I have just about exhausted my patience with your ticket tech support. We have been having emails problems off and on since we signed up with Hostony. I have opened numorous trouble tickets and just about the only response I get is 'I checked your settings, All must be working.' To me this response seems rediculous!! Are you so good that you can just look at it and it is fixed? No investigation as to what is actually wrong. No explination as to what the problem is. No statement about what you are going to do to fix it. And if 'all must be working' why do we still have the same old problems?

I know it is a big NO NO to duplicate tickets here but I am not getting an exceptable level of support through your ticket system. I am hoping this will nudge you to actually do something about this problem. If you can't fix this I am going to have to start looking for a new host. Having lost, mis directed, and bounced email is not acceptable!!! Plus, I think your current and potential customers would like to hear about your method of investigating a problem. 'All must be working.'

Below is a copy of a current ticket about this I have open and the level of support I am dealing with.







#######################################

TT Subject: Emails Emails Emails - Why are we having so many problems?

When *****@*****.com emails *****@*****.com she gets a mail delivery failed error. Also, happens when emailing to *****@*****.com.

Also, emails from *****@*****.com were sent to *****@*****.com and never recieved.

I don't what this problem is with our emails but it needs to be resolved ASAP!


User/Staff Follow-ups
Ivan
21-7-2004-05:40

I tried to send a few tests to your ***** box. Please check.

Also send your pass for *****@*****.com
I'll test it to send to other *****.com boxes.


-------------
Best regards, Ivan Vaskevitch
---
It's God. No, not Richard Stallman or Linus Torwalds but God.


Nathan Snipes
22-7-2004-03:22

that's all fine and good... I send test emails as well and they go through. That doesn't tell me anything other than it worked at the moment. We've had these problems off and on since we have switched to you for hosting and this always seems to be the method of checking the account... send a test message. Sure a test message may work but it doesn't explain what the problem was at the time, what caused it, and how you are going to fix it so it doesn't happen in the future. There has to be some way you can look through log files, figure out what is going on and fix it.

Also, you closed ticket #8538 because you said it was a duplicate request. I sent it originally to support@hostony.com but never recieved a reply and I still haven't. It's one thing if emails can't be delivered, but something completely different and much worse if they are miss sorted and put in an inbox that it doesn't belong in.

I am still waiting for an explination as to why this is/has happened and what is going to be done to fix it.

Ivan
22-7-2004-04:11

Please tell the day when *****@*****.com's letter hasn't been delivered to *****@*****.com.
We'll check our logs to find a problem.


-------------
Best regards, Ivan Vaskevitch
---
It's God. No, not Richard Stallman or Linus Torwalds but God.


Nathan Snipes
28-7-2004-2:00

It was sent on Monday July 19th. Also, what about ticket #8538 that you closed. I never recieved a response about that.


Igor Podpalchenko
28-7-2004-3:04

I don't found messages dated Monday July 19th from
*****@*****.com to *****@*****.com at mail server log file.

What SMTP server do you use?
I suggest you switch it to "67.15.42.48"

-------------
Thanks for choosing us.
Igor Podpalchenko
Hostony Support Team.


Nathan Snipes
28-7-2004-5:38

we use *****.com as our incoming mail server and our local ISP for outgoing.

Emails not being delivered or being delivered to the wrong person happens entirely to frequently.

What about the ticket I mentioned above that got no response? It has to be in your logs because it got delivered, it was just to the wrong person.


Alexander Brykulya
28-7-2004-5:50

All messages you sent will be rejected by our server if it are sent from allien mail server

You should to use SMTP: *****.com
and POP: *****.com
and all must be working.
Please try and notify me.


-------------
Best regards
Alexander Brykulya
Hostony Support Team


Nathan Snipes
30-7-2004-4:44

OK that doesn't make any sense. You're saying that unless a message is sent from your SMTP server that it won't be delivered??? We send/recieve hundreds of emails a week that do not go through your SMTP server.
But that is entirely besides the point.

The PROBLEM is that sometimes when people send an email to one of our accounts it never gets to us or they get a reject message. And what's even WORSE is that sometimes they get delivered to the wrong person.

98% of the time everything works fine but we still have these issues popping up!!! And the only aswer I get from you is that 'I look at your settings and all must be working'. ALL IS NOT WORKING. Figure out what this problem is, explain to me why it is happening and tell me what your going to do to fix it!!!


Alexander Brykulya
30-7-2004-5:47

Please notify me when it will be happened again and describe email from and email to that can't be recieved.



