7136837955 P.O. Box 926038 Houston, TX 77292 US Billing Contact: Tom Rogers (hostmaster@argolink.net) +1.8883042052 Fax: +1.7136837955 P.O. Box 926038 Houston, TX 77292 US Technical Contact: Tom Rogers (hostmaster@argolink.net) +1.8883042052 Fax: +1.7136837955 P.O. Box 926038 Houston, TX 77292 US Registrant Contact: Tom Rogers (hostmaster@argolink.net) +1.8883042052 Fax: +1.7136837955 P.O. Box 926038 Houston, TX 77292 US Status: Locked Name Servers: dns0.vip-hosting.com dns1.vip-hosting.com server.traceroute.net argolink seems to be some company associated with VIP. They are the new registrar of DIY also
Posted by domotre, 09-15-2005, 02:46 PM
Well, my nightmare with DIY came true I know they sucks. I suggest stay out to DIY
Posted by -alb-, 09-15-2005, 02:50 PM
Well, since RC has yet to reinstate the forums on their site, I wouldn't put too much faith in the forums getting reinstated on the DIY site. With RC, the hosting seems stable - of course I would never know since the only time they send out an email is after the problem has occured and it has been fixed. The News & Announcements on the site hasn't been updated since 8/22 and there have been 2 outages since then - which I was notified of AFTER the fact. Kind of glad that I didn't migrate to DIY from RC like I had planned. I'd hate to pay twice the price for the same quality service. Seems to me like the number of HSphere players are dropping, well, the established ones anyway.
Posted by billyxt4, 09-15-2005, 05:37 PM
AFAIK, ArgoLink is a colo data center. VIP has their servers there, which does not necessairly mean that they also own DIY. The forums on DIY have been shut down for a couple of weeks, before the migration started (most likely because Simon went on vacation). Maybe they will come back up? Either way, it doesn't sound like the new owners were responsible for de-activating them in the first place.
Posted by (Stephen), 09-15-2005, 05:44 PM
AFAIK, ArgoLink is a colo data center. VIP has their servers there, which does not necessairly mean that they also own DIY. > Its the names that are more important. The forums on DIY have been shut down for a couple of weeks, before the migration started (most likely because Simon went on vacation). Maybe they will come back up? Either way, it doesn't sound like the new owners were responsible for de-activating them in the first place. Maybe so.
Posted by larams, 09-15-2005, 10:52 PM
Does DIY ever view or post on here? I called tech support tonight for a quick answer to a simple question. (Is the control panel the only way a user can access their SiteBuilder admin?) I spoke with a new girl who cound not answer this simple question. She suggested that I call back during business hours (What good is having 24/7 tech support if all they can do is tell you to call during business hours?). After telling her their support is getting worse by the minute, I asked if they were recently bought out by another company. She said she was not allowed to discuss. Then she went on to tell me there are many new changes taking place with different management. I guess this means ownership is changing or has changed. I guess this explains the promotion they ran in July for buy 6 months get 6 months free. By the way, my session variable problem was finally fixed by a very responsive person who seemed to know what he was doing. My complaint is it took 2 weeks, many ticket responses, many phone calls and a lot of wasted time to finally get to someone who knew what they were doing.
From there you can copy that and make the user a custom logon form, but it will be per user specific
Posted by (Stephen), 09-15-2005, 10:59 PM
larams, I will answer your question, the skeleton site that is made when you first create the account will have a SiteStudio login, it changes for each site however, as it has a user ID pinned in the form, it looks like this:

Password

Posted by Aussie Bob, 09-17-2005, 02:48 AM
Can this be confirmed?
Posted by munick, 09-17-2005, 03:10 AM
More Proof: Registration Service Provided By: Contact: hostmaster@argolink.net Visit: Domain name: diyhosting.com Administrative Contact: DIY Douglas Lopez (Hostmaster@diyhosting.com) +1.188825588478 Fax: 1700 St. James PL suite 600 Houston, TX 77056 US And if you look at reseller-center.com/contactus.php, it has the same address!! Also, in the other DIY thread, one customer mentioned "Mark C." responded to his sales emails. When I was with Reseller-Center, Mark C was main VIP guy in control !! Its really a shame that Simon sold the company to VIP. VIP is known for the fall of RC and utter crap service since it was bought. When I as a RC refugee signed up with DIY, there were many other refugees like me. Simon happily helped us to move. over. Now, he does EXACTLY what led to to downfall of RC, he sells the company to VIP!!! I can only question the business ethics of Simon. All I can say is that he forgot his customers when it came to money Aussie Bob, you mentioned that Simon did the move in the best interests of his family. I am a freelancer and have a family to feed too. No one cares about us me? VIP is a company I do not wish to talk about. They didnt learn a single lesson from their RC purchase. They commited the same arrogant mistakes that they did with RC. They did this migration with no damn notification... changed IPs... etc.. I dont want to talk about it.. I am through with them! I have almost finished my second migration, this time to JodoHost. Hopefully I have found a permant home
Posted by hafa, 09-17-2005, 09:22 AM
When RC first started to have problems before selling out, I came here to "test the waters" before jumping ship. I reviewed dozens of posts and after seeing the attitudes shown here, decided NOT to go with DIY. Synopsis: cpmiller is spot-on in this regard. VIP, AKA reseller-center (and apparently) AKA DIY ranks among the most arrogant and unprofessional organizations I have ever had the misfortune to run across. Anyone who would sell their company to a group like that either does not have their cutomer's best interests at heart, has gotten a big payoff, or is being taken for a ride. It seems that any time a hosting company is sold, things go terribly wrong. I first suffered from this when Weberz sold and again when RC sold. I empathise with the customers currently suffering this at DIY and highly recommend that you "get while the getting's good."
Posted by anon-e-mouse, 09-17-2005, 09:59 AM
As you have a argolink IP, maybe you can fill us in?
Posted by Aussie Bob, 09-17-2005, 12:08 PM
I can't speak for Simon, but I can understand why someone sells a business. If the new DIY owners don't meet your needs, then you move your business elsewhere, as you already have. Looking at the information presented, it looks like the new diy owners are VIP hosting.
Posted by domotre, 09-17-2005, 12:14 PM
Unprofessional actittude from DIY Owner ( Simon), They never notified to costumers that sold your businness. The costumers are guessing who's the company that bought DIY, it's unbelieve.
Posted by cartika-andrew, 09-17-2005, 12:53 PM
This is pure speculation here, however, none of us are privy to the terms and conditions of the sale. Its obvious people feel this couldve been handled better - and im sure alot of people share in that blame - however, whoever purchased the company obviously is trying to staying anonymous and hence I am particular included specific clauses in the sale.
Posted by munick, 09-17-2005, 01:03 PM
Aussie Bob, you are missing the point. I depend on my host for my livelihood. I do web development contracts and maintain sites for my clients to make a living. Now when your hosting company keeps you completely in the dark, hours of continuous downtime is happening, IPs & servers are being migrated with no notifications, ASP is crashing and sessions are expiring, support is not responding...... you are totally helpless and run out of excuses very fast.. I have already lost 2 major clients when the RC debacle happened.. I will probably lose another one due to all these issues And now you tell us Simon did this for his family!! What about me?? No one cares about the customers. It seems the customers were the least priority for Simon when he sold DIY to a company with a known history of bad service I have never liked the attitude of Simon on WHT, when he responded to neggative threads. Simon has time and again been rude and arrogant, yet people say he is such a great person, don't see why. He has skipped responding to many critical posts Contrast that to Jodo's CTO - Yash. He has consistently been polite and responsive to any criticism about his company. I chatted with him on their Live Support system and I have not met a more thoroughly professional and knowldgable individual like him. Simon has never even responded to my emails. In one thread he said trusts his "staff" enough to handle such issues. Contrast that to JodoHost who has a helpline email address specifically for any complaints against staff or policies, which goes directly to Yash & their CEO. When I was at DIY, i saw negative threads deleted as "support issues". At JodoHost, there are tons of negative threads all professionally resolved. I am sure Yash is equally busy, if not more. From the looks of it, JodoHost has many more servers than DIY, and has been in business for 1 year longer than DIY (according to domain registration dates). I hate to make this a DIY vs Jodo thread, but the incredible lack of accountability and professionalism at DIY since I have been their shocks me. Jodo is not an incredible host, they are simply a professional host like any host should be. But DIY/VIP/RC lack them all To cut a long story short, I put the blame squarely on Simon for the events that have been happening. I will certainly never buy hosting from him or any company he starts in the future Last edited by munick; 09-17-2005 at 01:07 PM.
Posted by Jamie Harrop, 09-17-2005, 01:35 PM
munick, nobody has confirmed that VIP Hosting are now the new owners. Everything posted here regarding who the new owners are is just speculation, it cannot be confirmed to be fact until the parties involve tell us. I think you'll find people do care about their customers. Surely though, your family come before your customers? I have never seen Simon act in a rude or arrogant manner, just one than abides by the contracts he signs, and one that is professional. I'm afraid to say, but that is just sad. How can you put the blame on one man, if you are having all the problems you say you are having? One man is not responsible for all those issues.
Posted by Zoren, 09-17-2005, 01:58 PM
Qoute from Equentity - Jamie "munick, nobody has confirmed that VIP Hosting are now the new owners. Everything posted here regarding who the new owners are is just speculation, it cannot be confirmed to be fact until the parties involve tell us." Unless their domain registry accounts have been hacked or there is a shadowy hand behind VIP Hosting, this would be a simple deduction to make. Same people claim ownership of all domains involved. Simon sold out to the same people he watched drive reseller-center into the ground. New owners not interested in meeting their new customers. Both Simon and the new owners have been less than forthcoming or honest. Quote from Equentity - Jamie "I'm afraid to say, but that is just sad. How can you put the blame on one man, if you are having all the problems you say you are having? One man is not responsible for all those issues." Please explain to us the person responsible for starting this series of unfortunate events. Who owned the company, and who allowed them to be sold to a lame company? No one can blame someone for selling their company, or providing for their families. Having said that, there is not a good excuse for selling them to a company he watched mismanage a previous sale. He signed on the dotted line to an agreement which was full of secrecy. He took very little account of his customers in this transaction. I hope those who are putting up such a valiant defense of Simon are aware of what happens to those that stay too close to a sinking ship.
Posted by Jamie Harrop, 09-17-2005, 02:06 PM
Again, Zoren, we still don't know who DIY was sold to. Until the previous or current owners of DIY state who the current owners are, in my eyes, we cannot be sure who they are, and should not be speculating. From what I gather, many of the issues that have been mentioned, came about before DIY was sold. If this is the case, it is impossible to put the blame on one man. A company of the size of DIY has hundreds of people involved, whether that be directly like Simon and his team, or indirectly. I find it very upsetting to see somebody sit there and simply blame one man. I wonder if you could explain to me what you mean by this, Zoren? If you are suggesting Simon is a sinking ship, in my eyes, he has far from it. Last edited by Jamie Harrop; 09-17-2005 at 02:12 PM.
Posted by Zoren, 09-17-2005, 02:29 PM
Sorry Jamie, I'm not interested in providing a lesson in logic or english. You can take what you want from the fact that the domains of VIP hosting, Reseller-Center and DIY are all registered to the same person. You may not have liked my inference to the sinking ship, but you need that explained? Best of luck to you.
Posted by kneidels, 09-17-2005, 02:36 PM
Whether Simon is a sinking ship ot not, isnt the issue. whats clear though, is that DIY is...
Posted by c3r3br0, 09-17-2005, 02:46 PM
What would be the point of keeping the sale private except to keep your cutomers in the "dark"? Granted, it is a private company but give your customers a heads up. The only thing I can think that the buyer would be afraid of is that people would leave when they knew the company was being sold. Hopefully it wasn't because of previous hosting business failures. If you cared about your customers you would let them know that they were no longer your customers, you wouldn't agree to terms that would decieve your customers about the ownership of the company.
