Green Geeks negative review #12117 by Nya (info@o...) on Aug 2010
Green Geeks got a negative review on and one official response on
3411 Silverside Rd. Tatnall Building #104
Wilmington , DE 19810 US
☎ Phone 1-877-326-7483
📧 sales@g...Nya ( info@o... )
I hardly post reviews but this is one I promised myself I would make. It's been almost a year since I closed my account on GG and with no regrets. Their system is basic, nothing special to offer compared to most other hosts out there.
Coming from a customer service background I find I'm very patient with people on the receiving end, but with GG I was left with no option but to cut short our relationship.
One evening out of nowhere I got a message saying something to the effect of "This website has been suspended, please contact billing department".. not only was this embarrassing but it was also inaccurate. It gave the impression that my website had not been fully paid up for, even though I believe I had paid for the year.
After contacting their support I was told.. "The site was using excessive resources, causing high I/O on the servers. It no longer belongs on the shared hosting environment"
... ok... whatever..There had been no warnings nothing.. i asked about this "unlimited" thing that they advertise.. anyway.. so i'm given two options..either upgrade to Dedicated server or move to another host...they encouraging me to leave their service?
"I/O is not disk space, its the function of writing/reading from the disk and no sane administrator would give you "unlimited" resources to that, because there is no such thing. It cannot even be controlled. Your options here are to upgrade to a dedicated server or to another provider."
Bear in mind that I wouldn't consider my site that busy... and the reason I moved it to them was because I had migrated to the joomla platform. Just needing some help to get this website up and running again.. I ask about their dedicated plans...
"Dedicated servers cost $160 per month. There is no guarantee that this won't happen again, you could potentially kill an entire server. This is not being done to "punish" you. In fact, it's being done to prevent service interruption for other customers, including your other sites.
If you feel that you need this web site up, then you either need to make a decision to get this up elsewhere, because after further investigation, we have found that your site has been the root cause of high I/O usage for weeks now. I can provide you with a backup and you can find another hosting provider to host this one particular domain name.
We had originally thought it was a memory problem, but since suspending your site, the issue on the server is gone."
Oh.. so they're effectively kicking me out now? Mind you, I have now been hosting this site elsewhere with NO problems at all..albeit on a Virtual Managed Server, which if GG could provide might not have resulted in me moving hosts. So I ask if they could set me up on a dedicated server (I just want the website back up)... and they kick me out again! By this time, I'm getting the message..
"This has been a consistent issue, and enough was enough basically. We cannot provision a new server until the morning. I can provide you with a backup of that account within a few moments, let me know."
See, this was my first joomla site and experience of hosting on this platform and was really just looking for some help. I've had other hosts who were quite knowledgeable go beyond their service to help. I've even had some hosts look at dodgy code and provide advice. Not this one...they were actively encouraging me to go elsewhere. After another couple of emails... they provided a backup file and I was left to fend for myself. Thankfully, the guys at Rochen provided the help that I was looking for and I have not had any problems since.
This happened in November 2009... so I have not written this because I'm angry. It's because I genuinely feel let down by this host and regret my decision to host with them in the first place.. it was really down to inexperience at the time. So I moved the other sites I had on the domain and cancelled my account.. I asked for a refund and got given some reason why I could not have it back. To be honest I didn't even pursue that.. I had gotten enough.
If you have a busy or resource heavy site, this is probably not the host for you - or use their dedicated option for $160 per month. Personally, I wouldn't bother.
Coming from a customer service background I find I'm very patient with people on the receiving end, but with GG I was left with no option but to cut short our relationship.
One evening out of nowhere I got a message saying something to the effect of "This website has been suspended, please contact billing department".. not only was this embarrassing but it was also inaccurate. It gave the impression that my website had not been fully paid up for, even though I believe I had paid for the year.
After contacting their support I was told.. "The site was using excessive resources, causing high I/O on the servers. It no longer belongs on the shared hosting environment"
... ok... whatever..There had been no warnings nothing.. i asked about this "unlimited" thing that they advertise.. anyway.. so i'm given two options..either upgrade to Dedicated server or move to another host...they encouraging me to leave their service?
