Fasthosts: A Customer Journey

The Good, The Bad... and Fasthosts

From The Good, The Bad and The Ugly of webhosts:

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly of web hosting.
The UK hosts I've used over the last few years span the commonest range of methods of hosting sites at a minimum cost, culminating in an eighteen month nightmare association with Fasthosts (.co.uk) which ultimately taught us what to look for in a competent supplier. Thanks and credit must go to : Matt, Alex, Rob and Enigma for extra info and link updates. Fasthosts (Bad, but not as ugly as birkenhead.net.) Appalling commercial host in all respects. Offered a lot of features for very little cost. ASP, Coldfusion, Perl, unlimited everthing for (then) £300. They became an ongoing subject of web developement newsgroups and forums, with some rival companies gaining new accounts by offering "Special deals for ex-Fasthosts customers". Truly a laughing stock amongst web developers, network technicians in general and NT administrators in particular. They get more than just a mention on the alt.www.webmaster's "Web Hosts That Suck" list. In their termination email they sent us the KAK virus, which ironically is an old script kiddie virus, well known, well documented, and easy to protect against. If this email was an accident then at that time they were running their own email system with no virus protection whatsoever, and still are not, as the problem has occurred again, with the same, but by now much older KAK script. A Fasthosts forum is being maintained at SiteOnSite (registration required), where you will find current information on their Russian credit card fraud and recurring email virus situations, and recently a devastating report on a major security flaw reported by Daniel Sim. If you don't want to register here's a copy of my initial contribution. Further information involving Fasthosts' credit card security problems can be found at The Register and in this follow up article. The Register also has further details of the May 2001 Fasthosts vs BT outage dispute, and Google's Deja News search results now reveal a variety of discussions on the company. ...And finally (?): Here's one of the funniest Fasthosts excuses I've come across since we left. ...And sadly, you've been lucky. There's something even worse than Fasthosts in store for some web new-comers, the newer, the better. Some haven't even got computers yet?

This Is So Last Month, but Fasthosts shows again why you should not do business with them

Fasthosts in email crisis

Customers unhappy - Fasthosts denies problems...

By Sally Watson

Published: 28 November 2001 18:30 GMT

Show related
articles

Web-hosting firm Fasthosts has walked into a row with customers after several thousand emails went missing or were delivered to the wrong addresses.

One Fasthosts customer told silicon.com that his company had received over 2,000 misdirected emails on one day last week. "These emails include attachments, including stuff from solicitors and accountants," the customer said. "Fasthosts' customers are going ballistic."

Fasthosts' technical support line was weighed down with calls last week. Several customers waited in queues of up to 25 calls before being able to report problems. Those who have got through claimed Fasthosts was unable to offer a satisfactory explanation.

According to another customer, Brian Nash of Vision Software Solutions, the hosting outfit has been having sporadic problems for the last few weeks, but for Nash, it came to a head at the end of the week before last. "I sent a proposal to a customer and it ended up with one of our suppliers as well. It could have been confidential," he said.

Nash added: "I sent an email to my contacts to apologise about the problems - and some recipients ended up receiving the same email eight or nine times."

Andrew Michael, managing director of Fasthosts, admitted the company had been having some problems since a software upgrade earlier this month. However, he said the problems had not affected customers' email service.

Michael also denied an earlier report that a virus had infected the company.

"Since we changed the software it's not been completely trouble free. But we have not received any reports of misdirected mail, other than those cited," he told silicon.com.

Michael told silicon that his company had investigated Nash's complaint and found it to be a problem "at the customer's end".

He said: "He [Nash] sent out a broadcast email and then sent out a confidential email. He mistakenly sent both emails to the broadcast group of addresses."

Nash denied this, claiming he did not misaddress the mails.

Meanwhile, a third customer, who preferred to remain anonymous, confirmed that some outgoing emails had been misdirected. "Sending an email to one client meant that four other different clients also got the email. Not only very embarrassing but also a large security issue. Needless to say we're pulling all provision of services by Fasthosts."

Another company, which resells Fasthosts services to small and medium-sized businesses, said several of its customers had been affected. "Fasthosts upgraded their Matrix servers two weeks ago. Since then things have been going crazy," he told silicon.com.

