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Never Use thekerb [merged]




Posted by hugo maxi, 03-03-2013, 11:09 PM
bad customer service and rubbish hosting

Posted by net, 03-03-2013, 11:15 PM
You need to provide more information and make sure to report your domain hosted with them

Posted by hugo maxi, 03-03-2013, 11:18 PM
if you are thinking of using thekerb hosting think again. One of the worst companies I have ever used) Constant Issues , poor to none when it comes to customer service, if you have an issue they cant solve they blame you and limit your services. Honestly be aware of this rip off company. you could end up with a lot of problems and create a lot of work for yourself. They never informaed me when they decided to migrate on Feb 9th. Luckily I visited there website and saw a warning message 3 days before. if I didnt I would not have any backups of my websites and wouldve lost many clients. even the announcement is still there today USELESS!! I was lucky but I think a lot of people wouldve lost work because of this. Also they didnt do anything to help. I had to upload all my websites and email myself(they didnt migrate them), then had to re-point the domains of each website which as many know takes up to 48hrs. Nightmare! but before this happened I was left in limbo because they never gave me the new hosting details for FTP and cpanel FOR 4 DAYS, I had to threaten legal action against them before they sheepishly responded and started to provide me with my new login details...Also had to set up each clients email and explain where there stored emails had gone. very embarrassing!!!! Finally I am now set up, but gradually moving all my clients away one by one. Recently they had a massive crash and again off for 24hrs...although my initial thoughts are that some P**sed of customer DDoS'ed them/ They say they got softaculous and RVSitebuilder but I can tell you, this is not true in my case... "Every package comes with CPanel, RVSitebuilder and Softaculous as standard. This means you may install popular scripts such as Wordpress in an instant without the need of any technical knowledge. For the more experienced users, all packages include a fully loaded CPanel." So be Very aware!!! bunch of clowns!

Posted by hugo maxi, 03-03-2013, 11:39 PM
I have serveral domains with them, slowly I am moving them away. too many problems and when you ask for help, they take days and if its something that involves a lot of work they palm you off. Currently they're advertising that they offer RVSitebuilder and Softaculous as standard with every package. This is not true in my case, unless they are singling me out(doh!) which would not be very professional, but then expected. already within the last month 2 issues, firstly they told everyone they have to back up all their websites and emails themselves by the 9thFeb because they wanted to migrate due to reseller increase. That was embarrassing for my clients and even after I backed up and was ready by 9th, they kept me waiting days while they decided to slowly trickle through my new details/information for every individual website, which meant all my clients websites were offline for days and I could not answer when they would be back online due to my hands being tied by thekerb. Also I was forced to do the backup and restores myself. Crazy! took up a lot of my time. Then few weeks after this when I had reasured my customers it was technical glitch..yet another massive crash and everything went offline for 24hrs and I had no warning. even their own site went off, so I assumed the worst and started buying hosting from an alternative provider. This is not the way to do business.. My customers were bouncing!

Posted by TheKerb, 03-09-2013, 09:05 PM
Hello Hugo, You have 3 accounts with us in various names, all are active (yet some unpaid). We have honored our commitment regarding your web hosting. You pay less than £0.1p GBP per day per hosting package (yes this is correct) and all resolve/ping quicker than most of the top 1% of all web hosts. We can verify this if required. You have used our hosting services for several years and had 100% uptime. We recently upgraded our servers and network as our existing providers were trying to impose an 850% price rise. This meant that we had a down time of 7 hours on average per server. We advised all of our clients of this well in advance gave a promise to keep our commitments, as you well know. You choose to leave comments like this on this board which, under the circumstances is quite unfair. 1) We challenge you to find a better host for the same cost (and services), or retract your statements here. 2) If you are unhappy with our services, why do you remain hosting your websites with us? We believe you need to clarify this for all to see. Kind regards.

