IPower Hosting is the bane of my existence. As a webmaster, I managed about 100 accounts with them for myself and for several clients. I started doing business with them initially at a client’s request years back. At the time, they were very affordable and the service was good enough. That quickly changed and today, their prices have gone up drastically.

But the real problem is that when I have to deal with them on a problem, I spend a large amount of time on hold with them. My average hold time just to initially speak with a representative is 40 minutes. Then after I have talked to someone, they will almost always put me back on hold for some additional time.
That hold time has cost me a lot of money in the past. Both in terms of money spent on the phone calls, as well as time lost while waiting for them to pick up the line. I have estimated the cost of doing business with IPower at a much higher amount than they charge for their products. If I were to value my time at a very cheap level of $10 an hour (let’s assume I’m multi-tasking to bring the rate down), then I’d estimate that it costs me at least $50 per account per year to do business with IPower.
With close to 100 accounts that is $5,000 in lost opportunity cost for me. Now losing money on a partner would not qualify them as the ‘bane of my existence’. I give that emotionally subjective label to IPower due to their hold music.
They used to play a really really bad medley of 70’s rock and 90’s techno with very awkward transitions. Waiting on hold for 40 minutes at a time listening to this was bad. What was worse, every time someone picked up and put me back on hold, the medley would start over from the beginning.
These days they have finally changed their hold music to something that might be considered more soothing. I can’t quite place the music all though I used to know the group. I think it was some enigma b-side or maybe Deep Forest or Digweed or something, but they play the same single song on an endless loop now and it drives me nuts too!
I thought I’d share just a minute of it or so with you, so that you could decide if you wanted to deal with this over and over again for 40 minute stretches on a regular basis.

If not, go somewhere else for hosting. Or prepare yourself to sell a lot of funny t-shirts bemoaning your time spent with IPower.
Mobile post sent by 001brettbum using Utterz. Replies. mp3

So you may have followed my recent problems with IPower.  Their site has a bug that prevents existing account holders from registering a new domain.

See

On Hold with IPower for 2 hours

and

Complaint – IPower Still Can’t Process New Orders Correctly

and tangent

Consolidating Accounts at IPower Very Hard

Well they seem to have a more serious issue that compounds this problem.

My Domain Availability Search was compromised.  When I attempted to register a new domain and register it through IPower, that domain was subsequently purchased by a domainer that owns over 1.5 million other web domain addresses.

I was not trying to purchase anything special, just a spelling variation to redirect to my site.  In fact, when I ran into a problem with the order, I did not do any additional searches on their system fearing the worst. 

So this domainer guy picked up the domain just a day or two after I attempted to register it through IPower before being thwarted by their broken buggy system.

It is a big problem, when they are unable to process an order.  Its not like they are some mom and pop hosting company using used cisco equipment that needs a reboot, we are talking about simple website functionality.

On the internet, it is a MASSIVE problem when the security of your transactions are jeopardized.

I had my suspicions about IPower in the past, but had not been able to confirm the problem.  I always took the precaution of ordering immediately, anything that I searched for.

The search was a required step in the ordering process.

When their buggy system didn’t allow me to place my order someone else found a way to view my search and make the purchase themselves, probably hoping to take my traffic or resell the domain to me at a $1000 plus markup.

Here’s my recent email to IPower

. . . . .

That said this evening I learned of an even bigger problem with your domain registration process. It would appear that it is not secure.
The domain that I attempted to register multiple times while your system was not working was registered by a domainer (someone who owns over 1.5 million domains).
It is not a typical domain that I attempted to register and not something a domainer would care about unless they knew that someone wanted to register that specific domain.
There have been rumors floating on the internet that your domain ordering process may be compromised either hacked on the website itself or compromised by someone within your company. This is the first direct confirming evidence that I have seen regarding this problem.
Now, in the past, I would not search a domain on your site to check availability unless I was prepared to buy it as soon as availability was confirmed.
However, since your site is compromised AND I am unable to purchase domains on the first try (as of this evening 12:12 am 5/14). I can no longer use your service for this initial phase in building websites (that is acquiring domains).
I do hope you get it fixed, but I have to go somewhere safer for business where my privacy is not in jeopardy.

My Advice to people considering the registration of a domain. 

DO NOT USE IPOWER AT ANY COST

Fortunately, in this IPower did make things easier as they have raised their prices.  First from $6.50 to $6.85 (no big deal) and then more importantly, by adding the cost of $8.99 for Privacy Protection, a service they used to provide for free.

This is a quick update to the previous article titled – IPower Still Can’t Process New Orders Correctly .