"I received an email on Sunday night which was sent over a week ago. I've also received emails which weren't sent to me - I've had to forward them on."

Fasthosts claims to be the UK's leading provider of web hosting services. Its £10m Gloucester data centre hosts over 500,000 websites on Matrix Windows servers.

This Is What Fasthosts Claimed While Losing In Arbitration

Does this match your experience?

3. Complaint upheld
Fasthosts said there were no traffic limits in place for any of their shared hosting accounts. They explained that the high resource use policy was designed to prevent customers abusing the servers and believed the text in their terms and conditions of use made that clear. They said, to date, they had never had to tell a customer they could continue using the website only if they paid an additional fee. They said they would not repeat the claim "unlimited traffic to your site" and would make their high resource-use policy clear in future ads by including the statement "When a website is found to be monopolising the resources available Fasthosts reserves the right to suspend that site immediately. This policy is only implemented in extreme circumstances and is intended to prevent the misuse of our servers. Customers may be offered an option whereby Fasthosts continues hosting the website for an additional fee." Fasthosts said they no longer sold or advertised "Starter" or "Home" packages, only "Standard", "Professional" and "Business".

Fasthosts Gets Sued Constantly, But They Don't Care

"Excellent well I'll start court ASAP then, e-mails are counted I think so I can prove if it comes to it that I tried to deal with it without court action"

Received final response today.
Issued court action today

1. The Claimant has an account n422149 with the Defendant, opened May 2004 2. On 11/09/06 the Defendant debited a charge in respect of purported breaches of contract. 3. Defendant is aware of all details as my charge has already been supplied. Another copy will be sent. 4. Claimant contends: (a) The charges exceed the Defendant's losses caused by the breaches; (b) The Term permitting the Defendant to levy such charges is unenforceable under the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999, Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977 and at Common Law. 5. Claimant claims: return of the amounts debited of £47 6. Alternatively, if the charges are a fee for a service, then they must be reasonable under S.15 of the Supply of Goods and Services Act 1982. 7. Costs allowed by the Court.

To see more, click into the extended post

All DooYoo Reviews for Fasthosts--I don't think anybody likes this company

Here are the reviews of Fasthosts Services on DooYoo. Same story. Is Fasthosts' corporate anthem in any way similar to Millward's?

One review picked at random: "  FastHosts? They're pulling a fast one! (226 words)
by mil22 - written on 26.11.02 (useful, 6 readings)
Rating: 
Total waste of money. Very attractive website, seemingly very good deals, but beware! 1) The description of the Home Users account makes untrue and unwarranted claims, such as "Many advanced services included at no extra cost", "No hidden charges", and "Flat Monthly fee +VAT". Once you've paid your money, ...  Read the complete review "

Another Fasthosts Victim Speaks Out

As this story duplicates mine, I can only reproduce it here faithfully and offer my sympathy:

"I actually don't like complaining - but this has me so mad I felt others should also be warned about it.

Two years ago I had to work with another organisation and as part of my work try and get a website/portal created. For this I went to Fasthosts and ordered a domain and relevant hosting package.

At the beginning of last year the organisation ceased delivery and the hosting which was in my name was no longer needed. I had completely forgotten about it until last year when I was charged for the renewals - Some £400. Which I could obviously not charge back to anyone.
I then went into my control panel provided by Fasthosts and switched off all the hosting requirements and tried to see if there was anything else I had to do to cancel this service.

I could find nothing else. No other cancellation advice or procedures. So switched off the hosting and domain and thought that would be the end of it. Until August when I had to pay a renewal for the domain registration.
Again I went into the control panel, which has changed significantly from the last time, to cancel the domain.
I checked to make sure that there was no hosting - there wasn't and no other bills expected - there were none. They have a recurring payments module and nothing was showing.

Two days ago I have been charged direct from my credit card for database and server configurations that I do not need £291+ for additional services for a hosting service I had cancelled.

You need to have hosting services to access these additional services, which I clearly didn't.

There is a very clear lack of transparency over charges and cancellation procedures within this company.

