[skidz]

An honest user review of www.webfusion.co.uk web hosting and VPS

Yesterday, I had a client purchase a VPS from http://www.webfusion.co.uk.

Initially, everything looked good:
prices - good
spec - good
turn around time - good

The first downfall:
There purchasing system wouldn't allow me to purchase a domain name to go with the server, this had to be done in a second checkout process.

So we managed to purchase the domain.

Webfusion offer plesk as the control panel of choice, which I've never used before, but have heard good things.

I had a little play around, decided I'd changed settings I didn't want to change, so I thought; I'll reinstall the OS, roll back to default.

I did so, but once the install had complete, I tryed to verify my build. Error - Unavailable! Great.

I then tryed to log in to plesk using the default user name and password, could not login, username or password incorrect. Great.

I then called web fusion tech support, I waited on hold (on my mobile to an 0845 number for 30 minutes), I was then taken to a voice mail where I was told to leave my name and number and some one would call me back, I did so. AN hour later, I still hadn't had my callback, so I called again.

This time I went immediately through to a chap who was very helpful, infact, he was far too helpful.

This chap, was happy to reset my root / admin user name and password and give me the new password over the phone. This was great for me, I was logged into Plesk in no time. It wasn't until I put the phone down that I realised, hold on a second..... This guy didn't even ask my name, all he wanted was the IP Address of the server. Woahhhhhh. My data is highly sensitive!

Does this mean I can phone them and give them any IP Address on there cluster and straight away get access????

That's the major issue.

Along with this, there has been masses of other small issues, mainly there control panel. It will hardly let me do anything, I tryed to verify a build ERRORRRRR! I try to change DNS Settings for my domain ERRORRRRR! I called there support again, spent another 10 minutes on hold to an 0845 number from my mobile, this time the guy at the end of the phone can't answer any of my questions and tells me to submit a support ticket via there control panel, you guessed it ERRORRRRRR! It took me 5 attempts before my support ticket went through!

I'm now 12 hours behind schedule, just because I needed to change an A Name DNS Record.

I need to check the terms and conditions but I'm pretty sure, once this billing cycle is complete, I'll not be going anywhere near Web Fusion, I am very tempted just to take the hit, lose the money that's been paid and setup a VPS Elsewhere.

The bugs / errors I can deal with, them compromising my data? No way hosay!

Just to top it off, I've tweeted @webfusionuk probably 7/8 times, they've took the time to follow me on twitter, but not to reply to any of my tweets.

Do any of you have experiences with this company?

This post has been edited by skidz: 15 November 2011 - 04:06 PM

[MH-Nick]

Sounds very unfortunate that all your common tasks ended with an error, even submitting a support ticket. Maybe there was an error with your profile setup that caused this daisy chained set of errors (I'm not here to defend Web Fusion, it just seems strange that so many things didn't work for you).

Regarding the security access issue, was your mobile registered in your client details? Although it is still insecure practice, possibly the engineer was satisfied with the information you gave him, that he correctly assumed you were the owner (a long with seeing your mobile number - which of course, can be faked).

I don't have any previous experience with WebFusion, but I've met some of their staff and it seems strange that so much of this would have been over looked (including the inability to submit a support ticket).

[skidz]

I did manage to submit a support request eventually but it took a fair few fails first!
No, my mobile number wasn't registered with them, the VPS isn't even in my name, it's in the clients name.

I've just made my client aware of what happened and he's not very happy at all.

It's truley a shame as WebFusion was very highly recommended by people i have a lot of respect for in this industry!

[MH-Nick]

Ah, in that case the engineer really was a little too helpful...

[CSN-UK]

This certainly sounds concerning, especially the privacy/security issues that could easily occur if someone where simply pose as a customer with the information that you've described... which is readily accessible. It would certainly open the door to potential large scale security breaches if exploited.

As for the support, I'm not massively surprised... It seems a lot of larger companies are losing touch with supporting their clients and community... be this a side effect of their growth, marketing strategies or otherwise it is certainly an issue.

Personally support, performance and reliability are the key factors in hosting as value added products, as offers and features are fairly universal and competing on price only conflicts with this as does the age old "unlimited bandwidth/disk space" offers...

As such with larger providers opting for the latter to compete with each other to gain the ever decreasing number of price conscious and uninformed users, it seems only inevitable that support and performance will suffer, especially considering the usual such user are the type that often generate more support queries due to lack of experience etc...and equally pay less due to the offers that firstly enticed them.