Posted by hafa, 09-17-2005, 04:28 PM
This type of statement typifies the outright arrogance towards others, disdain for public opinion and fallacious conclusions which are hallmarks of DIY/VIP/RC. Exactly how can he expect to be able to tell the percentage of clients he has gained or lost from this forum? Only those explicitly stating that they were referred from here could be counted in this group. This statement ignores the multiplier effect of personal references which has been proven to be one of the major, if not THE major factor in marketing. VIP/DIY/RC will likely crash and burn, as the negative publicity and client anger generated by their arrogance and ineptitude cascades into a torrent of refugees seeking better options. In the meantime, it is the responsibility of all conscientious individuals who have already been victimized by their perfidy to warn others, now and in perpetuity. As for those who continue to deny that DIY was purchased by VIP, please remove your head from the sand in which its so firmly planted. The domain registrations are all to the same person and address. This is conclusive evidence. Last edited by hafa; 09-17-2005 at 04:34 PM.
Posted by Zoren, 09-17-2005, 05:12 PM
The whois data appears incorrect. A definate no-no with ARIN. The toll free number has too many digits in it. 1-888-255-88478 is not a legitimate number. 888-255-8847 is Paragon Honda. A check with the Texas Secretary of State Corporate Division should clear that up. Here's the info: Telephone to Secretary of State: 512-463-5555 | No fee Facsimile: 512-463-5709 | $5.00 per entity E-Mail: corpinfo@sos.state.tx.us | No fee Mail: Corporations Section Secretary of State P.O. Box 13697 Austin, Texas 78711-3697 $5.00 per entity Online Access: SOSDirect Subscription * If they are doing business as DIY in Texas, they need to register their business. This is true for corp filing or assumed business names as far as I can tell.
Posted by vito, 09-18-2005, 10:15 AM
I will inevitably take some flack from some of you, and if so, then so be it. But I would like to express my opinion on this. As you know by now, Simon sold DIY. And yes, I will concede that he could have perhaps sold to a "less controversial" buyer. I will concede that the sale could have been handled better in terms of more timely and open notification to existing DIY customers. However, I think it is unfair of this ever-growing lynch mob to be criticizing Simon for selling to whom he did. I think it is unfair of you to say that Simon doesn't care about his customers. I think it is unfair of you to suggest that he lacks ethics. It's easy for all of you to just collectively sit there and make blanket assumptions about his character, but you are wrong. I've known Simon for quite a while. If you knew him as I do, you would know that he has cared passionately about DIY and its customers since Day One. I remember Simon and staff working tirelessly for 30 hours straight when the DC goofed up and so DIY did everthing in their power to restore all back to normal asap. I remember a customer calling in a panic late one Xmas Eve after the customer screwed something up on their ded server, and DIY dropped everything (Xmas dinner included) and did what was necessary to fix things for the customer. I can go on, but I won't. The point is that this is a guy who has clearly been dedicated to his business, to his customers. You may think otherwise, but that just means you don't know Simon. I'm not a dumb person. I've been around the block a few times. And I believe I am a pretty damn good judge of character. Which is why I'm coming to Simon's defense, in spite of all the grief he's taking in this thread. Look, you may not agree with his decision to sell to VIP. And that's fine. But don't attack his personal character because of it. Yes, I'm sure you would have preferred to know that it was sold to someone other than VIP. But that doesn't mean that Simon should have walked away from the offer presented to him. I defy any one of you to honestly tell me that you would altruistically and selflessly reject an attractive offer just because it wasn't from the ideal buyer. Yes, we are responsible to our businesses and to our customers. Yes, we work tirelessly to serve our customers. But in the end, we are more responsible to our families. In the end, in my case for example, my top priority is to my wife and daughter's security, comfort and well being. Does that mean I'm selfish? Does that mean I don't care about my customers? Does that mean I lack ethics? Well, you can draw your own conclusions. In my mind, it simply means I (properly) set priorities in my life. And I fail to see how you could possibly criticize someone for putting his family at the top of the list. And it's not like he just handed the keys over to the new owner and carelessly walked away. He committed to being involved in the transition for the benefit of the customers. So anyways, those are my thoughts. Oh, and you say Simon is a sinking ship? Well, if that means that associating myself with the sinking ship reflects on me personally, then have at it. I will tell you that I pick my friends in life very carefully. And I will not "abandon ship" just because of the lynch mob pressuring me to do so. Simon is a friend, and I will come to his defense in spite of any possible backlash towards me. And BTW, give Jamie a break. Some of you are making inappropriately condescending comments towards him. If you disagree with him, that's OK. But don't make belittling comments just to make your point. That reflects (poorly) more on you than it does on him. Vito
Posted by hafa, 09-18-2005, 10:55 AM
Don your flack jacket, here it comes... Thank you for this concession. "less controversial" is putting it a bit lightly, however. Perhaps we could say honest, reputable or even legitimate. (yeah, I know, thy actually do have servers...for the moment) You're certainly much closer to him than anyone here, but the evidence on this point suggests otherwise. As far as working 30 hours straight, on holidays and nights, I do that on a semi-regular basis. Since opening my business, I average about 3-4 hours of sleep a night and work 7 days a week, holidays included. Business owners in this part of the world regularly keep these kind of hours and sacrifice much of their personal lives in order to serve their customers. While I admire that Simon is a member of this group, it does not make him exceptional IMHO. If VIP walked up to me an offered me $US 1 million to hand over my customer base I'd tell them to take a hike. Money is not the be-all-end-all for me or for most of my associates. We are in business for money, but will not sacrifice our priciples for it. I doubt that Simon was in danger of imminent financial disaster if he would NOT have sold to VIP. I would even give him the benefit of the doubt and say that he was tricked or slick-talked into this were it not for the well-publicized RC debacle. But to what extent was he allowed to be involved? If VIPs arrogant stance is any indication, they probably marginalized his involvement. Disconnecting phones, closing forums, removing service email addresses, fudging ARINN records, and possibly breaking laws regarding the proper registration of a corporation are not exactly the best means of ensuring good customer service. Not at all. I'm saying that DIY/RC/VIP will likely sink. Anything to prevent others from becoming a victim of their deceit will be a noble and honorable undertaking. Point taken and applogies extended to Jamie; he really should take a more critical view of the evidence, however.
Posted by vito, 09-18-2005, 11:17 AM
OK, I'm ready. I picked that wording because everyone has their own opinion about it. You can attach whatever meaning you feel is appropriate. Nobody ever said that made him exceptional. We all devote countless hours to our businesses. But conversely, the point I was making was that it is unfair to be labelling him as one who did not care about his customers. He cares as much as you, me and any other responsible and dedicated business owner. Well, then, we are of different stripes. You are a bigger man than I. In the same breath, though, I'm not ashamed to admit that I would indeed sell my business to a less than ideal buyer if it meant being able to healthily provide for my family. If you consider that to be a character flaw, then so be it. (Hey, we can't all think the same - if we all stood on the same side of the earth, it would tilt... ). You'd have to ask Simon. I know some details, but not enough to answer that question authoritatively. Well, all I can reference is the following quote, hence my reply: Thanks for that. And I'm sure Jamie appreciates it as well. Vito
Posted by Yash-JH, 09-18-2005, 12:02 PM
I have no opinion on this discussion but I would like to respond to one specific part I had exchanged a few PMs with Aussie Bob who recently sold HTTPMe to another company. From my discussions with him, he made it quite clear to me that he had rejected offers from large companies because he didn't feel comfortable with the potential buyer's intentions. I respect him for that decision because he could have easily given in to tempting offers made much earlier for his company. But he decided to go with the new owners that respresented the best interests for his customers. vito, the business you are in is quite different from hosting. A new owner in a service-oriented business like hosting is much more influential than in a product-oriented business. Service-oriented companies are build around people with great reputations, experience and profiles. When ownership changes hand, the people change (unless management and ownership are completely independent - an ideal case). It is the responsibility of the old owners to ensure that the new owners are equally capable of maintaining the same standards of service and support that they themselves were maintaining. If the standards of service drop, and the direction of the company is lost, the customer base will feel cheated by the old owners. But if the service standards have dropped, it doesn't necessarily mean that the old owners didn't have the best of intentions, however it does mean that the old owners may have made an error of judgement. However the old owners, in case they made an error of judgement should surely step in and try resolving some of the outstanding issues with the passage of ownership. They should take responsibility and try working to resolve the present issues. If the old owners only are concerned with the financial gains from the sell-off in ownership, and had little interest in the welfare of their customers, not much can be expected. At least to me its very clear, as a person who put in alot of hard work towards his company, I wouldn't look to sell to less than ideal owners, whatever the financial gains. I couldn't let it hang on me that I let my customers down. I am giving my general opinions on this issue, with no reference to any firm. Last edited by Yash-JH; 09-18-2005 at 12:14 PM.
Posted by vito, 09-18-2005, 12:16 PM
Thanks for your comments. Yash. While I understand the distinction you are making between service-oriented and product-oriented businesses, there is likely not as much difference as you are suggesting. For instance, I sell a product. However, the success of my business is very heavily predicated on the service I provide. When it's 3 AM here in Canada and a pre-sales question from Australia gets answered within 15 minutes, the ensuing order I receive is a result as much of the customer service I provided as the product I was selling. When an existing customer emails me to notify me that there is a typo in one of the tutorials he just received, when he receives a revised swf within minutes, he's blown away, and I have a loyal and appreciative customer for life. So having said that, at the risk of blowing my own horn, I would say that nobody buying my business would provide the same level of service that I (obsessively) provide day in and day out. So does that mean that I should never sell my business? (BTW, I appreciate the civility in the last few posts by hafa and Yash. Frankly, I was expecting more flaming) Vito
Posted by Yash-JH, 09-18-2005, 12:34 PM
The difference is not in the amount of work you as the owner has to put, don't get me wrong. The difference is in the concept of a service oriented business. A customer continually depends on their host, every minute of the day for uptime.. and many times in a month for customer support (especially resellers). In a product oriented company, your effort goes into the initial product. The after-sales support is minimum so a change in ownership isn't as influential. However yes, a new owner would never be able to answer pre-sales questions as fast as you do (I know that since I purchased from you over a year ago) But really when ownership changes, if the pre-sales service drops, it affects new customers not the old. Please do not infer from what I say that Simon didn't have the best interests in mind, or he did anything wrong in selling. I have no opinion and would reserve any judgement till a few months pass.
Posted by Zoren, 09-18-2005, 12:36 PM
Is this person now running DIYHosting? Quote from anon-e-mouse: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Originally posted by billyxt4 AFAIK, ArgoLink is a colo data center. VIP has their servers there, which does not necessairly mean that they also own DIY. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- As you have a argolink IP, maybe you can fill us in? ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- and Quote from billyxt4: ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- You know, I really have to laugh when I see customers who are paying 20 bux for a reseller account acting like they own/run a webhosting company. If you know it all and have these great solutions than why not start a hosting company yourself and run it the way you want instead of playing owner because you paid for the cheapest host you could find to rake in a few extra bucks but complain about their service constantly. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Doesn't sound like someone I would want to be a reseller for. It certainly wouldn't be someone I would turn my customers over to.
