Fasthosts warning

[Maljonic]

I was with Fasthosts but they were absolutely terrible; their control panel should be called an 'additional options for an additional charge panel', everything costs extra. MYSQL database= £50 per year extra, MSSQL= £250 per year extra, server stats cost £10 per year extra, every kind of extra costs more money. My site ran like a dying dog and their mysql made my phpbb2 run even worse. Their support is abismal where the staff you e-mail to never actually directly answer your questions but point you to a file on their web-site that isn't remotely helpful. I even wrote in one e-mail asking if they could truely help me out rather than point me to a file to read, the replied that unfortunately they could not! I rang their £1 per minute scripting helpline out of desperation who told me they couldn't really help, giving me a number to ring that never answered.

They advertise their cheap hosting with optional extras for a small additional charge, I don't call doubling your yearly cost a small additional charge, not to mention multiplying it by 5 or 6 times. I did pay the £50 for mysql because I needed my board to work and thought it may be worth it if they are really fast and reliable. They weren't, so I asked for my money back yesterday; they gave me the £60 I originally paid for a year's hosting and domain registration but said they could not give me back the £50 I paid for MYSQL because it was an optional extra, as if that made all the sense in the world. I've paid £50 for a database for a year and only used it for one week, I can't get my money back for it and I can't use it either as all my account stuff has been deleted since I cancelled my subscription.

Anyway, I'm with Burton Hosting now and everything runs like a dream; you get everything they say you get with no additional extra costs, their control panel really is a control panel and not a shopping basket. They even have it set up so you can just click 'bulletin board' and it sets up the board for you with you as the administrator and all the files in the right place. There is so much free stuff to use on the control panel I haven't got around to looking at it all yet. I imagine that this is normal with a lot of hosts but I've only been to Fasthosts before this, so it all seems fantastic!

 

[SilverHood]

To get back your 50 quid, do a chargeback with your bank, stating poor service as reason.

You will 99% certainly get your money back

 

[Maljonic]

I suppose I could give it a try, 50 quid is quite a lot of money to just forget about.

 

[Shovel]

Frankly: Get back the £50. Spend £10 on beer. Then spend £40 on hosting from Burton. 2x mySQL databases as standard.

I don't know about bolting anything else on - you certainly don't get anything like SSH access on their personal packages - but the control panel is excellent and there're some slightly greater than basic stats included + all the usual.

Fatty and I share hosting with them and have had nothing but excellence, Fatty can also give you a rather hackish java app to automate downloading your nightly backup too.

 

[Scooba da Bass]

Alternatively if you know someone in the states you can grab free hosting from 1&1 The hosting is absolutely top notch for the price;

    * 500 MB web space
    * 5,000 MB/month traffic ($.99 per GB for additional traffic)
    * No limits on simultaneous hits/bandwidth
    * Protected by firewall
    * Daily backups of your website
    * 99.9% Uptime guarantee


Website features:

    * Advanced live site statistics, log files, ready-to-run CGI-library, own CGI programming (Perl, Python), FrontPage 2002 extensions
    * Advanced Password Protection
    * 5 FTP accounts
    * PHP3 & PHP4
    * MySQL
    * Proxy SSL Secure Server
    * Cron Jobs
    * SSH Secure Shell Access

CRM/E-commerce:

    * WebElements
    * Newsletter Tool
    * One-on-one online dialogue
    * Turn-key web database applications
    * Chats
    * Forums

Domain names:

    * Register or transfer .com/.net/.org/.info for just $5.99/year
    * 50 subdomains (e.g., shop.yourDomain.com)
    * Point up to 100 external domain names to 1&1

E-mail handling:

    * 50 POP3 e-mail accounts (50 MB each)
    * Catch-all e-mail addresses
    * Auto-responders, unlimited forwarding.
    * 1&1 Advanced WebMail
    * Symantec virus scanner

No downtime so far and no complaints here. SSH and cronjob access are really useful and you'll be hard pressed to find any comparable host.

 

[Maljonic]

Frankly: Get back the £50. Spend £10 on beer. Then spend £40 on hosting from Burton. 2x mySQL databases as standard.

I don't know about bolting anything else on - you certainly don't get anything like SSH access on their personal packages - but the control panel is excellent and there're some slightly greater than basic stats included + all the usual.

Fatty and I share hosting with them and have had nothing but excellence, Fatty can also give you a rather hackish java app to automate downloading your nightly backup too.

I'm already on Burton now, and it's 3x mysql,

 

[Shovel]

They've upped it? Nice. Not that we are using either of ours yet. It's been hosting the old static site for over a year while we've been 'developing' the new PHP/mySQL version (read: thinking about developing, sometimes).