It certainly is a shame...

On a side note: One of the reasons I branched into hosting all those years ago could be attributed to the 4 day response time from what then where considered the top providers who still today have similar shocking support times.

This post has been edited by CSN-UK: 15 November 2011 - 05:03 PM

[skidz]

In the interest of fairness, I should add, once I managed to submit a support ticket, They were very fast to reply multiple times!

EDIT:

Seems like the fuss I've kicked up has hit home!

Just received this Message on twitter,

This post has been edited by skidz: 15 November 2011 - 05:14 PM

[wesh.co.uk]

I would also add, as a side-note, that any social networking should be taken exactly as that "Social" and never depended on for support purposes, as thats just unfair.

I've heard quite a number of people that say they get support via twitter, and then bitch about it when that company doesnt reply, but I think its highly unfair to expect any company to communicate with you via a third party, for anything other than "for the fun of it"...

We have had it a few times too... You can sit and spend an entire day sorting out peoples problems in 5 minutes flat, but will always get 1 who phones up and says "Why havent you replied to my tweet?" and your left thinking "Huh... why didnt you just call in the first place lol"

Although, we dont have automated answering systems or queues, just humans that answer within a few rings
Bit old fashioned like that... None of these shiny spangly state-of-the-art menus and "press 1 for this, press 2 for that".... he he he

[rallport]

skidz, on 15 November 2011 - 04:04 PM, said:

This chap, was happy to reset my root / admin user name and password and give me the new password over the phone. This was great for me, I was logged into Plesk in no time. It wasn't until I put the phone down that I realised, hold on a second..... This guy didn't even ask my name, all he wanted was the IP Address of the server. Woahhhhhh. My data is highly sensitive!

That's both appalling and quite scary - I'd personally be on the phone to them asking wtf they are playing at. Inexcusable in my opinion - whatever level of service you're on.

Have had a couple of experiences with them in the past - although things may or may not have changed since then. Whenever you call you got asked if you want support or sales. The sales number used to go through to an offshore call center where everyone was very hard to understand. Interestingly, choosing the sales option put you instantly through to a UK based location where your call was answered immediately.

Personally thought that was a little bit low.

EDIT: also, aren't webfusion part of/linked to fasthosts ?

This post has been edited by rallport: 15 November 2011 - 05:57 PM

[rallport]

wesh.co.uk, on 15 November 2011 - 05:33 PM, said:

Although, we dont have automated answering systems or queues, just humans that answer within a few rings
Bit old fashioned like that... None of these shiny spangly state-of-the-art menus and "press 1 for this, press 2 for that".... he he he

Honestly, absolutely nothing wrong with that. In this day and age it's refreshing and something I always personally look for. Sounds really stupid, but having a number you can call, get an answer within a few rings and speak to a UK based office is far too uncommon nowadays.

[Spitfire]

skidz, on 15 November 2011 - 04:04 PM, said:

Do any of you have experiences with this company?

I've got a dedicated server with them and had a fair few shared hosting accounts with them in the past. To be honest, they've been okay for me over the years - reliable service, competitive pricing and always quite quick to reply to support queries. A lot better than most other budget hosts out there.

My biggest complaint would be their cancellation process. They might have changed it these days but it was the old "make it as difficult as possible in the hope you'll get fed up" system. It involved having to write/email back confirmation exactly 30 days before the cancellation date. Plus, even if you managed to get it cancelled correctly their automated billing service would usually send you invoices for the service months later threatening court action if you don't pay.

[skidz]

wesh.co.uk, on 15 November 2011 - 05:33 PM, said:

I would also add, as a side-note, that any social networking should be taken exactly as that "Social" and never depended on for support purposes, as thats just unfair.

I've heard quite a number of people that say they get support via twitter, and then bitch about it when that company doesnt reply, but I think its highly unfair to expect any company to communicate with you via a third party, for anything other than "for the fun of it"...

We have had it a few times too... You can sit and spend an entire day sorting out peoples problems in 5 minutes flat, but will always get 1 who phones up and says "Why havent you replied to my tweet?" and your left thinking "Huh... why didnt you just call in the first place lol"

Although, we dont have automated answering systems or queues, just humans that answer within a few rings
Bit old fashioned like that... None of these shiny spangly state-of-the-art menus and "press 1 for this, press 2 for that".... he he he

I'd disagree completely, its 2011 after all. If your setting up a "front" for your company in terms of twitter / facebook you have a duty to keep on top of it and reply to your customers.