Since that chat session, I had to call IPower back again this evening.  This time for a clients account.  I called in and was on hold for 45 minutes.  I got through to someone and they hung up on me after 2 minutes.  They couldn’t seem to spell my domain name (in their system) to pull up my account in the system even after I gave them my username, password, security word and last four of my credit card.

So then I had to call back in.  This time I was on hold for 75 minutes (actually went in, pushed 3 for billing) but the phone was picked up by someone else at 25 minutes who was not billing.  They did me the nice favor of putting me back in the hold que at the beginning!

Fifty minutes later a person in billing actually picks up the phone.  They slug through trying to get my domain name right.  Finally get it after a few minutes and then they are able to confirm that my request to consolidate my customers accounts had failed.

Four days ago, I had requested that twenty some parked domains should be consolidated to our primary domain and hosting plan with Ipower.  We had these twenty domains as mis-spelled versions of the domain, redirected to the primary domain.  Having twenty some individual accounts, 1 for each domain is a real pain to renew each year, hence the consolidation request.

The rep was trying to be helpful and put me on hold again.

Fortunately, it was just for about 2 minutes.  He came back and tells me that he will work to manually consolidate all the accounts now, as I  . . ..

you guessed it!

Wait on hold some more!

Now don’t get me wrong.  At this point, I’ll suffer through another 5-10 minutes of IPower’s hold music on loop (the same techno song on repeat, not even the full song, just a 60 second loop or something) as long as I can get my customer’s accounts consolidated.

So in the meantime, I write this and a few other articles and shop around for a cell phone with a GPS system and a great video recording capability.  (looking at the Nokia N95)

Description Of Problem

When logged into my account with Ipower, I try to order a brand new domain to add to my existing account.  The ordering process system tries to force me to create a brand new account (while logged in) instead of adding the domain to my existing account.  This error pops up regardless of the path that I tried to process the registration.  It occurred in both IE7 and Firefox although the video only shows firefox.

Below is the chat transcript from my session with IPower. 

Welcome to IPOWER! You are number 1 in the queue. Please be prepared to answer your Security Question when we begin chatting. To enhance our security protocols, we’ll need you to provide the answer to your Security Question at the beginning of our conversation. If you have not yet set your Security Question and Answer, please log into your account now to set it up. Thank you. Please hold for the next available operator to respond.

You are now chatting with ‘Ipower Sales Rep’

Ipower Sales Rep: How can I help you?

IPower Customer with Complaint: Hi name edited out to protect Sales Guy,

IPower Customer with Complaint: I’m trying to register some new domains to add to one of my accounts.

IPower Customer with Complaint: Your ordering system has been broken for a couple months (I’ve even been interviewed by the Press in Phoenix about it) and I’m trying to figure out when it will be fixed so that I can place a new order.

Ipower Sales Rep: I apologize for the inconveniene.

Ipower Sales Rep: I can order them for you.

IPower Customer with Complaint: I manage about 100 domains through iPower, and I’m trying to keep all my new domains under my existing account.

IPower Customer with Complaint: I’d prefer for your system to be fixed.

IPower Customer with Complaint: Do you know when that might happen? Its been broken since February.

IPower Customer with Complaint: I was interviewed in March.

Ipower Sales Rep: I was unaware of that problem.

Ipower Sales Rep: I have ordered myself and have customers that have done it.

IPower Customer with Complaint: That’s partly why I’m chatting. I assumed that since the problem had been reported in the papers that IPower was aware.

Ipower Sales Rep: Today in fact.

IPower Customer with Complaint: Usually I can get an order through on the 4th or 5th attempt.

IPower Customer with Complaint: Today, I’ve tried about 10 times and it just seems to get worse.

IPower Customer with Complaint: I can take a video of it and send it to you if you like, but I’d like to see it fixed or I’ll have to take my business somewhere else.

Ipower Sales Rep: I am unable to fix it from here in sales.

IPower Customer with Complaint: Who is responsible for the sales portion of the website?

Ipower Sales Rep: I will connect you with the support department and try to get a supervisor on the line to assist you with htis.

IPower Customer with Complaint: I tried billing but had no luck there. I can’t get through to support

IPower Customer with Complaint: thanks

Ipower Sales Rep: I will connect you.

Please wait while I transfer the chat to the best suited site operator.

You are now chatting with ‘IPower Support Rep responding to Complaint’

IPower Support Rep responding to Complaint: Hi Customer with Complaint. My name is IPower Support Rep responding to Complaint, how are you today?

IPower Support Rep responding to Complaint: How can I help you today?

