Comments on: CI Host, an evil-doer of the hosting world

By: JP

JP — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 19:48:44 +0000

Ditto…

Same thing happening to me on my dedicated server. I have been a CIHOST customer since 2005. I have had ups and downs with them over the years, but due to the economic climate I had to canceled the account this year. I canceled as requested to do so online. Only to receive a bill 2 months later. Luckily the billing credit card was canceled before hand.

Also, I purchased 2 hard drives and had them installed in to my dedicated server; as of right now they are holding them hostage for a sum of over $2,500. (the cost of the dedicated server package)

Now I have a collection agency bugging me to pay a bill that is not valid.

I have wrote off the HDD as a loss. And I have turned over the collection problems to the lawyers. I bet a letter from my lawyer will shut them up. But who knows.

Peace
JP

:-/

By: Brady

Brady — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 21:28:24 +0000

After four years of being a CoLo customer of CI Host, I received a $3600 bill for a monthly bandwidth overage. I don’t run any high traffic sites and had never exceeded any bandwidth cap in the past, so I requested evidence of their claim of this excessive bandwidth usage. After numerous requests and almost 2 months later I finally received a “log report”. It wasn’t much of a log just switch port summary with a few sets of numbers and no unit identification or explanation. When my bill became 60 days past due they disconnect my service (TWICE) even though I was still disputing the charge and it had taken them over six weeks to get me any log at all. The organization I work for just wanted proof that the charges were legit and not an error or fabrication. Finally I just paid the bill to avoid being completely shut down. Not too long after this I received another monthly bandwidth overage bill. Determined to get to the bottom of this issue, I was finally able to get some detailed logs from CIHost and started to analyze them, but was never able to determine how they came up with the overage amount they claimed. Their initial investigation came to the conclusion that their traffic logs and overage charges were accurate. I began looking at traffic reports from my servers and came to the conclusion that there was no way their numbers were correct. I also began to realize that they didn’t really know how their numbers were calculated either. I continued to press for explanations, conversion formulas, and how they got the usage numbers. Finally, they began to look at the switch and traffic logging system and once they figured out how it worked they realized that it was configured incorrectly. (I was actually only using about 4% of their initial claim!) They promptly refunded the $3600 and canceled the other charges. Unfortunately I can’t get back the over 50 hours wasted dealing with CI Host over this issue.

The biggest sources of frustration in dealing with CI Host were the slow response to my requests and their lack of competence. I was finally able to get things done once I communicated directly with their managers via email. Their employees can’t do anything without management approval and they’re frequently in meetings or unavailable.

Here are my observations of CI Host after being a customer for a number of years: 1) CI Host’s services are well priced and you get a lot for your money. In comparison to other Datacenters, you do get more than you pay for. 2) CI Host is not a top tier datacenter. Their facilities, infrastructure, and technical support are low to mid-level, which will get you by most of the time. 3) You’re not paying top dollar, so you should expect occasional outages and issues. Over the years we had a number of power outages, high temperature issues, etc. 4) Many of their employees are overworked and underpaid. Thus, some of their people are not the most qualified or competent. As with any organization some are helpful and others not. 5) They only have staff available to answer customer support related phone calls from 8 to 5, Central time.

I DO NOT RECOMMEND CI HOST. Pay a little more and you’ll get better service and support.

By: henry

henry — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 04:37:35 +0000

I cannot even start to say how this post made me feel. I had some flashes when I was a customer of them back in 2000.

I cannot not complain about their support, but the company sucks really. They had a reseller account with them, and paid like 150$ a month for all the websites running. They wiped some accounts totally 2 times in 2 almost 1 and half year i was their client. No backups nothing, a total lie, i losed completely 2 websites back then. On another occasion another site was completely hacked and wiped out. The service was the worst in history, you had like weekly downtimes. I wasnt to demanding back them because i was a newbie and did not knew anything better but today i would sue them right away for all what they did to me. 40% of my reseller accounts where a total lie, they never existed, you could claim as much as you wanted. That sheila women is the same from that years, she is in the collecting departament, a very rude person. They keep charging me 6 months for a disconnected service. They rob me more then 580$ of my credit card because i finally cancelled the credit card. This people are a shame. Their CEO is a real scumback, they sued some people because of bad reviews back them, people had complete websites like cihostsucks.com and similar. Now of course with the magic of google they cannot stop people anymore from hiding their terrible service. Im sure they also lie about their colo offer and network.

By: Ville Walveranta

Ville Walveranta — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 22:13:14 +0000

This article has been referred to from the following URLs:

• http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=727972
• http://www.hostingdiscussion.com/web-host-reviews/18743-ci-host-continues-suck.html
• http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?t=27876
• http://viestit.etusivu.net/showthread.php?p=187040#post187040
• http://www.cihostreviews.com/review/cihost/4003