Posted by vito, 09-18-2005, 12:37 PM
Your point is taken, Yash. Vito
Posted by Scott.Mc, 09-18-2005, 04:14 PM
I am not a customer of any of these services, and this is my opinion from a observers point of view. Simon quite clearly has alot of friends who will know and understand him alot better than the majority of his customers, they feel that it is unnecessary to question his loyalty and have stepped in to defend him, as a true friend would. Although I will have to take the stance that your opinions are somewhat bias, I do not mean that personally but any good friend should go with your friend before anything else, everything else aside I would expect my friends to do the same with me so I will assume so in this case. I personally belive Simon had good intentions and that there is not a question in my mind he is very loyal to his customers, but even Simon has to admit that he may have made the wrong decision in who he chose as the new owners. It is very evident that this whole situation has been handled in an appalling way. Not keeping customers in the loop is a bad decision especially on such a huge change, which is why you will notice people leaving. While I agree WHT does blow things out of proportion, failing to even acknowledge that these problems exist, just goes to show you that the new owners possibly do not even care. Simon deserves alot of credit for even replying to this thread in the first place and taking his own time to resolve issues that he does not have too. That in itself can answer the questions people have about his loyalty. The very fact that people are even aware DIY was purchased by VIP again is appalling, people are playing a guessing game here and it would be nice if someone would confirm. The more time with people guessing the worse it becomes for the company. Just think if you had informed people what was going on, this thread would not even exist. I can see DIY customers jumping ship due to the fact that nobody is even willing to tell them anything. Simon for one should encourage the new owners to come forward. I also thought I would comment on the reason for selling to such a company. This is business, I highly doubt VIP would offer Simon something that they will not make back within a few years. If Simon received any offer he should still take into consideration his customers, no matter how big that offer may be. At the end of the day they are the reason he is getting that offer and should be considered no matter what. I can see why people are questioning Simon and it has to be stated if DIY did go "under" because of the new ownership, Simon has to take the majority of the blame for his bad judgement. Please do not take that personally, I have no issues with anyone involved in this issue and am just stating what I feel by reading this thread. I wish the best of luck to all current customers and all the customers that have jumped ship. Lets hope the new owners will clear this mess up and not make the situation even worse. -Scott
Posted by Aussie Bob, 09-18-2005, 09:01 PM
I guess it comes down to the purchasing company's level of demands. Shutting down the HTTPme forum style, 30 days to migrate 32 servers to their own DC, 7 days to migrate to their billing platform, the existing httpme team to be replaced by their team, with me also off the scene, was not going to fly with me. They also had a casualty level of X% that they were prepared to lose, with this mass migration etc. Don't get me wrong, (Vito, I'm with you) it comes down to how much $$$ they're offerring, as to how far I'm willing to let things go, if you know what I mean. If they were offerring 2 to 3 million, then sorry, I'm no saint, and I would have sold, even if it meant all the above. I think if we were all real honest with ourselves, most of us would too. Simon had his reasons for selling, and I know some of them, and they're good family/house oriented reasons.
Posted by larams, 09-18-2005, 11:45 PM
Does anyone remember the Crystal Tech purchase? I was a customer with them during their buyout. I received an email message that layed out the details. They made every attempt to ensure people this was a postivive move for its customers. The buyout happened and I did not even notice. I was still talking to the same tech support people. Shortly after the buyout Crystal Tech added several new features. Shows that a buyout can occur without a negitive impact on its customers if handled in a professional manner. Nothing DIY did or continues to do is professional. I was suckered into the buy 6 months get 6 months free. I am convinced this was an attempt to lock in customers during the DIY buyout. Or it was a way of inflating their profits for the sale. I continue to get terrible support from phone and trouble tickets. Just now I noticed my web email is not working. DIY is turning into a joke!!!
Posted by c3r3br0, 09-19-2005, 10:58 AM
Larams, Make sure you IP addresses match the DNS listing. My customers were having problems uploading files and with email. I checked DNS Manager in the control panel and noticed the IP address did not match the nameservers anymore.
Posted by designteam, 09-19-2005, 02:32 PM
So we'll take that as the definitive answer, that DIY is now owned by VIP, since Vito is "in the loop" so to speak. (Wow, I am so glad I didn't do the buy 6 months, get 6 months free deal. What's that saying? There's no such thing as a free lunch?) --------------------------------- And one more little thought to add to all this: I personally know many tech entrepreneurs who share the following dream - start a tech company, make it successful, then sell and get out at a high point. It's a 3 to 5 year plan. My point? Simon doesn't owe anyone an explanation why he sold, no matter whether it was for a noble as reason as family or otherwise. And the reason why he sold is irrelevant and is no justification for the less than stellar way this whole transition has been taking place. I even hope Simon got a great purchase price. But... I have no doubt that this will be an educational experience in customer relationship management for the old DIY team personally. Even Eirca may experience some fall-out. Only time will tell.. So..... Cheers and best wishes to all, and here's hoping that DIY stays stable until I successfully transfer all of my sites to JH and that all of my customers stay with me through this situation. Desi
Posted by vito, 09-19-2005, 05:41 PM
Gee, domotre. Mighty nice of you. I'm sure Simon will be pleased to hear you wish him well... Vito (and it's Vito not Vitto!!!)
Posted by the_pm, 09-19-2005, 06:17 PM
Oy. I finally took a few minutes (ok, more than just a few), and read through every post in this thread. This concerns me in much the same way it concerns Jamie, since we're two of the three partners working together now, as well as customers of Simon. We too experienced the trouble ticket issue that befell DIY before Simon made this sale. We noticed the ticket queue wasn't moving and we suspected a technology issue when two tickets went unanswered. We were accustomed to fast responses (typically 5-10 minutes) and when the first ticket sat for a day, we knew something was amiss. We used other means of contacting Simon, and everything was resolved just fine, no harm, no foul. Obviously, my experience differs from those who had more serious issues, but I'll come back to why I acknowledged this situation in a bit. I know Simon, not as well as Vito, but I know him pretty darned well. This past summer, Jamie, Paul (the other Paul) and I spent a few weeks researching dedicated server providers. We had chat sessions with a few (got stood up on a confirmed conference by one..tsk, tsk), reviewed them all on WHT and HH, and compared our notes. We saw positives and negatives about everyone. That's to be expected. We considered the arsenal of questions and concerns we'd brought up in our conversations with them. DIY held up remarkably well along with a couple others, but it was actually some anecdotal evidence of Simon's dedication to his customers and displays of his honesty that tipped the scales and led us to our final decision - this was long before I became acquainted with Simon on a more personal level. Thus far we've been rewarded with a outstanding service, support and I've come to know Simon as a friend as well as a person with whom I like to do business. This business with VIP is one in which I'm not in a position to comment, mainly because hosting is a newer, more secondary part of what I do (I concentrate more on the development forums than the strictly hosting ones), and I've never had the occasion to review threads or labeled fiascos from the past. I sincerely hope whatever benchmarks Simon put in place to measure the effectiveness of potential buyers will be fulfilled beyond the sale by the buyer. Given what I've read here, I'm concerned, but I'm hedging my concerns until a post-sale trend is established, positive or negative. Because of my hosting needs, I'm still a customer of Simon's (via Eirca), and I intend to remain one. I promised I would get back to the first paragraph of my statement, and now I will. I can't think of a host who has not experienced issues relating to the technology they use, whether it be the servers themselves, customer service tools, their site, billing issues, you name it. This technology is relatively new (commercially, it's really only about 10 years old), and it's constantly evolving, changing, breaking and being built better. I have no intentions of playing musical hosts, because I know the same thing can happen to the next guy, no matter how honest and hardworking that host might be. It'll happen to me too, without question, and I'll take heat, and I'll respond as best as I can, whether that's by taking on an extra support load for a while, or racking up a killer phone bill, or shelling out a load of cash to get extra tech people on board to fix a problem, or what-have-you. Simon and his team continue to do right by us, and until this is not the case, until I have reason to believe Simon doesn't care about me as a customer, until the day Simon's actions don't speak just as loudly as the words he speaks to me, I'll remain in his hands. As for the timing of things and how the sale took place, I would have approached it differently if I was able (I don't know the details of the arrangement between Simon and the buyer). But don't confuse my disagreement with a lack of respect for his decision. My understanding is that they've been putting honest effort into smoothing out all support issues,and Simon's been working with his previous customers to sort out issues, even though they are of no financial benefit to him anymore. To recap: Simon has a history of acting with integrity. Whether or not this means he always makes the right decision is nary the point. No one always makes the right decision. Given a little time, we might find his decision to sell to his certain buyer to be a bad one. Give na little time, we might find we are all pleasantly surprised. Experience may give us an inclination in one direction, but it's all speculation until we can see the actual outcome. Technical difficulties at a very bad time put a sour taste in people's mouths. This is not on purpose - nobody tried to sabotage the ticket system, and from what I've been hearing from Simon and people here, Simon has put his best efforts into rectifying matters.
Posted by PixelPuncher, 09-24-2005, 04:03 PM
I think I can top all of that. So get this. Yesterday I get an email from some company I have never heard of, with an email address I've never seen but with a charge for $20 from DIY Hosting. I reply to the email asking who is sending this email and what is the charge for. About a half an hour later I get a call from some guy named Tom. He asks me if I'm the one who sent the email and I said yes because I had concerns because it didn't say anywhere who it was from or what company was charging me. He imidiately says, "ok, so your a fraud account and I'm going to suspend your account imidiately." You can not believe the anger that piled up at that moment realizing that all I did was asking what the charge was and he told me that he was going to close my account while calling ME a fraud. I said he couldn't do that when all I was doing was asking what the charge was. He would not answer. I asked over and over again and he ignored me the whole time. Again, what is the charge for and who is this Zamberli.com? It was odd because when ever I asked who Zamberli.com is and why they are charging me refused to answer. After suspending the account he then says to fax the front and back of my credit card to some unknown number to get my account up again. Yeah right!! I am dead serious when I say this guy Tom did nothing to help. All I did was ask what the charge was for and the next thing I know is my account and all the accounts I host are frozen. After trying to work with this guy over and over wondering what the charge was for, who the email was from he hangs up on me without answering any of my questions. I'm thinking fraud at this point so I submit a trouble ticket to DIY wondering whats going on. They responded saying that Zamberli.com was the Corp. company and that I need to fax the front and back of my credit card to the number they gave. This was crazy by this point. I've hosted with DIY for almost 2 years and never have they done that to me. I use to talk to a guy name Stephon who was really nice so I called up the number from the website and after waiting for 20 minutes it finally kicks me in to a voicemail. I specifically say that the message is for Stephon and to please call me back. I heard nothing so I tell my boss whats going on he decides to call. After about a half an hour of being on the phone this Tom guy who called me before answers the phone. My boss being the diplomatic guy he is talks to this guy trying to figure what's going on. He starts giving us all kinds of crazy answers like not being able to help us because of the huge storm that is happening in Texas and that he is the only one in Texas left at the hosting company. We ask to talk to his supervisor and responds that no one is available to talk to. We ask to talk to their accountant in which he replies they wont' be available until next Tuesday because he off staying in hotels and god knows where. I swear this guy was a trip. He was trying to talk his way out of everything. We asked him what the charge was for and he finally tells us that it was a charge that I made with one of the accounts I host. He said it was a cold fusion charge and some other hosting charge which sounded crazy. First off, I do basic hosting stuff, don't even know what cold fusion is and have never added that as an option to any of my hosting plans. This was impossible I thought. He says if I go in and look at my billing we will see. I said, "well you just turned off our account how am I supposed to look at anything." He was just being a real jerk about everything. What started out as a simple question about a charge turned into this guy turning our account off without trying to help us all figure out what the charge was for. He called me a fraud after being with them for almost 2 years and on top of that, when we asked to talk to Stephon he said that he does not work there. So frusrating you wouldn't know. I don't know what happen to this host but I'm in the office on a Saturday now trying to find a new host to switch to so that all of our clients sites will be up and running on Monday. DIY is going down no doubt.
Posted by CoolBreeze, 09-24-2005, 04:17 PM
Hi PixelPuncher, I feel your pain. The former and current owners of DIY have no integrity. Lots of people have been hurt with this circus..at this point if there is anyone left hosting at DIY they should consider leaving. As folks look for alternatives now and in the future they would be best served remembering who the former and current owners are..and stay away from any other offerings those folks might have.
Posted by PixelPuncher, 09-24-2005, 04:23 PM
Any suggestions where to go CoolBreeze? I thought about intermedia.net. What do you think? I have to find someone today which sucks. Thanks.
Posted by CoolBreeze, 09-24-2005, 04:25 PM
I went with JodoHost and so far so good. I have been very pleased so far with their support.
Posted by Zoren, 09-24-2005, 04:29 PM
Zamberli.com is not registered to anyone. VIP Hosting appears to be owned by Argonet, Inc., which runs the argolink data center and argohouston, the ISP. Here's some interesting info on their tax status with the state of Texas: http://ecpa.cpa.state.tx.us/coa/serv...ID=17605003346 Company officers are also listed there. I haven't checked to see if anyone has registered with the state to do business as DIY yet.
