As with our previous first 800Hosting Review post, we present this as our personal experience with 800Hosting and all the information provided is factual. We have E-mails, web histories from Google, and website analytics. I welcome any call or E-mail regarding this hosting review by a business owner with a web site who needs a host. 800hosting was unwilling to acknowledge their misrepresentations to me regarding their services and their catastrophic failure harmed my companies SIGNIFICANTLY. Amazingly, to me now is that when we investigated in January 2009 there were NO bad reviews on 800Hosting. We are changing that to make sure others avoid the host that what we did not.

As an aside since we have changed hosting companies we have had no down time, no loss of data, and improved performance by every measure.

Please read these interesting insights on how they handle it when their failure to perform causes their customers problems.

They accepted NO responsibility for our losses or their lack of technical expertise and failure to provide services we purchased.

First they claimed Texas law protects them from users seeking damages which did not seem right to me. However, they said a lot of things that were untrue.

• We purchased expensive holiday ads and were already doing $10,000 per day from on just one of the 10 websites we had hosted at 800Hosting when they suffered a catastrophic failure which is still unexplained. People who went to our URL for 6 days went to a blank web site! What does that do to a customers first impression or to a customers confidence who wants to check the status of an order they just purchased?
• We purchased managed hosting to avoid this very scenario.
• We also purchased monitoring 24/7 BUT we discovered our web sites failure NOT 800Hosting. If they were providing monitoring how could this happen and they not know IMMEDIATELY?
• We purchased 24/7 support but were blocked as a sender when trying to help resolve the issue and notify them of problems as yet unresolved that they claimed were.
• We purchased daily back up BUT they lost all our images and much current customer data that was uploaded to our server. They had not backed it up and try to submit a story instead.

800hosting had done none of what they promised. We suffered huge losses as a result of their misrepresentation and subsequent catastrophic failure. This was their remedy:
They offered a free memory upgrade (retail value $10-$15) or a refund of our hosting fees.

Would you settle for that as an acceptable resolution to your small business server?

That seemed to be not nearly enough and we engaged a lawyer to sue or settle. They seemed so fearless regarding this legal action I suspected they were going out of business and agreed to settle for a small amount of money just to put this behind us, but also to make them act more responsibly in the future if they did stay in business.

To actually receive the settlement, conditions changed continuously we would have to sign a document saying that all our claims were exaggerated. We would also have to remove all the reviews we posted – which is impossible. Their proposed settlement agreement would have left us liable to legal actions from them in the future and we would not agree. We are a Nevada corporation and understand if we misrepresent, fail to deliver what we promise we can be sued for damages.

We have created a 800Hosting Host Review page for others to submit their reviews and experience. Therefore we are done looking to settle with 800Hosting. If their reputation means so little to them what lever do we have? We are updating our posts, will continue to do so and moving on.

Links

• 800Hosting Sales Letter
• 800Hosting Managed Hosting
• 800Hosting Management Services
• 800Hosting Monitoring and Reporting
• 800Hosting Managed Back-up
• 800Hosting Service Level Agreement
• 800Hosting Policy

I have e-mails, web history from Google analytics to substantiate my claims and am personally available to talk by phone with qualified business owners considering 800Hosting who reads this post and seeks verification.

At the end of November 2009, all our web sites went down. My staff from Asia and the US were all in San Francisco for a meeting and company outing. Since I was the only person working I was checking our sites on a Sunday night. I was shocked to discover all were down. Apparently our sites went down due to some catastrophic failure at 800Hosting and when I called to ask what is going on they did not even know there was a problem.

I had to notify 800 hosting they had no idea, and never provided monitoring. Previous issues as well, required us to first notify 800Hosting!

No Monitoring

We purchased monitoring 24/7. If they were providing that monitoring how could our sites all go down and they not know?

In their dealings with me and my company 800Hosting continually over promised and undelivered. This aforementioned monitoring is but one example.

Based on their website homepage we really believed we had found the solution for our hosting. We checked and they were well reviewed too. You obviously were impressed or you would not be reading my post. In my experience there is no relationship between their home page claims and the service they deliver.

No Managed Hosting

With the managed hosting, what we asked for SPECIFICALLY we were assured the health of the server would be maintained and monitored and we would be secure from malicious attacks.

