Virtual6.net Ceases Operations for unforeseen reasons :)

[drmike]

More failed business ventures due to [lack of caring] [lack of funding] [lack of contingency planning] [lack of business].


I refuse to deal with companies like this and I refuse to deal with a company like OVH.  OVH wants your identity documents which is overbearing.  Yet, when something breaks as alleged with chargeback and some unknown 3rd party, the customer is left in no support, no access zone.   Quite shit if factual.  


Normally this sort of clown college stuff doesn't happen.  But, this at minimum is what happens when you deal with a company that is all about the non human log into get support approach.  If I can't pick up a phone if needed and get some action, I am certainly not spending real money with such a company.


Virtual6 should have backups.  All companies intending on remaining in business should have backups.  If they did, they could take a day or week hit and spin customers up elsewhere.


Those poor customers with no source control, no backups, etc.  Their million dollar investments and $10 billion ideas just went up in smoke.

 

[graeme]

Typo: that last para should be


People on LET seem to accept the "it was all OVH's fault" story. I know OVH does not have great customer service, but is it that bad?

 

[DomainBop]

Virtual6 should have backups.  All companies intending on remaining in business should have backups.  If they did, they could take a day or week hit and spin customers up elsewhere.

Ash addressed this on LET: he has backups but he can't afford to offer these plans with the same specs anywhere else so he's discontinuing the Virtual6 budget line and refunding customers.

More failed business ventures due to...

On LET he insisted none of his brands ever deadpooled but that depends on your definition of deadpool I guess.  Virtual6 "ceased trading completely" (Ash's own words) in January 2014 only to be resurrected in January 2015, and now customers are once again left stranded after V6 discontinues its OVH-based budget line...that's two deadpools from one brand IMO.

But, this at minimum is what happens when you deal with a company that is all about the non human log into get support approach.  If I can't pick up a phone if needed and get some action, I am certainly not spending real money with such a company.

OVH does offer phone support.  Their ticket support is fairly useless with day long waits in between responses but the phone support is halfway decent.  For things like hardware problems you'll probably never need to open a ticket because their automated monitoring system dispatches a technician as soon as it detects a problem (1 hour guaranteed response time on hardware incidents plus a 2 hour guaranteed hardware replacement time)

 

[HN-Matt]

@graeme pretty terrible in my experience. Unrelated to this necro, but I had a similar experience to what @drmike is saying. My final support request with OVH went unanswered for ~10 days. Service was unusable the entire time. When they finally answered, they offered a free month as compensation, but it was too late, the charge back kicked in a couple days later.

Why 10 days?

I'm terribly sorry for the unacceptable wait time on your tickets. It seems there was a configuration problem on our end which prevented your tickets from being seen on our end.

Yeah, whatever that means.

Guess your mileage may vary, but no luck with them on my part.

 

[OSTKCabal]

OVH's ticket support is absolutely useless. I've legitimately seen wait times of up to 1 month - 30 days! - about financial issues. The phone support, on the other hand, is generally significantly better - but often won't handle financials; they'll throw you back over to tickets, things will look good for a day or two, and then you're dead in the water again. I've had multiple acquaintances and friends report similar happenings (with varying wait times of between 10 days and 30 days)

 

[drmike]

Ash addressed this on LET: he has backups but he can't afford to offer these plans with the same specs anywhere else so he's discontinuing the Virtual6 budget line and refunding customers.

If one can only have biz model with a single vendor in the entire universe, then that biz model is not viable.  Genius how that works.  Like watching natural selection in the form of a business.

that's two deadpools from one brand IMO.

Yeah it is, you are a good bean counter

 My final support request with OVH went unanswered for ~10 days. Service was unusable the entire time. When they finally answered, they offered a free month as compensation, but it was too late, the charge back kicked in a couple days later.

I recall this.  Quite horrible.   Seen too many OVH horror stories to ever risk going with them.

OVH's ticket support is absolutely useless. I've legitimately seen wait times of up to 1 month - 30 days! - about financial issues.... I've had multiple acquaintances and friends report similar happenings (with varying wait times of between 10 days and 30 days)

Those wait times are insanity.  I know of no one, consumer or business that would tolerate such.


Question to OVH buyers --- were you on a certain line of their products - like perhaps is support less crappy on certain pricier product lines?  

 

[DomainBop]

Question to OVH buyers --- were you on a certain line of their products - like perhaps is support less crappy on certain pricier product lines?  

I use OVH for production but I'm not about to take a risk with their regular support so I subscribe to their VIP support option €49 monthly (payable only annually, so lump sum of €588 every year, cost covers all servers and products in account).  Guaranteed 15 minute response time, priority handling, dedicated advisor, etc. The extra €49 a month isn't that bad when you consider the overall savings compared to going with a higher priced competitor who offers better free support.


If you're using OVH (or Online.net or fill in extreme budget dedi blank) and running a business that puts food on the table for your family and your employees' families then opting for one of their support packages is very advisable and a good investment, and even with the added cost you'll still save money over going with the competition (of course you need to be able to manage your servers yourself because even with a premium support package you're still using an unmanaged service).  


If you don't opt for a premium support package at most of the extreme budget dedicated providers...you risk becoming the next Ash which is why I've always avoided OVH based low end providers because there is a strong possibility of something going very wrong and you know with most of these providers' low margins that extra €49 month for better support would break the bank so they're forced to use regular free support.  OVH pricing looks attractive to many of these "startups" but OVH has been the graveyard of a disproportionate amount of providers over the years. 


edited to add: premium support isn't available on their SoYouStart and Kimsufi lines so never use these lines for production (and I do see many low end providers using them for production.)  Plus, while the OVH line has 24/7 telephone support (for technical issues), SYS telephone support hours are only Mon-Fri 9AM-6PM.  Kimsufi doesn't offer telephone support and email support is only replied to during office hours Mon-Fri.  Most SYS and Kimsufi hardware issues are dealt with automatically by their automated monitoring but if you need anything else and its outside of business hours be prepared to wait a long time.

 

[drmike]

I use OVH for production but I'm not about to take a risk with their regular support so I subscribe to their VIP support option €49 monthly (payable only annually, so lump sum of €588 every year, cost covers all servers and products in account).  Guaranteed 15 minute response time, priority handling, dedicated advisor, etc. The extra €49 a month isn't that bad when you consider the overall savings compared to going with a higher priced competitor who offers better free support.

There is what I was looking for  Paid support.


€588 year isn't too bad since it's a bulk all services coverage.  I can see small shops not affording it or refusing to prioritize this.  No way anyone should be on OVH offering services without this yearly buy-in.


This amount isn't much, not compared to what they sell you servers at their price points vs. what such costs elsewhere.


People using the Kimsufi and SoYouStart as their provider should be drawn and quartered.  Severely risky lines of products and neither is intended for hosts in traditional sense.