Posted by Zoren, 09-24-2005, 04:49 PM
Funny that "Tom" couldn't find a manager as vip-hosting.com and argolink.net are registered to a Tom Rogers.
Posted by larams, 09-26-2005, 03:44 PM
I just discovered DIY's new service enhancement to better assist customers. Now when you call Support or Sales ( for a refund) you no longer wait on hold. You now leave a message and wait never to hear back from them. This is an improvement from waiting on hold for 45 minutes before getting disconnected.
Posted by vito, 09-26-2005, 07:14 PM
larams, FYI, go to www.diyhosting.com . You will see that the new owners have posted a new toll free number. You should have received this notification by email. Vito
Posted by PixelPuncher, 09-26-2005, 07:21 PM
Yep, that's pretty new it looks like. And no, they never sent me an email. Also, if you talk to Tom, don't expect to get any help at all. He has got to be the rudest guy I've ever talked to. That's ok though, I switched hosts over the weekend and thanks to DIY's problems I spent 14 hours straight making the switch that didn't need to happen. If Tom would have just tried to help me a little I wouldn't be here posting right now.
Posted by kneidels, 09-26-2005, 07:23 PM
same here - havent heard a thing about it. am basically gone too.
Posted by vito, 09-26-2005, 07:25 PM
Too bad for the new owners. Looks like they're dropping the ball, as expected. Oh well. Good luck to all of you. Vito
Posted by CoolBreeze, 09-26-2005, 07:35 PM
If you don't mind my asking PixelPuncher who did you go with? Also just a recommendation to keep any and all written documentation (emails etc. from both before and after the sale) you have "Just in Case"
Posted by PixelPuncher, 09-26-2005, 07:59 PM
Well it was a tough choice, searching high and low. I even signed up with one host and got out quick because they couldn't offer what I needed. I've read reviews up the you know what, tried to ask people on here for recommendations but in the end I went with JodoHost.com. I've seen mixed reviews on here so I was leery at first. I talked to their sales and was pleased to find out how nice they were. They helped me the entire night I was trying to get set up and were very positve the whole time. Again, this is just the honeymoon phase but so far they have been great. I hope that it stays that way and that we can build a great business relationship with them.
Posted by Aussie Bob, 09-27-2005, 01:05 AM
Which is something I can't understand. You don't spend $X00,000.00 on a business, only to drive away paying clients, that you just bought. Offerring good service is by far more time and cost efficient than offerring bad service.
Posted by ldcdc, 09-27-2005, 01:19 AM
Yet in the hosting industry we continue to see examples of post-sale actions that apparently make no sense. Then again, it could be that if you lose X% of the customers while lowering the prices of running the business with a particular Y%, the end result is a higher profit.
Posted by cartika-andrew, 09-27-2005, 01:21 AM
This sounds about right - JodoHost has got a great team going. Ive had the privilage of getting to know a few of them and I dont think you can go wrong with that company... Really, this is quite perplexing. We have purchased a few small companies in our day, and simply cannot understand why a company wouldnt bend over backwards to help the clients they just purchased. Clients are always skeptical in this sort of situation, and that just necessitates harder work to win their confidence - afterall, they didnt choose you, rather, they chose another company and you purchased them... something that needs to be remembered
Posted by cartika-andrew, 09-27-2005, 01:23 AM
good point Dan...
Posted by kneidels, 09-27-2005, 02:50 AM
i had an account with Jodo before - and have just moved over my other sites to them. am very happy with them. Last edited by kneidels; 09-27-2005 at 02:53 AM.
Posted by Aussie Bob, 09-27-2005, 03:38 AM
IMO that more comes down to incompetance, than anything else. If the model is tweaked correctly, more paying customers = more revenue, which that equates to more profit. I use one of those old fashioned business models, so that could confuse some folks.
Posted by subodhm, 09-27-2005, 05:03 AM
sighs* i just got in on this thread, i never had an idea what the situation was with DIY , i've been busy with work to visit WHT, now i wish i had see this much earlier. 5 of the tickets i have raised have disappeared, i tried calling, left a message no reply. I just have too much on my plate to migrate again. *sighs* and goes to read up on JODOHOST
Posted by ldcdc, 09-27-2005, 05:10 AM
Unfortunately that sounds similar to what the others have reported. What would be the time frame since you had trouble with DIY's support?
Posted by subodhm, 09-27-2005, 05:16 AM
its been about 5 days, though in the past couple of months their response time has been about a day or so to respond to particular tickets, i didn't think much of it as they weren't important items save for one, but now reading this thread is really depressing. Looks like i have to go host hunting and i simply HATE THAT.
Posted by larams, 09-27-2005, 04:34 PM
I have had nothing but trouble with DIY since signing up with them. After each incident, I think it must get better. Today, DIY hit bottom and I signed up with JoDoHost. Two nights ago I stopped getting email, then noticed my site was down. When I logged into my CP next to my service account read "Service account does not have a domain." I called DIY and spoke with their answering machine. Sent a trouble ticket. DIY responded to my trouble ticket "We have contacted psoft support so they can have a closer look at this issue." and they closed the ticket. My site and email is completly down and they closed the ticket. Today I called and spoke with Cristi at DIY. I explained my problem hoping to get access to my files. She said my files could not be found because my Service account was missing a domain. After a long pause of disbelief, I asked a couple of more questions when she replied "What the Hell do you want me to do?" I swear to god this person actually said this to a me. She was even dumb enough to repeat after I said, "excuse me". Does anyone want to buy 6 months of prepaid hosting? Actually, I would not sell to my worst enemy.
Posted by PixelPuncher, 09-27-2005, 04:43 PM
I can't believe those people over there. It started out so good with them at first, what happen? I sure would like to give the old owner a piece of my mind. I was never even told that people were going to be leaving their company. This guy Stiofan use to be cool and when I asked for him they said they never heard of him before. Say what? I think Simon was the guy who use to run the place according to some old emails I have. What happen to those guys? If Simon or Stiofan ever come accross this post they should tell us what the hell happen and apoligize. What a bunch of clowns.
Posted by designteam, 09-27-2005, 04:46 PM
It's just so exhausting, isn't it? I've had to reinstall CM systems for many of my clients so it's been taking so long to move each account as I make sure everything works prior to changing the DNS. I've never been faced with this type of issue before - it sure feels terrible to be at the mercy of your web host. I'm just a web dev who happens to host for my own clients and I can't make money when I'm having to do these reinstallations. Just needed to sadly vent for a sec. I do have a bit of new info: the DIY forum is not going to be reinstated according to tech support. Desi
Posted by CoolBreeze, 09-27-2005, 05:32 PM
In the case of DIY not reinstating the forums is probably a good thing for two reasons: 1. Before the sale... posts were deleted if DIY felt were inappropriate for whatever reason. I had a post deleted because they felt it was a "ticket" type of issue. However since they now claim that the new owner discovered that tickets were being lost they had 2 ways they wouldn't or couldn't answer. Yeah right 2. Having an active forum is another selling point for Reseller hosting IMHO. Not having one at DIY will not help them to possibly obtain some new customers.
Posted by PixelPuncher, 09-27-2005, 05:38 PM
One thing that is really frustrating is that my clients had some email lost in the transition over from DIY to my new host and more then likely it was email that was sent using DIY dns numbers so I can only assume that they might have some important emails for my clients sitting on their servers. I've submitted help tickets and I get no reply of course. Any thoughts on this? Would these emails have just bounced back to the senders or do you think DIY is still holding some of my emails? Unfortunately I can't check through my old control panel because they suspended my account for no reason at all!
Posted by b2b3, 09-27-2005, 08:27 PM
Until about a week or so ago, we had no idea that DIY had been sold. I found out after coming to this thread. Since then, I have read this entire thread and can relate to most of the problems that others have been having. But in addition to that, I have not been able to see any posts regarding what was actually happening just before the sale. We were told by Simon and the others that they were making a major change to their billing system. This was occurring mind you, about three months prior to the sale. For over three months, we were not billed, with the understanding that when the billing system was replaced, that we would have 1-2 weeks to settle up. Suddenly, we received an email explaining that our account was in arrears and that if we didn't pay our bill within two days it would be suspended. From that point forward, all hell has broken loose! I won't bore you with all of the sorted details because most of them mirror what we have already read on this thread. However, my point being that, if Simon was only doing what he HAD TO for HIS FAMILY and was not out to cheat anyone, then why the "BIG LIE" about the billing system revamp? Simon's decision to, let's just say "mislead" his clients, has instead been a bad decision for MY FAMILY!!! One day, we are resellers enjoying the support of what we thought were upstanding business owners; the next, we are resellers who no longer have any control over our own or our clients accounts. It is so frustrating and stressful to have to wonder if our accounts are even safe or not, but mostly, that we are afraid to contact our new hosts out of fear that they may penalize us even further. ALL OF THIS, and we had never done anything to deserve it! We paid our bill in full each month, never caused them any headaches, seldom even needed tech support and now we feel like we have been hung out to dry! It is unfathomable that ANY company could do this to a good client. We just can't believe it!! I for one am really in disbelief. Some of you here may remember me from a post I wrote back about a year ago. It was our (1) month anniversary using DIY hosting. Here is a link to that post: http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=348688&highlight=b2b3[/URL] As you can see, we were DIY's BIGGEST ADVOCATE!!! We were absolutely blown away by how great a company they were! Now... we are faced with this dilemma and don't know which way to turn. All I can say is: "Thanks a bunch Simon!!!" As of today, when accessing my CP, I have had the pleasure of finding out that they have erased all of my company info in the billing section of HSphere. In addition, they have removed all of our CC accounts and have changed the billing date on our account. Apparently, we will now be paying our bill on two separate dates?!? What's up with that??? I'm sorry to say, but as for me, I have lost all of my respect for Simon and company! I am simply disgusted with this entire affair and I wish now that I had never heard of Simon or DIY! Simon: If you are reading this post - Please be the stand-up guy that I thought you were and help us!!! That's the very "least" you can do! b2b3
Posted by ldcdc, 09-27-2005, 09:13 PM
I most certainly remember you and your threads, as I remember subodhm's story and how he ended up with DIY after leaving HostNexus. The sale of a company is just unpredictable, and even more unpredictable is the way it will be handled. In a way, all hosting customers are living with this huge Damocles sword above their heads.
Posted by b2b3, 09-27-2005, 09:54 PM
Yes Dan, I agree with you. But unfortunately unlike Damocles, we can't just ask to be excused and return to our old life. Our new hosts are making it a little more complicated then that and we are not looking forward to the change at this time. As you probably remember, we are developers and are in the middle of several important projects. This couldnt have come at a worse time. I just wish we would have known it was coming. Simon could have let us all know. The argument that I have heard in this thread, that the new owners would have lost about 10% of their business if this buyout had been previously announced, just doesn't add up. What percentage are they going to loose now??? I think you would agree it would be far greater than 10%. Not to mention the hit that Simon's reputation is receiving. It's just a bad time for a lot of folks... I know people make mistakes and I don't hold grudges forever, but I would have a lot less anger towards Simon if he would only come clean and just admit he was wrong and then, try and assist those who were affected. That's not that much to ask.