However once the server went down, we had to notify them. They never notified us of any problem and often erroneously reported all was well when it was NOT!

Then they suggested maybe we were the victim of an attack by a competitor until they realized protecting us from that was also their job. Another exaggeration or lie.

During the aforementioned 6 days they repeatedly called or e-mailed us that everything is now fixed.

No Communication

When we would discover nothing was fixed and we were still down you will not believe what occurred. They disabled our E-mails claiming we were sending “too many”. Their excuse for that insensitive and bad behavior was we already know you are down and that and it wastes time to respond to your e-mails that could be spent fixing the problem. What were we to do? They called and said everything is OK BUT it was not. If we said nothing maybe it would never be repaired BUT when we attempted to tell them that nothing had changed our E-mails were returned. By this time we realized we had been had and were dealing with incompetents or people who at best were very careless with the truth. We had to contact them by phone, and when the tech answered they noticed it was down and question if we even had a website hosted at the domain that existed for 14 years.

No Backups

As soon as we noticed data was missing we requested back-ups. We were told they were already restored, but “this could not be verified until the server was back online”. I do not know why but at that time we still bought that. Wishful thinking I guess. However once we had FTP restored and we were able to view or site to compare files, we realized MOST of our images were gone and a lot of additional files were missing as well. 800Hosting had no complete copy of our websites and had NO idea what they lost! It seemed as if they thought they could mislead us to believe everything was ok when it obviously was not!

We had bought daily back up BUT when it came time for them to deliver our backed up data they finally said we only keep data three days! We realized however it occurred the missing data was gone forever and there were no back-ups. We lost secure customer data that is unrecoverable and cause a serious strain to our companies.

Four months later we are still replacing missing images and apologizing to customers for missing data that they must resend.

No Explanation

We were NEVER given an explanation as to EXACTLY what happened even though we said repeatedly that was a prerequisite to continue using 800Hosting. We said we need to know how it happened and what steps have you taken so it will not happen again. They said your request perfectly understandable and all promised to do that BUT never did so!

I asked our tech please tell me what we have to buy from you to be safe? They took days to work up a proposal which was unacceptable but what I remember was that when we finally talked on the phone their head tech asked, “How much down time can you afford?” Can you believe that?

I told 800Hosting IF I was making my original decision to use 800Hosting for all my businesses someone had told me one of the choices I had to make was how much downtime I could afford; obviously I would have gone elsewhere immediately.

Has anyone asked you that question yet?

No Character

FINAL blow for me was the owner refused to come to the phone to explain, apologize or tell me to go to hell. NOTHING from him. From my dealings with all at 800Hosting I believe it is fair to say they are an organization with NO CHARACTER and never did they seem embarrassed by their poor performance – NEVER! You know sometimes when something like this happens someone from the offending company will acknowledge the error BUT that did not happen at 800Hosting. They all seemed comfortable telling me that is the way it is. I guess it is their policy and they are following their leader. They did issue a free memory upgrade retail value $10-$15 USD WOW!

I realize this is my side of the story and there are always other sides BUT I left 800Hosting and I am still in business. My independent web monitoring service now rates my sites performance much higher since leaving than when they were hosted at 800Hosting. I do not know exactly what that means BUT I suspect it is another reflection on 800Hosting’s competence to do their job. We have changed nothing but our host and have already seen a drastic improvement! I am not a technical guy so all I can say is the facts are correct.

We have created a 1800Hosting Host Review page for others to submit their reviews and experience. If you are a business owner considering 800Hosting and want to verify my story give me a call. I will talk only to owners with a web site that will identify themselves and their business. I will not spend time bashing 800Hosting to amuse others. I am in Bangkok BUT this number is a US toll free number: 888 842 4633. If you get voicemail please leave a message and I will call you back.

Links

• 800Hosting Sales Letter
• 800Hosting Managed Hosting
• 800Hosting Management Services
• 800Hosting Monitoring and Reporting
• 800Hosting Managed Back-up
• 800Hosting Service Level Agreement
• 800Hosting Policy

If you have been considering buying a computer, 800HighTech is definitely a website you should visit. Regardless if you have bad credit history or no credit at all, YOU ARE FINANCED – Guaranteed! They will even help you improve your credit history because they will report your good payments. This will help you get back on the road to good credit.