My first complaint was met with "you cannot complain unless you input a particular code", despite the fact they have invoice and account information. Then you cannot simply cancel your services - you have to find the relevant support article and then request cancellation from the appropriate department.
I clearly have no hope of getting my money back as I didn't trawl through the many many pages of sales information to find out how to cancel the service even though I thought I had.

I feel that someone should be making the public aware of the practices by some hosting companies that I thought had died out long ago.

There should be greater clarity in terms of what you are going to be charged and when.
Plus there should be an easier cancellation method. Goodness know they make it easy enough to purchase why cannot they make things just as simple to cancel.
Why is there no commercial body out there to supervise this kind of trading. I notice that Fasthosts are not members of the ISPA - which I find very significant, also really annoying because I cannot complain to them either.

My warning to everyone is - be extremely careful when ordering from this company because you may find it almost impossible to leave. Of course after the event - I am finding all sorts of warnings and complaints about Fasthosts all over the internet. Sadly too late for the £800 down the plughole.
Oh and it is almost impossible to get refunds from this company, even if you are in the right, they will happily wait for you to take them to court ."

In the extended posts, all 8 reviews of Fasthosts from hostingcomments.com. Sample quote: "Fasthosts are your worst hosting nightmare. In a nuthshell they offer UNRELIABLE services alongside the POOREST customer support I & MANY others have ever experienced. They also have a well known history of taking un-authorised payments from your card.... "

Take It To The Streets

Here is the contact information for what may be the worst company in the UK--there's no question about it being the worst ISP/webhost:

Fasthosts Internet Limited
Discovery House
154 Southgate Street
GL1 2EX Gloucester
UNITED KINGDOM

phone:   +44 1452 541251
fax-no:  +44 1452 541633

Just in case you want to talk to them about things like this: "I asked them via the phone. They state no bandwidth on any of there accounts.

personal is 1gb
business is 2gb
reseller is 10gb

The reason they dont state is so they can disable you once you get popular. You can't even host unlimited domains. I pointed this out to openhosting who had to find out the hard way about domains. But with the reseller account you get a maximum of 10gb bandwidth for the whole account and no-one domain can use more than 2gb."

Call them and let them know what you think of them. Do it twice.

If you want to moan a bit more or rally up some support, i would suggest a visit to :

alt.internet.providers.uk

and www.communityzero.com/siteonsite

Fasthosts News

1 to 10 of 30 results from all The Register sites. Search only theregister.co.uk »

