 | I've been using Fasthosts for my own and my client's hosting for many a long year now. I've paid them a fair few bob over the years, and I've brought them new customers, in my capacity as a self employed web developer, (see www.xledev.co.uk). Up until very recently, this has been a fairly stable and satisfactory symbiotic(ish) relationship, and I've happily sung their praises to anyone who was interested. But it's all gone Pete Tong recently, because I've had troubles, and with these troubles has come the requirement to contact their Support department. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. |
There are two ways you can approach them, by phone or by email. By phone costs you money, and a great deal of time. Eventually you might get through to someone, but in my experience they will sound a very very long way away. They will be quiet, and there will be an annoying delay on the line, and though I totally admire people who have gained any sort of fluency I another language... I can't help but feel they don't really understand half of what you're telling them. When what you're telling them is technically complex, this can be, ah, problematical.
Then there's email. Email is quicker for you to actually create, but it is eye-wateringly long-winded to get anywhere. They never reply quicker than 24 hours, and often take longer. Their first reply is always just that, a reply, no effort having been made to solve anything. They will ask you for some more information. 24 hours will pass. In my experience, the next response will be from someone who has not actually read your email properly, it will be a knee jerk reaction, and it will probably imply that you are at fault. Reply, 24 hours pass. You might break through the drone wall at this point and get through to someone who actually understands what you want... maybe. They may help at this point, or they may ask for more info. You'll notice that a week has nearly passed. Eventually you might get it sorted, and they might gently apologise.
One example recently, was that when developing pages using ASP, their new hosting was not returning error messages, just a general purpose page which told you nothing. I made a page with an error on it, and called it "deliberate-error.asp" in order that they could see what I was on about. After three days of getting this across to them I received a message from them saying that the page I had given them had an error in it, and perhaps I should fix it myself! Doh!
I tried hard to lay off the sarcasm in my reply, because I reckon it may have been lost completely on this 'support' operative who, I imagine, was "not from round here".
I am currently locked out of my account, because when I log on I'm told that a transaction I instigated (I didn't) has failed due to a problem with the payment (it's a free option and is trying to take a payment of exactly £0.00). It says I should either update my payment method (I can't as it won't let me in to do so) or Cancel. When I click Cancel a message comes up saying it's "Unable To Cancel". Checkmate.
The support phone call I made about this suggested I should email in for support, as they didn't understand what I meant. I emailed in four days ago and am yet to get a response worth having.
Advice. Only ring them if it's not your own phone bill and you've nothing worth doing for an hour or so. If you email them, try and tell them absolutely everything about your account, including FTP details and password, cos that will save you at least one 24 hour cycle. Never type too much in the email to support as they clearly stop reading after the first sentence.
Finally, probably, use 1&1 for you hosting.
Fasthosts, as my teenage son would say : "Epic Fail!"