Posted by nettiapina, 03-10-2013, 06:31 AM
How much are you exactly paying for that account? I wouldn't consider something like $3/mo a "rip off" unless you got absolutely nothing in return. And using the cheapest host you can find is always a trade of between your own cheapness and your peace of mind. In the future, could you please start your own if there's no good reason to use an old one? Thanks!

Posted by TheKerb, 03-13-2013, 01:59 PM
Hi, We actually made a typo in our last post. They are actually paying £0.01p (GBP) per day 0r £0.30p per month. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the services provided in the past or now. This is just a customer who is disgruntled with the server migration. We will not be inviting them back to renew their services with us once they expire with us after their comments here. And also, we are not resellers, we have our own servers. Regards,

Posted by TheKerb, 03-13-2013, 02:03 PM
Hello Hugo. 1) We rebut your comments. 2) We note you have not (as requested by admin) included details of your domains hosted with us. 3) If all you have said above is true, why still host with us? Regards,

Posted by Martin-D, 03-13-2013, 02:14 PM
Wow. Worst response ever. Excellent PR there.

Posted by KMyers, 03-13-2013, 02:46 PM
Agreed, no response would have been a better response. Customer complaints on WHT are not the end of the world, rather a chance to save the customer. I am not sure why you simply brushed the customer off as a liar. There are many legitimate reasons for his issue, accidents happen. There are times where I forget to install the premium version of softaclous and leave the free one in place on new production servers, it is a simple fix. You should simply ask for a domain or ticket ID and look into it.

Posted by Forward Web, 03-13-2013, 03:08 PM
I guess what I am not understanding is why the web host is requiring their clients to make their own back-ups as an ultimatum to losing all of their data? Very unprofessional in my opinion.

Posted by hugo maxi, 03-13-2013, 05:05 PM
This is because the kerb up until feb 9th *were a RESELLER of Heart Internet* despite them saying they are not resellers. Something happened I can only speculate ..hmmm (but i doubt heart internet would all of sudden increase there price by 850% unless they had good reason, *thought* may be interesting to invite a heart interned representative to comment as to why the sudden increase) So when 9th Feb came around all customers had to back up their own websites or lose all data. Then each customer had to wait for the kerb to get their act together and the provide the new details.. Then all websites had to be re-upload by oneself. Absolute nightmare for anyone who were with the kerb... My clients were left in limbo... And I only found out 3 days before migration because i happened to visit the kerb website due to a customer complaining about downtime..... No email notification sent out to me warning of the migration prior to the 9th. It was left to chance that i visited their website. By then I had just three days in which to back up all my websites.. Then the added hassle of waiting for the kerb to provide details so i could upload. Again i do not believe this to be something a customer of the kerb should do. So i can only speculate that the business relationship between heart and the kerb had turned sour an come to a bitter end. Regardless of this, its very unprofessional to let the customer have to do all the work.

Posted by Forward Web, 03-13-2013, 05:23 PM
I've never heard of Heart (or Kerb for that matter), but what you are saying makes sense. As soon as I read on their site that they were requiring everyone to make their own back-ups or lose all data, I thought.. reseller. Which, there is nothing wrong with that, but they still should have handled the transfer for their clients. They would have had to manually generate the back-ups and load them onto the new server, but it would have been the right thing to do. Further, being a reseller of a reseller is just a reciepe for disaster, in this day and age, I have no idea why some people still insist on offering super/alpha/mega reseller plans, they almost always end bad for not just the provider, but the customer. Anyway, sorry to hear about your troubles ad the best of luck with your next host.

Posted by Host4Geeks-Kushal, 03-13-2013, 05:47 PM
This is now how you reply to a client on a public forum! Speaks loads about you.

Posted by hugo maxi, 03-13-2013, 06:14 PM
oh just to correct, I am not a reseller of a reseller, I am a web designer. I have been with thekerb since they were a little baby selling on ebay. Just so happened they really caused such problem of late I have to bring to other peoples attention. Im not disgruntled, just want to highlight that they have very rubbish customer service and a poor unprofessional way of managing a business and its clients. I feel this information is valuable for other people who may be thinking to join the kerb. I am mearly highlighting people need to be very cautious of this company.