Posted by IHSL, 09-27-2005, 10:23 PM
Wow. What a long thread since I last posted. I have spent the last three hours reading (and refreshing occasionally) and will offer the following: We did not intend the post-sale period to go the way it did. To the users who have presented information to me either in private or via this thread; on behalf of myself and my team; we sincerely apologise if this sale has affected you negatively in any way. Contrary to some opinions posted in this thread, this was not a rushed deal or a way to step away from the hosting industry. A lot of time was spent mulling over this offer. After discussing it with my family and several close friends (some in this industry, some not) the decision was made to sell the subsidiary. Great planning when in to the sale, and we genuinely thought it would be a very smooth transition. So much so that the contractual obligation to not discuss the sale right away, did not concern me, as we thought we had all our ducks in a line. For some users, it clearly has not been a smooth transition, and for that, I truly apologise. I remember being in a similar position when we started EIRCA, and it is not a nice position to be in, if something such as another company being sold can affect you in such a negative manner. The state of DIYHosting, as has been reported to me, is one of finding their feet. I do agree however that some of the references to tickets/instances of support in this thread are simply unacceptable and I have conveyed this to the new management team. As with many plans, the blueprints can be supreme, but the execution can be lacking. The execution was clearly lacking on our part, and collectively (EIRCA and DIYHosting) accept full responsibility for that. We often posted on our website, and in private mailing-lists to our client-base that we did not build DIYHosting; the clients did. We meant that then, and I mean it in this post. For the people who still have specific issues or concerns, please do contact me (s.orourke[@]eirca.net), and I will do my best to assist you with your concerns and/or issues. I assure you; DIYHosting is not a sinking ship. As someone already touched on in this thread: the fact that the DIYHosting was purchased indicates that the company has a strong future. The deal would not have been done otherwise. For those people who have chosen to find another provider: Again, I apologize for the inconvenience you have undoubtedly gone through. Thank you for being a valued client of DIYHosting and I wish you great luck in the future. Simon Last edited by IHSL; 09-27-2005 at 10:31 PM.
Posted by b2b3, 09-27-2005, 10:50 PM
Let me just say that it means a lot to us that Simon was good enough to post a reply. I personally can say that I have just now gained back my respect for him. And also that Simon was always professional in his dealings with us and we were glad to have done business with him. I am obviously very upset with the latest developments at the moment and so I may have given him less credit then he deserves. I will try and keep an open mind from this point forward. Simon, I will be contacting you shortly. Thanks for the opportunity to do so.
Posted by subodhm, 09-28-2005, 12:56 AM
Its disappointing to see a company that was setting the standards in so many areas in this industry, being handled so unprofessionally now. While as Simon says DIY might not be a sinking ship, I seriously doubt his claims that it has a strong future, it is my understanding that DIY was sold close to 4 months ago, if the new management is still having teething problems, it does not reflect too well on them, 4 months is a long time to get ones act together and is a very long time especially in this industry where a one hour breakage in service is considered to be a long time. It also does not reflect too well that during the entire course of this thread the new management has relied on Simon to come to their rescue, if i understand correctly Simon is no longer directly associated with DIY, if I am correct, why haven't we received an "official" DIY response to this thread. While people might claim that they choose not to respond to threads in a public forum, what recourse do customers who's tickets disappear and phone calls remain unanswered. Dan you have awesome memory, either that or you know how to use the search function very well
Posted by b2b3, 09-28-2005, 01:35 AM
Simon just gave me his personal assurance that things will be rectified. I have always trusted Simon in the past when he owned DIY and I have no reason not to believe his sincerity now. I still have doubts however about the new owners ability to get things done, but that remains to be seen. If our problems get resolved and we dont have any major scares in the future, we will stick with DIY. But, as I said things really need to change for the better. I believe that they are just so overwhelmed at the moment with the enormity of their new obligations, that they are not responding until they have better control over the situation. I dont think they were anticipating the scope of what they inherited. Lets all hope for the future (those of us who are still with DIY) that I am right.
Posted by designteam, 09-28-2005, 09:04 AM
b2b3, I do not mean to be blunt, and I have nothing against Simon, but I seriously doubt he has much input into a company he does not own anymore..... It would be wise for you to have a "Plan B" ready to execute if the new DIY does not meet your needs. That's right, as I have stated in my posts throughout this thread, where is the new DIY management, why have they not come forward to publicly address these concerns? Desi
Posted by IHSL, 09-28-2005, 09:13 AM
I am unsure as to the source of that information, but it is wildly incorrect. EIRCA was the sole shareholder in DIYHosting, Corp, well in to mid-august. Simon
Posted by IHSL, 09-28-2005, 09:46 AM
I am sure that if you wanted to discuss it privately with them; they would be as eager as you to do so. Whilst it would serve a purpose for one of the new owners to post on WHT, it is still their perogative as to whether they wish to be an active member of this forum. With all due (and sincere) respect; it is a common misconception that WHT makes the hosting world go round. If the company owners were active and regular-posting members of the community, I too would agree that it would be scanadalous for them to be missing from this topic. However; they are not active and regular-posting members. I genuinely do not believe that they should be posting in here with the above in mind. It would be catastrophic for them, as they would no doubt be addressing some things (posted by non-diy clients) that I am selecting to not comment on, and not the real issues at hand. This would serve no lasting purpose, and could be better handled in private, in my opinion. It is truly not a case of me "rescuing" DIYHosting here on WHT. I posted for one reason; I wanted to address some genuine concerns users had raised, and will continue to do so in private, as I have done over the past couple of weeks. Does this help DIYHosting? Indirectly, yes. More to the point, however, I am hoping it will help those who request my help. On a different note, and if I am to remain in this thread, this does need addressing, and geting out of the way: The people who chose to ignore my request for polite conversation, and instead emailed me some quite rancid remarks: you should be ashamed of yourselves. Specifically: Tomas Kurov, my wife did ever-so-much enjoy reading the email in which you described her in ways only befitting to female dogs. The 18 swear words you went on to type should serve as a constant reminder to you, to grow up. I hope it is still in your "sent folder". I am addressing you publicly because my wife saw this email before I did, with my two year old son sat on her lap. I applaud you, Tomas, I have not been so disgusted in quite some time. Simon
Posted by kneidels, 09-28-2005, 09:55 AM
oh grow up Simon. it probably wasnt the first email like that and probably wont the last. i dont condone it, but delete and move onwards. you must also understand one day, that in your "taking care of your family", legitimate as it is - has caused many of us to literally lose sleep in trying to keep our heads [and clients' heads!] above water, hosting wise. unfortunately in the 12 pages of this thread (so far) you dont seemed to have understood this.
Posted by IHSL, 09-28-2005, 10:08 AM
Quite the contrary. I read every single post, and have conversed with those who approached me with their concerns, and helped in any way that is possible. If I can be of any assistance to you directly, please do feel free to contact me. I will be glad to help you in any way that is still possible. Simon
Posted by MyNameSolutions, 09-28-2005, 10:34 AM
Simon's always been an active member on this board and he has always been a stand up guy in his posts. He doesn't have to come on here and answer to anyone about anything. He is doing it for you, the customers. I am sure he would rather be relaxing with his family on a vacation. And that Tomas dude, I understand you may have had some business issues because of this, but its not Simons company, email the new management and complain. But more importantly, you don't start talking trash about a man's family, Plain and simple. To that is terrible. Grow up and be a man and deal with your problems like a man. All that being said, after how VIP handled Reseller-Center and that buyout - that should have been a big red flag for Simon in his consideration for the deal. There was a ton of fallout from that. Yeah one would assume they learned from that and the next one would be better, but it should have been a big red flag none the less. Right or wrong, it was Simon's choice and his right to sell his company, no one elses. No one has any right to judge him for it. He did what any one of you would have done. Yeah he was assured it would be smooth and he was misled. You can't blame him for that. The point is, what's done is done, Simon is here to try and help you guys with your problems, stop being so petty and accept his help - or stop complaining. There is nothing in this world that is going to somehow change what has happened since he sold his company, move on and deal with the present and the future.
Posted by domotre, 09-28-2005, 10:57 AM
Simon: Sorry, but I don't mind your family, This situation has caused many of your costumers waste money and lost his reputation but your irresponsive point of view IMHO.
Posted by MyNameSolutions, 09-28-2005, 11:26 AM
Hello ?!?! You aren't his customers anymore, you are VIP's customers.
Posted by c3r3br0, 09-28-2005, 11:34 AM
The point is, what's done is done". Are you serious? While there is no way for anyone to go back and change what happened, the effects of the decisions to do (sell) and not to do (communicate) have ramifications beyond the time the decision was made. "What's done is done" does not apply here. My clients and myself have lost service for close to 12 hours in the last week. The stress of this whole thing is huge. I don't know what problem I'm going to encounter next. This is not to say that providers don't have problems, but the issue is that the problems are so concentrated. Last week -------------- Service Domain went to another resellers client account who said DIY has scerwed up his SSL config. I actually had to call him in St. Louis to find out what the probelm was after not getting through by repeated phone calls and support ticket updates. Domain registrations dont work so started using Dotster account. Early Saturday morning all of my sites were down, and I had calls into Saturday afternoon. This week ------------- All sites on one server down again for 4 hours. No response by phone and received a reply by ticket when resolved? There has not been a quiet week for the past month. I have not received any apology or update via email, only on WHT from Simon(thank you), who isn't the owner any more. I have sent out a mass email to my customers about what is going on(yet I have not received one). I have credited customers accounts because of the outages (yet I have not received one).
Posted by IHSL, 09-28-2005, 11:43 AM
c3r3br0: Could you possibly send me a little information on those issues? I am aware of some downtime last week (though not the specifics), but not of the service domain issue. If at all possible, could you pm or email me the service domain in question, so I could have someone take a look for you. I will also try and get you in touch with one of the new owners to get some specifics for you. You are owed that much, even if you are moving to another provider. Simon
Posted by MyNameSolutions, 09-28-2005, 11:49 AM
I completely understand that this has affected your business. And I agree it SUCKS!! I would be just as pissed off as you guys are. You have that right. But you can't blame Simon. Yeah it sucks he sold his company, but its his company to sell. VIP presented him with a plan to migrate the systems and he was satisfied with it. Thats his decision. But it is not his fault the VIP fumbled the ball big time here. VIP is at fault, they need bear the wrath of what they caused. Everyone one here is attacking Simon's character, but to me his presence here trying help everybody speaks volumes about his character. DIY is owned by VIP not Simon. So whatever has gone down since the sale is not Simons fault. We can sit and debate these problems all day, but you have the power to make the point. You make it with your money. Show DIY where to stick it and move your accounts to Jodo Host. They are very professional and helpful. They are very responsive to their customers and non-customers. Jodo just set up services where they will help you migrate your accounts. Make your statement with your money, no amount of complaining is going to repair what happened. If my site was down for more than a half hour, I would have immediately started making plans to move. I certainly would not sit and wait and hope. And come on, no one saw this coming? No one noticed the DIY guys disappearing from this board - or at least posting significantly less than normal. Something was obviously up. But again this all now the responsibility of VIP and they choose not to publicly address your concerns. Bad PR decision, but their decision none the less. But again, lay off Simon and put all that anger towards VIP. I'm sorry any one of us would have sold our companies if we were offered the money. And if you were presented with a solid migration plan and it went badly by no fault of your own, would you want to be harrassed in a public forum?
Posted by c3r3br0, 09-28-2005, 12:13 PM
Thank you Simon, I will pm you the details. MyNameSolutions, I agree that Simon's character is not in question, and my posts reflect the fact that I don't know Simon personally so can't comment either way. I have also thanked Simon for posting in my last response and a previous one. My issue is communication, and while the hard questions will be directed at Simon I don't intend to put the blame solely on Simon although I wonder if the sale to unreputable(hearsay) buyers was a good one. I've been through a buy-out before and it was handled very gracefully. For one, the buying company didn't try to move the servers right away. They let things run as-is and sent out an email that in the next YEAR they would be transitioning. Not that I would have expected this to go as smoothly, but an announcement email would have been nice. An email about the nameserver changes would have been nice. An email about the server move would have been nice. An email about the control panel update would have been nice. I will be moving accounts off of DIY Hosting, but this will take some time. I don't want to rush it and I need to make sure it is planned and that my clients are kept in the loop. First ones to go will be the higher paying clients as they are the most vocal, but I would rather not move them all because it would be good to have them split which is a lesson learned. Anyway, we'll see how it goes when and if I talk to the new owners.
