IPOWER Problems

C

causasui

New member
Let me start off by saying Im not here to bash this host. Im here to share my culmination of over 5 years of experience with this company. I want to make fellow webmasters and IT proffesionals who run small buisinesses aware that this provider is in trouble. There is no accountablility at this company, they grew too fast and you are never going to get any sort of "technical help" if your site is down or if your having any problems. What you will get is legions of cut and paste experts reading a scripted dialouge. That being said, lets look at the meat and potaotes of what prompted this post.

Today is 2/2/2006 I have a dedicated server with these people and I am a reseller with over 20 sites hosted with them. The dedicated server went down a day ago, and I have called and spoke with 3-4 "technicians" to get it back up. All they can tell me is they will try to "page" someone to reboot the server and then hang up. I pay $99 a month for this thing and was promised 24/7/365 monitoring.....its false. When one makes the decision to get a dedicated server they do so for reliability issues, I have clients to answer to, what do I? Bottom line. I move my accounts, I learn my lesson. Do not use these folks if you want reliable hosting and solid tech support. They will leave you hangin and not look back. I am totally at these peoples mercy right now and I have clients calling every ten minutes.

The tech guy who works in the dedicated server area actually told me that his day would be good no matter what happened once he got off of work. He honestly did not care and said there was nothing he could do to help...all he could do is send a page to some guy. When asked to speak to a Supervisior I got put back on hold for 20 minutes, after 1 hour of waiting only to find out, "He just walked out"

To make matters worse they changed a bunch of settings and protocols on their shared hosting (cpanel) servers without letting anyone know. This has completely disabled several of my clients ability to send and recive email. They have no answer and I currently have clients going on 1.5 weeks with no email service. Again, no one can tech the issue on their end, they give you cut and paste responses and there s no chain of command you can go through to escalate a problem.

I tell you these things being one of IPOWERS oldest reseller customers. I have had enough success to stay with them over the years but have also had several times like this and the honest truth is they rely on the technology too much. When everything is working well, things are fine. The moment there is an issue, of any sort, they completely fall apart.

If you want more info on any of these claims, or written proof in the form of emails let me know.

sales@causatech.com
 
You have been complaining about this host for 2 years.
If they are so bad why are you still with them?
 
Its an excellent and obvious question. I think I addressed it in my post.

"I tell you these things being one of IPOWERS oldest reseller customers. I have had enough success to stay with them over the years but have also had several times like this and the honest truth is they rely on the technology too much. When everything is working well, things are fine. The moment there is an issue, of any sort, they completely fall apart."


As many people know migrating servers is often difficult and the decision when to make that jump is often not clear. I am now at the point where I see, beyond a doubt that I need to migrate away from these people. I posted this to share my experience, it is valid and the truth. Why I haven't moved hosts is a completely seperate issue. The post is informative in nature to help others avoid getting entrenched with a company only to have to spend the countless hours tranffering to another provider.
 
Just a quick Update:11:00 AM EST Server and Cpanel servers still down.

I was allowed to speak to Don Johnson, he is the self proclaimed Morning Supervisor. He tell me that he see's only one request for the server to be looked at and this was from the middle of the night. Don is going to try to get in touch with the system admin, does this person exist?, and see if he knows anything. He may call me back with an answer at some point. Remember this is the dedicated server package they offer....you can read about it here http://ipower.com/dedicated.html
 
Wow, you know I looked back to the comment about having the problem for over 2 years..I dont know why I still use them. In the past two months they have tried to double bill me for domains and currently my dedicated server is down again, for over 24 hours and they have no idea how to get it back up. I sit on hold for 20-40 minutes for them to tell me that they are going to try to get in touch with some remote site and see if they can get an admin to do something. Honestly, they are a big company, even after three or 4 months of smooth sailing, this just blows that out of the water. 30 clients hosted on that one server and they dont see it as a priority, they cant get someonwe to put the thing online, from within their own company.........its allways been too much of a hassle for me to change providers..........this maybe the push I need.
 
causasul, this HAS to be the push you need. How else can you view this?