Payments are made easily via the MyPay allotment system. All you have to do is go to their website and apply. You are pre-approved. Financing is then finalized by submitting your LES.

The price you see is the price you get – no hidden costs! When you go to buy a computer, you would think you would not have to ask this, but many dealers do not include many things in the price they give you.

H! You wanted a monitor with that?! Well that’s another $300.

There are no tricks in their price. It includes shipping including FPO APO military P.O. Boxes and Combat War Zones. Also, their renowned customer support is also included. It is provided by the same Americans that built your computer! The go well beyond for their customers and which is very apparent from their military testimonials!

There is no risk in buying as Your Satisfaction is Guaranteed! If within 30 days you are not completely satisfied, send it back with no questions asked! The PX does not even offer anything like this remotely close.

www.800HighTech.com

Military Sales Financing

• Custom Build a Computers
• Custom Build a Laptop
• Computer PC
• Laptop Notebooks
• LCD HD Display Monitors
• Digital Cameras
• Video Camcorders
• Digital Electronics
  

Email Marketing Goal

Their goal of this project was first and foremost to let customers know that we are still here and better than ever. We have updated our database making it easier to use and more secure. The Email was intended to go to only military members who canceled and never bought a computer. We were not sure which Email style would work best so we decided to send it out in batches and monitor the progress. We were unhappy with the copy – I mean modified picture – of the “professional” Email Jerry Hart created, so we used one by our staff and another one from a web copy writer in the experiment. This meant 3 different styles of Emails went out to different groups of canceled orders by order date. We worked out the dates so there were an equal number of recipients from each order time period. In addition, the Email batches also created a buffer, so we were not swamped with calls since we were inviting customers to call – over 14,000 military customers would receive this offer.

Jerry Hart Problems

Problems occurred from the very beginning. Rich was egger to assist in the project to make sure it was as successful as possible. We know our customers very well, so this accompanied with a Email marketing “professional” seemed like a flawless plan. Unfortunately, we ended up dedicated much more time and effort than Jerry Hart. Although we are based in Thailand, we offered Jerry a toll-free number for him to call or called him back so he would incur no fees. The meetings were billed for several hundred dollars for his valuable information, which we felt wasn’t so valuable. One example is his “drip drip” method where you concentrate on a small selection of customers who did not respond or open the Email and you send them more until they do answer. Of course each drip would be an additional fee on-top of the more than 3,000 we were billed. The project was going to billed in milestones – but again this was more false promises. We were billed once which we paid promptly and then billed a few days later on our credit card which deviated from the plan. A foreshadow of what was to come…

Next lets look at the copy and layout that we were presented after paying the full amount and after 2 weeks of “best practice” meetings:

Images open up in a new window or tab.

Jerry Hart Email Newsletter : $650
John Moreau Email Newsletter : $100
800HighTech Email Newsletter : Free

Jerry Hart’s Email layout had a number of errors:

1. The message was completely wrong and gave a sense that their computer was recently ordered.
2. The customizing data format was not check which affected the Title and Greeting.
3. No tracking code was installed.
4. Our company was misspelled at the bottom.
5. The layout is not professional – no where near worth $650 – and displays incorrectly

Each of these Emails were sent out to an equal number of our customers. First thing that had to be done is import our customer database in to the Email sending program. Jerry Hart uses Listrak – which is a great online marketing software. We bought it through Jerry Hart so the account is in his name and we were billed through him. Unfortunately, can no longer use it – BUT – we could always repurchase an account.

Jerry Hart Failure to Deliver

When it came for the moment of truth of sending out the Emails and monitoring the progress of the batches we encountered more problems. The batch system that we spent creating were not followed and a large mass of Emails were sent out but ONLY of Jerry Hart’s Email. This Email had errors and created numerous complaints. The complaints were understandable and an unnecessary confusion. Since most of the orders that were mentioned occurred over 3 years ago, customers worried that someone was making unauthorized transactions and/or were a victim of identity theft. This is a very serious issue for all citizens of the new digital world.

Furthermore it contained no tracking code that Rich even offered to put in for Jerry Hart. The tracking code is basically an extension that is added at the end of links that are database is able to track to purchases. For what ever reason, this simple addition was left off.

