Hello,
Thanks for detailing your experiences, at least I can address them now more accurately.
TheSmegHead said:
I realize that many people here at NamePros have had good experiences with PolurNet, and I don’t intend to discount them.
We do appreciate feedback, but the most effective way to address issues is to contact our administration department at info[at]polurnet.com as a first-line of communication. I did some quick research now based on the information you gave to find which customer you are, so I'll reply more individually about this situation, while commenting about the global policies in place and how we respected them.
Firstly, I will briefly mention your initial situation, which you did not seem to include, but it is relevant to this discussion:
1) You contacted us back in early 2006 (via PM) about purchasing a site from a Namepros member who never followed up with you for payment. The owner of those sites was a customer of ours and we too were unable to contact him for other reasons (billing, etc.) for a period of many months.
2) Although not required as per any host's policies, we still decided to give the benefit of the doubt and give you the full site access and files to the site you apparently purchased, since the previous owner did not return our repeated call attempts and other contact methods. We did so on your behalf, again demonstrating the extra mile we went to resolve this issue.
Now, I'll proceed to address the points you mention below with detailed information:
Most of the things I list below are more annoyances than serious issues (although the last problem is quite serious in my mind). Many other hosts have some of these issues as well. My hope is that PolurNet can take this feedback and use it to improve their service – they have a lot to build on.
But my individual communications with them made no changes, so I was forced to move on.
Actually, we never received any feedback from you and any tickets/comments you sent were addressed at length, with no further replies from you. Should you have sent us the 'individual communications' you mention, I'm sure this could have been resolved amicably.
Also, as far as I can see, you're still a customer of ours and sent a recent support ticket; no cancellation request was sent, so not sure how you were 'forced to move on' yet.
- Cpanel and WHM do not have current security certificates. This gets a warning pop-up which you need to click through. I am not filled with confidence when my host can’t manage their own certificates.
Quite the contrary. It appears you don't realize the need for control panel SSL certificates: these are intended to provide an extra layer of login security and protection against hacking attempts by encrypting client-to-server communication when accessing the control panel. This is also mentioned on the generic server hostname we provide, nsglobalhost.net
Note that you can easily install the certificate on your browser to avoid the warning messages triggered by the self-signed server-wide 256-bit SSL certificate. Since SSL is domain-based, any other domain accessing the control panel apart from the server's hostname is subject to "domain mismatch" messages. However, these can also be avoided by following the procedures to install and manually approve the SSL certificate on your browser, which only takes a few moments.
Thus to summarize, any host that
doesn't offer secure SSL logins to the control panel should question your confidence; not the contrary.
- Cpanel and WHM load very slowly. A logged support issue got this fixed for a few days, but I got back to the slow loading pretty quickly.
This is a server-dependent issue. Since we have dozens of different servers, I can't comment on what specific servers are affected at a time. However, full uptime stats on all servers are provided and demonstrate that our 99.9% guarantees are maintained on all servers.
Certainly, there may be times when we are forced to deal with a spammer, or resource abuser which causes the server to load slowly. Nevertheless, these situations are handled quite effectively and promptly, which is what counts.
The server you are on is specifically used by polurnet's site itself, so I'm surprised you say the control panel loads slowly when the server has logged below-average loads and perfect 100% uptime for the past several months. We also take extra precaution on monitoring the server for abuse and no complaints or issues were received during the past several months as far as I can see.
- PolurNet has no support phone number. This became a serious issue when one of my high traffic monetized sites went down (multiple times). PolurNet usually responds within a few hours, but I have many responsibilities and can’t sit around watching for their response. Since it took a number of emails to get the issue resolved, my site was often down for more than a day given all of the back and forth.
Here are a few typical response times from your tickets that are noteworthy to mention before responding to your issue:
Code:
#1 Message by [email protected] on Thu, 3rd Aug 2006 12:32 pm
#2 Message by xxxxxx (tech) on Thu, 3rd Aug 2006 12:33 pm
==> Total: [B]1 Minute Response Time[/B]
Code:
#1 Message by [email protected] on Sat, 29th Jul 2006 2:05 pm
#2 Message by xxxxxx (tech) on Sat, 29th Jul 2006 2:24 pm
==> Total: [B]19 Minutes Response Time[/B]
Code:
#5 Message by [email protected] on Sat, 29th Jul 2006 3:04 pm
#6 Message by xxxxxx (tech) on Sat, 29th Jul 2006 3:11 pm
==> Total: [B]7 Minutes Response Time[/B]
Code:
#1 Message by [email protected] [sent by email] on Mon, 6th Nov 2006 4:58 am
#2 Message by xxxxxx (tech) on Mon, 6th Nov 2006 6:44 am
==> Total: [B]1 Hour, 46 Minutes Response Time[/B]
We don't believe a phone number with some answering machine would be the most effective way in handling support or keep a customer waiting on hold and ultimately be forced to call multiple times for a simple issue.
In fact, instead of increasing costs and prices to sustain such a service, our alternatives such as 24/7 helpdesk support with guaranteed response times, as well as Live Chat (available at various times throughout the day including weekends and holidays), do provide a more comprehensive, detailed and efficient means of support.
