GreenValueHost outsources customer support to India.

[drmike]

I've been watching the drama and incessant offer bombing from GreenValueHost over the past few weeks (over on that OTHER site) .....

These 30-100TB bandwidth plans with a dedicated server worth of RAM and upwards of 300GB of disk have my face bruised from facepalming.

GVH = CC.  No doubt.   GreenValue isn't eating a dish like this, Biloh is.

Now, something I am calling out for real for real is the braggadocios claims that GVH DOES NOT outsource to Indians (yeah I need to source the "evidence" from the public post/claims).

This is from vpsBoard IRC channel:








+mepholic:. who was it that said GVH told them he didn't hire indians?
.:+mepholic:. root pts/1 113.193.41.194 13:46 42.00s 0.00s 0.00s -bash
.:+mepholic:. think again
.:+mepholic:. oh boy I can't wait to check my bash history after this


IP 113.193.41.194 = India.  Mumbai.  INDIANS.  RUN!








113.193.0.0 - 113.193.255.255
netname: TIKONANET
descr: Tikona Digital Networks Pvt. Ltd.
country: IN
admin-c: JS1761-AP
tech-c: JS1761-AP
status: ALLOCATED PORTABLE
mnt-by: MAINT-IN-IRINN
mnt-lower: MAINT-IN-TIKONA
mnt-routes: MAINT-IN-TIKONA
mnt-irt: IRT-TIKONA-IN
changed: [email protected] 20081119
changed: [email protected] 20090609
changed: [email protected] 20131101
source: APNIC

irt: IRT-TIKONA-IN
address: Tikona Digital Networks
address: Corpora,Office No 3A, 3rd Floor
address: LBS Marg, Bhandup (W)
address: Mumbai 400 078
e-mail: [email protected]
abuse-mailbox: [email protected]
admin-c: JS1761-AP
tech-c: JS1761-AP
auth: # Filtered
mnt-by: MAINT-IN-TIKONA
changed: [email protected] 20101220
source: APNIC

person: Jaydeep Sampat
nic-hdl: JS1761-AP
e-mail: [email protected]
address: Tikona Digital Networks
address: Corpora,Office No 3A, 3rd Floor
address: LBS Marg, Bhandup (W)
address: Mumbai 400 078
address: India
phone: +91-22-6784-0000
fax-no: +91-22-6784-0111
country: IN
changed: [email protected] 20081029
mnt-by: MAINT-IN-TIKONA
source: APNIC


Lunch is ready, I am having more foil.

 

[WebSearchingPro]

I just wanted to note that if an employee logs in using "vzctl enter (ctid)" it does not show up on the standard "w" command

I happened to have been testing ways to identify entries from the hostnode earlier today.

So that was a direct login through openssh.

 

[MannDude]

Indian support isn't by itself bad, they're usually quite capable at the job but mostly lack in their communication skills. Do they advertise as having US or non outsourced support?

Source: Past jobs.

 

[DomainBop]

He probably learned the outsourcing trick from CC hosting coach Thomas D. (the guy who, in his own words "outsources", "uses Indians" and runs a Minecraft host but "doesn't know shit about MC".

Hijacking the thread for a minute...There was a thread on LET the other day with the title "Urpad Poor Support, GreenValueHost (Not Very Knowledgeable)" .  The thread is now titled "Urpad Poor Support" because GVH's Jonny had a temper tantrum and starting throwing the word slander around like he seems to do any time a customer critcizes the level of support or service they received.  Jonny is obviously not very knowledgable of the law since A. the idiot insists on misusing the terms slander and slanderous (which refer to oral defamation) instead of using the correct term libelous (written defamation), and B. the young host doesn't seem to understand that statements which are stated as an opinion rather than as a fact are not libelous, and C. it is not F**king illegal for a customer to publicly post that a service provider's staff doesn't seem very knowledgable or for the customer to say that they aren't happy with the level of support provided (if it was illegal I'd be doing a life sentence for criticizing my cable provider's braindead customer service/support departments).

The OP's thread title is a complete lie that is an attempt to illegally and intentionally slander our company.

I would highly appreciate if you would have the slanderous thread title edited because we did nothing wrong and don't deserve this libel.

 

[drmike]

This is a customer email that was sent out.  Note, paragraph #3 about the Indian outsourcing commentary.

