I work as a computer support for a small business, one of the things I organise is the website or more importantly to the company there email. We recently had an issue with fasthosts that has pushed me over the limit so i wanted to try and share my experience with this company. I will try to give a not too biased opinion but sadly I’m still a little frustrated about this issue and will probably rant a little so please bare with me and try to consider the problem / support rather than my moaning.
We originally setup with fasthosts about a year and a half ago mainly due to cost and also as they advetise themselves as the UK Number One (i thought that may imply they were good). Well anyway we transferred domain accross went smoothly and since we didn’t have much demand for there services that was it, no changes made to hosting we occasionally check the web stats, but that was about all the contact we had with the account panel.
Problem 1 :- Christmas 2007 - Account Panel and Email password Reset
[Please note this is from memory please take general jist] Fasthosts had a security issue and therefore they decided to reset all the passwords, they decided best solution was to send out passwords by post so everyone could reset there passwords unfortunately we and I believe many others didn’t receive our passwords in the post therefore weren’t able to change email passwords.
Out response now loosing access to emails [critical] was to ring them, so ringing both numbers we could find on their website with no success I’m not sure even if we got there automated option menu I’m pretty sure it was just engaged. After a couple of days of getting no response to both emails and phone calls we got so annoyed we drove up to Gloucestershire knocked on their door and asked to speak to someone. We were refused access but we were promised contact soon and leave mobile details, we went and had some food and they got back to us within 15 minutes.
Conclusion: Well it got sorted but if u factor in cost of travelling to Gloucestershire to complain then fast hosts cheap offer is becoming little less cheap.
Problem 2 :- 4th March 2007 - Exchange email upgrade goes badly wrong
Due to a requirement for easier access and larger mailbox with some urgency[reasons un-discussable] we decided to upgrade one of the email accounts to Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 account.
Thursday (04/03/08)
4pm Promptly calling spending approximately 20 minutes on hold. Getting told the phone tech people couldn’t help so would upgrade it to level 2 support but should be resolved in a couple of days.
Wednesday (05/03/08)
We called back at 12pm approximately 30 minutes on hold after realising the emails were bouncing they said had been upgraded to level 3 also we set up a general forwarder so that we didn’t lose any more emails. Trying to keep this factual but I would think the UK’s number one would inform someone that they weren’t going to receive emails while there system was broken.
Recalled at 4pm approximately 20 minutes on hold, to get no information just repeat and will find out what’s going on, said they would try sort it since had teleconference to organise new email setup, well wasn’t resolved delayed teleconference.
Thursday (06/03/08)
Anyway Thursday 1pm 30 minutes on hold no more information will find out what’s going on, explain has to be done today since teleconference was rescheduled for tonight and would be last opportunity to organise.
4.30pm ring back 20minutes on hold no information told was unlikely to be resolved today but tomorrow, therefore Teleconference missed and requirement for exchange email has really died.
Friday (07/03/08)
So onto Friday ring 4.30pm 10 minutes on hold(quite impressed) by now I am seriously peeved annoyed and frankly if it wasn’t a good time to organise changing hosting companies id go for it and ignore the cost, oh yer just get point across no information no help and still unresolved. Requested talk to support guys manager no luck he’s not there running out of ideas I gave up moaned at support that was probably a bit inappropriate they even commented on our choice of hosting packages like now was a good time to moan about that all I was interested in doing was leaving them. After a very arrogant conversation with the support guy I’m sure believed I know nothing about computers and to be honest going with a shared hosting it shouldn’t matter since we are paying them for uptime. Achieved nothing have nothing resolved 3 full working days after issue created.
Conclusion
It really doesn’t matter now the teleconference rescheduled to sort this out but since nothings been sorted I’ve written off fasthosts and the only way I could vent my anger was to write this quite long report of our experience with fasthost support.
Don’t go with fasthosts unless you really don’t care about support.
I will post when resolved, I’ve given up on any idea when this will be resolved I’m going with mid next week any longer and there will be reviews on every review on the net that considers them.
Just tally it up:
Phone Cost - 130Minutes on hold that on 10p per minute say that’s £13 cost on calls
Travel to Gloster - £20
Cheapest fasthosts package 3.99 a month so 47.88 a year so,
cost for these two support issues £33
Therefore total cost for fasthosts package is a stunning £80.88 for their cheapest package
So to summarise it down if you really don’t care about your hosting go with fasthosts if it matters about support then go somewhere else.
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then the base is great it’s really comfortable provides support for bum, but lets you slouch into it a little so feels comfortable.
