Warning: FastHosts Free Unlimited Reseller Hosting For A Year

[dgridley]

Spotted a full page ad in Wired magazine for free unlimited reseller hosting for 1 year and as usual went to www.webhostingjury.com first to check reviews for the service.

Turns out FastHosts has not one favorable review for their service or support. In fact, the reviews were quite blatant in warning potential customer's away from FastHosts:

"They don't give database with hosting. You must buy extra ($50-$60)."

"Please read the Fasthosts Terms and Conditions carefully:

“You are required to have a valid credit/debit card and email address registered on your account at all times, failure to do so will result in suspension of your account.”

“All invoices will be sent directly to customers via email shortly AFTER the online purchase has been made. At this point the customer's card will be charged automatically.”

"Be careful with your domains and account renewals. Fasthosts automatically take payment UNLESS you opt out. AND they charge you a fee if your cards are out of date. AND they don't send reminder emails! AND they don't give refunds once paid!"

"Anything you ask (even if it's their fault) and they will charge £70 on your credit card immediately. Without doing any work. Yes. That's right. It's called "personal engineer service" and applies to anything, and costs £120 an hour plus VAT. They say "we'll refund it if it turns out to be our fault". All you will get is a roundabout excuse that it's your fault."

It's a shame that a respected magazine such as Wired will blindly accept advertising from hosting companies with such an obviously poor customer review.

Unfortunately, alot of people will get sucked in by their offer of free hosting, despite the fact the hosting costs $50 per month after the free year (and that's not counting incidental service charges in the interim).

Goes to show, sometimes free is NOT free!

 

[gjvblack]

Dam hosting companies, its so hard to find a good one with reliable service, support, and good prices. You kno what also does this? VelCom.com did this sort of thing to several users.

 

[Peter]

I have seen their adverts myself in quite a few magazines but to be honest as soon as you see unmetered or unlimited then just turn the page.

No matter how big the company is they cannot truly offer such hosting.

 

[John C.]

I would be careful not to confuse the .UK site with the .COM company. I'm not sure if they're one and the same (I think so), but the reviews on Webhosting jury are for the .UK site (see screen captures of home page included on their site -- clearly not the homepage of the .COM site). Plus, the personal engineer service mentioned above is also not for the .COM site. I know this for sure because they don't offer dedicated servers through the .COM site (I enquired about this) and that's when personal engineer service is required according to the UK site.

I was really cautious at first as well, so I did lots of research and then signed up for the free unlimited service about two months ago (which I believe was about the time that the site launched). The terms and conditions are pretty clear (even if you don't read the small type). The free service gets you unlimited space, bandwidth, email, and websites for a year. Cost after that is only $50/month, which is really good considering everything you get and that there are no restrictions on how much you can charge or what type of packages you create for your customers.

I was a little hesitant about giving up my credit card info for a free service, but I haven't been charged for anything relating to the free service. Of course I was billed for a domain I secured, but I assume that's why they needed the credit card info -- for billable services above and beyond the free ones. Add-on services are things like stats, traffic builder, load-balancing, etc. But no surprises with the way things are billed -- it's all clearly marked. Also, the free service actually includes unlimited MySQL databases and FTPs as well (awesome!)

There’s definitely no cost involved with the support — my first call to them was over six weeks ago and I haven’t seen any charge on my card. I've had to contact support two or three times and found them to be really helpful. I'm really impressed that their support is based right here in the good old US of A and not overseas somewhere (so tired of struggling with non-english speaking support).

I understand some of the confusion, but — trust me — it really is free and it’s as good as anything else out there, so it’s worth giving it a shot.

 

[dgridley]

thanks for weighing in.. I'd be interested to know if they are one and the same.. if so, why the difference in service?

I suppose the best approach would be to provide them with a one time or virtual CC so you couldn't get bit too much.

I would be careful not to confuse the .UK site with the .COM company. I'm not sure if they're one and the same (I think so), but the reviews on Webhosting jury are for the .UK site (see screen captures of home page included on their site -- clearly not the homepage of the .COM site). Plus, the personal engineer service mentioned above is also not for the .COM site. I know this for sure because they don't offer dedicated servers through the .COM site (I enquired about this) and that's when personal engineer service is required according to the UK site.

I was really cautious at first as well, so I did lots of research and then signed up for the free unlimited service about two months ago (which I believe was about the time that the site launched). The terms and conditions are pretty clear (even if you don't read the small type). The free service gets you unlimited space, bandwidth, email, and websites for a year. Cost after that is only $50/month, which is really good considering everything you get and that there are no restrictions on how much you can charge or what type of packages you create for your customers.

I was a little hesitant about giving up my credit card info for a free service, but I haven't been charged for anything relating to the free service. Of course I was billed for a domain I secured, but I assume that's why they needed the credit card info -- for billable services above and beyond the free ones. Add-on services are things like stats, traffic builder, load-balancing, etc. But no surprises with the way things are billed -- it's all clearly marked. Also, the free service actually includes unlimited MySQL databases and FTPs as well (awesome!)

There’s definitely no cost involved with the support — my first call to them was over six weeks ago and I haven’t seen any charge on my card. I've had to contact support two or three times and found them to be really helpful. I'm really impressed that their support is based right here in the good old US of A and not overseas somewhere (so tired of struggling with non-english speaking support).

I understand some of the confusion, but — trust me — it really is free and it’s as good as anything else out there, so it’s worth giving it a shot.