IPower Customer with Complaint: Hi Ipower Support Rep,

IPower Customer with Complaint: I was just transfered from sales

IPower Support Rep responding to Complaint: Okay.

IPower Customer with Complaint: Since February your new web site setup continually errors out when I attempt to place new orders.

IPower Customer with Complaint: In March a reporter from your local Phoenix newspaper even interviewed me about the problem.

IPower Customer with Complaint: It seems to be getting worse, and I’m trying to figure out if you are even aware of the problem.

IPower Customer with Complaint: I’d like to see it fixed, because I can’t place orders for new domains.

IPower Customer with Complaint: (note on that last) I usually can get an order to go through after 4-5 repeated attempts, tonight I tried over 10 times and it just gets stuck.

IPower Support Rep responding to Complaint: Your domain name ‘domain-mentioned-in-chat-form-session.com’ is associated with the account ‘username’ and the hosting plan for the account is Domain parking account which is of free of cost.

IPower Customer with Complaint: I have about 100 domains with you.

IPower Support Rep responding to Complaint: In this plan you will not be able to use any hosting account features.

IPower Customer with Complaint: They are not under the same account

IPower Customer with Complaint: hold on, you do not understand

IPower Customer with Complaint: I’m trying to add a domain to the account with the home address of different-domain-with-multiple-domains-already-on-it.com

IPower Customer with Complaint: when I signed into chat, I mentioned the ‘domain-mentioned-in-chat-form-session.com.com account thinking it was the primary. the chat session info is incorrect.

IPower Customer with Complaint: I have 6 other domains under the different-domain-with-multiple-domains-already-on-it.com account

IPower Customer with Complaint: I’d like to have about 100 there, but consolidation under your system is extremely problematic for legacy accounts with or without hosting plans with you.

IPower Support Rep responding to Complaint: Domain ”domain-mentioned-in-chat-form-session.com.com’ is associated with the account ‘mavenmap’.

IPower Support Rep responding to Complaint: Could you please let me know where exactly yo wish to add your domain name ‘ different-domain-with-multiple-domains-already-on-it.com’?

IPower Customer with Complaint: forget about that domain, that is not the problem

IPower Customer with Complaint: ok, let me try again.

IPower Customer with Complaint: different-domain-with-multiple-domains-already-on-it.com is the account that has the home symbol on it in your system. I’m assuming that this means its the primary account under the login name of brettbum

IPower Customer with Complaint: I am trying to purchase a new domain (actually several) to add to this account.

IPower Customer with Complaint: I already have 6 additional domains on this same account, that I have ordered over the last 60 days.

IPower Customer with Complaint: They were difficult to order and it took me about 5 times per domain before your system would process the order. (the errors that I’m referring to and the same errors that I was interviewed about when the Press wrote up a nice article about the problems that IPower has with its customers).

IPower Customer with Complaint: Are you telling me that I can no longer add domains to this account? If yes, that’s all I need to know. I can go do business else where. If not, then lets talk about getting your system fixed.

IPower Support Rep responding to Complaint: You can add multiple number of domains under your current account.

IPower Support Rep responding to Complaint: I have checked your account ‘username2′ and noticed that the account is set as Domain parking account, where you can only park the domain names.

IPower Customer with Complaint: no, that’s the problem the system is not processing orders. I’d love to but its not working

IPower Customer with Complaint: What does this “I have checked your account ‘username2′ and noticed that the account is set as Domain parking account, where you can only park the domain names.” have to do with buying more domains for parking?

IPower Support Rep responding to Complaint: In order to add the domain name from the account, please follow the steps given below:

IPower Support Rep responding to Complaint: 1. Log into the vDeck at http://www.ipower.com/controlpanel/index.bml with your vDeck username and password.

IPower Support Rep responding to Complaint: 2. Click on  ‘Add Registered Domain to Account’ under Domain.

IPower Support Rep responding to Complaint: 3. Enter the domain name you wish to add and click on ‘Add Domain’ button.

IPower Customer with Complaint: you are telling me things I already know.

IPower Customer with Complaint: I’m telling you that your system does not work when I do that.

IPower Customer with Complaint: Should I send you the video?

IPower Support Rep responding to Complaint: Okay sure.

IPower Support Rep responding to Complaint: Are you trying to register the domain name or trying to add the registered domain name?

IPower Customer with Complaint: give me your email address or I can post it online and send you a link

IPower Customer with Complaint: here’s the news article btw http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/business/articles/0306biz-ipower0306.html

IPower Support Rep responding to Complaint: Okay.

IPower Customer with Complaint: trying to register a new domain name

IPower Support Rep responding to Complaint: You can e-mail us at support@ipower-inc.com .

