Hosting Questions

[swisslogistics]

Hello everyone,

Hope you all had a great xmas!

Got a few questions about hosting that I would like some help with...

I have a three small sites (nothing that takes over say 1GB) and three email accounts.

(1) Can it be done by myself, and what equipment do I need?
(2) My existing provider is charging a £20 late payment fee due to the fact that I paid two days late, considering I pay £40 for the whole year I think this is excessive does anyone else?
(3) Can anyone recommend any decent hosting providers as the one I have been with for over a year is getting fat by the looks of things and has not only increased his charges but lacks the customer service levels that I am used to and expect.

Thank you.

[sm1]

Hi,

I highly recommend Stuart from this forum (stugster) www.equiphase.net. A top notch service, and low priced (wanted to say cheap, but people often think cheap=crap which isn't the case here ;))

Hope that helps :)

Cheers

P.S. - Don't really know the answers to your questions, sorry :(

[Dwebs-Ltd]

(1) Can it be done by myself, and what equipment do I need?

Yes but for a small number of websites it wouldn't be cost effective unless they are bringing in plenty of revenue.


(2) My existing provider is charging a £20 late payment fee due to the fact that I paid two days late, considering I pay £40 for the whole year I think this is excessive does anyone else?


That would be classed as excessive especially if its related to the christmas period.


(3) Can anyone recommend any decent hosting providers as the one I have been with for over a year is getting fat by the looks of things and has not only increased his charges but lacks the customer service levels that I am used to and expect.


Plenty of providers on UKBF, price increased are to be expected in the current climate but they shouldn't be too excessive. What customer service level do you expect from a £40/Year package?

[oldeagleeye]

SWISS. When you move you web site - do me a favour. One of the things I hate about furinture web sites is the furniture featured in that nice graphic on the front page is rarely for sale. In your case you have a nice low coffee table but don't sell it. That is a sale lost buddy. Rob

[streetslocal]

Hello everyone,

Hope you all had a great xmas!

Got a few questions about hosting that I would like some help with...

I have a three small sites (nothing that takes over say 1GB) and three email accounts.

(1) Can it be done by myself, and what equipment do I need?
(2) My existing provider is charging a £20 late payment fee due to the fact that I paid two days late, considering I pay £40 for the whole year I think this is excessive does anyone else?
(3) Can anyone recommend any decent hosting providers as the one I have been with for over a year is getting fat by the looks of things and has not only increased his charges but lacks the customer service levels that I am used to and expect.

Thank you.

Hi,
We can help you with your hosting without any issues.
Easy set up and only £3.99 per month.

Oh and we have no late payment fees:)

Servers are reliable and support is freindly and useful and you always get a fast response to your problems if there are any.

Uptime is currently 99.9%

I will also give you your first month free.

[creospace]

I don't see a problem with late payment fee's. Why did you pay your bill late ? Speaking as someone who has to chase late payments for 2 businesses there is additional adminstration involved.

I just think it's unprofessional and cheeky to not pay your bill on time unless there are very unusual circumstances. Doesn't matter if it's 2 days late - late is late. If you get charged then you won't do it again. They have a living to make and late payers don't pay the bills.

£40 over a year wont make any host 'fat'

I sense you are just annoyed at yourself for not paying your bill on time.

[streetslocal]

I don't see a problem with late payment fee's. Why did you pay your bill late ? Speaking as someone who has to chase late payments for 2 businesses there is additional adminstration involved.

I just think it's unprofessional and cheeky to not pay your bill on time unless there are very unusual circumstances. Doesn't matter if it's 2 days late - late is late. If you get charged then you won't do it again. They have a living to make and late payers don't pay the bills.

£40 over a year wont make any host 'fat'

I sense you are just annoyed at yourself for not paying your bill on time.
Although it can happen on accident for example people not updating card details when cards expire etc and an email warning could have been sent and not recieved because of the XMAS period?

I think £20 is excessive.

[dataferret]

I think £20 is excessive.


I disagree. If you do not have enough money in your Bank account the Bank charge you at least £30. Why should a web host who offers £40 hosting be forced to chase money from someone who cannot pay their bills on time?

Using Christmas as an excuse is not a valid reason. If your bill is due then you should be expected to pay on time.

I operate a hosting company and offer low cost hosting too. My system automatically emails clients months before and they still pay late. Sometimes their site is suspended before payment is made. It is human nature to try and get away with what they can.

Except in this case the OP is complaining about the host making money from him and also the standards of service. Well you cannot have good service unless you pay your bills. If the host is expectd to chase you for money then you should expect a diminished service and extra costs.

Sorry but in my opinion late is late and the host is justified in charging the fee.

