Vodahost First Hosters - Awful Experience

I have been with Vodahost for less than three months now, but wish I had never have chosen them or gone anywhere near them, they're absolutely useless.

They say they are absolutely fanatical about customer support - what a joke!! When you do submit a support ticket it can take days for them to respond and then when they do so, the support language used can be rather rude and abrupt.

So, drawing a blank there, you think to yourself, ok I'll post on the forum, see what joy I can receive there.

Word of advice, whatever you do, word your concern very very VERY VERY carefully, this company loves to maintain a squeeky clean image to get your money.

My first post ever on the forum was to my website designer thanking her publically for helping me out, very professional Lady, just superb to work with, nothing but high praise for her, lo and behold, the post was immediately jumped on by some guy telling me that self promotion and prefabricated praise was not allowed. I took exception to this, first pointing out that I was not self promoting myself, but another kind lady who had helped me out so much and that I thought it rather rude that he should be suggesting on my first post ever that I was some kind of liar by saying that the praise had been set up in advance, when in fact it had been given quite spontaneously.

In jump 3 VH supporters, each lamblasting me with their remarks completely derailing the thread and ridiculing my website designer. Again I thought this was very rude, for everyone likes to receive praise, and it is exceptionally rude of the admin to pile in, to take down someone who has just received high praise for a job well done. The thread disintegrated, I was rather forthright I admit and gave as good as I got, before too long however, despite sterenuously complaining about the actions of the admin, the thread was deleted. As were all my other subsequent threads aimed at helping others in the community with their concerns. I was then banned for 14 days from the forum.

What I do think is unfair is that these admin each self promote their own web site design services, and since right at the start I turned one of them down, choosing an 'ordinary' member instead, it seems this was the source of the problem I was having with them. I do not think it right that these admin can self promote their services which creates a conflict of interest which does not propagate a fair playing field for everyone else.

Upon getting back on the forum, I make a post of apology, thinking it better to smooth the waters, afterall I had been pretty forthright myself responding to these control freaks. I was told that my initial comments were not 'appropriate', to which I replied that I was terribly sorry, that I would make sure that in the future I did not heap positive praise on other members and that I would do my level headed best to reign such positivism in. Of course, not understanding the British sense of humour, the whole thread was immediately deleted in full.

Now to this evening and the past week.
Towards the end of the ban from the forum ONE OF VODAHOSTS SERVERS CRASHED, wiping out my website entirely, everything except for the front page, all the work, time and effort put in, it all vanished.

Rather than supporting a new ticket for customer support, knowing their track record, I made a post in the SEO section of the forum, extremely matter of factly and ever so polite, asking if there was a chance of some kind of compensation for the loss of business in the past week - even an apology would have been nice, and maybe some useful freebie thrown in, to let me know that they cared - nothing of the sort.

THE ENTIRE THREAD WAS IMMEDIATELY DELETED IN THREE MINUTES FLAT!!

I posted again straightaway asking where my thread had disappeared to, that was deleted straightaway too, I posted again, saying that if this kept on happening I would set up my own independent forum for other complainee's to have a true voice and that they the admin were welcome to respond out in the open there - the power of the internet and freedom of speech - obviously deleted straightaway, hence I came here to make this rather lengthy thread.

What annoys me is that I/we spent hours upon hours upon hours designing the website and within 2 weeks of it being fully online, pretty much every page was lost, requiring all that work to be put in again.

This is a new business, I have invested everything I have pretty much to get this set up and running and previously was unemployed with no savings, so you can imagine how important it is to me to have a host who will truly look after me.

Vodahost has been nothing but a headache, all the effort put in to increase my SEO rankings, has gone down the drain, since most of the pages returned a Page Not Found - brilliant, this is all I need!! Where is the ultimate sarcasm emoticon when you need it?!!