After numerous requests, Rich was given access to the Listrak account so that he could fix the problems in Jerry’s Email, add tracking codes, create the batches for the other layouts, generate copy, and finally send out the other Emails. All of which that Jerry promised to do verbally, but then later was denied as he stated, “It was not listed in the contract and required additional payment.”

Jerry Hart’s Failed Results

Finally, at the end of the ordeal the stats further supported our thoughts of Jerry Hart’s incompetence. A far greater amount of customer unsubscribed from our Email program with the first massive batch that Jerry Hart sent. Also, there were ZERO sales attributed to Jerry Hart’s Email. The number of complaints was far greater with Jerry’s Email. Complaints from the other Email were just statements or questions on why were were contacting them years after their initial request – which is a valid point but it provided a reminder of us and opportunity for them to be removed from our mailing list.

Mike wanted nothing more to do with Jerry Hart, but Rich thought that 800HighTech may be able to salvage some of the money and expenses occurred by receiving the final $650.00 dollar template that was promised and fortunately stated in the contract. We hoped that we would get a frame that we could modify and then end the relationship. Rich had sent countless Emails, layouts, pictures, sales message and etc. to help develop a successful layout.

Jerry Hart’s Final Failure

We would accept no more toll-free calls and wanted nothing except the newsletter that we had already paid for. We would not have to worry about copy or pictures since he proved drastically incompetent in the previous template. 2 more weeks passed and Jerry wrote to admit his mistakes and his desire to “prove himself with results.” A few more days passed and he submitted 2 layouts! This was a big step for Jerry Hart – but of course in the end our hopes were unmet. The 2 “professional” layouts were forwarded Email newsletters from other companies they were dated a few days prior to his recent submissions. We receive hundred of newsletters in our Spam folder from an array of companies. The 2 forwarded newsletters were pretty much unchanged from the original company with a few minor wording changes. If I were going to attempt something as blatant as this, I would have at least forwarded the best newsletter I could find in my Junk mail box. These were horrible and again you can judge for yourself by following the two links listed below:

• CNET Stolen Email Newsletter Template
• Frys Stolen Email Newsletter Template

Our final offer for a peaceful separation was for a refund for as much as possible. I am sure you can imagine how much we were offered. Yup ZERO! Which incidentally is the same number of times that Jerry Hart has contacted us afterwards. Although, by every means this project was a complete failure we always try to remain optimistic and take what we have gained and moved on. We learned that the “professionals” will not be able to help us and that it is best to leave it to ourselves. We know our customers the best and we have a much more invested interest in making sure our customers our pleased. We are in the process of constructing a new Email plan and improve communications with our customers.
On a final note I would like to recommend that if you have considered Jerry Hart or looking to do an Email or any sort of marketing campaign Jerry Hart is not your solution! If you do have a solution we are interested in learning about it. However, we will give you the same introduction we did to Jerry. We are more than fair and we pay based on results. We do not need to hear reasons or excuses. He have pay for services from various individuals, all of which who left benefiting. Most of the times our expectations have not been met and was was promised was not delivered. Jerry Hart had numerous examples in his portfolio and we are interested in hiring who ever created those as they were very convincing. The Internet is filled with various con-artist and false promises – it is very difficult to know what to trust and believe on the Internet and our next project will be billed upon completion.

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A survey by travel website Total Travel found that 31.5% of Australians would love to relax by a pool in a tropical destination such as Malaysia, Sri Lanka or Thailand, while saving thousands on surgery.

Managing director of Totaltravel.com Malcolm Baker, said society was centered on the body beautiful.

“People are very conscious of how they look. I’m not surprised that the travel industry is taking advantage of this social trend and that cosmetic surgery holidays have become so popular.”

A survey by the Australian Society of Plastic Surgeons carried out earlier in the year found a growing number of patients seek further medical help when they return home because of complications regarding the surgery. This has prompted a warning from plastic surgeons about the dangers of cut priced surgery.

Cut Priced surgery in a popular tourist destination can be risky, before deciding whether or not your chosen surgery should be done in another country, important in-depth research should be carried out and the patient should be fully aware of the possible dangers from undergoing surgical procedures in particular hospital or clinic.

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