eVerity review #14130 by Jared Meadors (medusaproperties@g...)
eVerity got a negative review on
Jared Meadors ( medusaproperties@g... )
Having only used two hosts in my life, I cannot say with authority that eVerity is the WORST host out there. But I can say from over 5 yrs experience that are the worst host that I have ever dealt with, that their customer service is nonexistent, that their support is a joke, that their security is akin to an old hound dog that might occasionally muster up a bark or two but certainly is past his prime, and that choosing eVerity as my hosting company was the worst and most expensive decision that I have ever made in relation to my web presence.
Apparently, server security and customer service / support are kind of like a nuclear bomb. You hope you never need to use it but it's a crucial to have it when the shit hits the fan. Up until 2010, eVerity's support and servers were what I would call "adequate" but never great. The hosting was cheap so I didn't really have high expectations for support. Problems came up fairly regularly but James Hold (who basically "is" eVerity) was typically able to resolve them in a reasonable amount of time with minimal fuss and minimal down time.
Flash forward to June of 2010 when traffic to my site went from peaks of 300/day and an average of about 200/day to about zero/day and my sites started being down more than they were up. After submitting a few "support tickets" to eVerity (the only way you can contact them--they have no direct customer support email, chat or phone number--I was informed that their server was experiencing some kind of "brute force attack" on a daily basis and that they were doing all the could to keep the server up and the sites working.
This went on for over a week until finally eVerity capitulated and took the server offline and moved everything to a new server with new software--that, unfortunately for all of their customers--nobody's websites would run on. The new software caused script errors that ended up taking about a month and $1500 of my cash to get resolved. eVerity's response: "tough shit". They claimed that my sites were old (3 yrs is old?) and out of date and needed to be updated anyway--so, yeah, hosting is only $3.99/mo--but if we update our server and software and your sites don't run on our new system anymore--you're out of luck.
Now, in retrospect, I've learned that I could have just taken that same website to another host and it probably would have worked just fine. eVerity made it SOUND like the problem was with my sites--which, again, ran perfectly for four years on their previous server--so I thought, "shit, maybe it's my problem, not theirs..."
$1500 later, the sites are all back up and running and I resolved to move my business elsewhere and started doing some research... but, I got a little side-tracked and thought, well, I just spent $1500 to get these sites up and running--eVerity just upgraded to a new server and software--that is supposedly more secure--what could go wrong? I don't need to be in any hurry....
Famous last words. After being down most of June & July, costing me thousands in lost business--plus the $1500 updating costs--eVerity's server supposedly come under attack AGAIN in November 2010--just 4 months later--and again ALL sites are down for another TWO weeks while these jokers figure out what to do. More support tickets. No support. Literally. No replies for days or weeks--if ever--to questions about what the hell is going on and when it will be resolved.
Having learned from the last fiasco that eVerity does not have the means or the talent or the security to deal with hackers, I immediately move my main website to a new host (Bluehost) and am up and running in a couple of days--though it takes me several more days to get into my eVerity cPanel to get my database files back out--which ends up being a backup from several weeks prior.
So, lesson learned. Cheap hosting is not so cheap when your sites go down for weeks at a time and you can't even access your own web files to back them up and upload them to a new host. The cost not just in dollars and lost revenue--but in dozens and dozens of hours of your own time--is staggering and hard to quantify. In retrospect, paying two or three times the amount that everity charged me for hosting over the past three or four years would have been money well spent to avoid this kind of calamity. Honestly, I think James Hold and eVerity should sell it's customer base to another hosting company--one that is prepared to support their customers adequately--and get into another line of business. Anything short of that is an insult to their so called "customers".
Apparently, server security and customer service / support are kind of like a nuclear bomb. You hope you never need to use it but it's a crucial to have it when the shit hits the fan. Up until 2010, eVerity's support and servers were what I would call "adequate" but never great. The hosting was cheap so I didn't really have high expectations for support. Problems came up fairly regularly but James Hold (who basically "is" eVerity) was typically able to resolve them in a reasonable amount of time with minimal fuss and minimal down time.
Flash forward to June of 2010 when traffic to my site went from peaks of 300/day and an average of about 200/day to about zero/day and my sites started being down more than they were up. After submitting a few "support tickets" to eVerity (the only way you can contact them--they have no direct customer support email, chat or phone number--I was informed that their server was experiencing some kind of "brute force attack" on a daily basis and that they were doing all the could to keep the server up and the sites working.
This went on for over a week until finally eVerity capitulated and took the server offline and moved everything to a new server with new software--that, unfortunately for all of their customers--nobody's websites would run on. The new software caused script errors that ended up taking about a month and $1500 of my cash to get resolved. eVerity's response: "tough shit". They claimed that my sites were old (3 yrs is old?) and out of date and needed to be updated anyway--so, yeah, hosting is only $3.99/mo--but if we update our server and software and your sites don't run on our new system anymore--you're out of luck.
Now, in retrospect, I've learned that I could have just taken that same website to another host and it probably would have worked just fine. eVerity made it SOUND like the problem was with my sites--which, again, ran perfectly for four years on their previous server--so I thought, "shit, maybe it's my problem, not theirs..."
$1500 later, the sites are all back up and running and I resolved to move my business elsewhere and started doing some research... but, I got a little side-tracked and thought, well, I just spent $1500 to get these sites up and running--eVerity just upgraded to a new server and software--that is supposedly more secure--what could go wrong? I don't need to be in any hurry....
Famous last words. After being down most of June & July, costing me thousands in lost business--plus the $1500 updating costs--eVerity's server supposedly come under attack AGAIN in November 2010--just 4 months later--and again ALL sites are down for another TWO weeks while these jokers figure out what to do. More support tickets. No support. Literally. No replies for days or weeks--if ever--to questions about what the hell is going on and when it will be resolved.
Having learned from the last fiasco that eVerity does not have the means or the talent or the security to deal with hackers, I immediately move my main website to a new host (Bluehost) and am up and running in a couple of days--though it takes me several more days to get into my eVerity cPanel to get my database files back out--which ends up being a backup from several weeks prior.
So, lesson learned. Cheap hosting is not so cheap when your sites go down for weeks at a time and you can't even access your own web files to back them up and upload them to a new host. The cost not just in dollars and lost revenue--but in dozens and dozens of hours of your own time--is staggering and hard to quantify. In retrospect, paying two or three times the amount that everity charged me for hosting over the past three or four years would have been money well spent to avoid this kind of calamity. Honestly, I think James Hold and eVerity should sell it's customer base to another hosting company--one that is prepared to support their customers adequately--and get into another line of business. Anything short of that is an insult to their so called "customers".
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