Posted by Forward Web, 03-13-2013, 06:26 PM
Ah I see, when you said your clients, I thought maybe you had purchased a reseller plan from them.

Posted by hugo maxi, 03-13-2013, 06:39 PM
1. Thats really not hard to do, There are plenty around. I have already found hosting at a reasonable price that offers such as you promise. Also as a paying customer I feel it is my right to use what ever remaining service I have paid for. would you not use up the remainder of a mobile phone contracts credit if you have pre-paid?? Its the same thing. when I feel my customers are settled after this recent episode I will move them. 2. I am both extremely unhappy and disappointed with your services, and I have already started moving my websites across to the new hosting one by one and I am paying this from my own pocket. Furthermore to expand on my reasons why, as you are so keen for me to clarify, I am doing this slowly because within the last 5 weeks my clients have been seriously let down and subject to loss of service for days on end caused by the kerb, on two separate occasions. So as one can imagine, my clients are slightly fragile. So to alleviate the stress caused by your bum service and screw up’s I have made the choice to wait a bit before moving them again causing them a further distress and loss of service while the nameservers propagate throughout the internet.

Posted by TheKerb, 03-13-2013, 07:00 PM
Hugo, Many web hosting companies are here today and gone tomorrow, we have been around a long time and you know this. You purchased web hosting for approximately £0.01P per day per domain and for many years have received (and continue to receive) excellent value for money. Yes, our previous providers tried to impose an 850% price increase and, we did not feel that we could justify passing this cost onto our customers, hence the migration. As web hosting providers we are sometimes faced with making difficult choices. Would you have preferred that we stayed put and pass the 850% price increase onto you? We note that you have not commented on this. Your facilities with us over the years have been maintained and down time was zero until the migration, all of which was advised well in advance of the migration as being inevitable. As all readers of this thread will now be aware, unlike many web hosts, we are not swayed in speaking our mind. Once again, if you are not happy with our web hosting services, why not move elsewhere? After what you have insinuated here we honestly think you are better off hosting with another as you are obviously not happy with us. In addition, regarding "PR", we ask all readers to ask themselves, why does this individual continue to host with us if our services are so bad? We believe the answer is clear. Hugo, we honestly do not need your £00.01p GBP per hosting package per day. Kind regards,

Posted by hugo maxi, 03-13-2013, 07:08 PM
Since the kerb started on ebay I used them a lot and always was very pleased. It had been cheap and reliable service, but what has happened recently has shocked and I need to bring this to other peoples attention so that people are aware and can relate if they too have experienced bad service. Its not just about cost when you develope a trust with your supplier this is far more important than price. The facts are.. 1. No email received warning me of a migration. 2. On the kerb website it was said that I had to back up all my sites myself or lose all data. crazy! 3. I had to wait with my sites offline and in limbo days after the cut off date for my new set up details to come through and there was no smooth transition. I had no reasurance or information of timescale to pass to my clients of when their websites would be back online because of this(highly embarrassing). I called premium number but was left listening to waiting music for 25 minutes at a time. No pickup, very frustrating and expensive. 4. I had to re-upload the all backups (websites and email) by myself. 5. after finally uploading a second major issue occured about a week later causing my websites to go down for over a day, again without warning. Even there own website saying "TESTING" it was as if they had dissapeared or suffered a massive DdoS by a angry customer. 6. My tickets by this point were not being answered at all. 7. What the kerbs website stated was in my package ( the software) had all been removed or didnt exist. I submitted a ticket...Again no reply to my ticked for days. 8. When Customer services finally did reply to any of my tickets they were very sharp and unprofessional. With no appology or understanding of my concerns. 9. I have now been told I am being re-audited on all history of my accounts. Its very petty concidering that all issues have been caused by them. but hey, kind of what I expected from them. They are fine when no problems, but bury their heads in the sand when there is any issue. All these are factors to my concerns. It was cheap..but as I say previously good, but the recent events has really opened my eyes and I worry for anyone joining up.