Posted by MyNameSolutions, 09-28-2005, 12:23 PM
The whole situation sucks. Its really a shame that such a reputible company like DIY is now mired in the swamp that is VIP. I still think everyone is being hard on Simon for selling. Its his company, his choice. No one has any right to say anything about, regardless of if you think its right or wrong. You know, walk a mile in his shoes. VIP probably laid out this whole plan to him assuring him everything would be smooth, and he was probably satisfied with that plan. Unfortunately the plan didn't go as it was supposed to. That is not Simons fault, he can't go back and say the plan didnt work lets rewind and I wont sell. And I'm not singling anyone out. Everyone knows what they wrote on this forum and in emails and PMs. Be thankful Simon is here trying to help. If I were him and was hit with all the crap being flung around here, I would like Good Luck with VIP, and take a hike.
Posted by PixelPuncher, 09-28-2005, 12:24 PM
I don't believe you helped me at all. I sent you a direct and to the point email without bashing you and you still thought I was bashing you. You told me you would not talk anymore to me through email and not once were you concerned about my issues. What happened to me through DIY was totally uncalled for and I've seen no help yet. So when you say "help us in any way possible" you need to mean it and listen to us instead brushing off my email as you did.
Posted by IHSL, 09-28-2005, 12:43 PM
Let me rephrase that, Burt: I am eager to help anyone who is respectful with their questions and/or concerns to me. Any email that starts out "i am not emailing to insult you, but..." is going one way, and one way only. Regardless, one of my guys answered your ticket to the old ticket center this morning, even though your account is not active with DIYHosting. You were even given alternative methods to retrieve your mail lost during your migration to a new provider, despite the unique situation of your account. I know this to be the case for two reasons: 1) I asked them to take care of your issue. 2) I am looking at the ticket right now. Simon Last edited by IHSL; 09-28-2005 at 12:54 PM.
Posted by PixelPuncher, 09-28-2005, 12:54 PM
I am so tired of playing these games. I have been respectful so please stop telling me I am not. Next this is not about an old ticket gone unanswered so I don't know why you are bringing that up. My issue is that my account was suspended for asking about a charge . That is pretty straight forward. If you are offended by that then I'm sorry. You have been no help to my issues but seem to have a way of making more issues that are not needed. Please stop taking everything so personal and just tell me why my account would be suspended for simply asking about a charge that I was concerned about.
Posted by IHSL, 09-28-2005, 01:05 PM
Burt, the only people who can tell you why your account was suspended is DIYHosting, or more specifically; Tom, who suspended your account. Alternatively, you can see the ticket in which your account suspension was discussed and perform the action that was requested. I extend my hand to assist you, and have gone to great lengths to do so. I have looked at the tickets in question, and you know my feelings on this situation, as has been conveyed to you in private; the arena through which I feel this should be dealt with, and is the only place I will further discuss your situation, and will be glad to do so. Thank you, Simon
Posted by designteam, 09-28-2005, 01:14 PM
Please read the whole thread. There were documented problems in July, well before the sale. I'm not blaming Simon for what happened since the sale, but, when this thread started, no one even knew the company was sold!! Most people have not bashed Simon, I know I have not. I only came to this board to try to figure out why I was getting such poor customer support. Most of us are now lamenting the business decision to sell to VIP so unless you can make some interesting comment about that topic ..... oh but wait, you did: When I first started with DIY, (it was 18 months ago now that I think about it) I was so impressed that Simon would personally help me so much to make sure I understood H-Sphere - I thought he was great. I'd still take him out and buy him a beer. But does that have anything to do with the way this business decision was structured and has played out over the last few months? How many of you, Simon's friends, actually think selling to VIP was the best choice for us poor DIY customers? And finally to Simon, you still feel a sense of pride and ownership to DIY. You have to let it go now. Humbly, Desi
Posted by lazario, 09-28-2005, 01:18 PM
I qoute ralexander to avoid write almost the same things. I feel and think almost the same, the diffrence is that I am a costomer of DIY for almost a year or more. I think that Simon or someboy from DIY should post a better explanation. I have not only the same problems with tickets but also have SEVERAL problems with at least 10 sites for over 3 months. And this is not so simple as moving to another provider. I hope they can restablish the Level of service and support they claim everywhere to have. So far I only got about 85 % of overall satisfaction. Luis Azario
Posted by MyNameSolutions, 09-28-2005, 01:26 PM
First off, I am not Simon's friend, I don't know the guy except through his posts here. I am just an impartial observer. As far as the problems in July, I would bet thats when this migration/sale actually started. I remember back in July hearing about the problems and noticing that the DIY guys were scarce, I remember thinking something is up. And I agree keeping your customers in the dark about an impending sale is a bit unprofessional. I can understand not talking about negotiating a deal, but once its signed and about to happen, you should really let people know. Hiding it just seems sneaky. If you were concerned about people bailing because of the sale to VIP, then that should have been your second big red flag about selling to VIP. And yes after what happened with Reseller-Center, I think VIP was a piss poor choice to sell a sucessful company to. BUT, that being said, I bet they gave Simon a song and dance about how they learned their lesson with Reseller-Center and this time it will be smooth and no one will notice.
Posted by -alb-, 09-28-2005, 01:41 PM
MyNameSolutions Agreed. This migration is looking a lot like the Reseller-Center migration, at least by judging from the posts on here.
Posted by PixelPuncher, 09-28-2005, 01:50 PM
Yes, I remember Tom quite well. Very rude and refused to answer my questions. He thought I was a fraud. Give me a break, I've been with you guys for well over a year, we are highly accredited, always pay our bills...do I need to go further? When he called he called me a fraud and REFUSED to answer any of my questions. Again and again I asked why I was being charged $20, who Zamberli.com was and he refused to answer and then hung up on me. On top of that, I couldn't see any tickets because my account was suspended. I couldn't look at anything because he cut me off without helping me at all. How many times do I have to repeat myself. Being cut off from my account for asking a question is absurd.
Posted by dlrmartin, 09-28-2005, 06:23 PM
Simon words are absolute lie. He knows to whom sell DIY. He khows VIP and their beautiful "style". he knows how was RC sell and all our (as RC refugees) suffering... Knowing all this, sell his company to VIP. What did you expect from them? a good transition??? do not be innocent!!!! He lies all the time while I was his customer. I lost many money, so much time, inestimable reputation, and calm for his irresponsibility. I'm very upset.
Posted by lazario, 09-28-2005, 06:44 PM
I can't talk about VIP but I can say that I suffered almost the same than dirmartin, I can add that all the troubles I had with this "transition" made me lost a lot of time I could share with my family. I have no doubt that Simon is a good person. But I am sure that his ( or VIP ) decision to keep this sold in the dark is not a good bussiness practice. I'm also very, very upset and disapointed as an current DIY client. Perhaps a simple explanation from any part could help.
Posted by lazario, 09-28-2005, 07:22 PM
Please if someone is familiar with VIP can you say anything about them ? Are they good ?
Posted by IHSL, 09-28-2005, 08:02 PM
Burt, Firstly, I do not know Tom personally, as he is a staff member of DIYHosting whom I have not yet had discussions with. With the utmost respect to you, and the remainder of your post: I will have to revert back to my reply to you above: I will continue this discussion with you in private. You and I know there is a lot more to your situation than you are posting publicly, and I for one am not about to cross those boundaries in public, no matter what the situation. You have my email address, and if you wish to call me; please feel free to do so. You can request my phone number, to partake in a civil conversation, via email or private message. Simon
Posted by layer0, 09-28-2005, 08:18 PM
https://www.diysupport.com/ No more support now? And: ummm....?z *edit not trying to bash but I find that this UTTERLY insane. Community forums = gone, I guess. Support desk = Gone. Site's SSL cert = still invalid! If I was a customer ordering from DIY I'd think the company was a mess. Last edited by layer0; 09-28-2005 at 08:22 PM.
Posted by IHSL, 09-28-2005, 08:20 PM
Thank you for your post, dlrmartin. If you must insist on calling me a liar, please do post facts to back up your claim. I can say this with 100% certainty: I did not lie to you, on any occasion. If you wish to take WHT as an example of my 'style', you will see that my directness/bluntness is often referred to as both a good and bad thing. I assure you; you can not back up such a claim. I am sorry if you do not approve of my decision to sell DIYHosting, and can only wish you luck in the future, and extend my offer to you, to assist you in any way that is still possible. Aside from that; the rest is in your hands. You can choose to vcall me a liar if you wish. I know in my heart that my selling of DIYhosting will prove to be a good thing for all parties concerned, looking to the future, and if I was to have the same deal offered today; I would still take it. On this point, let me make it as clear as possible to avoid such confusion in future: PECOS TECHNOLOGIES purchased DIYHosting. Pecos also partly own VIP-Hosting. They have the same parent company, but that is where the similarities end. They are two wholly owned and operated subsidiaries, completly independant from one another. Even so; The "WHT opinion" of VIP-Hosting is based primarily on one thing: The Reseller-Center purchase. As many customers of Reseller-Center know; their was a lot more to this situation than meets the eye. Yes; things took a turn for the worse when the mail server went bust, but let me field a question to you: When was the last complaint you heard about Reseller-Center, on WebHostingTalk? The answer is before your own eyes, if you choose to use the WHT search function. I will leave you to the answer the question, for fear of being labelled a liar, without any just reason. Simon
Posted by IHSL, 09-28-2005, 08:23 PM
If you are a DIYHosting client, you already know the answer to that question: Support is offered direclty through each resellers' control panel. You will need to contact your account manager to see if they will be bringing DIYSupport.com back to the fore in the future, but as far as the immediate future is concerned, this has already been addressed with clients over the past three weeks. Simon
Posted by PixelPuncher, 09-28-2005, 08:28 PM
Well they must have forgotten me because no one addressed me of any changes to DIY's support, billing or ownership. This happen three weeks ago? Why was I not informed?
Posted by IHSL, 09-28-2005, 08:29 PM
Lazario; If memory serves me correctly, you have been a client of DIYHosting for 13 months. I apologise if this is off by a few weeks, but I am going solely from memory. It does sadden me to see such a long-standing customer had problems during the transition, and I assure you: If you wish to contact me (s.orourke@eirca.net) I will do my utmost do get you back to normal, as I have done with the likes of b2b3, c3r3br0, dmedrick, and others who have contacted me through WHT and been able to discuss with them both candidly and politely, the present, and the future. I look forward to hearing from you. Simon
Posted by vito, 09-28-2005, 08:32 PM
I keep writing out posts here and then reconsidering and deleting them because I don't want to fan the flames in this thread. But I just can't resist anymore. Credit to my hot headed uncontrollable Italian temper. I need to post. Many in this thread have posted legitimate concerns. And if I was a DIY customer, I would be watching the thread with guarded optimism in the hopes that all will iron itself out. The buyer has a checkered past, and I don't blame you for being on edge. However, some of you are just out and out trolls. Some of you are out and out liars (Vito resists in pointing fingers). Some of you are total ingrates. We all now know that Simon sold DIY. Yet, in spite of all the abuse he is (still) receiving, he is still here graciously offering assistance to anyone who civilly asks him for it. He doesn't have to do that. He can just sit on the back porch and BBQ a nice big juicy T-bone and relax. Yet, he's here posting with patience, tolerance and commitment. He's offering you his own personal time to help iron out your issues even though he has no obligation to do so. To the select few in this thread who insist on attacking Simon on a personal level, shame on you. What a pathetic bunch of ingrates. To be perfectly frank, if I was the target of all of this unwarranted and unjustified defamation, personal attacks on family members, lies and half truths, I'd have told you long ago to take a long walk off a short pier. You already know that Simon is a good friend of mine. And so I take all of these attacks on Simon personally. All I can say is that after reading the latest posts by Simon, I applaud him. He has handled the gunfire admirably, and I've never been prouder to have him as a personal friend as I am now. Vito
Posted by IHSL, 09-28-2005, 08:33 PM
This was sent to all clients, and has been in place for three weeks. The announcement was sent to the email H-Sphere has on file for you, and I know many people have acted on said announcement, and posted their questions to the hsphere ticket system. Simon
Posted by layer0, 09-28-2005, 08:35 PM
Correct, but why not make a page stating that there? That's a direct link from the DIY site.
Posted by IHSL, 09-28-2005, 08:50 PM
I agree. I have just zipped off an email to the webmaster @ DIYHosting and suggested the same. Simon Last edited by IHSL; 09-28-2005 at 08:53 PM.