Valued Clients,

This message is being sent out to you to inform you of a recent implementation of unsuspension fees.

Effective immediately, unsuspensions for virtual servers that have been suspended for CPU abuse will be assessed a one-time administrative fee of up to $10.00 per incident. (Exceptions may be provided to persons using virtual servers for hosting clients, upon initial approval of GreenValueHost management)

GreenValueHost does not outsource it's staff to India and pays it's staff American wages. All GreenValueHost staff are currently located in the USA including all members of our technical support and management team. We employ a talented and skilled team of systems administrators that are paid top dollar/expensive wages by the hour to diagnose issues and ensure smooth performance on all of our VPS nodes. Recently there has been a very large amount of CPU abuse incidents which has caused numerous kernel panics to multiple nodes on our network, resulting in our systems administrators needing to spend lengthy shifts tracking down and suspending resource hogs. In order for us to continue offering the low prices and the high amount of resources that we offer, we are forced to implement an administrative fee for VPS unsuspensions.

This email only applies to clients whom have a virtual private server hosting service with us. If you do not currently have any VPS hosting services with us, you may disregard this email.

To clear up any confusion regarding our CPU resource policy, we allow clients to burst up to 50% of their CPU allocation -- NO EXCEPTIONS.

We deeply apologize for any inconvenience this may cause to anyone and wish everyone a pleasant hosting experience for many years to come.

If you have any questions, comments, or concerns regarding this new policy, please contact us through the management department in our helpdesk.

Kind Regards,

Jon

 

[drmike]

^---- Borrowed from:

http://lowendtalk.com/discussion/comment/434646/#Comment_434646

 

[AuroraZero]

Hold on just a minute. I just read and re-read their post over "there" and it did not mention anyplace the number of CPU cores any plans came with. So just how in the sam hell am I supposed to know what I am buying? How do I know if it is a good deal or not? Sure to some people it does not matter 2-4 cores but the damned ad did not even mention any hardware.

For all I know these servers are 286's!!!! I mean come on people this post has to be the biggest piece of fluff I have ever seen. What amazes me the most is people are buying this crap like sheep. Sorry but this just gets me annoyed. There can not be this many brain dead meat puppets in world is there? If there is I have the feeling the rest of are doomed before we start.

Here is the post have at it guys.

http://lowendtalk.com/discussion/20028/greenvaluehost-is-now-in-ny-tx-la-check-out-this-massive-blowout-sale-starting-3-100tb-bw#latest

 

[DomainBop]

We employ a talented and skilled team of systems administrators that are paid top dollar/expensive wages by the hour

If they're employed by GVH (as opposed to being contractors)and  being paid "by the hour" rather than being paid an annual salary I question whether they are being paid "top dollar" and I'm going to question their level of experience and skills.  Skilled sys admin contractors are paid hourly but I've yet to see a "talented and skilled" sys admin that is employed by a company that isn't paid a salary rather than an hourly wage.

I'm also going to question whether GVH could afford to hire a highly skilled sys admin (as in an actual employee rather than a contractor).  Here's a few current sys admin average salaries: server administrator $66K, senior linux system administrator $84K, network system administrator $70K (from this table > http://www.indeed.com/salary/System-Administrator.html

For all I know these servers are 286's!!!!

He said in another thread they're E3's with 32GB RAM and 1 Gbps ports.  TL;DR sell 9 4GB RAM plans and you've already oversold the RAM, sell 4 100TB bandwidth plans and you've already oversold the maximum amount of bandwidth that 1 Gbps port can possible transfer in a month. The biggest CPU abuser is the host who is massively overselling his nodes not the customers who are struggling to get CPU time on the overloaded node.

 

[WelltodoInformalCattle]

Slightly off-topic but I don't see what is wrong with outsourcing. Yes, it would show a certain degree of hypocrisy if GVH's claim that they only hired American staff proved to be false but as long as , for any other company, the staff is capable and they don't sound like they rely on Google Translate to reply to tickets, I don't seen an issue with it.

 

[GVH-Jon]

The majority of our staff members are located in the US and during the time that the email was sent, we did not employ any Indian staff.

