I'm actually not much of a drama queen. I tend to be pretty tolerant of other people's shortcomings. I usually look for extenuating circumstances when someone fails - I try to give them the benefit of the doubt. But after several weeks of total unreliability and incompetence from Amaz0ns' web hosting provider, I've really only got one thing to say: Dreamhost sucks.
I am hardly the first person to notice it, but wow, Dreamhost sucks. I'm telling you this for two reasons:
I'm going to have to change hosting providers in the next week and there will be some downtime.
Something like 30,000 distinct people read Amaz0ns every week, and because I care about you all, I want you to know that Dreamhost sucks.
I'm not going to go into my problem in great detail. Suffice to say that there is a very small problem in the configuration of the server that is causing the site to crash almost every day. I lease the server but have limited access to configuration, as part of Dreamhost's managed server TOS. When I file a customer service request, Dreamhost takes two days just to respond - TWO DAYS! - and then fails to fix the problem, every time. Despite the fact that I am a dedicated hosting customer, Dreamhost does not provide me a phone number to call for service. I simply cannot get them to look at the problem - they tell me they will but then they just sort of drift away. It's very frustrating.
So Dreamhost has lost my business, which comes to about $1500/year - which isn't huge but it's not nothing, either. The kicker is that in my real life, my professional life, I am currently vying for a technology contract with a $120 million company that is in need of numerous services, among which is web hosting. I was going to recommend Dreamhost - I really was. It would have counted for a lot more than $1500 a year, believe me.
It's just disgusting to see a company blowing its brand like this.
I was wondering what was going down. sigh... I guess I'll just have to re-up when you've got a new host.
BTX
Lingster
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Huh?
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Super Administrator
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2006-11-16 05:14:43
Re-up? It's going to be the same site. Hardly anything will change at all.
Fett
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Registered
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2006-11-16 08:51:40
Except you'll have sold out, you purveyor of doom. Sold out to the Man.
PS - Why is it saying my name is Kilipokid? I'm Fett. I'm logged in as Fett. This is odd. No doubt, Dreamhost's retaliation for your dropping of it. You didn't think of who'd be affected in your little war did you? About the innocent victims like myself! *sob* *sob* *sob*
PPS - Now it says I'm Fett. Gorram it.
Lingster
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The Adsense payout on web host
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Super Administrator
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2006-11-16 13:04:52
I'm making huge cash off Adsense this morning after posting about web hosting. I think I may exit the female muscle portal biz and go into the web hosting discussion biz.
Fett
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Registered
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2006-11-17 11:08:54
You used to be about the music!
Lingster
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No.
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Super Administrator
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2006-11-19 21:00:24
I have always been about the money.
AlexG
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Registered
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2006-11-16 14:55:04
Just wondering, but with this planned move to another server are you also going to merge the Amaz0ns boards as you announced awhile back? 8)
Lingster
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Not just yet
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Super Administrator
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2006-11-19 21:02:23
There's more changes coming early next year, I think. Drawback to the open source community is that you have to time your development cycles to frequent code releases. I've got a whole bunch of ideas with what to do with the forums, but I'm waiting for a solid release candidate of Joomla 1.5 to come out.
elee0228
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Publisher
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2006-11-21 09:26:15
Having problems posting in the forums this morning... Start New Topic displays new topics instead of creating a new one.
elee0228
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Publisher
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2006-11-21 09:31:41
... can't search either.
Lingster
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Upside
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Super Administrator
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2006-11-21 09:56:27
Is that these problems are probably browser-session specific. Restart your browser and they should go away.
dhsux
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Registered
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2008-10-11 16:09:52
DreamHost's poor customer service has led to a serious privacy invasion. When my client attempted to sign up for an account, the transaction hung halfway through. When customer service (which can only be reached by tedious email exchanges) "fixed" the problem, the pay by credit card option was no longer available. The customer service representative insisted that we use Google Payments. I proceeded, and then my client realized his financial information is now in the Google system. The worst possible scenario then came true. Instead of completing the transaction, Google called my client's bank for "preapproval". This was not to complete the transaction (which was never completed), but to gather information for Google's marketing. My client is furious, reviewing everyone's privacy policy, and is looking into ways to bring this problem up at the political, and possibly the legal, level.
Throughout this whole situation, Dreamhost has been nothing but pig-headed. Every customer service representative ignores the case history and either refers us back to Google Payments or says patronizing things like we could have paid with the original credit card system. I offered them a solution where I quietly pay for the account using Google transactions, and they won't even let me help bail them out!!!
I will never refer another client to dreamhost. Right now I'm looking for the best place to air this complaint publicly in as many places as possible. People have to know that when Dreamhost pushes people into using Google Payments, Google then has their financial information to aggregate and deploy for their own purposes.