-------------
Best regards
Alexander Brykulya
Hostony Support Team


Nathan Snipes
3-8-2004-2:04

OK again here is a copy of the email that was sent to *****@*****.com but was delivered to *****@*****.com.


Nate,

Why would this have gone to Michele if it was sent to Paul?

Thanks!
Kaye


-----Original Message-----
From: Michele [mailto:*****@*****.com]
Sent: Wednesday, July 14, 2004 8:11 AM
To: Kaye
Subject: FW: Atomz Search Report - My Classic Car Online



Michele

-----Original Message-----
From: Atomz Customer Support [mailto:noreply@atomz.com]
Sent: Wednesday, July 14, 2004 6:59 AM
To: Paul
Subject: Atomz Search Report - My Classic Car Online

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
We are pleased to present this report about your Atomz Search account and
tips for customizing Atomz Search.

In this report:

##Deleted Body##


And, *****@***** (among others) gets bounce back messages when sending to *****@*****.com and *****@*****.com

This happened again on 8/2/2004 at approx. 9:15.

I saw that your proble is fixed by Igor.
If not please leave me private message
Sorry for the misunderstandings.

Alec: I am not confident that we won't have any more problems but all I can do is wait until the next time it happens. However, if these problems keep occuring I will be looking for other hosting options. Thanks.

Could you tell me how often it happens?
What is a period of normal work for your mail system? (How many days?)

We seem to have a mail problem at least once a week, that I am made aware of specifically. But many of our employees have to use a third party email address because email won't come through to them from certain people.

I don't know what you mean by 'What is a period of normal work for your mail system?'. Are you asking how many days in a row it works before something goes wrong? If that's the question I can't give a number. It's not like it happens every 3 days or something. It's at seemingly random intervals.

If it will be happened again please open a new ticket at the http://support.hostony.com
where should to write the email from sent, email to sent, sample of the letter and what result was expected.
If you'll describe it with more details I hope we'll find the solution and matter of the problem.
Thank you in advance.

Alec: Just thought I would give everyone an update on how support is 'helping to fix our problem'. Apparently yesterday afternoon support decided it was maybe a DNS problem (Again) and decided to switch our DNS without any prior warning. Now we are unable to connect to our email at all. When I found this out and told them that were unable to connect at all I was told 'Wait please for a 24-48 hours while DNS changes propagating.' ABSOLUTELY RIDICULOUS!!!! This is completely unacceptable.

I've dealt with a lot of different hosts over the years and this is by far the worst customer service I have seen yet.

I just checked my Cpanel and all but one email that I set up have been removed! This is just F$##$#@ great!

All of our email had better still be there.

Almost 3 HRS since I told them I couldn't access email and that all email accounts had been removed. No word. No idea if they can be restored. No idea if any of the emails sent to one of our accounts in the last 24 HRS will even be there. This just absolutely ######s!

Anybody know a good, reliable host?

still nothing.........

by the way Hostony has "working" on this for at least 21 days now.

nsnipes: Is you problem fixed completely? If no report us

They say that it is, but we will have to wait and see.

Email was down for more than 24HRS and all those emails were bounced. It is incredibly embarassing to have to explain to our customers and clients why they couldn't send us emails and request that they resend everything.

I would like to know how to contact someone in regards to getting a refund and possible free hosting until we are garaunteed that everything is working correctly.

open a ticket on this

I opened one.

It's been 12HRS... no response to the ticket I opened about a refund/billing as you requested.

Still having email problems....

Could you tell me what email problem do you have now?

Because server 21 is being worked fine now


Mail server works fine.
etc ...

ticket is still open #8539.

##############################
Quote:
We are still having problems. ****@******.com and ****@*******.com has not recieved any emails since yesterday, not even spam. Nothing has come through.

Also, I sent myself (****@*****.com) an email last night.

Wednesday, August 11, 2004 9:47 PM

from my hotmail account and have not recieved it.
###############################


I am concerned that we are not getting alot of emails. Our level of spam has dropped dramatically, less than 1/2 of what it was a few days ago. Not that I'm upset we are recieving less spam, but I think it's a pretty solid assumption that they didn't just decide stop sending it. Which leads me to believe that all of our email is not getting through.

You'll probably say that it doesn't mean anything, just a couple slow days. But when SPAM drops from 10,000+ emails to maybe a 1,000 emails so far today, it's a pretty pretty BIG flag that something isn't right... STILL!!


I know for a fact that emails from *@grundy.com are still getting bounced. They are suppose to be forwarding me the bounced message and I will add it to the ticket when I get it.