I was convinced by a knowledgeable businessman and friend the other day to give his Indian team a chance at working at our helpdesk at a small cost and I caved in and accepted the offer. Their 1st day of working was yesterday. So far the team has been doing an absolutely phenominal job and I'm very proud of them. They are able to effectively troubleshoot/diagnose issues, collaborate each other via chat and work together, assist clients in a quick and timely manner, and they do what they are told. We have not yet had one client complain. Their English communication abilities are satisfactory as well, and you can understand them perfectly.

Given all of the above, I don't understand how you can still be against the hiring of persons living in India without being a racist. We even pay them well and provide bonuses on top of that.

If any of our customers has any issues with any of our technical support staff members, they are more than willing to contact a member of our management team for resolution. We have a quality assurance department and a team of management staff that are estatic about helping our clients with anything that they may need and I'm confident of that. If you still have doubts, Mike, please send me a private message and I will hook you up with any hosting service or management service that we offer and you'll see that what I am talking about is for real.

Also, @AuroraZero - If you have a sales question, it's better if you submit a ticket in our helpdesk rather than posting on LET and then complaining when you don't receive a quick response in the timeframe that you were looking for. The answer to your question is the 1st and 2nd plan have 4 cores and the 3rd plan has 1 core.

To again emphasize another statement that has been said over and over again, GreenValueHost is not owned by ColoCrossing and ColoCrossing does not partake in any management decisions of our company. and Mike, you already know this. You already know that if ColoCrossing owned us, I wouldn't be here trying to explain everything. I wouldn't be changing our policies for consumer satisfaction, and I frankly would not give a crap about what anyone here has to say. But in reality, it is actually just to opposite. I'm here to explain and clear up any confusion that any of you guys have, I changed our policies for the satisfaction of our consumers, and I do truly care about what our customers, potential customers, and industry spectators have to say. It's the better way to do business. I personally do not agree with ColoCrossing's "closed book" business model and approach and therefore we here at GreenValueHost do not follow it. If we were of any part of ColoCrossing, I would have been fired by now.

 

[AuroraZero]

@GVH-Jon Please show me my post on LET. When you do that much I will buy from your company. I have never and will never post in a thread of, nor buy from a company that uses a CC network. They do not work for me or my clients. I do not like their business practices and from your tone I do not like you that well either and I shall leave it at that.

 

[raidz]

...Given all of the above, I don't understand how you can still be against the hiring of persons living in India without being a racist. We even pay them well and provide bonuses on top of that....

Oh give me a break! There are many reasons someone might not be a fan of outsourcing to India besides racism.

 

[Aldryic C'boas]

Everyone is so hung up on race lately.  You folks need to get out of your suburbs more.

 

[MannDude]

Oh give me a break! There are many reasons someone might not be a fan of outsourcing to India besides racism.

Especially considering how proudly he announced he didn't, 1.5 weeks ago, in his email.

The reason why Indian tech support gets a bad image is because often times it's below the quality a customer wants. I understand, when you sell VPSes for $5/mo you may not have enough to hire native English speakers at legal rates, but generally speaking the negativity towards Indian tech support is due to their inability to communicate back to the client in proper English. More often than not, when not swamped with working for you and 6 other companies at the same time, they're quite capable and good workers. But not the best at responding to a ticket, generally.

"hi thank you can please try now, okay?"

That's not an appropriate response to any ticket, even if the staff member went in and solved a complicated issue in a timely manner.

TLDR: People don't want it because they're often overworked and usually their English skills aren't as good as their tech skills. Plus I'd not trust someone who works for many companies.

 

[MannDude]

Everyone is so hung up on race lately.  You folks need to get out of your suburbs more.

Can it, ya Ruski.

 

[SkylarM]

To again emphasize another statement that has been said over and over again, GreenValueHost is not owned by ColoCrossing and ColoCrossing does not partake in any management decisions of our company. and Mike, you already know this. 

Yeah but what about HVH's involvement in GVH? We both know you piggyback off of their sweetheart server deals with CC and Ernie has access to your WHMCS.

Ex: http://i.imgur.com/r4zoEgo.png

I was convinced by a knowledgeable businessman and friend the other day to give his Indian team a chance at working at our helpdesk at a small cost and I caved in and accepted the offer.

I wonder who THAT could be.

http://i.imgur.com/vfu2nGg.png

".:GVH-Jon:. I'm telling you right now -- This statement can't be released though. GVH can never die as long as HVH and CC are alive"

 

[raidz]

Especially considering how proudly he announced he didn't, 1.5 weeks ago, in his email.

