New web host

[alkit]

Just want to get your guys opinion on this one.

I recently signed up for web hosting from a certain company.
Just 3 days ago, they suspended my site for a around 2-3 hours due to an accounting error that they had made.

When I emailed them requesting compensation for the downtime, they claimed that my website was hardly accessed and that their terms and conditions protect them from such a situation in any case.

I then responded that I still believe that it is proper to compensate me as a act of good faith and that it has nothing to do with how often my web site is accessed or even how long it was down for.

Now comes the crazy part,
I got an email back, stating that they will divide the total monthly cost into hours, and compensate me for the hours that the site was down, so in total, they will compensate 19c for the month. That's right NINETEEN CENTS!!! I guess they have quite a sense of humour.

Did I make a big deal for nothing?
Is this common practice amongst web hosts?
Or do you think I should change hosts as soon as I possibly can?

Thanks in advance for the advice!

 

[Conradl]

Not sure what you actually expected? Free months? A mistake was made, and rectified with 2-3 hours. All companies make mistakes and the fact that it was resolved within one business day is pretty good. I would not move based on that; but stay with them, knowing that any problems will be promptly resolved.

As far as compensation, their contract probably protects them from losses incurred, so you cant try to claim for lost earnings etc. I think they were reasonable in not charging you for the time your site was down.

 

[alkit]

I see what you are saying. Just thought that most web hosts offer compensation if they can't guarantee 100% uptime, just like most of them have a 30 day guarantee.
So yes, I was expecting a month free hosting.

 

[ambo]

Did I make a big deal for nothing?

Yes.

You are paying around R50 per month for your hosting - correct? That puts you in the 'budget hosting' category and like Conradl says you are lucky that you got a response on 3 hours. Most budget hosting providers can't manage that.

Did you sign an SLA? Did they promise you 100% uptime? Most hosting providers only promise around 99.9% uptime and only actually reimburse you if your uptime is MUCH worse than that.

If your site is that important to you then go find a better host. But expect to pay at least R5000 per month to guarantee the kind of uptime that you are expecting.

 

[RSkeens]

Well considering this was a mistake on their part and that 3 hours is pretty long downtime then I'd say 19 cents is not acceptable but that would all depend on their uptime guarantee.

I then responded that I still believe that it is proper to compensate me as a act of good faith and that it has nothing to do with how often my web site is accessed.

That is correct, it has NOTHING to do with how popular the account is, any webhost who says that to get out of a promise they made you is pretty unprofessional. I was quite surprised most of the responses in this thread.

Just my opinion, good luck.

 

[RetroPedro]

Hetzner recently gave 6 months of free hosting because of a failed generator. A contractor was installing the generator and a exhaust bandage got sucked into the machine. The MD wrote a letter of apology and gave 6 months free hosting to all the clients hosting in the center, must've amounted to millions. AFAIK total downtime was a few hours.

 

[Gomario]

Hetzner are not that cheap to begin with ! They pride themself with very reliable 'up times'. I expect nothing less from them. To answer the original poster: Geee bud, you are making lots of smoke without a fire ! Move over to a 'more reliable' provider, sure you'll have to pay money and not pine nuts, but at least your up-time will be guaranteed 99.9%

 

[plazma]

Yes, you behaved like a *****.
Please stop, the world already has too many *****s who demand compensation for every little thing that goes wrong. Get real dude, this is Earth, and ***** happens. Get over yourself already.