[streetslocal]

Well the way we operate is:

1)Payment late warning sent
2)A daily email is sent to the client warning them that there site will be suspended on the 7th day of the payment being late
3)Upon 7th day the website hosting is suspended
4)For the website to be reactivated we charge £9.99


Simple but effective.

With only a 3% payment late list and reduced to under 2% for those who remain unpaid.

[nickpp]

Hi

I think the late fee of 50% of the whole package value is expensive. We do not charge late fees but I do see why some do.

To host the site your self is going to cost a whole lot more than £40.00 per year!

[sysops]

Although it can happen on accident for example people not updating card details when cards expire etc and an email warning could have been sent and not recieved because of the XMAS period?

I think £20 is excessive.

Try paying your credit card bill late, then call them to argue about it.

[Dwebs-Ltd]

The late payment fee needs to be reasonable you can't bump a 50% of cost fee on top, it isn't reasonable.

[streetslocal]

Try paying your credit card bill late, then call them to argue about it.
An example is Virgin media charged me £10 as a late payment fee as i forgot about my bill,called them and they waived the charge.

One off mistakes should be reconsidered really.

Late payment of a persistent nature is not right

[sysops]

The late payment fee needs to be reasonable you can't bump a 50% of cost fee on top, it isn't reasonable.

I disagree - it needs to cover your admin costs, and so a flat £20 makes more sense than a % of the invoice.

Credit card late fees are in the order of £15-£30, and this would apply if you were only £1 overdue.

[Dominic Taylor]

We don't have late payment fees and I don't think we ever will, given that the majority of the people who don't pay on time (which isn't too many anyway) pay shortly after their site is suspended or just haven't paid because they're still on a manual paypal payment rather than automated card payment.

I don't think it's worth annoying people for low-priced shared hosting payments - there's no cost to us afterall, unlike a physical server whereby we do stand to lose because we could've sold it to someone else in the mean time.

[ServWise]

Although I can see your POV, you have to understand that the way most of us (Web hosts) make any money at all is by automating the process as much as possible, when a customer starts requiring personal attention, then your £40 a year doesn't go very far and so a late payment charge is how we recoup that additional expense and also acts as a deterrent for the future.

You may think that charging £20 is a lot considering your v.low yearly fee but that would be a fixed charge for all hosting clients for the extra admin time required (Even those paying 100's of pounds a year) and you should consider how much you charge for an hour of your time and it's not as much as you think.

Having said that I do think however in this case that the charge was issued too soon (We don't charge a late fee until 7 days after invoice due) and was maybe a little too much.

For our own customers if they are having a problem paying their bill then as long as they let us know we are happy to extend there invoice date for a week or so extra to give them time to pay, but if you ignore warnings and forget to pay you've really only got yourself to blame I'm afraid.

[sysops]

there's no cost to us afterall, unlike a physical server whereby we do stand to lose because we could've sold it to someone else in the mean time.

:|

What a ridiculous thing to say. If there really is no cost to you, then why don't you give away your hosting for free?

[Matt1959]

a £20 charge after 2 days seems like profiteering to me and I would be extremely unhappy to have this charge levied. Surely an automated reminder giving 7 days and a clear threat then of a charge etc doesnt cost anything to send?

[streetslocal]

a £20 charge after 2 days seems like profiteering to me and I would be extremely unhappy to have this charge levied. Surely an automated reminder giving 7 days and a clear threat then of a charge etc doesnt cost anything to send?
Agreed...
Its too soon to be charging that fee.

[UKSBD]

I think it all depends on the package.
3 domains on a package which costs just £40 a year should expect these
things and expect everything to just be automated.

[stugster]

I'd charge you £100. Just for the banter it would get on here :)

[creospace]

I'm quite sure the OP had reminders, most hosts start reminding a month before hand if not more.

[oldeagleeye]

And theres me thinking this was the how low auction. Next we are going to get 50% of a £1 for a logo. Come on guys. Standards need to be maintained. Rob

[ken_uk]

The 20 quid fee for late payment was part of the terms you agreed to when you signed up for the hosting surely? If its not in the terms, then I would kick up a stink, if it is, well you agreed to it.....

Its a fair bit of money, it wont take 20 quids worth of time to send a automated letter or email out, or to suspend a domain for a couple of days then reinstate it. A few mouse clicks etc on a decent automated system and its all sorted.

They may make 20 quid every time someone is a couple of days late, but how many customers do they lose who have had to pay that...

[swisslogistics]

Thank you to those who actually made a valid point.

Creospace made a truly pathetic attempt to validate a £20 late payment charge, oh well at least it made me laugh!