Posted by lazario, 09-28-2005, 08:50 PM
Yes, you are right, the problems were almost too much, I can say now that aprox. last too weeks are "normal" again. I will mail you a few things that I am concerned about. Now that I have read all your answers and explanations, also an interview in another forum I confirm the kind of person an profesional you are. All the explanation are good enough for me. Thank you Luis
Posted by PixelPuncher, 09-28-2005, 08:59 PM
Oh God just shoot me. This drama has gone on far too long. Simon, I've never lied about anything and I do business based on facts. If there has been misunderstandings than we are both at fault. All I know is that my account was suspended for asking a question and Tom handled it really poor. I've never been told what was going on with DIY and had to find out the hard way. I'm not here to bash Simon, or friends of Simon. I'm here because of the way things panned out. One minute I had great hosting and the next mintue I had none. Whatever you want to say about me is fine, but everyone else can take note that I do not lie about anything that I have posted and keep nothing from any of you. I'm just as frustrated as the next person and that's why I've moved on to a new host.
Posted by IHSL, 09-28-2005, 09:03 PM
I agree entirely. I wish you luck in the future, and if you require any further help with the ticket you submitted (something I can help with, or at least my guys can) then please update the ticket at your own free will. Simon
Posted by vito, 09-28-2005, 09:08 PM
This thread is just making me sick. Based on the facts that I know to be 100% true behind the scenes, it sickens me to see some people posting self righteous crap that are blatent lies. Dang. Makes me ever-grateful I don't have to deal with the likes of some of these customers. I'd sooner throw myself off a friggin bridge than deal with this nonsense day to day. Vito
Posted by Aussie Bob, 09-29-2005, 02:00 AM
The zero communication by VIP of the sale is a worry. I can't see why they would want to keep that information secretive, for as long as they did. Well said. Well said again!
Posted by jpatrickm, 09-29-2005, 04:53 AM
I just tuned into this forum tonight. I did a Google search on "DIYhosting reviews" and this is the first thing that came up. I've been a customer of DIY for a little over a year now. I thought I was losing my mind the last few months and I'm very glad to read through these treads. I have been beside myself trying to keep up with the problems I've been having with DIY. It's been extremely damaging to my business both at an ecommerce/storefront level and at a client/reseller level. SSL certificates no longer work, directory permissions are off, smtp and sendmail no longer function, my shopping cart dies during checkout. Months and months of work and configurations all changed without notice. Yes, without notice. In regards to PixelPuncher's posting and Simon's reply (both above), I was never notified of either the Unix migration a few weeks ago or of the most recent migration, which required a DNS change at my registrar. I only happened to by chance visit DIY247.net and stumble across the **major announcement**, 8 days late. I've submitted several tickets asking to be added to whatever mailing list or subscription or notification process they use so I'm in the loop, but my tickets are either unanswered or I get, "an email was sent out to you". Obviously not. Reading through these threads makes my head spin. I have already begun looking for a new host but I don't want to deal with manually moving all my clients and scores of domains to someplace else. I don't want anything to do with the name calling and finger pointing going on in this forum but I am just flat out disgusted and frustrated to be a DIY customer right now. I'm angry and my customers are angry with me. This isn't about who said what, it's about systems failing and people's businesses suffering as a result. Almost without exception, every single complaint written in a post on this forum has also happened to me. Reading through other people's experiences was like reading a post I would have written had I got here sooner. And now the diysupport.com site is down. Yes, of course I know as a customer I'm supposed to use my Hsphere panel (which incidentally is timing out tonight) but it seems every time I need to submit a ticket or want to try to find out what's going on, I have to hunt down where to look.... Hsphere, diysupport.com, diy247.net... nothing works. I don't care whose fault it is... I just want my sites working. Is that too much to ask? This whole discussion is a huge disappointment. Joe
Posted by larams, 09-29-2005, 05:14 AM
As everyone discusses what has happened to them it seems DIY is falling appart at the seams. This is a recap of my past few days with DIY. - I went to login to "Client Access" on their home page and the SSL is messed up. I clicked "Yes" to enter anyway and received "Not Found The requested document was not found on this server. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Web Server at diysupport.com" -I tried to use their "Live Chat" and the window disappears when you hit send. I know this is not my computer since I just used the same feature and had no problem at JoDoHost. - I left 2 messages for tech support that were never returned. (Called many other times hoping to talk to someone and hung up when I was sent to answering machine.) - Was told by friendly Cristi the tech support girl "What the Hell do you want me to do". - When I asked to speak with manager, was told by Christi all managers are at lunch. When I called back, I was put on hold twice and finally hung up. - Created ticket that both site and email are not working, received reply that they will have psoft look into the issue and they closed the ticket. Every time I have to deal with DIY it gets mishandled. This company will not last 6 months. I am not sticking around any longer. I have moved most of my stuff to JoDoHost. Hey Simon, can you help me get back my 6 months prepaid hosting? I put in a refund request using trouble ticket to billing over a week ago that has gone unswered.
Posted by b2b3, 09-29-2005, 05:15 AM
Joe, I'm sorry that you are just finding this all out now. It's certainly a lot to digest isn't it? But here, I'll save you some time. Contact Simon privately at: (s.orourke@eirca.net). He will get the process going for you. Good Luck! b2b3
Posted by ralexander, 09-29-2005, 05:21 AM
Well I can say I've seen the kind of colour the new company wishes to exhibit. I've decided, as I said, to move my reseller account over to Jodo - so I shot off an email to support to ask for a paypal payout of the money that's currently in my account (a whopping balance of $27.00). They flat out refuse to return MY money to me. The money involved was credited to my accounts for two reasons, one was the return of a domain transfer fee for a transfer that never happened, and the other was a $20 charge for Coldfusion setup on a plan that I had accidentally enabled Coldfusion to be setup on account start. Both were credited back to my account after I had allready paid the bill, but now apparently I'm not allowed to have my money back. If you say your looking to help us out Simon, I'd appreciate it if you were to instruct these people to refund me my monies. Not only is what they are doing illegal, it's also downright rude but an excellent indicator of why I am completely justified in jumping this sinking ship. Ryan Alexander Pinjack Hosting Solutions http://www.pinjack.com
Posted by larams, 09-29-2005, 05:31 AM
I consider myself a novice when it comes to hosting. I use the reseller account strictly for myself and have no one relying on me for my services. The other night when my site and email went down, it was dicovered that my Service Domain was deleted in CP. While tech support did not blame me, I belive they think I deleted this account. I know for a fact that this is not the case. When I was able to get my files back, I found a page in my site called jaing.html that read "Jaing Ownz your b0x". I am now guessing that my site was hacked and possibly my service domain was deleted. Does this seem feasible? Has anyone elses sites at DIY been hacked?
Posted by IHSL, 09-29-2005, 09:14 AM
For those who are asking me to help: You need to email me the exact issues you are wanting me to help with, and I will see to it that you get assistance, ASAP. That sounds like you have someone in on your FTP login, to me. I say this because it would be widespread, and doesn't appear to be. My best advice for the above is to keep your pasword fresh, and hard to guess/force. I'd also check to see if there happens to be any out-of-date scripts in your domain (cgi, php asp, etc) Simon
Posted by cybernet, 10-03-2005, 02:09 AM
Hi Simon Glad to know that you are trying to help many people here. If you remember I had called you from Singapore sometime end of Aug or 1st week of Sept. You promised me on the phone that someone named Mark or Mike would help me regarding Cpanel technical support issues. I have been a member of "your" DIY since 22nd Oct 2003 Initially I had Hsphere reseller a/c later Cpanel reseller a/c as well. Now I hope you won't find it too much if I ask for a more personal and helpful support. In the last few months I have send loads of emails, called many many times and kept voice message. If you remember when I talked to you over the phone I had told you if I did not get any reply I will email you personally with subject line "Hi from Singapore" and hopefully you would get back to me ASAP. You promised Yes. Well I sent you emails but no one got back to me. Can you please contact me soon now? I am sure you have my phone no, email id. Please help me solve my Cpanel related issues. Thanks & Regards
Posted by cybernet, 10-03-2005, 11:41 PM
Hi Simon Still no answer to my email or this post here? Please help. Regards
Posted by PixelPuncher, 10-07-2005, 12:35 PM
I've been trying to cancel my account with DIY Hosting for a week now. This of course has all been through email which I would assume would work just fine but still no luck. I really don't want to call them directly seeing how I was treated the last time I called. Maybe if Simon reads this he can get on them about replying to my emails about canceling my account. I just tried again today to cancel so we will see what happens. I just want them to email back and say that it's been done, is that too much to ask for? Just want to put them behind me....that of course won't happen until after I deal with another $399 bill which we have no idea why we would get charged that much. Guess I'm just used to these crazy charges now.
Posted by vito, 10-07-2005, 12:43 PM
If you email Simon directly, you will receive an automated responder telling you he is away from the office until Oct 14, so don't expect his assistance for another week. Vito
Posted by eplanetunlimited1, 10-08-2005, 01:33 PM
Simon no longer works with DIY he sold the company to VIP-HOSTING do a search youll see how wonderful of a company they are (insert sacrasm here) They remind me of those morons in Pennsylvannia I was with prior to DIY. I have internetseer.com watching my domain name and my site has been down 10 times in 24 hours. Every time it goes down i am going to log it here with VIP-HOSTING and DIYHOSTING name in the reply so searchers will see how many times the sites go down
Posted by b2b3, 10-08-2005, 02:00 PM
Hi eplanetunlimited1, Just for the record, our site (hosted with DIY) is still down and has been for 8 days running. We are monitoring it constantly as you are yours, and from what we can tell, it is up approximately 1 hour per day max! It goes up and down every 20-40 minutes, usually for only about 1-2 minutes at a time. Pretty frustrating isn't it? In defense of Simon though, I must say that he was helping us privately two weeks ago and was going out of his way to make sure we were taken care of. But then suddenly, he was no longer around. We assumed he was on vacation or something. Vito says he will return soon, so maybe he will be able to do something then. Unfortunately, by then, it may be too late! I know that for us, things just cant continue this way. Our business is just too important to us to ignore this problem. I can assure you though, we have a backup plan. b2b3
Posted by Cahl, 10-09-2005, 04:54 PM
If you are wanting to mirror/copy DIY's setup, then you'll need a lot more than 12 servers. I will presume you mean the setup I built at diy, and not whatever setup the new guys have, and it includes (for the hsphere system only.) 19 servers: cost in excess of $100,000 3 hardware firewalls: cost in excess of $14000 Thats not to mention the annual and quarterly prices for staff, MS products, RH products and support, Macromedia products, $2000+ worth of asp components per windows server, bandwidth, staffing prices, development prices, etc. Granted these prices aren't associated with every rexseller provider but you said you wanted to copy DIY so I am letting you know what is involved. You do not build a sector leading company by copying other companies.. you do it by bettering other companies. If you want to go and build a company like DIY I urge you to give it a shot. Having logged over twelve thousand hours of work for DIY I can tell you that just buying 12 servers and dropping them in a rack is going to drop you way short and that is being conservative. There was a lot of blood sweat and tears poured in to DIY... that is why Simon was able to sell DIY. Selling a company that specializes in a limited life industry is not something more than two or three people in this world are able to do, and without even trying or particularly wanting to ('Two or three people' is probably underestimating Simon too) I can not comment on the new guys as I do not have a part in that side of things.. but having known Simon for fourteen years let me tell you: Simon is the best person a guy could work for. For you to say in your other post that he "sold the company and ran" is out of line.. quite frankly I find it offensive especially since Simon only just got to have his vacation SIX weeks after the sale of DIY. The previous weeks were helping customers for free... the customers you accuse him of running from. If you have problems with the new DIY please do let them know. However.. taking it out on Simon and accusing him of such nonsense does not help anyone. I bet half the people Simon has helped (**opinion based on reading this thread**) have not even said "thank you", let alone "sod you" R'gds Dean
Posted by vito, 10-09-2005, 05:08 PM
Attaboy, Dean. Well said. Vito
Posted by hafa, 10-09-2005, 05:24 PM
Dean, While I respect your opinion of Simon as a person based on your long relationship, I urge you to go back and read some of the previous posts in this thread. At the risk of being redundant, I'll list some of the highlights: 1. Simon sold the company to a company well known for arrogance and a total disregard for customer needs with the worst downtime record in the industry. Just look around these forums for posts regarding the Reseller-Center debacle. 2. The sale was made in total secrecy, with Simon only acknowledging the sale after it was disclosed here. He was not forthcoming with this (claiming a non-disclosure agreement) issue with his clients, which resulted in mass confusion. 3. It took nearly a week for Simon to begin addressing issues directly relating to the sale in an industry where 1 hour of downtime can spell doom for a customer. Once again, this is not to be intended as an attack on his person, but rather to highlight some of the salient facts regarding the sale of DIY Hosting to VIP Hosting. BTW, I was able to finally pull the plug on my Reseller-Center account yesterday; one of the most liberating experiences! I'm so very glad to now have nothing to do with the arrogant, spineless, incompetent, bumbling morons who now run Reseller-Center, DIY Hosting, and VIP hosting.
