Pssssst!...Have I Got a Host For You...
It's Cheap and You Must Have It!

by
Robert Leggett
Copyright (c) December 2003

It's not free! It's only $5 per month. This service has so
many FREE features! If you host with them you will do
nothing! and make a whole lot of money! in a month! and be
set for the rest of your life!

Yeah...right!

Note: I won't mention names of hosting company wannabes.
They don't deserve publicity of any sort -- negative or
positive. To be consistent I won't mention the good ones out
there either. I will give you some guidelines for choosing
the right-for-you service.

*** Our First One ***

Our first host was nothing but excellent. They are Canadian
and we spent many years with them. Unfortunately as more
competition entered the marketplace they kept their prices
relatively high. But their service was excellent...you get
what you pay for. As budding iMarketers, we required more
features. Each one added to the basic price tag. If you want
a basic site with good tech support (by toll free telephone,
when you really need it) and intelligent technicians only an
email away, definitely consider this Vancouver, BC company
with a long history and an excellent track record.

We cannot afford ~$21.00 per month per site and pay on an
annual basis. Right now we own five sites and will add more.
None of these sites justify huge cash outlay. What is our
solution?

Reseller Account -- where we can host as many sites as we
want for the same low price.

*** Our First Regret...er...Learning Experience ***

We researched and found one which charged $25 per month.
Hey...that's $5 per site per month. They offer cPanel site
management and all sorts of benefits. They guarantee 99.99%
uptime. Wow...what a great deal! Well...you get what you pay
for. Their server was more like 85% uptime. Then we used our
purchased-from-a-trusted-guru opt-in mailing list. It was
over a year old. Many on the list didn't remember
subscribing. This hosting company shut down one of our sites
because somebody accused us of spamming. We were assumed
guilty until proven innocent. We had no chance to prove
ourselves innocent. We experienced previous difficulties
with them. We researched their reviews. Seems the owner's
wife wrote a glowing review.

*** Our Second Regret...er...Learning Experience ***

We researched and chose our next Reseller service. They had
promise and charged only $10 per month. Their guaranteed
99.99% uptime proved a fantasy. In the beginning they were
pretty good. But everything degraded as time went on. We
liked them so much we stayed longer with them than we
should...hoping they would get past their creeping,
accelerating incompetency. We were even told the spam we
automatically bounced overloaded their servers. It was our
responsibility to see we are not spammed!

Back to Google and Whois...

We queried several potential Reseller services addressing
the following --

We own several domain names we wish to host. We would
like to propagate one over soon.
* Q-1...Our biggest list is just under 1400. Will
there be problems mailing to it?
* Q-2...You host any site. If we mail from your
DNS will some of our subscriber's ISPs block
our email because we would be considered guilty
by association. Some ISPs block automatically
any email from some DNSs.
* Q-3...We want to gather Credit Card information
from our "Preference Forms." Can our CGI
scripts be placed in a secure area?
* Q-4...We are on the verge of automating more
operations. We plan to buy a script such as
http://www.EarnYourLiving.com/AutoResponsePlus.html
AutoResponsePlus. Will there be a problem
installing it on our site(s). We have ezine
subscribers. We must follow up inquiries. We
will offer sequential lessons in various
courses.
* Q-5...We do not use the global catch-all email
address (anything@ourdomainname.com). All POPs
are specific. All other email is bounced. Some
spamware out there will change a million times
the email portion to the left of the @. We
have no control over this. If we bounce all this
non-specific email...will it overload your
servers and get us into trouble with you?
* Q-6... I am used to cPanel. Does your panel
work in a similar fashion? Will I be able to
access my cgi-bin and change permissions on cgi
files to 755?
* Q-7... Can I FTP upload my pages with, say,
WS_FTP software.
* Q-8... Our mailing lists are fairly clean and
some entries go back to about 1993...long
before the modern meaning of "opt-in" became in
vogue. If anybody accuses us of spam will we
have the chance to defend ourselves? We have
95+% on file the original initial contact of
those currently in our databases. Some Hosts
simply take the un-American attitude ... "Guilty
until proven Innocent!" Without ever giving a
chance to prove our innocence.

Thank you very much for a prompt reply.

Best regards,

[our names]

P.S. I hope we can work together. We are growing. We
have plans for near future growth. We require the right
environment to do this. We are in that gap between
newbie and established pro.

We got some interesting, revealing responses. To the point
we felt it not prudent to send out our inquiries. It is
better to read each prospective service's Terms &
Conditions. Their answers really sharpened our insight when
we researched prospective future services.