It didnt cost him squat to process a late payment, he did nothing at all, its just a way of ripping off a customer who will now get his money's worth by creating quite a bit of adverse publicity for him.

He sent loads of reminders...just to the wrong email address...didnt bother with a printed invoice, and when I asked for a phone number so he could explain to me what exactly I was paying for I was told he dosent have a phone...great!

The terms have been re-done recently, the £20 penalty was not in the original terms otherwise I would have told him where to stick it.

Why was my hosting simply not cut off when the bill was not paid? he had already pulled the plug on my email and website so that it was in effect down, what makes him think I wanted to continue hosting, this was just a scam to force me to continue hosting with the guy.

Anyway forget the £20, I will get even on that front, what I am after is some info so that I can host my own sites, I dont mind getting the hardware in as it will be for life and im pretty sure I can get a few of my freinds to move there websites over too, that way no late payment charges, no pathetic customer service and email ping pong to work out what im being billed for and why the screen says onething but his emails say another.

Maybe naming and shaming will get my money back!

[creospace]

There's always 2 sides to a story Swiss Logistics and I suspect we are getting the usual blurred one side.

I posted my opinion of late payers and you clearly didn't like it but judging by other comments on the thread and the thanks I got it seems some agree with me.

[ken_uk]

If you actually want to run your own servers, ie not rely on a server in someone else data center then its not really the hardware that will be expensive. (edit - actually if you add on the cost of some of the hardware like connection to a backbone, decent ups and generators, security etc then it will add up)

Is the electricity bill, and the cost of the bandwidth...

Plus the experience (or cost to hire someone) to maintain the servers, both physically and software / os wise.

You could hire servers in a datacenter, but you would be paying much, much more per month than you currently do per year, even a unmanaged server (where you maintain the software yourself) would at the least what you pay per year each month. A managed one with support would cost a lot more.

[Carl-CSNM]

Thank you to those who actually made a valid point.
It didnt cost him squat to process a late payment, he did nothing at all, its just a way of ripping off a customer who will now get his money's worth by creating quite a bit of adverse publicity for him.


I'm sure you all know who the host is in question by now... :rolleyes: It's nothing about ripping customers off, suspending accounts, replying to emails once it has been suspended and un-suspending accounts all takes time. It's quite simple pay your invoices on time and you won't be liable to any late payment charges.

He sent loads of reminders...just to the wrong email address...didnt bother with a printed invoice, and when I asked for a phone number so he could explain to me what exactly I was paying for I was told he dosent have a phone...great!Perhaps I should share the full contents of the ticket Khalid?

1. The email was not wrong, according to you in the ticket it is an email address you do not check regularly. It is not our problem that you do not check the email address you have on file with us regularly. You can update the details you have on file with us 24/7 via the client area, we also regularly remind customers to keep their details on file with us up to date.

2. I did not say we don't have a phone, I quote from the ticket;

We do not offer telephone as a method of contact for billing related issues.I've got better things to do with time at 9.30pm on a Saturday evening over the holiday period. You are very lucky I even responded to your emails considering the rudeness in them. I know for a fact any of the other big providers would have not even replied to a billing related issue this time of year.

Maybe naming and shaming will get my money back!Check your email please (the one you do check regularly) I've issued you with a notice of termination & a full refund for both of your hosting accounts and a pro-rota refund will be issued for the remaining accounts in due course. This was provided before you threatened to name & shame us.

Wishing you every success with your new provider. :)

[sysops]

I'm sure you all know who the host is in question by now... :rolleyes:

I didn't, but I do now :)

As I've said, I don't think there's anything wrong with it. As someone who has had to chase late payments in the past, I know how much they can cost in admin. I think £20 is quite reasonable.

[TANSTAAFL]

£20 Late Payment Charge...thats worse than BT and my Bank!

I can understand why the OP is angry with you, not the best time of the year to be giving out such penalties, and im sorry for throwing a spanner into the works but I think that is a very big late payment fine by any standard, my hosting provider simply turns off my site when I forget to pay and the vast majority of companies simply wavie the charge if it is a first time, unless you have a prolific late payer, its better to write off money you never really earnt than to incur bad PR like this!

Also id be careful about the termination notice you are going to send, you may find that if he has paid you already and you are terminating because you cant stand him posting on here that you may end up being in the wrong!

Very messy and you guys should have sorted this out before it got on here.

Brian

[sysops]

my hosting provider simply turns off my site when I forget to pay


ROFL!

I think most businesses would much rather have a £20 late payment charge than have their website pulled.


its better to write off money you never really earnt than to incur bad PR like this!


I don't think it's bad PR at all. I think it clearly marks out the OP as a late-paying awkward customer, and not someone I would wish to do business with.

