Serious problems with iWeb

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Posted by JadeB, 05-12-2008, 02:59 PM
Hi everyone, I opened a reseller account with iWeb about 2 weeks ago and have encountered serious problems with both their support and their service. So, here's the concern. I've been with iWeb exactly 16 days at the time of this posting. In that time I've seen some serious problems with iWeb's service and support. Okay, maybe I could live with that, but let's see what happened next. So, what kind of support is that? And this is all within the first 2 weeks as an iWeb customer. My biggest concern with a web server is reliability and support comes second. Reliability is the single most important reason I came to iWeb. So, I'd be willing to accept slow support service if iWeb could actually deliver on their much-touted "Zero Downtime Hosting Architecture", but if they can't deliver that, why should I also put up with poor support? It seems likely from the timing of the outage that it got repaired in the morning Montreal time. Does this mean there's no emergency support for the shared server overnight? And it's worth pointing out that this 6-hour long server problem doesn't trigger any of iWeb's guarantees regarding uptime. Despite the fact that the websites were unavailable because they required PHP processing, they weren't considred "down" because you could still ping them!!! And it's also worth pointing out that I started a poll last-week on another thread on their forum ( http://forum.iweb.ca/en/viewtopic.php?t=1262 ). It asks people to vote whether iWeb's support is satisfactory or not. At this point the bulk of the votes are split between excellent and terrible. It's a 50/50 split. That sure seems like pretty poor performance from a customer service standpoint. It's also worth noting that their forums are littered with complaints from iWeb customers that they're not being treated the way they feel they should. Is iWeb really listening? So, at this point I'm wondering, am I being a fool by clinging to the hope that these are just isolated incidents and that iWeb actually can provide "Zero Downtime Hosting"? Should I just get out now while I can still request a refund on my 30-day money back guarantee (hopefully there's not fine print attached to that promise too)? To iWeb, I have to say that this is incredibly disappointing. When I learned about your services I read every inch of your site, I watched your testimonials, I called and spoke to customer service and it was all very impressive. I was super excited about moving to host with you. Now I'm just left feeling like I got duped into yet another amateur hosting service. Please show me that that's not the case and tell me, "Why shouldn't I cancel and request a refund?" I hope someone from iWeb can respond to these problems in this forum. Last edited by JadeB; 05-12-2008 at 03:05 PM.
Posted by atchoooo, 05-12-2008, 03:25 PM
I am sorry for the problems you went through. Our new web site and new offers, including the new shared hosting architecture we launched last march is a tremendous success. Unfortunatly, we can't catch up with the demand and support response times and quality is suffering. We are about to stop the shared hosting sales and show a "SOLD OUT" sign for our shared hosting offer for an undefined period in order to allow our team to put everything in place, train the new employees. This should allow us to make sure our current customers receive a good level of support. As for the PHP error you suffered, it was not fixed in an acceptable delay because of a monitoring problem. The error was not detected by our monitoring systems. It should be fixed now (we will detect it quickly if it occurs again) and I will make sure to double check with the team. Unfortunatly, zero downtime hosting cannot protect against such a failure of the php execution because the server itself and the apache web server were still running fine. We have to use our monitoring systems to detect the error and fix it quickly which should be the case from now on. Let's extend your money-back guarantee to 90 days. If there is a problem, please PM me or email me at leclair at iweb.com and if you want your refund I'll make sure we issue it if it's within the 90 days. It does not trigger the guarantees, but if you are looking for a credit for this problem just ask our team and you'll get it. Tell them to refer to this thread if you wish but we are normally generous on credits when there is a good justification to ask for it even if it's not covered by the guarantees. Last edited by atchoooo; 05-12-2008 at 03:29 PM.
Posted by lovek, 05-12-2008, 05:57 PM
hmm nice that I was there today, I was looking for some reviews about this hosting company. tell me , should I register with you, iweb, or you have too much problems now ?
Posted by CyberHostPro, 05-12-2008, 06:46 PM
Hi, at times servers have problems. IWeb obviously had a problem with this server that the OP is hosted on, if they have fixed it, am sure that its safe to open an account with them, Also, IWeb will have several (if not hundreds) of web servers, so hopefully you will be assigned to a fully functional one. I cant say I have personally seen many bad reviews posted on here about Iweb, and i use these forums regular (i could be wrong). If Iweb offer a 90 day money back, if you do have problems, you can get a refund!