"I/O is not disk space, its the function of writing/reading from the disk and no sane administrator would give you "unlimited" resources to that, because there is no such thing. It cannot even be controlled. Your options here are to upgrade to a dedicated server or to another provider."
Bear in mind that I wouldn't consider my site that busy... and the reason I moved it to them was because I had migrated to the joomla platform. Just needing some help to get this website up and running again.. I ask about their dedicated plans...
"Dedicated servers cost $160 per month. There is no guarantee that this won't happen again, you could potentially kill an entire server. This is not being done to "punish" you. In fact, it's being done to prevent service interruption for other customers, including your other sites.
If you feel that you need this web site up, then you either need to make a decision to get this up elsewhere, because after further investigation, we have found that your site has been the root cause of high I/O usage for weeks now. I can provide you with a backup and you can find another hosting provider to host this one particular domain name.
We had originally thought it was a memory problem, but since suspending your site, the issue on the server is gone."
Oh.. so they're effectively kicking me out now? Mind you, I have now been hosting this site elsewhere with NO problems at all..albeit on a Virtual Managed Server, which if GG could provide might not have resulted in me moving hosts. So I ask if they could set me up on a dedicated server (I just want the website back up)... and they kick me out again! By this time, I'm getting the message..
"This has been a consistent issue, and enough was enough basically. We cannot provision a new server until the morning. I can provide you with a backup of that account within a few moments, let me know."
See, this was my first joomla site and experience of hosting on this platform and was really just looking for some help. I've had other hosts who were quite knowledgeable go beyond their service to help. I've even had some hosts look at dodgy code and provide advice. Not this one...they were actively encouraging me to go elsewhere. After another couple of emails... they provided a backup file and I was left to fend for myself. Thankfully, the guys at Rochen provided the help that I was looking for and I have not had any problems since.
This happened in November 2009... so I have not written this because I'm angry. It's because I genuinely feel let down by this host and regret my decision to host with them in the first place.. it was really down to inexperience at the time. So I moved the other sites I had on the domain and cancelled my account.. I asked for a refund and got given some reason why I could not have it back. To be honest I didn't even pursue that.. I had gotten enough.
If you have a busy or resource heavy site, this is probably not the host for you - or use their dedicated option for $160 per month. Personally, I wouldn't bother.
From Trey Gardner - CEO GreenGeeks
There is a reason why this person was suspended and then handed his money & files back and that is his site was too large to be supported by a shared web hosting company. In these comments you will see that he came to us from a Virtual Private Server which means he had a site that needed a VPS or Dedicated Server - which he asked our prices for and which we told him what the costs were.
I apologize but I have many posts in these areas talking about why larger web sites need larger solutions, this is a case of that where someone who should have been on a larger platform basically tried to downsize their costs to go to a shared host and it did not work for them.
If you have any questions about whether your site should be on a shared hosting platform or something larger please just call one of our tech support reps and ask them. Here are our hours and numbers:
Monday to Friday: 9am EST to Midnight EST
Saturday and Sunday: 9am EST to 8pm EST
Toll Free: 1-877-326-7483
Thank You,
Trey Gardner
Marketing representative (trey@greengeeks.com, ).
There is a reason why this person was suspended and then handed his money & files back and that is his site was too large to be supported by a shared web hosting company. In these comments you will see that he came to us from a Virtual Private Server which means he had a site that needed a VPS or Dedicated Server - which he asked our prices for and which we told him what the costs were.
I apologize but I have many posts in these areas talking about why larger web sites need larger solutions, this is a case of that where someone who should have been on a larger platform basically tried to downsize their costs to go to a shared host and it did not work for them.
If you have any questions about whether your site should be on a shared hosting platform or something larger please just call one of our tech support reps and ask them. Here are our hours and numbers:
Monday to Friday: 9am EST to Midnight EST
Saturday and Sunday: 9am EST to 8pm EST
Toll Free: 1-877-326-7483
Thank You,
Trey Gardner
Marketing representative (trey@greengeeks.com, ).
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