Some people (including me) really don't like to talk to people on the phone. If you don't want to keep up with your twitter, don't have one.

Anyhow, there lack of responses on twitter isn't the big issue here, there lack of concern for security is.

However, it turns out that twitter was the medium they used to contact me. I had a customer relations manager (Anisha I think her name was, I just spent 2 hours on the phone to sky trying to fix my broadband so I've heard a lot of names thrown around) call me, who seems very concerned, she's going to launch an investigation and get back to me in the morning.

I am very disappointed in what went down previously, I am however quite happy with how this customer relations manager is dealing with the issue.

Anisha seems very disappointed that correct procedure (in conjunction with the data protection act) wasn't followed.

I know there reading this forum So I'll leave it at that.

[rallport]

skidz, on 15 November 2011 - 08:20 PM, said:

Anisha seems very disappointed that correct procedure (in conjunction with the data protection act) wasn't followed.

Bloody ek lol, I'm sure they're very "disappointed", if not scared of the fact basic data protection has not happened. It may be due to a new staff member even, but that does change the fact Webfusion opened you up to whole world of pain. In this day and age it's very surprising, as companies are usually very hot on this topic. Even when I was speaking on behalf of a client to 1&1 - I needed to confirm my name, my email, the customers password, the customers address and the customers telephone number. Yes it's annoying, but it's obvious why this is common practice. Whilest 1&1 may not be my host of choice, at least they are protecting basic information.

There's a good reason why pretty much every customer support line requires you to confirm several pieces of information before they will even start to discuss whatever issue/question you have.

Have a read of the guidlines at http://www.ico.gov.u...protection.aspx - Webfusion would do well to read that. Some of the penalties for breaching data protection are equally scary - especially if you;re the company doing the breaching

Personally, if I was in your situation I would have lost all confidence in Webfusion by now and be thinking how "safe" my data really is. The fact it's a well known hosting company that are failing basic data protection checks is all the more ironic and equally scary.

Just think for a moment - worst case scenario - what would have happened if someone wanting to cause intentional damage had called up and given Webfusion your server ip, and then managed to get login details reset or obtained some more personal information?

I'm sure Webfusion will have all the latest software and hardware measures in place to secure your server, monitored by a huge team of professionals. This is fine (and expected), but if they are ignoring basic data protection acts the latter doesn't matter one bit.

This is just my personal opinion of course, but at the lowest level I need to trust a web host and have confidence in them. Issues like this really wouldn't help me from a

I'll end this with a rather ironic quote from their website, that is quite fitting here:

Quote

.... so if there's a problem, they [support people] can get to the root of it fast.

[andyg1]

I'd like to add my experience of WebFusion to the discussion:

- they lost a domain name of mine after they billed me for the renewal, but by their own admission an error on their system stopped it renewing. It was snapped up by someone else. It cost over £2000 to buy back. WebFusion did not offer any compensation or a single gesture of goodwill for the mistake.

- this occurred a second and then a third time and it was only because it was with .co.uk domains this time that Nominet emailed me to alert me to the problem. Fortunately these times it hadn't past the cooling off period. Again I'd paid for it and they didn't renew it.

- again after billing me for an SSL certificate on one of my ecommerce websites they didn't renew the certificate. Since the only secure page was the final step of my checkout this went unnoticed for months. I received no warnings or reminders. Who knows how much lost trade that cost me.

- the above scenario occurred a second time, on a different domain, but this fortunately I realised the problem quicker. Again no warnings.

- they billed me for a domain which I had already transferred to some one else

- they billed me for hosting I wasn't using

Another massive headache is that you have to raise an online ticket when you have a problem. If you leave a ticket open for 72hrs they close it - so if you go somewhere for a long weekend, you'll come back to see that your problem has now left their radar because they have closed the ticket because you didn't reply.

And they are no good at urgent responses at all - the issue with my expired SSL should be pretty high up on the importance scale, but I had to chase them after 48hrs since I raised the ticket.

I have zero confidence in this company, and would never dream of recommending them to anyone.

I want to get out, but as Spitfire says above I have heard/read that their cancellation process is a nightmare...

[Jst Hosting - Thomas]

andyg1, on 16 November 2011 - 10:50 PM, said:

I'd like to add my experience of WebFusion to the discussion:

- they lost a domain name of mine after they billed me for the renewal, but by their own admission an error on their system stopped it renewing. It was snapped up by someone else. It cost over £2000 to buy back. WebFusion did not offer any compensation or a single gesture of goodwill for the mistake.

