I initially signed up with Netfirms after finding a coupon code that offered an entire year of hosting for a small lump sum. Being somewhat new, I allowed myself to be impressed by the reviews on various host ratings sites and didn't consider checking for criticism or looking at how many sites they have hosted on each server. Over the year which followed, the only thing about Netfirms I was happy about is using a toss-away visa to make the purchase.
After first logging into my domain, I discovered that the "Netfirms Control Panel" was almost entirely unusable with options that didn't work. More importantly, installation scripts for common content management applications like Wordpress would install in a subdomain (i.E. Yoursite.com/netfirms/). As this was a major point of interest due to my lack of experience, I found it extremely frustrating that it took over a week for support to respond to my ticket and their response was nothing more than a generic thank-you for contacting support but they can't do anything about it.
I decided at that point to just setup a place holder for the page and look for different hosting. It was at this point that I noticed that the site took close to 45 seconds to load a simple html template and a 9k jpeg file. Worse, the entire domain would go down for a few minutes every hour.increasingly annoyed, I contacted support by phone who stated that the graphics heavy sites take a long time to load on any server and refused to acknowledge that the site was unavailable.
After securing another host, I changed the dns information to HostPC's server's and ran my site from there. All was well and good until it came time to renew my account and domains. Preferring not to pay Netfirms another penny, I tried to figure out how to cancel my account and initiate a domain transfer.
Nowhere on the main site, help, knowledge base, or forums can be found instructions on terminating an account. What instructions could be found on transferring a domain were specifically for sites transferring to Netfirms or current customers transferring to a new account.in the year since opening up this account, the Netfirms Control Panel had not only changed but options for transferring domains were completely locked out because my account needed to be renewed.
With only days to go before my domain entered redemption, I tried to contact support but ended up talking with someone at a call center. I submitted a work order but they didn't respond to it. I did everything I could but it became clear that Netfirms was holding my domain hostage until I gave them some money.
With only one day to go, I gave up. I decided that I would pay them just so I could keep my domain. I went and purchased another toss away Visa card and entered it into my account for a renewal, hit submit, and hated myself for letting this bully take my money.
I woke up the next day hoping that I would have a way to transfer my domain but I found a nasty surprise instead.in my e-mail was the following message:
"Hello,
In order to prevent the rise of fraudulent activity there are some criteria that must be passed before an order is approved. If the criteria are not met the order is flagged.
Your order was flagged, thus we require proof of ownership of the credit card being used. If you do not feel comfortable faxing the credit card (fax number 1.416.661.0700) then you may scan the credit card (front and back) and send it as a jpeg file to us at [email protected]. You may block the middle digits as we only need to see the first and last four. Once the credit card has been verified your order will be approved.
We apologize for the inconvenience. Unfortunately, we must take these measures in order to protect you and our customers."
There was no way this bully was going to have a photocopy of the credit card so I decided I'd had enough. On the edge of hysterics because my domain would expire that day, I replied to the message from Jonathon and explained that he was off his rocker if he expected me to send them a photocopy of my credit card and signature. I further explained that the only reason I was paying more in the first place was because I couldn't reach support to initiate a domain transfer nor do it myself.
Jonathon, explained that if I didn't pay for a renewal today that the domain would go into redemption which would require I pay Netfirms $75 to get it out of redemption, not to mention the additional costs for re-registering. Since there was no way to get out of this situation, I had nothing I could do and refused to renew my account.
Every day, I checked the domain after my site went down. When it reached "pending delete" status, I hoped that I would be able to renew it. But my domain ended up going to someone else and now it is nothing more than an adspace requesting $3500 if I'd like to buy a domain netfirms held hostage.
Do yourself a favor, don't skimp on registering your domain with a registrar you can trust and avoid the grief which accompanies a Netfirms account.
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