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VPSLand.com - Support nightmare
Let me start by stating the scenario. hibernatingrhinos.com is down. The server is compromised, dead, whatever.
I don't know what actually happened to is, but it is no longer bootable.
I don't have complete backups. That is totally and completely my fault. I am an idiot. That is not the point of this post. I should have had backups, and ensured that they work correctly, no arguments here.
What I want to talk about now is the support experience that I got from VPSLand.
We can start with this bad news:
Just to give you some background, I had two "chats" with the "support". In the first it became clear that the "complimentary weekly backups" that they offer are a myth and doesn't really exists. They can't create a new VPS instance and hook the current virtual disk to the new instance, so I can get the data off of the old machine.
The only solution that they offer was to rewipe the entire machine. Losing all the data in it.
Here is my second chat transcript.
VPSLAND.com Sales: Oren, I already told you that there is no back up available for your VPS and it's not possible for us to take back up for your VPS
Oren Eini: okay, then don't
Oren Eini: I need the server itself back up
VPSLAND.com Sales: We want this in written
VPSLAND.com Sales: Please update your ticket again
Oren Eini: Can I get the actual image?
Oren Eini: The VM file?
VPSLAND.com Sales: No
Oren Eini: why not?
VPSLAND.com Sales: Don't you understand, I already told you that your VPS is not up and it's not possible to provide you any data
VPSLAND.com Sales: Any type of data
Oren Eini: I want the VM FILE
Oren Eini: Not any data from it
Oren Eini: The ACTAUL FILE
Oren Eini: The VM is sitting on a file.
Oren Eini: If I have that, _I_ can get the data
Oren Eini: I don't want anything from the machine.
Oren Eini: I want the file that _is_ the machine
VPSLAND.com Sales: Can I have the path for VM ?
VPSLAND.com Sales: VM FILE *
Oren Eini: I don't know. It is on your system
VPSLAND.com Sales: Well Oren, we are not able to mount your VPS on main node which is the reason. We are not able to take back up of your VPS. So Its not possible to provide you VM FILES
Oren Eini: I want the file that you are mounting
Oren Eini: Not the VM itself
VPSLAND.com Sales: Have read my last message carefully
VPSLAND.com Sales: ?
Oren Eini: Yes.
Oren Eini: You are trying to mount the VPS
Oren Eini: You are failing.
Oren Eini: I want the VPS file
Oren Eini: The thing that you are trying to mount
VPSLAND.com Sales: Yes, The VM files are also mounted under root directory
VPSLAND.com Sales: Which is not mounting
VPSLAND.com Sales: So its not possible for us to provide you any VM FILES
Oren Eini: Sorry?
Oren Eini: what root directory are you talking about?
VPSLAND.com Sales: Is there anything else I can help you with ?
Oren Eini: I want the file that you are trying to mount.
VPSLAND.com Sales: You do not understand that, right ?
Oren Eini: The .vhd file
VPSLAND.com Sales: So just listen to me, we are not able to provide you any type of VM FILES
VPSLAND.com Sales: Would you like to reinstall your VPS or NOT ?
Oren Eini: Let me go back to the beginning
Oren Eini: There is the VPS, right?
VPSLAND.com Sales: Ae are not able to provide you any type of VM FILES
VPSLAND.com Sales: Ae = We*
Oren Eini: Please bear with me.
Oren Eini: There is the VPS
Oren Eini: You are trying to mount that on the VM Server
Oren Eini: The VPS is a file
VPSLAND.com Sales: Read above chat once again
Oren Eini: I want that file
Oren Eini: It is not a file inside the VPS.
Oren Eini: It is the file that _is_ the VPS.
Oren Eini: It is the vhd file that you are trying to mount
VPSLAND.com Sales: I understand that, and I apologize for the inconvenience. The fact of the matter is that you are talking to the Sales department right now and unfortunately we don't have any control over such technical issues.
Oren Eini: Okay, than can I get a SUPPORT person to talk to me?
Oren Eini: I am talking to support.vpsland.com
Oren Eini: Not sales.vpsland.com
Oren Eini: I need a TECHNICAL person to solve this issue
VPSLAND.com Sales: They do not have Live Chat support
Oren Eini: Do they have a phone?
VPSLAND.com Sales: Contact them through the email to support@vpsland.com
Oren Eini: Can they answer my emails in a reasonable time frame?
VPSLAND.com Sales: We do not have phone support
Oren Eini: 12 hours between emails is not acceptable
VPSLAND.com Sales: Update to your ticket ULX-445304
Oren Eini: Again, 12 hours between responses are NOT helpful
Oren Eini: If there is support stuff, I would like to communicate with them.
Oren Eini: ASAP
VPSLAND.com Sales: No, they are in the Support Department
Oren Eini: That is lovely.
Oren Eini: Please contact them and tell them that I would like to get a tech people respond to this ticket in a reasonable time frame
VPSLAND.com Sales: Sure, I will update them for you
Oren Eini: Thank you, bye
As of now, for a support issue that is marked as critical, I still don't have any response from their tech support. This is about 30 minutes after the chat, by the way.
Now, this isn't an issue of violating SLA, I don't have one with them for support, I find this deeply disturbing in term of customer service.
I won't be doing business with them again.
Comments
This must have been frustrating. Support without any means to contact them? Ridiculous...
I find his attitude quite insulting, especially considering it is a sales person.
Unfortunately, this seems to be much more common than people believe:
I had a dedicated machine with Server Pronto for a couple months with a credit card that was about to expire. When the card expired, I received no notification from them. When the machine went offline for lack of payments, I contact them to see what was going on. It turns out that they had cancelled the plan, formatted the machine and were charging me not only for the months I had not used and for an unspecified amount to cover damages.