My advice to anyone thinking of using Vodahost for your small business website is NOT TO TOUCH THEM WITH A BARGEPOLE!! They really are useless, customer support is terrible and rude, the forum is an absolute joke, the only reason you cannot see any neative remarks is because I guess, ll those kind of posts have been deleted. What does that say to the rest of the world? What true image is represented when you can't see out of a community of 10,000, not even one complaint? You want to ask yourself, are they REALLY, I mean REALLY that good, or is something fishy fggoing on?

If anyone can point me in the direction of a decent host that understands true customer support, I'd be delighted to hear from you and whether it is feasible to transfer my website to another company, whilst too, still being able to maintain changes to my web pages every now and then using someone else.

DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY WITH VODAHOST IF YOU ARE A SMALL BUSINESS OWNER, if you do so, it will be a lesson learned and a terrible mistake!!

User Comments(3)

no support

no support, erreoneous information emailed, can't access a lot of stuff, need passwords which are erroneous to see response to my request ! Looking for a another server.

User Comments(0)

The Worst Experience

Recently, I have had nothing but trouble with this, so called Web Host'. Their servers have turned into Spam Farms without any action from the server managers. Their forums are moderated by a bunch of brainless freaks who are given full authority to delete any complaint provided by a member. Their aim is to display compliments only so they do not loose a dollar. They are useless and not worth the money. Their customer support is run by one person who is rude and arrogant. Many users will say the same thing. Their phones never answer and if you dare crticise their service, they will delete your post and ban you.. this is offcourse after they have taken your money. If you are considering a web hosting service, stay clear from Voda Host. Their service is lousy and you can get much more server space and traffic allowances from other providers for less money.

User Comments(2)

The Best of the Best

I am new to the Webworld and never in my life would have thought I could build a website. I consider myself a technically challeged person and artistically not even close to drawing credible stick men but the Blue Voda webuilder has made me feel like a genius and the help and kindness of the member ans staff of the Voda Host Forum has raised my level of knowledge.

The Forum is one of the greatest assets of Voda Host, which by itself is already an incredible bargain. Upon searching the web I had tried a few other free webbuilders but BV was the only one that I found that really was created with the novice in mind. Kudos to them for a job well done. THey have a lively forum and a great support team that makes it easy to go about making a great site in very little time.

To those seeking a free webuilder and a great hosting service I recommend BV & VH as the best of the best. Try it yourself...it's worth the time.

User Comments(1)

I love it!

Spent a few days reviewing hosts on the web for pricing/features/site builder software, etc.

Signed up for Voda Host. Downloaded Blue Voda.

Spend a couple of days playing with it: GREAT PRODUCT.

I have spent a year with Soholaunch with another hosting company: its OK, but clumsy and confining. Frontpage is good but not much pizzaz. Dreamweaver too complicated for me.

But BV has been great! Congratulations! I can recommend VodaHost (quick responses to trouble tickets so far) and Blue Voda.

User Comments(0)

I'd avoid!

I found the sales speel did not match reality -

"easy to use" and "no programming knowledge needed"

- not true. When I pointed this out to them, they

pointed out their Terms of Service which stated that

such knowledge WAS needed. This was the fastest

reply I'd had from Vodahost 'support', by the way.

The support documentation is contradictory and

ambiguous. One can only try the software once

signed up - which is when one finds the flaws. Many

support docs are incorrect, and I spent days trying

to configure the basics. I did not find it easy to

use at all. Frustrating, was my experience.

Customer support was slow. You only find this out

once you've paid.

I've found the tutorials to be all over the place,

largely inaccurate, out of date and misleading. How

the various 'easy to use' tools are supposed to

interact, is a mystery to me. The inability to

modify forms in Form Maker Pro is a design

nightmare. Form Maker Pro was one of the 'products'

that sold me on this hosting system, but which I

could only test after forking out the fees.

All of the above has led to days of hair-tearing

frustration. How Vodahost can claim that one can

have a web site up and running without any prior

experience is beyond me.

I tried to contact Vodahost's UK contacts to ask for

a refund their contact details given as:

In the U.K.
VodaHost Ltd.
7 Petworth Road
Haslemere, Surrey
GU27 2JB
Tel: 020 8816 8319 / United Kingdom

However, the above UK telephone number belonged to

someone who knew nothing about Vodahost, and who was

answering the call from Hong Kong, via Skype!