The reason why Indian tech support gets a bad image is because often times it's below the quality a customer wants. I understand, when you sell VPSes for $5/mo you may not have enough to hire native English speakers at legal rates, but generally speaking the negativity towards Indian tech support is due to their inability to communicate back to the client in proper English. More often than not, when not swamped with working for you and 6 other companies at the same time, they're quite capable and good workers. But not the best at responding to a ticket, generally.

"hi thank you can please try now, okay?"

That's not an appropriate response to any ticket, even if the staff member went in and solved a complicated issue in a timely manner.

Agreed.

I am also not a fan of outsourcing in general. I understand that most companies have to do it to stay competitive these days but its part of the reason our economy is so bad, jobless claims are so high and big businesses are getting away with more crap as far as how it treats its employees etc. Obviously GVH is a super small company and outsourcing a few people isn't going to do anything but some people look at this kind of thing as more of a principle issue. If its racist to be upset with our countries businesses continually moving jobs out of the country then we have a lot of jobless, racist folks. I am only talking about the United States so my apologies with anyone who takes offense to a bit of murica patriotism.

 

[GVH-Jon]

@GVH-Jon Please show me my post on LET. When you do that much I will buy from your company. I have never and will never post in a thread of, nor buy from a company that uses a CC network. They do not work for me or my clients. I do not like their business practices and from your tone I do not like you that well either and I shall leave it at that.

I apologize, I thought you were one of those people that posted on LET. I'm not speaking or suggesting a threatening tone in my previous post at all. My tone was completely and perfectly calm. I myself do not agree with much of ColoCrossing's business practices and I think it is quite obvious that dr mike's claim of us being owned by ColoCrossing is false. We follow our own business practices which are based on both moral and ethical values.

Oh give me a break! There are many reasons someone might not be a fan of outsourcing to India besides racism.

The primary reason for why Indians are looked down upon for technical support is that a lot of them have poor English speaking abilities. The Indians that we employ are able to clearly and effectively communicate in the English language.

Especially considering how proudly he announced he didn't, 1.5 weeks ago, in his email.

The reason why Indian tech support gets a bad image is because often times it's below the quality a customer wants. I understand, when you sell VPSes for $5/mo you may not have enough to hire native English speakers at legal rates, but generally speaking the negativity towards Indian tech support is due to their inability to communicate back to the client in proper English. More often than not, when not swamped with working for you and 6 other companies at the same time, they're quite capable and good workers. But not the best at responding to a ticket, generally.

"hi thank you can please try now, okay?"

That's not an appropriate response to any ticket, even if the staff member went in and solved a complicated issue in a timely manner.

Again, the majority of our staff members are Americans living in the United States and are natively fluent in English. Also I must reiterate my point of our Indians' capability to effectively communicate in English. I made sure that the staff members that we employ are both skilled in server administration as well as effective in their communications with our clients. I can assure you that if you purchase a service from us and ticket in to Customer Service, you will always receive a response in clear and understable English.

Everyone is so hung up on race lately.  You folks need to get out of your suburbs more.

I'm not "playing the race card" to get out on anything, I promise. I was just putting a point out there because to be honest, don't you think this statement made by dr mike

"IP 113.193.41.194 = India.  Mumbai.  INDIANS.  RUN!"

is a tad bit racist and can be found maybe somewhat offensive?

 

[SkylarM]

I myself do not agree with much of ColoCrossing's business practices and I think it is quite obvious that dr mike's claim of us being owned by ColoCrossing is false. We follow our own business practices which are based on both moral and ethical values.

Hmm.....

 

[GVH-Jon]

Yeah but what about HVH's involvement in GVH? We both know you piggyback off of their sweetheart server deals with CC and Ernie has access to your WHMCS.

Ex: http://i.imgur.com/r4zoEgo.png

I wonder who THAT could be.

http://i.imgur.com/vfu2nGg.png

".:GVH-Jon:. I'm telling you right now -- This statement can't be released though. GVH can never die as long as HVH and CC are alive"

The GVH-HVH relationship is confidential and I cannot release any information regarding it. As for for that quote, although I really did not want it released for obvious reasons (Stirring the pot? Twisting it into something ridiculous?), what I meant by that is that our upstreams are generous with us in regards to our invoices and there's nothing more to it.