Olin Coles
31st January 2008, 09:04 AM
On Friday morning (01/25/08) an article we published received so much attention that our site had over 300 visitors on it. This load, combined with a recently installed comment system, created a situation where our site was consuming high CPU resources. Our (now former) host 1and1 Internet moved the domain to offload server strain, but in doing so they somehow moved it onto a failing server, and the site showed a 404 error page.
Over the past seven days I have made a total of 27 telephone calls to 1&1. Most of these calls went to their general level-1 tech support, which is based in the Philippines. While the level one support tries to be helpful, the lack of mastery for the English language paired with their inability to solve real problems make the conversation frustration in counter-productive.
Second level support, also known as the fraud and abuse team, is available at 1-877-206-4253. These people are based out of Pennsylvania in the USA, and operate during normal business hours. While they have more resources to assist with, even they seemed to need level three support at every step. Level three support is based out of the headquarters datacenter in Germany.
With so many phone calls to their tech support, along with numerous support tickets created, you would think that someone might care. They don't. The echoed response that ended every call to them was usually "I can't do anything for you at my level. We have to wait for x-level support to give this their attention when they return tomorrow." It took only one full day of hearing this excuse over and over which convinced me that waiting may not be in my best interest, and a change of hosts was in order.
So on Saturday morning I contracted with a new web host. Based out of Arizona, I felt that I would at least be able to talk with someone in my time zone using my own dialect. Sadly, I would learn that it could take over an hour waiting for them to answer to phone, and after six different call all resulting in 45-minutes or more of wait time I found myself with far fewer questions and less concerned about a speedy domain transfer. Six days later, and I still don't have a server configured for my site with them.
Back at 1and1, the domain was still directed to a mystery location, and the domain transfer of registrars had failed because of complications (server failure) at their end. Just when you thought that a company couldn't get much worse, they told me that some of my site files were likely lost in a failed transfer between servers. Good thing I operate a computer company which extols the virtues of routine backups to the clients on a daily basis.
So now where are we? Well, as of 8AM Thursday morning (nearly 7 full days later), we are so close to having the site back that I can sneak past the errors to get here.
Over the past seven days I have made a total of 27 telephone calls to 1&1. Most of these calls went to their general level-1 tech support, which is based in the Philippines. While the level one support tries to be helpful, the lack of mastery for the English language paired with their inability to solve real problems make the conversation frustration in counter-productive.
Second level support, also known as the fraud and abuse team, is available at 1-877-206-4253. These people are based out of Pennsylvania in the USA, and operate during normal business hours. While they have more resources to assist with, even they seemed to need level three support at every step. Level three support is based out of the headquarters datacenter in Germany.
With so many phone calls to their tech support, along with numerous support tickets created, you would think that someone might care. They don't. The echoed response that ended every call to them was usually "I can't do anything for you at my level. We have to wait for x-level support to give this their attention when they return tomorrow." It took only one full day of hearing this excuse over and over which convinced me that waiting may not be in my best interest, and a change of hosts was in order.
So on Saturday morning I contracted with a new web host. Based out of Arizona, I felt that I would at least be able to talk with someone in my time zone using my own dialect. Sadly, I would learn that it could take over an hour waiting for them to answer to phone, and after six different call all resulting in 45-minutes or more of wait time I found myself with far fewer questions and less concerned about a speedy domain transfer. Six days later, and I still don't have a server configured for my site with them.
Back at 1and1, the domain was still directed to a mystery location, and the domain transfer of registrars had failed because of complications (server failure) at their end. Just when you thought that a company couldn't get much worse, they told me that some of my site files were likely lost in a failed transfer between servers. Good thing I operate a computer company which extols the virtues of routine backups to the clients on a daily basis.
So now where are we? Well, as of 8AM Thursday morning (nearly 7 full days later), we are so close to having the site back that I can sneak past the errors to get here.