Posted by Martin-D, 03-13-2013, 07:10 PM
Doesn't matter what you say regarding PR, it is perception. Your responses of 'well, go elsewhere' and 'you won't find better than us' is terrible. The image you portray is one of apathy - you don't care about your customers enough to make a positive impression on here.

Posted by hugo maxi, 03-13-2013, 07:26 PM
Not so much discruntled, but as a forum I am providing my personal experience with thekerb to share with others who look to host with you. "We will not be inviting them back to renew their services with us once they expire with us after their comments here." Pathetic reply...However, I do not wish to come back and especially with such poor attitude. "we are not resellers, we have our own servers." Maybe not now but previously prior to the 9th Feb you were. This is backed up in your statement saying your existing providers were going to impose a 850% price rise!!! (an unrealistic increase). - Just to add after looking around... to give one example, there is a company called RAAMaudio UK that currently use Heart internet (the kerbs previous provider) and they too are re-sellers. They currently offer something like £2.99 upward per year for basic hosting. They dont seem to be effected by this Heart 850% increase you mention. Odd that!

Posted by hugo maxi, 03-13-2013, 07:44 PM
Craziness! I dont think you are doing yourself any favours by speaking this way, only amplifying my point that you offer extremely low level of customer service with a childish attitude. I can not speak good words about a service that I have had a bad recent experience with. I am simply making people aware. If they choose to host with you that is in no way going to impact my life. This forum is a tool to speak out, and I think you've said enough already!

Posted by hugo maxi, 03-13-2013, 07:51 PM
Oh...so now all my hosting accounts have been suspended with thekerb.com *** Beware all, if you speak on a forum about bad experience with the kerb and have hosting with them, YOUR ACCOUNT AND ANY HOSTING WITH THEM WILL BE SUSPENDED! *** Unbelievable!!!

Posted by KMyers, 03-13-2013, 07:53 PM
Well... thats a real mature move by your host. Did they give you a reasoning?

Posted by Forward Web, 03-13-2013, 07:56 PM
One item you do have to give them a small bit of credit is them being somewhat of a good sport about this. Meaning.. they have not deleted or suspended your accounts for posting your opinion. We have seen it many times here at WHT and personally never recommend posting negative reviews about a company until you have left that company (just my opinion).

Posted by hugo maxi, 03-13-2013, 08:00 PM
NO notice , NO reason I guess this is not such a smart move. I will seek legal advice now. I have a few close friends who are solicitors. One of which has a website and email that was hosted on thekerb hosting, so I am particular they wont be best pleased with any sudden loss of data/emails.

Posted by hugo maxi, 03-13-2013, 08:06 PM
I wont give any credit, also I do not believe I have violated or breached any rules or conditions within this forum. I have expressed an opinion based on experience. To suspend my hosting which directly impacts other peoples websites is wrong. As much as thekerb do not like what I have said the kerb has had equal right to express its own opinion and provide its own answer and explanation.

Posted by Forward Web, 03-13-2013, 08:10 PM
Oh man, I take that back (I was somewhat being sarcastic about the credit part), I hope I did not jinx you. If he were worried at all about the reputation of his company he would reverse that action right away, otherwise he pretty much just put his company in the category of the "kiddie hosts". Very unprofessional.

Posted by hugo maxi, 03-13-2013, 08:21 PM
Cheers for the support, Yes I agree. Very unprofessional. I demand an explanation from thekerb, and believe to terminate without notice is not acceptable.

Posted by nettiapina, 03-13-2013, 09:17 PM
You're right on that. It's quite unusual to ask the customer to transfer all their data when the host is changing servers. I don't think it's "server migration" in the commonly used meaning of the phrase. In my opinion data transfer should be host's responsibility, but there could be something in the TOS about that. Wow. This saga keeps getting weirder and weirder.