We are not experts in understanding all the different
ramifications of DNS ownership. It is fairly EZ to find a
prospective new service. Run a Whois on their domain name.
Then run another Whois on their DNS servers. Then access
their site and research further. You tend to find ownership
and locations as well as how long they have been in
business. For example... You find a service which has been
less than a year in business. They are hosting under a DNS
which hasn't been there much longer. They offer no
money-back guarantee during the first month. They require
payment for a year in advance. Watch out!

*** Our Third Regret...er...Learning Experience ***

OK...let's try this one...they look pretty good...and what
the hey...it's a slow time of the year for us. We are
getting very good at propagating our sites from one hosting
service to another. They also had a very high position on a
review site. Well...we should have read more...but $15 per
month might give better service than $10 per month -- you
get what you pay for.

We are getting pretty good working cPanel, adding POPs,
Forwarders, Autoresponders, CGI and HTML files. Been getting
a lot of practice of late.

Well...let's not re-invent the wheel. Read our latest --

--------- Original Message ----------------------------
Please reread the terms you agreed to whilst ordering
the service. A chargeback would be considered fraud and
our fraud policy would take affect. Hope this helps. If
we can be of any further assistance then please do not
hesitate to contact us. We're here to help.
Name,
Support@abcdefg.xxx
=======================================================

30 November 2003
Hello...Name,

Thank you for immediate cancellation of our
account.

We read your "Fraud Policy." We don't contest we
paid for a month of service. And we exercised our
guaranteed "Cancellation Option."

Your "Fraud Policy" does not apply to your "Breach
of Contract."

We have been very frustrated by your lack of
support...therefore, we had sort of a "bad hair
day" with your operation.

If you were trying to generate business over the
Internet, your website was not working properly
and support offered was ineffective, you might
feel the same way.

We hereby request refund of our $15 because [name
of hosting service] did not fulfill their end of
our contract. You did not fix a very simple
problem. You did not provide support you promised.

Specifically...our CGI/FORMS would not work
because we were not able to CHMOD (change)
Permissions on CGI files to 755. Furthermore, you
were unable to change them at your end. And...
after many emails to your support group...they
eventually ignored us...after they made several
inapplicable suggestions.

The result of your breach of contract was our
potential clients could not send us a form...
neither subscription nor inquiry for quote.
This resulted in damage to both our credibility
and potential generated revenue. We have lost
potential business.

We have on file over 40 emails back and forth with
you.

We did our best to communicate with your tech
people via email. We faxed both your UK and US
numbers. 00nn.nnn.nnn.nnnn and 1.nnn.nnn.nnnn -
10Nov and 12Nov respectively. We tried to contact
your owner..."Xxxxxxxxx" (Xxxx@yyyy.zzz). No
replies. This lack of communication is contrary to
what you advertise.

After we waited 3 days for any sort of response
from you we propagated over to another hosting
company. And we removed all our files from your
server(s).

Please immediately process our refund of $15.

Regards,
[our names]
=======================================================

We have no idea how this will eventually resolve. On the
grand scheme of events, this negative experience has
contributed to our storehouse of knowledge and we will be
more wary in the future. If they are a responsible operation
they will refund our $15, and make improvements. If not,
well...karma does have a way of "biting one in the butt."
The ball is in their court and we have let go -- takes two
to fight.

*** Our Latest Has Great Promise ***

Our new Reseller Host seems terrific. If absolutely
necessary we can phone. So far we have a real tech person
answering correctly and efficiently our email help
requests...and fast! I guess telephone support kicks in when
you pay $20 or more per month and you get competent help.
You get what you pay for. We've had a learning curve with
the Plesk panel. We don't want ever go back to cPanel. It is
fast and efficient. And the help popups pertinent to each
screen are excellent. For the first time in our Internet
experience we feel all is finally coming together. Working
with Plesk panel answers many questions we've had over the
years. All is up and running. We hope this hosting service
is our final stop.

Before we can ever hope to add iMarketing enhancements to
our efforts, we must have a firm technical foundation. What
we have learned to date --

* You get what you pay for.
* Don't blindly trust and follow gurus.
* Research thoroughly.
* Reliable hosting service begins at ~$20 per month.
* Always back up on your own computer your complete
website(s)
* Every time you make changes that work online, backup
again.
* List your POP boxes, Forwarders (Re-directs),
Autoresponders, and anything else.
* Be ready to "pick up your marbles" at any time.
* Expect the very best -- but anticipate the very worst.
* Know your options in various what-if scenarios.
* Learn from others but Think and Plan for yourself.
* It's your iBusiness, your energy, your money -- you can
always vote with your feet and wallet.

------------------------------------------------------------
Robert Leggett has over ten years experience marketing Dive
Adventures over the Internet. Robert helps individuals and
businesses globally grow their businesses and enrich
their lifestyles. Learn more -
( http://www.EarnYourLiving.com ).
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