IPower Support Rep responding to Complaint: Okay.

IPower Customer with Complaint: attention who?

IPower Customer with Complaint: I’ve sent emails there before. they get lost.

IPower Support Rep responding to Complaint: You can register the domain name by going to the URL:

IPower Support Rep responding to Complaint: http://www.ipower.com/product/domainRegistration.bml

IPower Customer with Complaint: yeah, that doesn’t work either

IPower Customer with Complaint: tried that about 6 times, tried hitting the Domains button and then going through the New Registration link.

IPower Customer with Complaint: Let me know when you want to hear about how this doesn’t work?

IPower Customer with Complaint: btw, just tried it again while doing the video and it did not work

IPower Customer with Complaint: OK, look I feel like you are waisting my time, when I’m trying to help you.

IPower Customer with Complaint: I will render the video and send it to ipower’s support email. In the meantime, I place my order with someone else because you do not seem very helpful.

IPower Customer with Complaint: I wish you and Ipower luck with this and hopefully won’t have to read about you in the paper again nor give another negative interview.

Your chat transcript will be sent to my-email-address@yahoo.com at the end of your chat.

Note: I tried to call in initially.  After waiting on hold for 20 minutes I tried chat.  I might as well have pulled my optical mouse through my nose and out my ears and returned it with a computer rental absorbing the equipment damage on my credit card for all the good the chat help did me. 

So if you are trying to find a good way to put your Economic Stimulus package or tax refund to good effect, PowWeb is offering a half off special on 1 year packages.  That gives you a year of hosting at $3.88 per month when you prepay for a year’s worth of hosting.

That’s only $46.56 for a full year of hosting!

That’s very very cheap, no matter what the plan and the deal is good when you act on their income tax refund special.

You get 1500 Gigabytes of storage (1.5 terabytes) and 15,000 (that’s fifteen THOUSAND) Gigabytes of transfer bandwidth or 500 megabytes per day.

That basically saves you about $45 when you buy now.  That extra $45 dollars could fill up your new economy car with gas, or get you a reservation at an internet industry trade show in some cheap hotels, or it could buy you a nice little chunk of advertising to bring more traffic and business to your site so that you can earn even more money!

This is a question that is central to anyone that wants to make a smart decision in choosing a hosting company.  If you are going to have a hosting company, eventually you will need to deal with them on the phone.  I don’t care what their up time is or how good they are technically, you will have to talk to them some day.

When you call the experience you receive and the time you spend can quickly change your perspective on who is good and who is affordable. 

If you get a hosting deal that costs you $50 a year for hosting expenses, but requires that you spend 8 hours a quarter on the phone waiting on hold or getting transferred around, and your time is worth $10 an hour (just a low example) then this hosting company would actually cost you $50 a year + $80 per quarter or $380 per year!

For that money, you could lease your own dedicated server!

So here is an excerpt from a discussion forum thread where a number of people are trying to share their experiences and assessments of hosting companies based entirely on the subjective view of how good their phone support is.

Obviously, this should not be your only criteria for choosing, but it definitely should not be neglected when you make your choice. 

I have used several hosters. Currently on Aplus.net and Godad, which have phone ssupport, and mediocre service.
My LIST So Far:
- Liquidweb: a very impressive company with good, 24 hour support. But to get dedicated IP, you need to go with their $25/month plan. Yikes!
- NewIdeaHosting.com. A very small company. My call was returned, and the owner chatted with me for an hour on the phone! Plans have small bandwidth, but promises No overselling, and personalized attention. Extra $5 for dedi IP. He specializes in Small business sites, and small eCommerce sites. He has only 250 accounts, on 3 servers. He rents servers from the Equinox data center of Chicago. Seems exceptionaly honest.
- MegaHosters. Excellent phone support and WHT reviews. But company was taken over by another company, and so may well go downhill in future. Another problem: uses Hsphere.
- Steadfast. Has a good rep on WHT, and seems impressive. Tech answered the phone immediately, but they say they prefer emails. Sales phone has limited hours. Good price on $20 SSL. But, uses Hshhere.
- JodoHost 24 hour phone. But, uses Hsphere. An Indian company with office in Florida, and good rep. I like the idea of outsourcing phone support, if it makes it more available and affordable. But, the accent on the phone was very hard for me to understand, so maybe this might not work…..
- Hostgator. Yes, it’s a big overseller, but seems to get good reviews/results anyway, and good phone support.
- ? ThePrimeHost ?? Mostly good WHT reviews; some dissenters. Site says 24hour phone, but when I called on several nights, no one ever answered… 

OnGoing List of Good Hosters with Good TELEPHONE tech support – Web Hosting Talk – The largest, most influential web hosting community on the Internet

Hope that helps get you started on your path to choosing the best host.  If you have a hosting company experience that you would like to share drop us a comment.  We’d be happy to cite your example and give your site credit in the form of a plug with a mention and a link. 