Posted by hugo maxi, 03-20-2013, 12:35 PM
It certainly does.. Okay...so just to give all an update about thekerb and my experiences and the situation so far. No prises for guessing? all accounts still suspended, and passwords changed. PLUS - No tickets replied to since the 14th march. How professional. Thekerb claim on their website to be "winner of customer service 2012"..Hmm??? Yet the type of support and communication offered by thekerb is truely atrocious. I doubt very much this statement is factual. If so I would love to know who provided them this accolade? I have spoken to a solicitor who specializes in online and hosting law. They explained that thekerb would suffer dire consequences if they do not speedily reinstate my websites, and lift the suspension. I marked this FAO the kerb, as URGENT!!! but no reply Prior to this, I did write to both billing and tech support, kindly requesting thekerb reinstate my suspended accounts so that I can make a backups and also provide me with the correct company address / number. ..Again nothing (no surprises there ). Attached is a screen capture, taken today (20th) showing the open tickets. I will keep updating this forum and writting until the kerb either reply or can give me a valid reason for suspending my accounts. I have checked out thekerbs T&C and I have not breached any listed within their website or within any websites I have hosted(I have a capture of them if anyone is interested). In fact, thekerb are in breach of their own conditions because they are supposed to provide notice by support area or email so that customers can make a backup. Id like to add.. This webstite "webhostingtalk" has been created so that people can openly discuss and share experiences be it good or bad and offer advice and set out facts for all to see to form their own opinion and judge for themselves. Its a great website, mainly because beofore purchasing anything it is always good to check out a review to find out what others say. That said, I am not forcing anyone to not use thekerb hosting company, just making them aware of my ongoing issues so they can gather facts before entering into any contract. I will continue to keep this post open as long as I can and keep any one interested updated. Meanwhile I am more than happy to answer any questions or concerns if anyone is unsure or need clarification. Attached Thumbnails   Last edited by hugo maxi; 03-20-2013 at 12:39 PM.

Posted by namhuy, 03-21-2013, 06:30 AM
i can feel your pain, all best wishes for you, moving to another provider is absolutely a must !!!

Posted by anotherpooolie, 03-22-2013, 10:37 AM
I hope your closer to getting your sites re-instated - that sort of action is not acceptible if it was done for 'having an opinion' - were English - what about freedom of speech!! I can however feel the pain here - I am a current 'Heart' Reseller and two months ago they increased my monthly charges from £35 to £360 - even though it is a suppoed unlimited account, and they still advertise it as that! When I tried to resist they cut of 800 of my customer sites - that left me some explaining to do!! I wonder if these guys have been threatened with similar and took it out on you? Good luck - Personally I'm looking for a new provider also!

Posted by hugo maxi, 03-22-2013, 04:51 PM
Well they done it... Finally have terminated my account all together. For what reason? ..they are silent and dont have a good reson.. just because I have advised people that they are rubbish, and with poor customer service..which I think they already have proved themselves, here within this forum. Seems easy thing for them to do is to suspend people or terminate accounts. I wont waste a penny on these guys, what a pathetic amature company. I have already re-hosted my websites. But now they have caused me so much troubles I will mention my own experience with this certain company on every single forum I search for online. just to get the word out that the kerb is the best place for them ..where most rubbish is placed. To the kerb, well done you proved nothing but how useless you really are, and I only hope that more people realise from reading about my experiences how very unprofessional you are. so quick to take money but slow to put things right or provide a quality service or even ANY service at all. Any other webhost review forums out there? Attached Thumbnails   Last edited by hugo maxi; 03-22-2013 at 04:55 PM.

Posted by hugo maxi, 03-23-2013, 09:17 AM
Seems its not only myself disgrunteld. I found this thread on another Forum, with someone who also has experienced the same treatment and poor customer service from THEKERB.com Worth a read. http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...ould-i-do.html



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