Posted by dlrmartin, 10-09-2005, 06:53 PM
Well said Hafa! I share with you my happy, I'm out of RC and DIY too! I was dropped 2 times in the same hole.
Posted by kneidels, 10-09-2005, 07:44 PM
well, as the poor guy who started this thread about a month ago, i am happy to have made such a mark on the hosting industry! i am even happier to report that i closed my DIY account today, and have moved over my accounts to my Account at Jodo, that i've had for about 20 months. couldnt be happier. goodbye VIP, Goodbye DIY (as though someone there was ever listening...)
Posted by hafa, 10-09-2005, 08:02 PM
Congrats and thanks for being the "pioneer" I feel your pain, dlmartin. I just consider myself darn lucky that I did not choose DIY Hosting when I jumped ship from Reseller-Center. The folks at Jodohost have been fantastic! By far the best I've ever experienced in my 5 years as a reseller.
Posted by lardog, 10-09-2005, 10:28 PM
I have been a customer since almost the beginning of DIY. There has been ups and downs. They have changed something or there is some type of problem as many of my sites have permissions errors with scripts that I have used for years. This has crippled my sites. No reponse from trouble tickets, emails, or phone calls (I left voicemail). I have not yet given up, but...
Posted by eplanetunlimited1, 10-10-2005, 09:50 AM
Dont know if you guys knew this but if you registered any domain names with DIYHOSTING control panels vip-hosting took it upon themselves to change all your registry to their owner Registration Service Provided By: Contact: Whois Privacy and Spam Prevention by Whois Source Visit: Domain name: bronzebaytan.com Administrative Contact: DIY Douglas Lopez (Whois Privacy and Spam Prevention by Whois Source) +1.188825588478 Fax: 1700 St. James PL suite 600 Houston, TX 77056 US Billing Contact: DIY Douglas Lopez (Whois Privacy and Spam Prevention by Whois Source) +1.188825588478 Fax: 1700 St. James PL suite 600 Houston, TX 77056 US Technical Contact: DIY Douglas Lopez (Whois Privacy and Spam Prevention by Whois Source) +1.188825588478 Fax: 1700 St. James PL suite 600 Houston, TX 77056 US Registrant Contact: DIY Douglas Lopez (Whois Privacy and Spam Prevention by Whois Source) +1.188825588478 Fax: 1700 St. James PL suite 600 Houston, TX 77056 US Status: Locked THIS IS ONE OF MY CUSTOMERS Last edited by eplanetunlimited1; 10-10-2005 at 09:54 AM.
Posted by ldcdc, 10-10-2005, 10:16 AM
Wow! That sounds terrible. Can anybody confirm this?
Posted by IHSL, 10-10-2005, 11:08 AM
Eplanetunlimited1: To get that resolved, log in to the ticket system and request they push the domain to your enom sub-account. That is an easy mistake to make when pushing domains from one enom account to another, if the domains aren't in the sub-accounts. As long as you paid for your domain, you will have no trouble getting it pushed to your sub-account. I apologise for the issue, and urge you to bring it to DIYHosting's attention and they should correct it immediately. Larry (lardog): Can you email me please. I have sent you my pda email address to your PM as my normal email won't be checked until I get back to work on Friday. If you zip me the issues you're having, I'll see that they are corrected ASAP. Simon
Posted by eplanetunlimited1, 10-10-2005, 11:24 AM
Simon, Why did you sell us all off like that? My sites have been up and down since you sold them hell eplanetunlimited was down 8 hours on saturday and tech support didnt answer the phone. Im not saying your a bad guy youve helped me out so many times I could never repay you for all of them Im just saying why in Gods name didnt you research who you sold out to? I have yet to hear one positive thing about VIP-Hosting and as good of a reputation as DIY had I expected you as the owner to do a little research. You saw dollar signs and boot scooted out of town with the money. I prolly would have done the same I think I would have researched it a little more.
Posted by Yash-JH, 10-10-2005, 11:30 AM
If you spent $100,000+ on 19 servers, I can only assume you are over paying for them or are running quad opterons with 8GB+ RAM and RAID10 SCSI disks. In all honestly, setting up a solid Dual XEON Server with 4GB RAM and SCSI Hard disks in RAID1 prices under $2600 per server. Also, we have never budgeted anywhere close to $2000/server in ASP components. I have never come across standard components that cost that much. I am not trying to discredit your post. But since people absorb information on such a forum, it would be a great idea if you could be specific with the pricing information. eplanetunlimited1, if you wish to setup an HSphere cluster, you don't need to rent an entire rack. 6U spacing would cost you under $400/mo in a quality datacenter. A 5 server initial setup is perfect. If you buy SATA based Dual XEONs (RAID & 4GB in RAM), you'd spend under $10,000 in hardware and $2000 in total, for standard ASP components. ColdFusion MX is extra. Other licensing such as Windows Standard edition is priced at $25/month. RedHat ES is also priced at $25/month. You do however need a good admin team. Many companies however specialise in HSphere management and you can outsource this aspect. If you are a fast growing reseller with potential and capital, it is a great idea to go the server route.
Posted by lazario, 10-10-2005, 11:33 AM
Hi, all, FYI I am a DIY'S H-sphere reseller, and for about a week now, I am able to contact DIY via, tickets and also telephone. Take in consideration that for me this is an international call. Also having my problems solved. Thank you
Posted by lardog, 10-10-2005, 11:49 AM
Looks like the problem was fixed a couple of minutes ago. Thanks, Larry
Posted by IHSL, 10-10-2005, 12:13 PM
Lazario: I am glad to hear everything is going better for you. I hope it continues in that same direction. Yash: Why do you feel it neccessary to try and discredit DIY? You seem to want to try and make DIY, and EIRCA look as bad as possible. If you've been a customer of ours: Please, do feel free to let us know of any problems you had with our service. Otherwise. I would suggest you stop posting in this thread. It's getting beyond a joke. Simon
Posted by IHSL, 10-10-2005, 12:16 PM
Glad to hear it, Larry. Good luck with the web sites over the halloween period especially. Simon
Posted by Yash-JH, 10-10-2005, 12:34 PM
My post was in regards to the cost of setting up an Hsphere cluster, and was not meant as an attempt to discredit any company/individual. I have not been a customer of your's and haven't had any bad experience with you. I manage a very tiny hsphere cluster of my own. so i am just giving my experience with regards to that.
Posted by Cahl, 10-10-2005, 12:36 PM
Yash-JH... We use HP Proliant 360's and I build and customize them to make them as reliable as possible and add to HPs great structuring work. 360s aren't cheap and so they shouldn't be. They are very strong machines and can easily run you a good four thousand once you've backed the parts up.. as any smart person would do. Just the HP hardware support will run you around ten thousand but is well worth it. Obviously you don't buy your own hardware or you'd know that good servers cost money. Good money. FYI.. the prices you are throwing around are stupid: SATA based Dual XEONs (RAID & 4GB in RAM), you'd spend under $10,000 in hardware and $2000 in total Good luck with that. Something tells me you're going to need it. I hope you don't treat your own business with the same disregard. An FYI for you on ASP coms.. Five server lic. for ASPUpload.. $350 Five server lic. for ASPJpeg.. $500 Ent. Lic. for ASPmail.. $1700 Ent. Lic. for ASPImage (one of the more frequently used coms).. $2400 Those coms above are only six out of around 40 that go on a server over the servers lifespan. They should serve as an example for you pricing wise. They account for close to five thousand dollars. I do not know where you get your coms from but if you're saying they only cost two thousand bucks for five servers worth you are not buying them from the dev company. R'gds Dean
Posted by hafa, 10-10-2005, 12:39 PM
In defense of Yash, I feel that he was merely setting the record straight as far as system prices go. As a system builder, I can confirm that his specifications were accurate. He did not attack you or Eirca, or DIY in any way in his post. Why the defensive reaction? Yash is well within the bounds of courtesy and good taste with his posts and has as much of a right to post here as anyone else. The only jokes here are the "customer service" provided by Reseller-Center, VIP Hosting, and DIY Hosting. Now that's an attack...
Posted by hafa, 10-10-2005, 12:44 PM
www.mwave.com Get out there and save yourself some $$$$ Dean! Last edited by hafa; 10-10-2005 at 12:51 PM.
Posted by Yash-JH, 10-10-2005, 12:59 PM
ASPMail - 5 Server License - $210 ASPImage - 5 Server License - $300 Five server lic. for ASPUpload.. $350 Five server lic. for ASPJpeg.. $500 Total cost: $1360 Total cost per server: $272 My point was that it prices far less for someone new to setup an hsphere cluster that the prices you mentioned. Clearly, ASP component licensing prices far lesser than $2000/server A DUAL XEON SATA, based on a reliable super-micro motherboard and chassis, with RAID (hardware), hot-swap hard disks, dual power supplies, dual nics, system and temperature monitoring, an installed remote console, etc. would cost you under $2000. These are top-class servers.. And no I am not throwing up stupid costs. We are using such servers. If you want to know a parts list, I can PM you. HP Proliant 360s.. I won't argue with you but in my personal experience, its hard for me to configure any server that is priced around $5000 to $6000. But then again, if you assert they have costed you much, I accept that However, I was just adding my tad bit of experience for people looking to set up their own clusters. I stick with my costs and assert you can set up a reliable cluster in less the amount you stated Just FYI, if you say you have 19 servers in your cluster, we run a litle more than that at 34 servers in our cluster. Obviously I am not as technically qualified as you may be, but surely I know a little bit of hardware Last edited by Yash-JH; 10-10-2005 at 01:10 PM.
Posted by eplanetunlimited1, 10-10-2005, 01:07 PM
what is the bare minimum I can get away with until i get a client base that can support such a cluster? i was thinking about 2 windows server 2003 servers 2 redhat linux servers and a control panel server I was going to put MYSQL and PGSQL on one of the linux boxes and MSSQL and COLFUSION on another this is just to get me started. I have a Dell rep calling me this afternoon about a lease on some servers and the planet is going to "lease" me there license for windows and MSSQL and I am going to call macromedia later. Do you think It is a good starting point?
Posted by Yash-JH, 10-10-2005, 01:18 PM
This is what I'd recommend if you are starting out: Linux1 - CP, SiteStudio, DNS1 (RHES 3) Linux2 - Web, MySQL, PGSQL (Centos 3.5) MSSQL1 - For MSSQL (Win2003 Standard & MSSQL Standard) WinCF - For ColdFusion (Win2003 Standard) Win1 - Windows Web Server (Win2003 Standard) The reason I recommend using a separate mssql and coldfusion server is for economy. licensing for the software is expensive and you can get the best economy by running them separately. We infact run MySQL and PGSQL on separate servers from our linux web servers. That gives you even more stability and economy. However the above configuration would be an ideal configuration for someone starting out. For further information, it is a good idea you start a new thread as I do not want it to go off topic.