BlogSmall business, Marketing, Promotion and Web Design

Beginning this year I grabbed couple of special hosting deals with Netfirms. I was attracted by low cost and ability to run PHP4, PHP5 and .NET all under same account. As I spent more and more time trying to figure out why the heck a bunch of familiar and well-worked out scripts wouldn’t run on Netfirm’s hosting platform I came to know how messed up the whole deal was. Tech support responded to my e-mail after 4 days (I already forgot I filed a ticket). Performance was iffy at best – sometimes on par with my home-run server, sometimes way slower. ASP.NET application that runs without any tweaking on my company’s internal server failed to start in seemingly similar environment on Netfirms. You think I could use their tech support? Yeah, right.

So couple of days ago, as both my domain and account were reaching expiration date, I decided to move out. Transferring domain was the easiest, so I did this as soon as I have made the decision. Canceling account, however, is a much more difficult task. First of all – there is no way you can cancel from your control panel. And, there is no way of canceling via e-mail request to support. The only way to cancel the account with Netfirms is to call their toll-free number (I don’t want this idea to really get out, but I was expecting a 900- number) between 9am and 5pm EST and request the cancellation over the phone. Let me check what year is this? Right, still 2007.

Generally, I wouldn’t go over such a routine task as canceling some online service unless there was some incentive. Well, the incentive is as follows – nowhere on Netfirms’ web site nor in their knowledge base does it say how to cancel the account. While doing the digging I stumbled upon some blogs that describe exactly same problems with Netfirms I was facing – poor service, non-existent customer service, hard-to-find cancellation procedure.

However, I don’t see anyone at Netfirms to care. They seem to be overly busy taking new sign ups.

Before my planned leave to Ukraine I have ordered several items from eBay (couple of laptops, PDA, quad-band cell phone, accessories, etc.). Everything, except for laptops was to be delivered by UPS. And almost every delivery got messed up. Notes for packages got switched with one another. Packages were delayed. Packages were not delivered on promised time. 24 hour customer service several times in the row condirmed that thay cannot clearly communicate with local station that is responsible for delivery. Local station has no control (and no way to communicate to) delivery trucks. Delivery truck drivers lack English language skills. Overall – each delivery was major hassle, a lot bigger then finding proper item, winning an auction and getting the stuff mailed as soon as possible by contacting seller directly.

For some magic reason carriers like FedEx, DHL and USPS never had any problems finding my location. UPS, on the other hand, hires drivers who never attended English reading classes, so they perceive 1 street and 1 floor as randomly interchangeable entities, have no idea what “Leave with neighbour” means and, apparently, lack general intelligence.

Order something. Ship it through UPS. See what the brown can do to you.