Site Hosting Robbers

[dave_finlayson]

To say it is a rip off seems very unfair until G has actually gone to them and said, this is why I used so much bandwidth, I never realised what was happening and nobody at your end explained what it could be. Can I have some of my money back!

[leehack]

If you read it yourself why dint you post it yourself since you gone to great length trying to make your point, and it still doesn’t mean that Netbenefits acted in a fair or reasonable way, and in fact in my opinion that would go to prove that they are in fact even more of a Rip-off company, so they charge top whack and distance themselves from any sort of help, I wonder if their customer service explained that when asked nope, just read the small print, all they want is ALL your money and do absolutely nothing for it! The fact they have this info is proof they don’t have there customers well being at heart and proves I was right; they are deliberately withholding that information, so their customer support consists of a sales rep? This none support is more of a cheap package deal, not a highly recommended company.

I didn't feel the need to quote their conditions as i made the presumption that if anyone entered into a debate on this, they would at least be aware of the most basic facts and T&C's of the company involved.

Shooting off at the mouth and throwing personal insults is something for other people to do. I am only interested in lively debates with people who are prepared to accept other angles at issues and be willing to take them on board, where we can collectively solve and help people.

If T&C's and costs are spelled out in black and white and you can be bothered to read them and you still move forward with the company then the company is fine in it's procedures. I can only re-iterate that there is such a vast difference between "ripping off" and "charging a high price".

As for compensation previously mentioned. The damage this thread will have done to the company, will undoubtedly be far more than to G. I would also suggest that any compensation on this issue would be from G. to NetBenefits for her deflamatory remarks and unsubstantiated accusations.

I always remember reading on a calendar in one of my bosses office the following statement:

"It is wiser to let people think you are a fool, than open your mouth and remove all doubt."

I try to remember this each and every time i talk.

[chris ashdown]

Geraldine

Have you resolved your problems by talking to netbenifits yet?

This is even better than "Question Time"

[leehack]

LMAO Chris.

[chris ashdown]

Lmao ?????

[leehack]

Laughing My Ass Off

[Ghome1971]

My thoughts again!

It was my fault to trust Actinic's recommendation to use Netbenefits. I should have shopped around. However, I feel 'ripped off' because I paid way over the going rate for the hosting of my site.

If I purchased a stereo in one shop for £100 and saw it in another shop for £50 I would say I had been ripped off. It may have been my fault for not shopping around but it doesn't change the fact I would feel ripped off.

I do not believe the prices Netbenefits charged me correlate with the service they gave me. What extra did I get for my money? Certainly not support or help. They even wanted to charge me £200 for installing MSL database to allow me to run my affiliate program. AllAffiliatePro said at the time he had never known of a host to charge for this as it is FREE.

By the way Actinic have told me they were not aware of Netbenefits steep bandwidth charges and will tell customers about this in the future.

Thanks Geraldine

[newshopbloke]

Im not getting involved with the 'heated' side of this debate but if ALL the facts are correct then I do feel you should have at least received an email along the lines of :

"Dear valued customer, further to your enquiry about excessive bandwidth useage we have discovered your site has some rather large images which will consume a lot of bandwidth thus involving extra bandwidth charges. It might be wise to reduce these images to make your site load quicker, cost you less and also prevent other customers on the same server suffering unexplained outages"

At the end of the day, terms and conditions are binding and if they havent fallen foul of these then technically they have done nothing wrong but I have to say that those prices should command a bit more effort from support staff when questioned about excessive useage.

Your reference to a hifi costing £50 in 1 shop and £100 in another shop is competition, a rip off is when someone lies or deliberately misleads the customer.

Having said all of that, im sorry to hear your story and hope that things improve for you

[Mark Evenden]

Time to pass around the chill pills? - I'll have a large brandy.

I consider myself a reasonable sort of person, 30 plus years in high street retail, so I would suggest agreeing to disagree on this?

If Netbenifits traded with in their published terms and conditions, and these allowed advantage to be taken, then that’s very unfortunate but "rules is rules"

Having looked at the partner’s page, did Actinic really point you towards one company? - The usual etiquette would be to point an enquiry to the page?

G - as for the stereo comparison, it happens, doesn’t mean anyone is ripped off – When the item in a shop is clearly priced, you decide to buy, that’s it, you know what you are getting and the deal is done, if the shop keeper decides to off load the last one next day at half price, that’s it, simple business, nothing has been hidden from anyone. Lee himself posted that he runs different prices for the same item, depending on weather its in his shop, or on his web site, that’s not a rip off, IMO, but good business, being aware of your market place and so on.

If Netbenifits singled you out, took advantage, then yep, that’s disgraceful, but if they did trade with in their terms and treat every one the same then its one to put down to experience.

I’ve not got a clue, I try to do it all myself, save money, but in reality its not possible, it just makes you moody and bitter.... still could be worse for you - I have always used Easyspace, and when you talk to their technical support, you wonder if you have a crossed line with the local junior school, If you get my drift?

Anyway I hope you get some cash back, Netbenifits wont like this publicity, and if they need you more than you need them, then they may be able to offer assistance.

Good luck.

[AllAffiliatePro]

Hi All,
Just to clarify by MSL database Geraldine means MySQL database. MySQL itself is opensource and free for any host to install on their server, or free for anyone to install on their desktop for that matter.
I was surprised to see that some companies charge for this. Personally I don't see the need for a charge unless a particular user was using an awfully large database on a regular basis.

[jont]

The mysql was probably a charge for the next package level - common practice for hosts to offer varying levels of facilities for different packages and the database option is a common upgrade ploy

[AllAffiliatePro]

FYI She was on the top package, it appears they charge for all databases separately.

[RuralWeb]

they did trade with in their terms and treat every one the same then its one to put down to experience.

They always did while I hosted sites with them and both aspects were poor, which is why I moved my sites from them last year. I like G lost money but everyone makes mistakes and you just have to get on with life.

G write a letter to the MD and Trading Standards and get on with building your site.

[AllAffiliatePro]

Just an update to say that I've helped Geraldine and her images have now been optimized and her bandwidth has dropped from over 12GB/month down to around 3.6GB/month.
My servers also use HTTP header compression so that HTML and plain text are compressed, this means that pages load faster and sites use less bandwidth. If your host isn't using header compression then you are needlessly paying for extra bandwidth and your site will load slower. I found a site with a useful free tool that you can use to check:-
http://www.seoconsultants.com/tools/compression.asp

[wjcampbe]

Perhaps that tool only works on windows hosts?