Poke Fatty for the backup download script if you're interested. You just stick it in Task Scheduler and rest safe in the knowledge that you get a back up every day

 

[Jonty]

Hi Maljonic

I feel somewhat responsible for recommending FastHosts, I guess you never can tell. Sorry you've had so much trouble with them. I only hope they honour their 30-day money back guarantee.

Sorry once again *sobs*

Jonty

 

[Maljonic]

Hi Maljonic

I feel somewhat responsible for recommending FastHosts, I guess you never can tell. Sorry you've had so much trouble with them. I only hope they honour their 30-day money back guarantee.

Sorry once again *sobs*

Jonty

Don't worry about it, it's all a learning experience. Because nothing worked properly on Fasthosts I've learnt all sorts of things about php etc that I didn't know before. Fasthosts have paid me the money back for a year's web hosting but they wont pay me back the £58.75 I gave them for a MYSQL database only a week ago... I'm going to phone my bank in a minute and see what they say.

 

[Maljonic]

To get back your 50 quid, do a chargeback with your bank, stating poor service as reason.

You will 99% certainly get your money back

My bank said they can't do anything like that, didn't really know what I meant either.

edit: I've resorted to writing a 'disgusted' e-mail to different Fasthosts departments, I'll wait and see what happen; probably nothing.

 

[SilverHood]

Err, they should be able to. ( used to work for a webhosting company, customers did it all the time, sadly)

You know, when you get your statement, and you dispute a payment - thats what I mean You may have to go through a special department... for my bank, the contact details are on my statements (I think).

Of course, if you paid by cheque, you cant get anything back unless fasthost's are nice

 

[Lazarus]

My bank said they can't do anything like that, didn't really know what I meant either.

edit: I've resorted to writing a 'disgusted' e-mail to different Fasthosts departments, I'll wait and see what happen; probably nothing.

you could also try the small claims court or, as I have done previously, written to "The Judge" at the Sunday Mail (if you have the equivalent down there)

Some companies act like lightning when he/she gets involved, where before it was like a sloth extracting itself from a barrel of sticky treacle!

 

[Maljonic]

where has my signature gone btw?

 

[Shovel]

It only appears once per page

 

[Maljonic]

aaah, I wonder why that is?

 

[Maljonic]

My bank said they can't do anything like that, didn't really know what I meant either.

edit: I've resorted to writing a 'disgusted' e-mail to different Fasthosts departments, I'll wait and see what happen; probably nothing.

I got my first reply to this today, I wrote:

Hello, I recently cancelled my account with you:

You have paid me back the money I paid for a year's hosting but I'm told
I can not get back the £58 I payed for a year's MYSQL database because
it was an 'optional extra', as if this makes all the sense in the world!
Is this how Fasthosts makes it's money, by supplying a bad service then
ripping people off when they cancel? I had that database for only 6 days
for crying out loud, do you think I'm supposed to just write off 58 quid
as one of those things and just forget about it?



They replied:

Dear Sir

Thankyou for your mail. The 30 day money back guarantee refers to the
payment of the web hosting fee only and not any additional features.

If you wish to discuss this further, please contact the Customer Service
department on +44 (0) 1452 541260.

Yours sincerely

Matt Shepley
Account Manager
Fasthosts Internet Limited

I replied further:

Dear Matt,

So you're going to take my £58 for a service that I only had for 6 days that didn't work properly? This kind of prosaic response, telling me something I've already heard and referred to, is precisely the reason I cancelled my Fasthosts account in the first place.

 

[wyrd_fish]

go and see traiding standards...

if the db didn't work propper, you should be entitled to all your monies back...

 

[Padwah]

go and see traiding standards...

if the db didn't work propper, you should be entitled to all your monies back...

especially as under the distance selling regulations you are allowed to change your mind within seven days for a full refund. I haven't got a link handy for you but do a google for distance selling regulations and you should find what you need.

Don't just do it for yourself, do itcause the boobies told you too!

 

[Maljonic]

Seems their crapness is not exactly unheard of: Bad Fasthosts, this actually comes up on page one of a Google search for fasthosts. I found it when I was trying to find out if this thread has turned up on any searches yet.

 

[Zephirus]

In all honesty in their defense i've never had any problems with my fasthosts account. it's always worked fine, and although it's pricey (£20+) a month, it's worth it for me if only for the ability to speak to an actual person on the other end of a phoneline.

 

[Maljonic]

In all honesty in their defense i've never had any problems with my fasthosts account. it's always worked fine, and although it's pricey (£20+) a month, it's worth it for me if only for the ability to speak to an actual person on the other end of a phoneline.

That's exactly what Fasthosts say in some of their advertising; going by some of the people I've spoken to I'm not entirely sure thay are actual people, most of the time I wished I was speaking to a machine.

 

[Whipped]

Fancy making Fasthosts work

 

[spaz]

lol!

I used to use Fasthosts, their machines were too slow to run my simple ASP/Access website, just used to get timeout errors. I was so glad when my years hosting ended!