- this occurred a second and then a third time and it was only because it was with .co.uk domains this time that Nominet emailed me to alert me to the problem. Fortunately these times it hadn't past the cooling off period. Again I'd paid for it and they didn't renew it.

- again after billing me for an SSL certificate on one of my ecommerce websites they didn't renew the certificate. Since the only secure page was the final step of my checkout this went unnoticed for months. I received no warnings or reminders. Who knows how much lost trade that cost me.

- the above scenario occurred a second time, on a different domain, but this fortunately I realised the problem quicker. Again no warnings.

- they billed me for a domain which I had already transferred to some one else

- they billed me for hosting I wasn't using

Another massive headache is that you have to raise an online ticket when you have a problem. If you leave a ticket open for 72hrs they close it - so if you go somewhere for a long weekend, you'll come back to see that your problem has now left their radar because they have closed the ticket because you didn't reply.

And they are no good at urgent responses at all - the issue with my expired SSL should be pretty high up on the importance scale, but I had to chase them after 48hrs since I raised the ticket.

I have zero confidence in this company, and would never dream of recommending them to anyone.

I want to get out, but as Spitfire says above I have heard/read that their cancellation process is a nightmare...

I would have thought (depending on their terms) that paying the renewal fee to them is a contractual agreement between you and them. The fact they were in breach of contract by not renewing your domain probably means they should have recuperated any costs, although I'm not too sure how it cost you £2000? Surely the domain had a redemption period before it was snapped up?

[rallport]

Jst Hosting - Thomas, on 16 November 2011 - 11:10 PM, said:

I would have thought (depending on their terms) that paying the renewal fee to them is a contractual agreement between you and them. The fact they were in breach of contract by not renewing your domain probably means they should have recuperated any costs, although I'm not too sure how it cost you £2000? Surely the domain had a redemption period before it was snapped up?

That's probably true tbh.

However, I've only used their support briefly. In short, I would never want to do it again. I wouldn;t like to think how time consuming and painful it would be to claim back money from them.

[andyg1]

Jst Hosting - Thomas, on 16 November 2011 - 11:10 PM, said:

I would have thought (depending on their terms) that paying the renewal fee to them is a contractual agreement between you and them. The fact they were in breach of contract by not renewing your domain probably means they should have recuperated any costs, although I'm not too sure how it cost you £2000? Surely the domain had a redemption period before it was snapped up?

They said that even though I had paid it it was still my responsibility to check it had actually gone through - which is a bit like paying your car insurance and then checking you are insured before you drive!

I would have thought there was some kind of binding contract. Apparently not. On a different occasion I asked them what their service level agreements were and got no answer.

As for how it got snapped up: it actually passed the redemption/cooling off period and was instantly snapped by a company in Europe who evidently make a living by buying expired domains. And they wouldn't open up negotiations until I had a broker, so the £2112 was part commission for the broker and the cost to buy my domain name back.

I have asked people about it who work for hosting companies and some say the company would be responsible, some others say it still rests with the customer (me). One person said that when this had happened the hosting company took the hit for cost, as a gesture of goodwill. Not WebFusion. They didn't even help me get it back.

[Jst Hosting - Thomas]

andyg1, on 17 November 2011 - 05:45 PM, said:

They said that even though I had paid it it was still my responsibility to check it had actually gone through - which is a bit like paying your car insurance and then checking you are insured before you drive!

I would have thought there was some kind of binding contract. Apparently not. On a different occasion I asked them what their service level agreements were and got no answer.

As for how it got snapped up: it actually passed the redemption/cooling off period and was instantly snapped by a company in Europe who evidently make a living by buying expired domains. And they wouldn't open up negotiations until I had a broker, so the £2112 was part commission for the broker and the cost to buy my domain name back.

I have asked people about it who work for hosting companies and some say the company would be responsible, some others say it still rests with the customer (me). One person said that when this had happened the hosting company took the hit for cost, as a gesture of goodwill. Not WebFusion. They didn't even help me get it back.

If you have paid for car insurance and got confirmation about it being renewed (which I presume WebFusion would have done when you paid for your domain renewal?) then you are still covered irrespective of weather it went through or not.