Posted by JadeB, 05-12-2008, 07:19 PM
Hello Martin, thank you for the apology and the explanation. I would like to be very clear that I am less concerned with credits for downtime and more concerned with avoiding downtime. You said: Since I asked for a reason not to cancel my account, are you saying that support times and responses will improve? You also said: Since my main concern is downtime and you're saying that particular problems cannot be protected against (which is reasonable), how are customers supposed to inform you when a problem such as this one arises? As I mentioned above, I submitted a ticket within the first hour of the downtime but it doesn't seem as though anyone received it. I also tried phoning, but was only given the option for voicemail. To have the confidence to stay with iWeb I would want to know that I could reach someone if something like this happens. Looking forward to your response.
Posted by atchoooo, 05-12-2008, 10:22 PM
We are working hard in order to enhance the support experience. It will surely improve. You can call and talk to our staff 24/7, you can send an emergency ticket using the hub which will be treated as a priority. Our team answers the phone 24/7 when you choose one of the support menu options. Maybe you did not follow the correct path in the system. Do you remember what options you have chosen? Or did you end up in the voicemail after some time waiting for an answer? Call us at anytime and choose option 9 for english, then 1 for support and 1 for shared hosting support and someone should answer. I did it myself now (10:20pm) and got Sébastien one of our tech support guys on the phone. Regards,
Posted by JadeB, 05-13-2008, 10:44 AM
Thank you Martin for your commitment to improving support. FYI, the reason I asked you how customers can notify iWeb of similar problems is because I did try exactly what you're suggesting. I submitted an URGENT outage report from the customer hub and I called your support number but reached voicemail. I followed exactly the options you're suggesting and nobody answered, so it went to voicemail. This was about 1:00 AM Montreal time on Tuesday, May 6. I mention this not to disagree or to acuse, but to inform you that the support system did not work on that occasion. I accept your explanation that your support staff have had less than full training and that they may have been overworked. I also appreciate your personal commitment to improve the support experience and to limit the number of new customers coming into the system until your support team is better equipped to handle them. So, with that in mind I'm prepared to suspend my judgment of iWeb and to continue as a customer through the extended 90 day period you have offered. I will also make a point of returning here to this posting to provide updates and hopefully closure to this issue. Thank you for your attention to this matter.
Posted by hosteur, 05-13-2008, 11:06 AM
Well I may say that they still have communication issue...
Posted by mahdy_sharifi, 05-20-2008, 06:57 AM
hello jadeb: do u have iweb reseller plan ? it yes ... are u satisfaction ? i want buy reseller.
Posted by JadeB, 05-20-2008, 10:13 AM
Hi there, Yes, I do have an iWeb reseller plan. At this point I can't say that I'm satisfied with it, but I have had no new complaints since writing my posts above. It's also worth noting that iWeb has not stopped selling shared or reseller hosting as Martin had said they would. But I have not needed to contact support since posting this thread, so I don't know if the support responses have improved. So, my opinion is still on hold. Sorry I can't be more help than that.
Posted by microg, 06-13-2008, 02:06 AM
unfortunately I tried that about half an hour ago - 3 times voice mail ... last time I left my message.
Posted by atchoooo, 06-13-2008, 11:42 AM
What options do you press to get a voicemail ??? There should be no voicemail, unless you choose the extension of a single person, if you choose the support options or sales options you should get into the loops that will keep you on hold until someone answers. Can you tell me how to reproduce what you are doing? Regards,
Posted by JadeB, 06-13-2008, 11:52 AM
Hello Martin, I can't speak for this other person, but as I mentioned in my previous post, I followed your instructions exactly and had the same result. And by the way Martin, I've been checking periodically and haven't seen any "sold out" notices or other indications that you've put shared hosting sales on hold as you'd said you were going to do. Did you change your plan about how to deal with the support problems?
Posted by microg, 06-13-2008, 12:34 PM
I chose exactly the same sequence of options you described. And what's more interesting the voicemail was in French, even though I chose 9 for English. The voicemail turns on after a little while - probably when nobody picks up the phone for like 5 rings. Customers are also a good source of finding out about your phone system Nevertheless, my other concern is that when I was calling you it was about 7-8 in the morning in Europe. Does it mean that your support is shut down for the day in Europe? And that you only care about daytime in Montreal?
Posted by atchoooo, 06-13-2008, 12:47 PM
I will investigate this voicemail issue, it is a problem it is not supposed to happen. We have staff answering the phone 24/7, maybe something is broken in the system.
Posted by VolkswagenGolfGTI, 06-13-2008, 03:36 PM
Drop a line to PremiumReseller, i've been happy with them for quite some time now.. It's worth a try at least.

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