Ongoing JustHost experience...

I've advocated for JustHost for awhile on seeding communities as it had been a decently fast service for new forums I start -- sub 25k posts, under 1k users. Well, I'm now firmly off that wagon and totally disappointed in the terrible customer service I've experienced today. There is another caveat to this story I will post later... once I can get my data back and make sure I won't get shafted by them.

I had an account with a forum, SycamoreHoops.com, that had under 25k posts and about 830 members. At any given time, the site probably has 10-20 users connected including members and guests... a really small forum. So today after getting back in for lunch, I got an email from JustHost stating that they were forced to suspend your site as per our terms and conditions '10% CPU/MEM/MySQL Policy' -- which would totally make sense if this was a site that had the traffic that could cause this kind of impact.

I had been on the site five minutes prior to getting this email and there were a whole 4 people on the site aside from myself. That was at 1:26PM and ever sinse I've tried to contact support asking for them to give me access to get my databases and files so I can get to another host.

I emailed them at 1:53, 3:16 and 5:21, all of which have had no response. In addition, I've attempted to use the "Live Support" on three occasions only to get the runaround and told I will get an update soon. I will post those word-for-word next so folks can get an idea of the kind of support they will get before going with JustHost. There is no worse feeling than getting shut out from your own data.

 

General Info
Chat start time Jan 18, 2010 4:14:56 PM EST
Chat end time Jan 18, 2010 4:21:55 PM EST
Duration (actual chatting time) 00:06:58
Operator Darren

Chat Transcript
info: All our operators are currently assisting others customers. You are currently in position 1 Thank you for your patience. An operator will be with you shortly.
info: You are now chatting with 'Darren'
Darren: Welcome to Live Chat support, how may I help you?
Jason: My account was suspended for CPU load. However, I cannot get into the FTP or my CPanel to retreive my files and DBs.
Jason: I need to get these items ASAP so I can move to a better host.
Jason: I've already responded to the suspension email two hours ago with no response.
Darren: ok
Darren: Please provide me ticket number
Jason: 1071935
Darren: Thanks for holding....
Jason: BTW, you may want to refer this box to a tech. That site that was suspended rarely has more than 20 users on at any given time. I'd imagine there is some misconfiguration somewhere.
Darren: I have updated your ticket our admins now
Jason: Excuse me?
Darren: Our admins are working on your issue
Darren: You will receive email from them very soon from now
Jason: Alright.

 

General Info
Chat start time Jan 18, 2010 5:22:23 PM EST
Chat end time Jan 18, 2010 5:27:33 PM EST
Duration (actual chatting time) 00:05:10
Operator Kelvin

Chat Transcript
info: All our operators are currently assisting others customers. You are currently in position 2 Thank you for your patience. An operator will be with you shortly.
info: You are now chatting with 'Kelvin'
Kelvin: Welcome to Live Chat support, how may I help you?
Kelvin: Hello
Jason: Ticket 1071935. I was suspended 3 hours ago. I've contacted support via email each hour now and have had no response. I need to get to my files and databases so I can move to another host.
Kelvin: You need to wait until they update you
Jason: How long will this take?
Kelvin: They will update you as soon as possible
Jason: If you cannot give me an ETA, I need a name and phone number for a manager so I can speak with them personally.
Jason: That's not good enough.
Jason: I have 7 accounts with you guys.
Kelvin: You will be soon updated from them
Jason: Please provide me a name and number.
Kelvin: You can call at 1-888-755-7585
Jason: That's the general support number. They give me the same run around.
Jason: Thanks for the terrible customer service, Kelvin.
Kelvin: You need to wait until the support update your ticket

 

General Info
Chat start time Jan 18, 2010 7:23:03 PM EST
Chat end time Jan 18, 2010 7:28:40 PM EST
Duration (actual chatting time) 00:05:37
Operator Kelvin

Chat Transcript
info: All our operators are currently assisting others customers. You are currently in position 1 Thank you for your patience. An operator will be with you shortly.
info: You are now chatting with 'Kelvin'
Kelvin: Welcome to Live Chat support, how may I help you?
Jason: Can you give me an update on 1071935? I've been waiting 5 hours for a response.
Kelvin: Hello
Kelvin: Please give me a moment to go through your issue
Kelvin: I have updated your ticket and you will be soon updated in the same ticket
Jason: I've been told that once an hour for 5 hours now.
Jason: Yet every hour I keep coming back because I haven't been updated or heard from anyone.
Kelvin: yes you will be soon updated on your issue
Jason: Well if not, I'll be back in an hour. Hopefully you guys don't mind me posting all of these logs on WHT and other hosting sites.

 

The crappy thing is, as mentioned above, I do have 7 accounts with JustHost. Most are with vBulletin forums just like this one... sub 25k posts, under 1k users and usually 5-25 people on at any given time. On top of it, I had just moved accounts to JustHost in November-December of last year and they are paid up for three years. I will be moving them all away from JH as soon as I possibly can due to this attrocious customer service.

So, in short, avoid JUSTHOST like the plague.

 

Are they a UK reseller of liquid web?

That is what it looks like from domaintools.com

It almost sounds from the wording, that tech support may be non-USA/UK based.

 

Dunno. They tried to upsell me to a partner, SingleHop. I finally got this email from them at around 8pm EST:

I immediately replied to it stating that was fine, I just needed my stuff. Haven't heard back... shocker.

 

Why do you have so many different accounts?

If they are for different people/clients have you thought about signing up as a reseller at a reputable company? You could get a really nice vps with the same $.

 

Yes, they are UK based...I think.
Second, I never had these issue with them before, but I never got tagged for high CPU usage. I got hit with a false DMCA notice and had the whole thing finished in under 3 hours with no real issues from them.
Third, why 7 account? You can host unlimited domains from one account...

 

Each one is a forum. There is now way I could run 7 forums on a VPS. I have used shared hosting to grow forums for 10 years now and have never encountered this kind of issue or service. That said, they still have my data hostage.

 

You think you can run 7 forums from one account? Good luck with that.

 

Well, I run 1 active forum (small though, under 100 users) 1 now inactive (used to have 60+ members), 1 inactive (for the time being while we merge) and a website off of 1 account. They claim to be unlimited, so what is the problem? I don't know, I am not as big as you....

 

That is the main reason why I left godaddy, 1&1, virpus,,, they said anything more then 10 - 15 people on the site at one time was "high traffic".

With 7 forums, you really need some kind of virtual private server. I'am going to guess your on a shared host right now?

 

They each have their own account, yes.

Once they grow up, they go over to URLJet, which I've never had a problem with. My current biggest, GoldHelmet.com, is hosted there and I've never had an ounce of downtime.

 

Their own account? Why not just lease a small dedicated server?

 

Can that be done for $28 a month? I pay $3.45 a month per account.

 

Glad i chose to go with HawkHost then, Sorry about your problems.

 

Sometimes you get what you pay for.

 

I have to go back and ask about how this all started. Your OP stats they provided high usage on CPU, etc.

You said there was a load of users on that should not have garnered such a load in the first place. Am i understanding that correctly?

if that is true, then how is the load values the provider gave are verified? Or does your site have some resource intensive content that would actually do this? Was this a fluke, 1x thing, or intermittent consistency? I'm sure you have not provided all the chain of events, but it's clear that having no response from them for almost a full business day.....is cause for alarm in explaining what was the root cause for the lockdown.

Lastly, in general, is this what a host does? Lock the account down for no access to the data????

 

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