We are a small company, ie. A 49 year-old-man and two grandmothers working from an office converted from a small storage room, that spent months creating a website, and months in promotional endeavors. We have spent thousands of dollars in savings to try to create a web presence that would supplement our almost non-existent incomes.
We made the mistake of Hosting our site with Globat Web Hosting. The service was bad from the start. After signing up for the service and paying for it by bank card, we were to receive a confirmation email with the details of file transfer and webmail initiation. This email did not arrive. It took several emails and chat sessions with them for this to finally happen. That was just the start.
The site was consistantly down for short periods of time. When questioned about the outages, their only response was that they were working on the problem. The email account that accompanies the service is to supply unlimited email addresses with your domain name. We employed several. They worked slowly, but worked. The only thing about them was that they didn't send emails. They would receive, but not send, emails. They were never returned undeliverable, and the webmail program always stated "Your mail has been sent." We consistently complained about this. We needed our emails to correspond with our retailers and customers. We had already given them the addresses.
When we contacted Globat, they were very unsupportive. They would tell us that they could see no problem with the email, or that they were working on it and would email us when the problem had been resolved. There was never either, a resolution or an email. Not even to explain why not. We contacted them again. This time, since the representative didn't have any answers, he disconnected the chat connection, and the chat connection, all-of-a-sudden, became impossible to re-connect. There was no follow-up by them.
It went on this way over a week. The site was down again, so I contacted them again. They told me that they were having technical difficulties, and the site would be up again in about an hour. Nothing to do about this, so I mentioned the email still not functioning properly. I was left waiting for a reply for 20 to 30 minutes. I believe they were hoping that I would become discouraged and disconnect. Since I didn't, the representative came back explaining to me that the site and email were both inoperable because they had been cut off. They told me that this was done due to excessive spam reports from our domain.
We recently mailed to a rental list, so I contacted our list provider. The president of the list provider company told me that his company didn't send spam, that they could provide documented opt-in for every name on the list.
I contacted Globat again, with this information. They were rude and careless to our situation. I requested copies of the spam reports. They waited 24 hours and several requests before sending one (1) to me. They said that there were several. Several? As in a few? They will remove a company's storefront from the internet, without any kind of warning, for just a few reports of spam?
I requested a pro-rated refund, because the service was not up to parr and the accusations were outragous. I was told that "they don't refund to spammers." My list provider sent them an email offering opt-in information for any complaint they may be holding. Four more days have passed and after several more chats with Globat, there is still no resolution to this situation. I am being told that it will be addressed as soon as the Admin gets back from lunch. This person lunches for 4 days?
The accusations of spam and the removal of the website from the internet was just a ploy at cover-up for their inability to provide the service in which they were paid.
Now, my company is out all the money spent on web services, possible revenues, time and effort in building and employing the site, as well as frustrated and withdrawn over the actions of this company.
We are having to hire a new host, build a new site, (had to change the name because the domain is registered at Globat as well), and start a whole new promotional campaign to notify our retailers and customers of the changes.
It has cost us a lot of money to learn this lesson, that is why i am writing this. Need a web presence? Stay away from globat!!! They will ultimately cost you and possibly put you out of business. They are rude, liars, deceptive for their own cause, an heartless for your concerns.
And they will concoct a reason not to reimburse your money.
Bob
Dallas, Texas
U.S.A.
0 comments