It seems extremely negligent on their behalf and any company who says it is your responsibility to ensure your service you have paid them to setup has gone through is very odd indeed.

[andyg1]

Jst Hosting - Thomas, on 17 November 2011 - 05:47 PM, said:

If you have paid for car insurance and got confirmation about it being renewed (which I presume WebFusion would have done when you paid for your domain renewal?)

Well the confirmation was that the money came off my card (they never make a mistake doing that bit do they?) and the invoice in my admin panel was marked as paid.

It was the part of system which makes the renewal that failed. I had no way of checking that, except that I should have been doing WhoIs or ICANN lookups to make sure the date had updated.

In the interest of fairness I should say that WebFusion were good enough to refund my card with £19.99 for the renewal which hadn't worked, so really it only felt like I was £2092.01 out of pocket

[rallport]

andyg1, on 17 November 2011 - 05:56 PM, said:

Well the confirmation was that the money came off my card (they never make a mistake doing that bit do they?) and the invoice in my admin panel was marked as paid.

It was the part of system which makes the renewal that failed. I had no way of checking that, except that I should have been doing WhoIs or ICANN lookups to make sure the date had updated.

In the interest of fairness I should say that WebFusion were good enough to refund my card with £19.99 for the renewal which hadn't worked, so really it only felt like I was £2092.01 out of pocket

Agreed.

To me it's simple. As soon as you've paid for such a service you should get it. In this, a domain renewal.

I always thought domains that weren;t renewed instantly still had a kind of cooling off period of around 40 days whereby you could still register it.

How very kind of webfusion to refund the £19.99, bet you were chuffed to pieces

[andyg1]

rallport, on 17 November 2011 - 06:26 PM, said:

I always thought domains that weren;t renewed instantly still had a kind of cooling off period of around 40 days whereby you could still register it.

I believe it is 60 days. But if no one is emailing you reminders (because that part of the system doesn't detect an outstanding invoice) then how do you find out? That particular domain was a redirect to one of my other sites whilst its own site was in development. That is why I didn't notice the lapse until it was too late - I never had a need to visit it.

I have a small, growing business, in a competitive marketplace, in an industry hit hard by recession (home building). I roughed out my end of year accounts this morning actually, and if it wasn't for that expensive domain renewal I would have posted a profit this year (just). Put that into the perspective of a massive company like WebFusion who clearly have so much money that they don't have to care too much about their customers. £2k may be a drop in the ocean to some people, but it is a lot to most others.

[rallport]

andyg1, on 17 November 2011 - 06:37 PM, said:

I believe it is 60 days. But if no one is emailing you reminders (because that part of the system doesn't detect an outstanding invoice) then how do you find out? That particular domain was a redirect to one of my other sites whilst its own site was in development. That is why I didn't notice the lapse until it was too late - I never had a need to visit it.

I have a small, growing business, in a competitive marketplace, in an industry hit hard by recession (home building). I roughed out my end of year accounts this morning actually, and if it wasn't for that expensive domain renewal I would have posted a profit this year (just). Put that into the perspective of a massive company like WebFusion who clearly have so much money that they don't have to care too much about their customers. £2k may be a drop in the ocean to some people, but it is a lot to most others.

Ah see what you mean.

[Jst Hosting - Thomas]

andyg1, on 17 November 2011 - 06:37 PM, said:

I believe it is 60 days. But if no one is emailing you reminders (because that part of the system doesn't detect an outstanding invoice) then how do you find out? That particular domain was a redirect to one of my other sites whilst its own site was in development. That is why I didn't notice the lapse until it was too late - I never had a need to visit it.

I have a small, growing business, in a competitive marketplace, in an industry hit hard by recession (home building). I roughed out my end of year accounts this morning actually, and if it wasn't for that expensive domain renewal I would have posted a profit this year (just). Put that into the perspective of a massive company like WebFusion who clearly have so much money that they don't have to care too much about their customers. £2k may be a drop in the ocean to some people, but it is a lot to most others.

That's really unfortunate. It really annoys me when I see cases like this; it's as if they don't care about their customers. At the very minimum they could have done a goodwill gesture.

[rallport]

Jst Hosting - Thomas, on 18 November 2011 - 02:19 PM, said:

That's really unfortunate. It really annoys me when I see cases like this; it's as if they don't care about their customers. At the very minimum they could have done a goodwill gesture.

That's the thing that always annoys about bigger companies. They follow procedures far too tightly and won't budge at all, even if it helps the customer.