I am sorry to hear that you continue having the difficulties with the company and hope you resolve them soon enough not to lost your clients. My suggestion - move to a new firm. It is what happens when companies win massive amount of clients due to lower pricing strategy and then can't manage them properly. FastServers has been enjoying good reviews as of recent few months. Check them out.

I thank you for coming back to update us on your situation.
 
1:00 am EST almost 28 -30 hours and my dedicated server is down. Theyy cant tell me a thing. To boot they are now being rude....I call about every 4 hours to check..........since the guy who said he would call me back never did. Wow, im trying not o lose sleep but my ppor customers are freaking out.
 
causasui, I highly suggest you immediately purchase a VPS/dedicated server elsewhere and start moving accounts immediately from backups you must have.

30 clients isn't a lot, but you definitely won't sleep tonight. And who is to say iPower will be able to fix it within the next 1-2 days? Are you ready to take a gamble?

My advice is to move immediately, but inform your customers you are in emergency migration. Hopefully, they will wake up to half the problem gone.

Best,
 
Since you're probably going to move, make sure you get truly fully managed dedicated service this time. To me, it looks like you need such services, and ipowerweb doesn't provide such... if I remember correctly.
 
This review may be biased but i'll share it anyways. I call it biased because i had honors of discussing few queries with their online chat once and it was related to domain services but the way their operators behaved and type of replies they made, pushed me to formulate a bad perception about them as such.

I am afraid the impression they created them has been extended towards other services they offer and it get re-inforced every time i read reviews from someone who has used their services.

I'd second Artashes's suggestion. Just the heck move out of there unless ofcourse you have free hosting and you don't care much. If it is a paid hosting or business sites, you have a name at risk, business on verge of getting bad name. And when iPower can't reply to you, how can you correspond with your clients, i mean what are you going to tell them?
So, you are sandwiched and those who pay wouldn't bother much about iPower, because they took hosting from you and they see you as the person to reach out if their sites are not online.

I know it is going to be difficult, it is not about 30 accounts but time it will take for propagation and also communicating same to clients, may be facing the fury but then are you ready to face such a situation any time soon, may be next week? So, despite how much time iPower takes, it is time to say goodbye and move to someone who is accessible and reliable. Try having someone in vicinity of your home or business location, atleast you can pay in-person visits if needed in such situations.
 
Im Back!!

The server went down again and no one was there to help (as usual) Im getting used to this every few months.

I wanted to share this info with any perspective new consumers. IPOWERs biggest problem is with billing. They utilize fraudulent billing practices. For instance, they do not send out renew notices and renew any accounts you have automatically. There is no choice to manually renew like most other companies (godaddy)(netsol). They continually bill me for domain that I no longer want to renew then refuse to issue credits. And if they do the credit is often not in the same amount as the charge. What you are left with doing is calling and beggin for help. At the end of the day they cannot be trusted with your credit card. They continually try to renew my server for a 3month period when I pay for 6. Think about that. They wont send confimations of renewals either. I cant complain about overall uptime but their billing is costing me huge money and if there is any investigation or class action it should focus there becasue they are totally trying to get over on each customer.


Ask for help you say? I tryed to get in touch with anyone that was willing to help me. I contacted a senior managment member and look at this email chain.

To: 'Warren Lanier'
Subject: RE: Trey (Incident: 040301-004080)

I am having billing issues and a few other concerns I was looking for help on.

Are you able to help?
--------------------------------------



From: "Warren Lanier" <wlanier@ipowerweb.com>
To:
Sent: 4/5/07 6:05 PM
Subject: RE: Trey (Incident: 040301-004080)

Probably not- as billing is a separate department from mine and they have their own rules and regulations that enable them to address every customer concern on a fair and equitable basis.

Thanks

**note this guy doesnt even give a **** a five year customer is trying to go up the chain asking for help, he doesnt even offer to help, at all.

----------------------------------------------------
To: Warren Lanier
Subject: RE: Trey (Incident: 040301-004080)

Thanks.
You must be pretty high up the chain to formulate a response like that.

Yet..knowing you work for the company don't you think you could have atleast offered to pint me in the right direction instead of leaving a 4 year customer out to dry?

