Anyone ordered a 123 server recently?

[mikey_freedom]

Tweet

Hi all,
This is a post coming out of utter frustration with what I thought was a reasonable webhost.

Has anyone ordered a server off them recently? Did you find the setup service okay? Has the server itself been alright? Have you had to use their online support and was it a good experience?

The back-story is that on Sunday, on my recommendation, I helped someone order one of 123's Ubuntu servers. Account opened, card details entered etc and it said the server would be set up within 24 hrs. Three days later and we'd had no communications, nothing, so yesterday evening a support ticket was started asking what was happening. There was no human response to this. Now four days down the line I've just called their 0871 number to ask what is going on. After being passed from one agent to another still noone can tell us when it will be set up although when challenged about the service being poor, the response was that they are cheap (nowhere near the cheapest by the way!) and so pretty much c'est la vie.

To be honest I feel utterly frustrated and looking like a fool. I've had a server with them myself for years and frankly it's okay, but I recommended them at this budget point. Now I'm beginning to worry that I've helped sign someone up to a year long contract for a service that they still can't use and noone can tell us when it will be set up.

Four days seems excessive to set up a vanilla spec server (I got one to my spec set up on Xmas Eve in 4 hours with another UK company). The lack of reply to a support ticket within 24 hours is just poor, hanging on an 0871 number was frustrating but still not having a clue when they will set it up is plain ridiculous.

Please will someone tell me that this is not typical of them nowadays because heaven help him if this is what he has to expect over the coming year.

[webhostuk]

Hello,

If you are looking for managed dedicated server in UK with full setup in 24 to 48 hours : WebHosting.UK.Net : UK Dedicated Web Hosting | Best UK Managed server | Cpanel UK Datacenter Hosting | Cheap Linux Dedicated Server | Affordable UK Dedicated Hosting | London Datacenter Server | UK Dell Dedicated Servers | Fully Managed Dedicated Ser

all our managed services are free of cost.

Servers are located in UK London.

[babrees]

I don't think that 123-reg have ever had a good reputation for hosting. I used to register my domains through them, but if I had a problem there support was crap. Needless to say I now register elsewhere - I have never been brave enough to try their hosting.

Sorry.

[pipeten]

That is a a bit excessive lead time. I've never known anyone use them for servers. We get a lot of ex 123 customers moving to us because of their lack of support for hosting. For basic domain registration I'm sure they are probably fine.

Sorry, thats probably not much help, did you manage to get anywhere yet?

[mikey_freedom]

Few months and not been around here so firstly cheers for the replies to this thread and apologies for the long delay in responding. In answer to was it sorted, the reply is no. They eventually contacted the client by phone, long after he had gone with another host. It transpired that they hadn't actually taken payment despite saying they had. Then after 8 weeks (yes, 8 weeks) they finally replied to the support ticket that was opened 3 days after the order. Having looked like a lemon and telling the client that I could only assume that they are overstretched, that was the end of 123 things for him. He won't go near 123-reg for anything else, I'm quite sure, after that fiasco. I still have an account with 123 though which brings me to a ...

<rant> ... As a follow up, and just to illustrate that this wasn't a one off, my own dedicated server with them went on terminal tilt in early February and at the end of the month their techs deemed it and the data to be unrecoverable. It had been up for almost 5 years, had needed a new motherboard last year and had finally reached end of life. With it having been on and offline for over a month and some sites on it having been deindexed due to downtime, I was just glad to see the back of it and didn't want a replacement. When I checked my card statement a week ago, things seemed okay. There was no charge made in March and i assumed that that was the end of things. Not so. Yesterday I checked and discovered that they had created a new subscription date and took a fee on Saturday for a server that I have no information about and certainly didn't agree to any new contract/subscription for.

Of course they don't do telephone support at weekends and I can't wait 8 weeks to get a response via ticket so I held off until today to speak to someone and find out what the hell they are playing at. I phoned at 9am (choosing option #4 - Invoice & Account Queries) and was eventually answered by a human after about 10 mins. Before I got chance to speak though, he put the phone down on me. I immediately redialled and got through to someone else after a while. Explained the problem and they said it was wasn't their issue and put me through to Webfusion. The guy at Webfusion claimed that they are not even the same company and not his problem. This is just false as they are, of course, 2 brands under Webfusion Ltd. Look at the copyright on the bottom of 123-reg.co.uk or '123-reg general terms of service' which opens with the words '123-reg is a brand of Webfusion Ltd.' Any claim that they are not the same company is simply not true, although it is fairly irrelevant to my problem.

That guy then put me back through to 123 and the only helpful person I've dealt with there, Sarah. She took all the details and confirmed their error.

But...then I was told that they'd also just tried to take another £47.99 at 9.19 this morning, at the same time as I was being passed from pillar to post by other 'support' staff. I was promised refunds for both and that she would get it sorted. I like to be an optimist but I wasn't holding my breath on this.

They 'can't' & won't refund the cost of the 0871 calls to them, despite the problem being one of their making (disregarding my time, the calls will have cost me a few quid). This could be the basis of a great scam for any rogue companies interested in it. Incorrectly invoice people whose card details you hold, take their money and then make cash by the minute while they hold on the phone. Put down phone, make them spend more time redialling & listening to piped music while at the same time you invoice them yet again and attempt to take even more money. Rinse and repeat. I'm not suggesting that 123 have adopted this as a policy approach, just that their systems and certain members of staff have inadvertently brought it about in my case.

If you're like me, and multiple erroneous charges like these take you to your card limit, then the problems become compounded and far, far more expensive. Let me repeat.. at no time did I request or they inform me of a new contract/subscription, a new date or advise me of any new server details. They invoiced twice and charged me for something I didn't request and had no access to, even if it existed at all....but I am the one who has to waste the day and spend time on 10p/min premium calls just to beg with them to not take money that they have no right to.

It's now long after 6pm so that is effectively a full working day on repeated calls to them, the card company and chasing my tail. It does now appear as though they have refunded the invoice amounts but that doesn't make up for all the wasted time, phone calls, frustration and anger.

Reflecting on these two incidents, all I can say is 123-reg - for me they did seem okay for .uk domains (although I do know of people with auto-renew issues with these), but hosting - forget about it and forget about it all over again. You may well waste days of your life and see your sites & finances suffer. Personally, I'll be removing any ads for them and advising customers of ours, affected by this mess, exactly why we are in such a situation. I'll never purchase new .uks from them again and over time I will also be moving all our existing names from them. It's only about 50 domains, so they won't be bothered but at least I'll feel a bit better.

Cheers 123, no... but really ... cheers. I love having money taken without reason, phones put down on me, dealing with chaos and having to foot the bill....

I can't post a word here that would adequately describe my feelings by now towards 123, but I'm sure you can guess at a couple of suitable ones.</rant>