At least I had S3 backups. Of course, restoring the site will stil be a hassle.
I had the same problem with them. VPSLand has the worst support ever. You're lucky if they contact you within 12 hours. I waited two days for a reply to my ticket.
They are a joke. I switched to jodohost right after I talked to them.
They say they offer complementary weekly backups and they don't have backups of your machine?
Why don't you sue?
Because it wouldn't get me my data back and is a big hassle
I had a VPS on VPSLand.com once upon a time.
Their support sucked. It took them days to setup my VPS. Dumped them before they even got my server online.
In the Sales Person's defense, there may be some truth in what was said. But the sales person totally went off the wrong end. If you purchased Windows EZ series, their virtualization strategy uses Virtuozzo, which is OS Virtualization, not true Machine Virtualization, ... Assuming you got the EZ series, there is no "traditional" VHD file in the way we MS people traditionally think about Virtual Machines because of Virtuozzo's OS templating. Virtuozzo is not MS Virtual Server and it doesn't use VHDs. So, providing you with a working backup is different than copying some "VHD" file, from my understanding anyway....
If you're looking for a hosting company that actually uses MS Virtual Server 2005 and "VHDs", with utmost greatest tech support, try:
http://www.serverintellect.com/vps/
Their pretty good. Support is always online 24/7/365. But again, a little more expensive because they are using MS Virtual Server VHD Machine Virtualization, not OS Virtualization.
If you're looking for cheaper hosting, try:
http://www.triple8.net/vps.htm
I'm currently using triple8 for all my production servers in LA, and they're pretty good, stable, and fast, and their network has some pretty good AS-peering. I've had a few small problems at first, but they were all been quickly resolved. No major problems yet. Support / tech people are generally available when your servers go down. If not, just wait a few hours, and someone will be back at the desk. They're really good. Try 'em!
o'boy...
Hey Oren,
the same damn thing happened to me at vpsland! i filed a report with ripoffreport.com http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/0/226/RipOff0226440.htm.
i was able to convince them to refund some of the funds i paid ($152).
so i would say at the very least make sure u file a report on ripoffreport and get a refund for all the money u ever paid them.
This kind of attitude seem to be common in companies that have grow above a certain size. Just have a look at e.g. Microsoft. THEY some times think that the customer must be happy to be accepted by them and not vice-versa. We have made some similar experiences with our server hoster here in Switzerland (we have a dedicated server hosted by a well established swiss hosting company). The support is unwilling to really help. They give you answers to clear questions that make you cry!
We are now in the situation that we think to self-host our servers...
Sometimes I wonder what kind of people those company hire for support... It's often that a customer just want a clear explanation of what happened. Thing happen, people screw up... those type of thing are understandable. But it's completely unacceptable to beat around the bush and won't fess up to the real problem. I had a similar incident with godaddy one type. After play ping pong email with support for awhile a short polite message to the president office took care of the problem.
"Oren Eini: If there is support stuff, I would like to communicate with them.
Oren Eini: ASAP
VPSLAND.com Sales: No, they are in the Support Department "
ROFL
Wow that sucks.
Hopefully if I decide to try out a different hosting company I will remember not to deal with them.
This sales guy must have quite a low IQ. I'm serious.
Hmm, don't know VPSland. Most of the guys out on the internets selling hosting type services are nothing more than resellers for another companies service. That's why when you try to talk to support, you get sales... You talk to them and try to explain what is going on, and then they forward that information to some other guy working at another company who is actually working the problem.
I host at crystaltech, but years ago I got mad at them when it looked like they were going to start focusing on php/mysql just when asp.net had come out. So I started to move my stuff to another host, only to find out this other host I had found was nothing more than a reseller. I was about two weeks into this when crystaltech changed their position and said they'd work on getting asp.net/sql hosting online before php/mysql. Apparently my complaint on the company forum had some impact. :-)
Steve,
Scary thing is that after I read your post, I read a response from VPS saying that they contacted a 3rd party to try get it up online
We`ve had big problems with serverintellect.com as well. --> completely clueless support, similar to the one in the transscript. I'd like to -1 the recommendation above.
I had a bad experience with VPSLand also, but one person I found who does offer a decent cheap dedicated server was: http://www.leeware.com/
This guy doesn't lie to you, he runs his own data center, but I've had really good conversations over email with him about what he offers. For a while he was offering them at 50 US dollars a month plus bandwidth, not sure if he is still offering that or not, but starting at even 60 isn't bad.
I had been thinking of getting one and setting up my own VMWare Server or VirtualBox node, since he offers 4GB on his servers, plenty of room for VMWare :). But of course that also requires your own Windows cd-key.
VPSLand has some really good offers, but I used to use my server as an email smart-host routing to a server in my basement and I know it'd bounce back emails from people all the time, like my server would go down. And ASP.NET based code would run horrible on it, for some reason.
Currently I just have shared hosting at successful hosting (www.successfulhosting.com), and haven't had a problem with them either.
Vpsland......oh I think enough people here have said what needed to be said. On a side note as Brian stated, Server Intellect does have one hell of a support team. I had a vps with then 6 months ago, then we moved up to a full blown server. When it came time to migrate, man let me tell you all I had to do was log in and point them in the direction I wanted. They moved files, and got my CP looking like my old one. I am still impressed. Those guys are down right monsters when it come to support. I even got 2 calls after the server was up and running to make sure I was running fine. I mean they called me!!! When was the last time you heard of an host calling you? Yea you pay a little bit more, but the service is outstanding.
The world doesn't care how cool software is if it isn't backed up.
I am preferential to http://www.liquidweb.com their staff truely does care about the operation of your VPS
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