Furthermore, for nearly 3 years, this formula has proven to be appreciated by nearly all of our customers, compared to frustrating outsourced support or generic responses one may receive in telephone conversations, as experienced by customers in other notable hosting companies.
- When I tried to delete a site and set it up again using WHM, I found I needed to log a support issue with PolurNet to get them to delete the DNS entry. Multiple emails and more hours of delay were required. On any of my other hosts this is a simple and quick procedure that can be done without help.
True, no other host provides a global clustered network with separate class C IPs nameservers. Nor do they attempt to provide a redundant sustainable network that requires high amount of investments on infrastructure.
As for your issue, it was resolved within 2 hours after you sent your message. When you say multiple emails, please clarify there were only two (2) -- one reply from a tech saying it was being addressed and the next one confirming the fix.
We did successfully re-create the account and assigned it to your WHM, but no further replies were received from you acknowledging the resolution.
- When I signed up with PolurNet I used a subscription payment which has never had a problem. Despite that, I get multiple monthly emails threatening to suspend my account; the final message even states that the account has been suspended! Here is a cut and paste of the email:
If I get a notification that my account has been suspended, how can I ignore it? What if there was an actual problem? This is not the type of communication a professional webmaster can accept.
We clearly state in ALL of our invoice emails the following line clarifying the policy with PayPal Subscriptions:
Code:
If you already have an active PayPal Subscription for your invoice, you may disregard this notice, as it will be deducted automatically on the invoice due date.
Of course, if you didn't read this line it could cause confusion. Nevertheless, when you did decide to send us a message, we quickly responded to you saying your account billing date was now matched with the PayPal subscription date, thus avoiding any further premature and automated suspension notices.
- But here is the kicker. At one point I found for the nth time that my high-traffic site was once again down. Multiple slow emails back and forth finally got to the answer: PolurNet had changed their nameservers! The final communication was too amazing to paraphrase, so here it is:
Actually, emails were dispatched to all our customers back in May/June 2006 detailing the nameserver change to a global, clustered network AND clearly mentioned on the home page, forum and frequently reminded in ticket responses. In fact, old nameservers were NEVER deactivated, but we gave over 6 months for the transition period for old customers not already using the latest nameservers. The latest nameservers significantly improve performance, but are not always necessary to get your site running.
Are you kidding me? I have a day job and every minute of spare time I have is devoted to building and promoting sites, not reading every post in the forums of my web hosts. I find it incredible that PolurNet will send multiple billing spams every month, but considers a nameserver change not important enough for an email or that it is a spam concern! It seems their priority is getting paid, not providing the service they advertise.
You fail to address an important point: billing emails are automated and associated from day one with your account. We address any concerns or comments, so don't see how these are 'spam'.
Nameserver information emails were indeed sent, and the same information with further details and instructions, was clearly posted on the forums for discussion and updates. Since the change is not considered 'critical' as old NS's were still fully functional and a long (7 months and still counting) transition period in place, it is likely the reason you did not receive the email is due to the fact that you signed up after a date the information emails were sent to old customers. New emails were not dispatched due to the reasons mentioned above, and also the implementation of the new network for subsequent signups by default.
Since we need an quick but efficient way to organize important information and communicate to reach the greatest number of customers, all announcements (incl. network status, etc.) are posted on our forums and mirrored on our home page. This makes all information easily accessible and helps coordinate efforts during critical periods of time. If we decide to email every customer for every problem, not only will it significantly delay response time, clog email servers and potentially cause confusion if dynamic updates are required, it is also inconvenient with such a large customer base with multiple servers and networks.
However, whenever feasible and when the situation calls for a global email, this is sent to all affected customers. In fact,
all server migration schedules (eg. recently Paladium->Invivo, etc.), emergency announcements, etc. are communicated both via email and via the forum to reach as much as possible all customers. Hundreds of customers can attest to this fact.
As I stated in the other thread, my most important concern is my time. I need a host that respects that. They need to provide consistent service quietly in the background and I would hope not to have to ever communicate with them – sending or receiving. If I do have to communicate with them it needs to be for a good reason, quick and to the point with instant resolution of any issues.
Sure, I can understand your needs and I still believe we do provide them. On the other hand, we also believe in effective communication and one-to-one support which most customers appreciate, but some do not like to do for various reasons. For these customers, we may not be a suitable choice since it requires active participation as a customer to interact with a host and stay up-to-date on events. In my opinion, it is much more reassuring to have a responsive, respectful and honest host, than one potentially run by automated robots who lack of communication, treat customers as a just another billing/customer ID and lack a place to see updates when you need them.
I hope this addresses most of your points, and again appreciate the time you took to bring up these important issues that needed to be approached. At the same time, we will also work on improving our values and ideals to ensure our ultimate goal as a host is achieved, in spite of any obstacles that need to be overcome along the road to success. After all, providing attention to changing needs and working on dynamic improvements are as important as reaching static ones already in place.