[TANSTAAFL]

363 Views = Not very good PR in my book!

Sysops do you have a vested intrest with the hosting provider as you are clearly siding with him?

Also who are you to decide that the OP / customer is awkward?

Unless I am mistaken you have no idea what has been going on here (much like the rest of us) so such posts would indicate you either know more than we do, or you have nothing better to do than to make silly posts!

It could also be argued that people may not wish to do business with you... im sure you are not the only person in the world with whom one can trade!

Brian

[sysops]

Sysops do you have a vested intrest with the hosting provider as you are clearly siding with him?


Not in the slightest - I just think he's right!


Also who are you to decide that the OP / customer is awkward?


The assessment is based on the fact that the OP failed to pay on time, then went on to b!tch about it on a public forum. In my book, that's a fairly good definition of an awkward customer.



Unless I am mistaken you have no idea what has been going on here (much like the rest of us) so such posts would indicate you either know more than we do,


I'm only going by what's been posted, same as you. But we've obviously reached quite different conclusions.


or you have nothing better to do than to make silly posts!


Erm, I think that applies to everyone here :p

[Carl-CSNM]

Brian

Hello Brian,

Or should that be James?

http://www.ukbusinessforums.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=54229
http://www.ukbusinessforums.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=54239
http://www.ukbusinessforums.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=59146

:)

[sm1]

Hahaha Carl :)

[TANSTAAFL]

Well to be fair I think that if someone has been hard done than they have every right to ***** about it, be it in public or private, of course trying to sort it out in private would be the route to go but if the OP had no luck then id do the same.

Also worthy of taking note the OP did not actually name and shame the hosting provider, he did this himself!

Everyone has a different view on this, I think £20 is very excessive, im not in the hosting industry so I dont know how much work/time is required to send out a reminder, I would have thought it was all automated but I could be wrong.

I would say that £20 is too much, but then its not my business.

So what do other hosting companies on the forum charge for late payments?

Brain

[TANSTAAFL]

Hi Carl,

James is my twin brother who is currently in sunny Dundee with his wife!

If you would like to say something please feel free too contact me.

BRIAN

[sm1]

.........
So what do other hosting companies on the forum charge for late payments?

Brain

Third name of the day is Brain :) copied exactly :D

[Matt1959]

well if its Carl we're talking about here, then there would be two sides to the story as this guy is as ethical as they come and I can't imagine for one moment that he would slap a £20 fee after 2 days overdue for no good reason.

[TANSTAAFL]

Looks like Carl is getting a little upset with this thread, I think everyone needs to calm down, Carl if you want to charge £20 for late payments, then you go son, for those that dont want to pay late charges...PAY ON TIME.

Brian & James & Brain

lol

[streetslocal]

[LEFT]How odd??

Anyway Carl i didnt know if was you..

You Micheal Barrymored yourself there:D

[streetslocal]

So what do other hosting companies on the forum charge for late payments?

Brain

Now hes called BRAIN:eek::D:D:D:D

[TANSTAAFL]

I think Carl tried to side-step being 'named and shamed' by jumping in first, maybe not the best course of action to take as you could have talked to the 'awkward customer' first and come to some kind of aggreement...all this over £20...so not worth it!

Anyone want a beer?

[TANSTAAFL]

We can stick with James if you guys prefer...it is my brothers account but hey we share everything...even his misses!

[DuaneJackson]

I can understand why the OP is angry with you

I bet you can. You and the OP are either the same person or atleast posting from the same cable internet connection.

James, Brian and Khalid?

[sm1]

:O - that's the shock of today!

[sm1]

You missed Brain off the list Duane :)

[Carl-CSNM]

Oh dear :)

[hunny]

In fairness to Carl... One of our domains was up for renewal on the 4th Jan, we received two e mail reminders - on the 4th & 15th December which I consider reasonable... yes, I would be annoyed to pay the £20... but would only have myself to blame...surely?

[outdoorman24]

Can anyone recommend any decent hosting providers

I use uk2.net. Not had any problems with them. Email support is great but phone support is 50p per minute. Its £120 per year for their ecommerce package.

[That Guy]

www.ukhost4u.com (http://www.ukhost4u.com) - Have been with them for years and never had a problem :)

£39.99 + VAT for the Year (You can also pay monthly)

Great customer service too.

Use code - AFW10 and get 10% Off :)

[Tej]

I have just spent some time reading this thread!!

I know diddly squat about web sites, hosting, SEO etc.. but am learning... veery slowly.

Cannot understand what kind of a business one is running, if one cannot afford to pay £40 per year on time... and then ***** about having to pay late charges!!

Just my 2 cents