Problems with hosting company

[juneybean]

Has anyone used biggest hosting before? I'm about to go into my second year with them and the past few days have been a nightmare with them ignoring my emails about my site going down and loss of data.

They're an american company so I can't even ring them up. I've just sent a 'strongly worded letter' and hope to receive a reply to that.

If I don't what are my rights with regard to getting the yearly subscription back for next year?

I'd suggest going to www.webhostingtalk.com and see what others say about them. Good luck.

Thanks, it's like talking to a brick wall!

Can't help you get your money back, but you might consider Arvixe as an alternative. You can always talk to them and they will help even with things that aren't strictly their problem.

Thanks! I managed to sort out the company and everythings back up and running but I'll definitely look to change next year so I'll keep Arvixe in mind!

Glad you've made contact, and no doubt feeling a bit less stressed about it!

In recent years I've used a number of US hosting firms, Spry (which offers linux virtual servers in Seattle or NYC at vpslink.com), iPower.com and Hostway.com

A lot depends on your needs - how many domains, how much web traffic, whether you want to use MySQL or not, whether you have scripts for a Windows server, etc.

Lots of choices, sometimes some good money-off deals mentioned on the webhostingtalk site, and I have to suggest going for quarterly or monthly contracts in case you want to switch early, or just feel you want to get going with another company without having paid out hundreds in advance for a year's service.

I know that last bit is easy with hindsight, but every now and then I see people shown nice low monthly prices (and then find the company not only adds a setup fee, but charges the whole year, and adds VAT to the lot... I think 1and1 used to be a prime example, though I've avoided them for 6+ years now so they might have changed their policies a bit).

Thanks onagar - that hosting company looks interesting (I was checking their reseller accounts). Very useful.