In the mean time, try and keep yourself sane as you work to deal with your hosting company.  At the end of the day its just business, not personal, don’t let a hosting company representative push you over the edge or before you know it you’ll find yourself drinking away your web profits and end up in drug rehab or something.  Keep yourself happy, sane and balanced no matter how bad your host is!

Here is an excerpt of a review again from Web Hosting Articles.  This one covers Hostnine.  Note, this review is not based on personal experience but on comments made by others within a forum talking about HostNine. 

HostNine Plans Listed:
HostNine Basic Plan
   $3.95/mo., 5,000 MB, 100 GB
HostNine Standard Plan
   $6.95/mo., 10 GB, 150 GB
HostNine Entry Reseller
   $19.95/mo., 15 GB, 150 GB
Unlike Hostgator, who enter into pretty much every niche, and have something for everybody, HostNine has three basic plans. The packages are competitively priced, but it seems price is not everything. To make sure that these forum members were not simply out to destroy HostNine, I sampled other user forums. Generally, HostNine users do not report high levels of satisfaction with the web host. Check here for some user experiences. Before we take a look at how all this grief started, we will look at what HostNine has to offer its users.
HostNine has a great package for entry resellers. It is not a lot of space, but it gives you options to resell unlimited domains and the power to host ecommerce sites conveniently. With WHMCS for their resellers, this website allows computer users with intermediate skills to become resellers and manage the billing and support of their clients. Combine HostNine’s relative user friendliness (and a package that is attractively priced) and you get a lot of people jumping on the web host to become resellers or single users hosting multiple sites, especially with HostNine’s use of software, which allows customers to build web pages on the fly. And this is where it gets ugly; good business does not necessarily translate into good service.
The Guarantees
HostNine runs on Dell PowerEdge servers with no less than a Dual Xeon 2.8GHz processor along with a 100% Network Uptime guarantee by HostNine’s data center. Their terms and conditions clearly state that there will be daily back ups of all data. They run an aggressive marketing campaign (just Google a bit and you will have up to 50 percent free on the first month). HostNine’s support is said to be fastservers.net. HostNine’s biggest problem with its users is simply that they know a little too much about their web host. Web Hosting Reviews: Hostnine

As you look at this review, there is definitely some emphasis on the reseller plan.  This is not one of the best reseller plans but not the worst either.  This is likely going to work best for someone that manages a number of hosting plans on HostNine and is familiar with the operations, systems and control panels.  Its not set up for arbitrage of the best hosting prices, but more there for convenience for webmasters that would operate there anyway.  Kind of like buying ram for your computer when you are configuring it in the beginning.  If you order direct from Dell, you might get dell memory thrown in, but if you are upgrading after the fact, odds are you will go where ever it is the cheapest.

Here’s an excerpt from a review I found over on Web Hosting Articles in regards to BlueHost.  Most people that I have talked to that have sites on BlueHost are happy with them, but as the reviewer points out the hosting package is rather simple and a one size fits all type of deal.  In that way, BlueHost is a lot like the leisure suit of men’s fashion.  Its OK at the time when you are wearing it, but over time as you grow or your tastes and needs change, you’ll likely need to move on.

BlueHost
If you like variety, BlueHost is not for you. If you like simplicity and ease in setting up your account (and love inflexibility), BlueHost is for you. They have one plan and one plan only: 300 GB of disk space, 3000 GB of bandwidth, and 2500 e-mail addresses. The price varies depending on how long you sign up for in the program.

• 3 Months: $9.95/month + $30.00 Setup + Domain ($10.00 if purchased from BlueHost)

• 6 Months: $8.95/month + $30.00 Setup + Domain ($10.00 if purchased from BlueHost)

• 12 Months: $7.95/month (no setup fee, free domain included)

• 24 Months: $6.95/month (no setup fee, free domain included)

Obviously, the package drops its monthly charges the longer you sign up with BlueHost. A lot of neat features are offered, such as an unlimited number of add-on domains, parked domains, and sub-domains. It supports FTP and databases (50 each for MySQL and PostgreSQL — not much, but you can work with it). The strength of BlueHost has been their pushing of a single package at a competitive price.  They had slightly more than 250,000 domain names under their control as of January 2007. This has made them a force to be reckoned with in the web hosting business. 

Web Hosting Reviews: BlueHost