Look like i found a problem with ***.com and it looks ok now.

I've stored your inbox for info@******.com and cleared it and tried to send. It works fine.
Look to the ticket.

All of our forwarders are gone again!!!! Please fix ASAP!!!

What was the problem with the info account?

please update a ticket(what domain is you forwarders for?)

ticket updated....


All of our domains... Main and addons.

The same ones that had to be restored by Alexander Kanevsky on 10-8-2004

Your forwarders are restored

Yes, forwarders have been restored... again. Never any explination as why these things happen though.

Still having problems with people getting bounced emails when trying to send to us. Info in ticket.

Now having problems with emails not being delivered and no reject notice being sent either.

28 Days on current ticket...

Remind me your ticket # where problem is described.

8539

i dont seem to have any problem with the mail servers
I do understand that there was a problem but not anymore

I'm glad that you are not having problems... We, however, have had one problem after another for several months.

30 days and counting...

Still having problems with our email. I am certain that we are not recieving everything. I know for a fact that several, if not all, of our forwarders are having problems. I have sent several messages to an account that is forwarded to me and have yet to recieve any of them (and that was several days ago) or recieve a bounced message.

Again support seems very slow to respond and not offering any insight that is even close to the problem.


Still waiting an answer on my refund... Haven't heard anything for 5 days. Although, I guess I shouldn't be suprised.

If you asked for refund you didn't received it yet, that doesn't mean that we didn't do it.
You bank must get your money back during 11 days after refund.

I didn't say you weren't doing anything about the refund... I'm saying that I haven't been informed of anything. No response to my ticket in the last 5 days.

URGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

How is possible that support can be this retarded? Email is still not working correctly... 31 days and counting. And no one at support seems to be able remember from one post to the next in your trouble ticket system or even be able to look back and see what's going on. And the really sad part is that it is usually the same guy(s) posting dumb ass statements. It's probably more like several different guys using the same username.

It has been 5 days since I informed you of the latest problem that I knew of. And that problem has been that emails sent to several of our address don't get delivered and no bounce back is recieved. No one in your support appears to even care.

If you guys really cared about your customers you would actually spend the time looking into a problem and making sure it gets fixed. Not posting some dumb ass question and then completely forgetting about it until that ticket comes to the top again in the list.

It's ridiculous that I could respond to a question or statement less than 5 min after it was posted by your support and that it takes any where from 5HRS to over a day to get a response from you.

This is by far the worst customer service I have ever seen. I am at a loss for words to describe how badly Hostony runs its business. I just don't know what else to do. I have been bitching for now for 31 days about this current set of problems and a resolution is no where in sight. And I don't think Hostony even cares.

No hosting company with good equipment and staff should have this many problems. Maybe it's time I give a good look at finding someone else. You almost leave me no other choice. Seems foolish to keep paying for something that doesn't work.

You wouldn't subscribe to cable and only get a few channels for limited periods of time? You wouldn't buy a car that only worked every once in a while? You wouldn't buy a cell phone plan that had really shitty coverage? I could go on and on, but I hope that current and future customers of Hostony get it. Although, I'm sure tech support doesn't.

Latest Mail Server failure:

This is an automated message from SiteUptime.

Alert Type: Site Not Available
Result: Failed
Time: 8/20/2004 13:15:21 PST
HostName: bradleydavid.com
Service: pop3

I just tried to delete a forwarder and it said it deleted it but it still shows up. I think something is seriously wrong with the way your system or something is handling them. Please look into this ASAP!

Refund is done, account is closed.

Account is closed!!!!! What the f*&# is this all about. I didn't want you to close the account. I wanted you to fix the problem and refund for the time the service is down. I NEVER SAID ANYTHING ABOUT CLOSING OUR ACCOUNT. You have put us in a really bad situation now.

Are you going to reopen our account, or can I at least get access to our files?

Due to the very unreliable service I have had from Hostony and the mostly horrific customer service we can no longer continue to lose current and future business because of your shoty service.

I have moved all of our files to a new hosting service.

PLEASE CANCEL AND CLOSE OUR ACCOUNT!

Nathan Snipes
myclassiccar.com
bradleydavid.com
novemsongs.com

Could you tell me your ticket's number?

Ticket number is 8539.

Request was also sent to billing@hostony.com

Has this account been closed?

?????

billing dpt will send you a confirmation when it's done

How long does it take to close the account? It's been 6 days already.

Ticket has been closed.