Beware these scammers

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OnlineGamer

5 posts

Wannabe Geek

#28537 3-Dec-2008 16:09

I recently signed up to a hosting service in the states that turned out to be a deceptively advertized company.

This company is 'Globalat.com' (http://www.globat.com/pack-gx01.htm)

They state a great price with all the extra ('unlimited' space. 'unlimted' bandwith 'unlimited' subdomains)

Upon paying your US$58 for 1 year (NZ$110 at the time) you recieve this..

"PLEASE NOTE that your account comes with a generous amount of disk space and bandwidth for you to use. If you ever exceed these allocations you will receive an e-mail informing you of your actual usage and you will be charged for the excess usage at a rate of $8/GB. Only about 1% of our users ever come close to hitting any of these limits. You can normally prevent this charge by upgrading to the next higher package before reaching your limits."

EXCUSE ME?! I though it said 'Unlimited'!

Upon trying to enter a subdomain in my new host there was no place to do this.

"Oh!" said tech support "Thats a US$19.95 a year add-on for unlimited subdomains. we also have many other addons at yearly charges"

EXCUSE ME? They stated it was included 'unlimited'

Well, I cancelled the account under their '30 Day Money Back Guarentee'. Then they informed me they would take out the US$14.99 ( A rip-off in itself as I can get a domain for US$5.99 a year) for the 'free domain' that was provided. They WERE NOT going to give me the admin rights to it even though I paid for it, so the only way to transfer the domain was to wait till it expired in a year and register it with a new domain company.

Of course, this reduced refund will be made to my credit cared in 2 months..(probably after they mature a Certificate of Deposit on my money)

Guess I should have checked here http://webhostinggeeks.com/user-reviews/index2.php?pg=1&item_id=25&sort=review.id&order=DESC&PHPSESSID=b84e0d3d6f788250541dc9a9a60225b1

First

Avoid these scammers like the plague

Cheers

ajobbins

5052 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#181833 3-Dec-2008 17:25

I use 3ix.com and while I have had some issues with stability in the past, uptime has been pretty good of late.

It costs me US$3 a month for 30GB of space and unlimited traffic. I can host up to 3 domains and a decent bunch of subdomains.

The control panel is cPanel which I perfer.

They also have a US$8/month plans (Or US$88 if you pay for 12 months) which have 500GB of space and pretty much unlimited everything else (Addon domains, sub domains, sql databases. email accounts etc.)

sleemanj

1490 posts

Uber Geek

#181839 3-Dec-2008 17:57

If you paid by Credit Card the answer is simple. Go to your bank and do a charge back.

---
James Sleeman
I sell lots of stuff for electronic enthusiasts...

itxtme

2102 posts

Uber Geek

#181877 3-Dec-2008 20:57

Unlimted hosts do not exist. overselling has long been a ploy of kiddy host along with professional hosts. Read the fine print before you sign up! Head over to webhostingtalk.com if you want to complain, it is the industry hang out!!

kingjj

1728 posts

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#181882 3-Dec-2008 21:13

Even $3 for 30 gigs is overselling. You'll find that before you can even get close to that amount of space your account will be terminated for over using 'server resources'. Its a popular and common trick of some webhosts (Dreamhost as an example employes this method). As a general rule of thumb in the US the cheapest you should look for (and expect no overselling) is $1 per gig of space, but even that is pushing it.

As for Globat, a quick search on WebHostingTalk.com will present several negative reviews of them. They have been in the hosting game for a long time though (aka not some teenager hosting on a reseller account) and they have many positives reviews as well. Looking at the feature list of the webhost it does not say anywhere that it is unlimited everything (in fact on your plan it only says space/bandwidth), it also does not mention subdomains as being included (http://www.globat.com/pack-gx01-features.htm).

Good luck with your future host. I personally up until recently had a VPS with Virpus.com and was happy with their service.

OnlineGamer

5 posts

Wannabe Geek

#181885 3-Dec-2008 21:43

Well, my first chioce was this

http://www.webhostingpad.com/hosting-features.html

But I was to cheap, so now I have to do it all over again,

I don't like using my actual CCard on the internet. To many crooks out there. So I used a 'prezzy' card (Visa). Since all anyone will ever get is whats on it. But a dispute can take 50-70 days. (no chargeback)

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kingjj

1728 posts

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#182103 4-Dec-2008 19:45

OnlineGamer: Well, my first chioce was this

http://www.webhostingpad.com/hosting-features.html

But I was to cheap, so now I have to do it all over again,

I don't like using my actual CCard on the internet. To many crooks out there. So I used a 'prezzy' card (Visa). Since all anyone will ever get is whats on it. But a dispute can take 50-70 days. (no chargeback)

---

Quite a few hosts these days accept PayPal which means you wouldn't have to give the host your CC number. However with PayPal there is no way to lodge a chargeback and webhosting is what they consider to be non-tangiable so they won't address any disputes that arise. It is however a lot safer than using your CC online. PayPal.com

Do you really need unlimited space/bandwidth? Most websites (95%) use under 100 megs of space and 1 gig of traffic per month. For your budget you could get a decent 1-3 gig diskspace account with a more stable provider? Have you tried looking on Webhostingtalk.com's Hosting Offers board? There webhosts list specials and discounts. You could get an excellent account for a small price through that board. I personally would steer clear of WebHostingPad as they are also an "unlimited" host which as we know does not exsist.

If you do decide on a webhost please tell us how it goes.

Cheers