In my opinion, avoid, or report them to the Office

of Fair Trading:

http://www.direct.gov.uk/ExternalLink?EXTERNAL_LINK=

http%3A//www.ripofftipoff.net/+

User Comments(0)

Vodahost are not so Good

I have some very bad issues with Vodahost, they customer support is suppose to be fanatical its really not very good at all, as most of the people there have been brainwashed into thinking that everything is fine there, so if there is a problem you have caused it... To give you an idea if you look into there forums All negitive feedback is removed, which tells me that they cannot accept critisisum in any form. Even when it is warranted... My advice is stay away.... I had 4 sites with them and I was an affiliate... But no more....

User Comments(0)

Response to the lies below

To answer the below response, this is a bunch of lies and if anyone wants to trust this guy, go ahead but it's at your own risk. My phone number is not fake at all, although I have since moved house. It is vodahost who has a pretend phone number with an answering machine at the other end. I recommend anyone who thinks of using vodahost, try to contact them before, and see if you can manage to speak to a person. My mistake is that I did not do any research before. If I had I would have seen that many others had a bad experience before, and I even found one website that raised the question of whether this guy was a criminal. So please do your research. Do not fall into the same trap that I did. And do not be drawn in by the few good reviews you might find. I suspect some of these were done by the owner himself. If you need further information on vodahost please do contact me on my email mirgrec@gmail.com

User Comments(0)

VodaHost web hosting provider response:

Vodahost is one huge scam

Stay away - that is my advice. It is just a scam. I was tempted to join because I wanted to use a simple website builder, (for I had no idea how to design a website) and they offered one - but you can only use it if you have an account with them, so I got one. It seems that this vodahost is run by one guy who calls himself many different names so that hsue appears like a big company. After a while he started suspending my site for no apparent reason, and came up with all sorts of crap explanations. He said I was spamming and sent me emails that were supposedly attached to my site, then he sent me a file that he said was attached to my site - a file to chase credit card details of others. He accused me and threatened me. I asked him for a phone number to be able to talk to someone to sort this out becuase I hadn't done it, but instead asked me to fax a copy of my passport, and started abusing me. So most likely this guy is using people's websites for internet fraud, and then putting the blame on his clients. This is one of the emails he sent me - just to see his professionalism -

"cut the fucking crap, your a criminal, we caught you and your shitting yourself, what you did can get you 10 years in a very nice victorian prison cell. Do you think you are being clever or something??? You are a fraudster, we traced it all back to your IP address. So send me your ID so I may forward it to the authorties and let them sort you out".

I have since reposrted vodahost to the authorities, and I don't think he will be around much longer

User Comments(39)

VodaHost web hosting provider n/a response:

Shouldve researched before, horrible

Stay far away from this company

I just lost 120$ to them on Sunday. They did not turn on my account and they surreptiously charged me 20 dollars on my credit card for what they said was a free domain name.

In the meantime, I had a chance to research them (duh, after I paid). Threads like this
<a href="http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=405796">http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=405796</a>

I asked them since they hadnt turned on my account and overcharged for what was to be free I am not satisfied (Remember Big Bold Letters 100% guaranteed satisfaction). Figured it was only a few hours they would reverse the transaction.
They break out the terms of service with a lecture about morality.
Crazy to do business like that. Read that thread and the way they talk to people. The owner asked if one poster had been breastfed as a child?? That attitude was seen in some of my exchanges. I am just going to chalk it up to a loss. Dont make the same mistake as me.
Email me at Sydney_stryker@hotmail.com if you have more questions about my experience with them.
No joke, I am really out the money and just happen I found out about them in advance before building a site there. Research them, believe me, its completely unprofessional people and weird too. Oh yeah, I still have a year of hosting paid for there, anyone wants it can have it.

Seriously, every thing that every says about them is true when you research them. I cant believe I was such an idiot to get sucked with out a proper research of this company.

User Comments(0)