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Hosting Scams Exposed Web
Hosting Scams Exposed!
In today's hosting market, competition is fierce.
So fierce in fact it drives some companies to practice less than respectable
business tactics and others to downright fraud. With so many hosting companies
going bust everyday and leaving their customers hanging, how can you be sure you will not
be one of those customers? The truth is you can't be sure - no one can, but you CAN
know what to look out for when searching host providers or when being tempted by a fancy
ad or e-mail promising greener pastures for less money.
The anonymity and the lack of personal contact makes any Internet business an ideal
candidate for a scam. Please keep in mind when reading this list that some very legitimate
and respectable hosts use some of the marketing tactics below. The difference is,
the respectable ones deliver what they promise. Here are some of the more common
"scams" practiced by fly by night web hosting companies.
- Deceiving Price Advertising. Some
hosting providers will advertise a very low and attractive monthly price. You will
be lured to their site and overwhelmed with flashy graphics and follow the order links
only to find out that in order to get that low price, you must prepay 3,6, and sometimes 1
year in advance.
- Yearly / Advance Payments. Some hosting
providers encourage and heavily promote advance payments for hosting services. Some
even offer such tempting discounts that it is hard not to give in to their ploy.
This can be done for one of two reasons. 1) the hosting company is barley hanging on
financially and needs all the money they can get to pay their bills for the month or 2)
they know that their service is less than acceptable and without an advance commitment the
customers are sure to leave.
- Hosting Term Contracts. This is where you
sign your life away for a long-term commitment hoping the service you expect is everything
you were told. See reason #2 above. With the exception of very custom high-end
dedicated server solutions that are build especially for the customer, term contracts in
this industry are history so don't be talked into signing one.
- "Unlimited" Bandwidth. Or
unlimited anything for that matter. Think about this, with the exception of
space itself (and perhaps love), everything has a limit. Without being
too literal the word "unlimited" in the hosting industry really means that there
is no set number that can define the limit, and the real limit is determined by other
factors. Most providers who advertise unlimited bandwidth use that
"feature" to suck prospects in and make a quick sale knowing that only about 1%
of Websites will ever use a large enough amount of bandwidth to cause problems for them.
These unfortunate 1% are simply told that their sites are either "killing the
server" or given another excuse as why they cannot host them.
- 24 Hour Support. This is one of those
features that every respectable hosting company must have, after all, your site is (or
should be) online 24 hours a day. Some hosts define their support as an answering
service taking messages that are never returned from irate callers. Other hosts use
complex voice mail systems only to return the message "I am sorry, all lines are busy
now, please try back later" (later being 9-5 when the one guy who does support is
actually in).
- "Free" Hosting. Ahhh, the word
"free", used so often and abused even more. Why would anyone give away
free hosting? In most cases, your site is required to display some banner ads and
generate revenue for the host provider. That is fine and many customers, especially
customers with personal Websites who can live with that sacrifice. However in some
cases, signing up for free hosting is like selling your soul to the devil (ok maybe not
that bad) and here is why. Your personal information and your e-mail address is sold
to many, sometimes hundreds of "opt in" spammers. You have
essentially opted in to receive all their spam when you signed up for the free hosting and
pretended you read the host provider's 26 page of terms and conditions. At times,
the service is so poor it actually costs businesses large amounts of money in loss
revenues. The same can be said for very cheap hosting.
- Host Provider Registers Your Domain For You. This
has got to be one of the biggest scams going. If a host provider registers YOUR
domain for you, make certain that their information only appears as the technical contact
at most and NEVER as the domain owner. If a host provider controls your domain you
are theirs for life and are held hostage.
By no means is this a complete list and we will
most likely be adding to it as we discover more. You really need to do your homework
and talk with salespeople, customers, or others who have experience with the Webhost you
are looking into. Don't associate top positions in search engines with respectable
companies or companies that have been in business a long time. Most top positions
are bought and those that are not still have nothing to do with the stability of the
companies. Look for telephone numbers and contact information on the Webhost's site.
Never do business with any company that hides telephone numbers. Remember, if
it is too good to be true it probably is.
Be sure to also read the article Your Guide To Finding The Perfect Webhost.
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This report was produced by HostSelect.info
and Boston Data Centers.
If your looking for hosting, please see these sites.
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