Customer service shouldn't be limited to a department.

---------------------------------------------------
Your are welcome.

Perhaps my email was somehow not clear. In my response to your inquiry of my ability to assist you in resolving some issues you are having concerning the billing area of your service; my goal was to point out that I am not able to assist you in rectifying any billing concerns you may have as a result of our billing department having autonomy over all such concerns.

In referencing this observation in my response back to you, my presumption was that you might seek additional assistance from our billing department about your concerns. If I did not convey that directive clearly, please accept my apologies for any confusion or misgivings that may have resulted from this.

Regards

Warren Lanier, Jr.
Marketing Sales Manager-Los Angeles
IPower, Inc.
wlanier@ipowerweb.com

-----------------------------------------------
To: Warren Lanier
Subject: RE: Trey (Incident: 040301-004080)

Even after reading this and realizing that you prefer to create long winded emails, I'm left wondering. Why havent you offered to help, even if you offered to try to have someone in billing contact me or perhaps even giving me a persons number. I honestly think this sense of customer service you present is the worst thing about your company. It bleeds through from tech support to billing, the attitude is, "its not my job!"

Please don’t reply unless you have either a contact number for me or are able to contact someone on my behalf. I have been a customer of IPOWER for about 5 years and don’t want to be patronized.

** I have been trying to get 3 domains refunded for over a month. They have my money and refuse to refund it. The domains are down and not renewed yet they dont credit me. For sure thats against the law?
 
No offense intended, and I mean this as nicely as possible here, but why the heck are you still with them? To be honest, I really don't feel sorry for you at this point. You've stated that they seem to go down often, called their billing fraudulent, and obviously are experiencing reoccurring problems.

Somewhere along the line you've got to learn your lesson.
 
causasui, I would suggest to stop contacting iPower about the refund and contact your Credit Card company and tell them you did not receive the service and they have not been cooperating with you. Usually they would credit you the sum.

You have up to 30-days to make a claim.

Best,
 
Good information, Dan. I had to resolve an issue a couple of years ago and for some reason the "30-day claim period" since the day of notice stuck with me.

Best,
 
Ipower Web Problems

Well, I finally had it and have moved to another provider (almost complete with transition). My server went down for over a week and I lost a handful of customers because of it. The phones were busy and no tech support was available. I wish I was exaggerating (I have gray hairs to prove I’m not). Finally, I am migrating all of my accounts from IPOWER and just in the nic of time.

Apparently they are merging with another company and will be moving all of their machines to Boston (From AZ and CA) and there is no doubt this will be a disaster of the highest degree. They plan to lay off over 300 people so the support won’t be there either.

They just sent me an email saying they are upgrading their servers and to expect down time for "FALL". They didn’t have a time frame beyond an entire season.

As my company has grown I find I am not able to, in good conscious, offer IPOWER as a solution anymore. They simple grey the company and sold it. The OWEN has a reputation for doing this in other areas...Google it..


If you are thinking about moving hosts, now is the time to do it, things are sure to only spiral downhill from here.

Thomas Gorny, CEO
IPOWER, Inc.
 
causasui said:
Thomas Gorny, CEO
IPOWER, Inc.
Click to expand...
I don't quite understand the signature... Aren't you the customer complaining about your experience with this company? :dknow:
 
That is confusing. I thought you were the customer as well. More to the point how can you be a CEO of a company if you have just ranted about how bad it is???
 
Updated. I ahev since migrated over 50 accounts from IPOWER to Go Daddy. Amazing the level of service difference and the technology offering. Its been painful and I have lost some money but I feel much more confident with the service my customers are getting. That being said, of the remaining few accounts I stillhave with IPOWER they are doing something intresting. As usual, they do not give you the option to (ReNew manual) and they will charge any card you have on file with them, when they like. Best part? Even after they charge you for a domain and hosting renewal and you have a confimation letter, they send another one saying its over due. They are trying to double dip so please please be careful. I have eaten abut $200.00 becasue of this and since they are half IPOWER and half some other companny at the moment I think they are operation off of 6 different billing systems. BUYER BEWARE!!!
 
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