Fasthosts primes another password reset Third time's the charm By Chris Williams • Thursday 13 Dec 2007 12:02 Punch drunk Fasthosts customers are set to be hit with a third compulsory password reset next week, as the budget web hosting company scrambles to cope with a major security breach. The latest system-wide wipe will affect people who run dedicated servers, have bought backup storage at the firm's Gloucester data centre, and who … HMRC still looking for disks - just don't ask Microsoft's Santa To subscribe to The Register's weekly newsletter - seven days of IT in a single hit - click here By Joe Fay • Friday 7 Dec 2007 11:48 Santa Claus is coming to town - hide It'll be Christmas soon enough, and we can all relax. Well, unless you're the developer behind the filthy Santa robot Microsoft stuck at the end of its festive Messenger progam. A few ho ho hos, and the jolly old gent was alternately discussing oral sex and insulting message senders. … Fasthosts customers still frozen out of websites More support staff drafted over password reset cockup By Chris Williams • Wednesday 5 Dec 2007 12:45 Fasthosts has promised it will bring in more support staff to deal with the volume of calls it is still receiving following its poorly-handled password reset on Friday. Many customers haven't received the replacement passwords that the Gloucester webhost said it had sent in the post. We asked for an update on the debacle, and … Virgin downs 1and1 and Germany Part of a lager problem? By John Oates • Friday 30 Nov 2007 13:45 Virgin subscribers spent yesterday without access to German websites. Popular web hosting site 1and1 was one of those hit - and its customers were not happy. But it is now clear that a routing problem at Virgin was the cause. Virgin broadband subscribers lost access to most German-based websites including gaming sites like … Fasthosts customers blindsided by emergency password reset Webhost confirms hackers have raided servers By Chris Williams • Friday 30 Nov 2007 11:08 Fasthosts has announced that "a number" of its customers'* FTP spaces were raided as a result of the major hack that triggered a police investigation last month. It has applied a system-wide reset of thousands of passwords as a result. The Gloucester-based webhosting firm yesterday performed the emergency reset of control … Banking data fears over Fasthosts intruder Customers in the dark By Chris Williams • Friday 19 Oct 2007 13:08 Investigators are racing to establish whether the intruder who hacked into a server at Gloucester-based web host Fasthosts stole banking information. The breach was revealed yesterday. Fasthosts has told customers to change all their passwords, which were not encrypted. Fasthosts has not revealed whether the attacker gained … Beautiful faces, Trojans and Fasthosts To subscribe to The Register's weekly newsletter - seven days of IT in a single hit - click here By Joe Fay • Friday 19 Oct 2007 12:02 It’s the end of the week. Thinking about that after work pint? Getting ready for the Rugby final? Pity the bods at Gloucester-based Fasthosts then. The hosting firm warned customers on Thursday morning that it had called in police to investigate a major data breach. Here’s the fun bit. It told us: "As a precautionary measure, … Microsoft throws a party for MUC as AC/DC chucks filth off its website To subscribe to Channel Register's weekly newsletter - seven days of channel news in a single hit - click here. By Billy MacInnes • Thursday 18 Oct 2007 14:45 Microsoft was in good spirits this week at the launch of its long-awaited "Microsoft unified communications software" in San Francisco, officially announced by chairman Bill Gates, business division president Jeff Raikes, and a guitarist in a red velvet jacket. Now that's rock and roll, especially as the guitarist was playing … Fasthosts customer? Change your password now Updated Police called to major hack By Chris Williams • Thursday 18 Oct 2007 11:26 Fasthosts, "the UK's number 1 web host", has fired off emergency emails telling customers to change all their passwords after police were called in to investigate a major data breach. The Gloucester-based firm contacted The Reg this morning with a statement. It said: "As the breach could relate to Fasthosts customer data... … Fasthosts admits email destruction fiasco Human error × no backup = whoops By Chris Williams • Wednesday 17 Oct 2007 12:44 Fasthosts, "the UK's number 1 web host", has admitted to a botched update to its mail server that permanently deleted customer emails. The cockup last week was compounded when the firm's backup system failed, meaning about half of the affected emails are lost forever. Fasthost sent us its side of the story: Following a human …

Name and Shame

In addition to Tom Hankin, author of the email below (which basically said I would have to get biometric authentication of my identity and that of my next of kin before they would give me access to the account they have already charged me for), I wonder why these proud professionals are working for an organisation with the ethical balance of pond scum?

Specifically, Adrian Smith, what are you doing with these bozos? Surely your experience at Supanet qualified you for something more interesting? Your hard work is supporting a business model that depends on fraud to continue--do you really want to be associated with them?

And Gareth Bromley--you have a fine record with Colt, Siemens, and Sports.com. You're obviously capable of better things. And you of all people should know that a future financial obligation needs to be explicitly referred to in a contract, rather than being buried in the Ts and Cs. You do financial modelling! You could explain how it would be to the benefit of Fasthosts to put mention of recurring charges in the contract itself. There's no excuse.

Mr. Steve Holford. How do you market reeking garbage like Fasthosts? Are you even able to tell your former colleagues at NTL, Argos and Tesco what you do for a living now?

And all of you--how do you describe Fasthosts to family and friends? "Well, erm, we charge people's credit cards for things they don't want, and we don't tell them we're going to do this." How does that go over?

And Mr. Andrew Michael, Managing Director. I doubt if you'll be shamed. I'm sure you're proud of what you do. I'm sure you're proud of your company's performance. "Cyprus-born Michael, 27, started his Fasthosts internet business in his bedroom, aged 17. From its Gloucester headquarters provides e-mail and other web services to small firms. Sales soared from £240,000 in 1999 to £20m in 2005, and last year the German company ISP United Internet paid £61.5m for Fasthosts. Michael picked up £46m for his stake."

This can't be you, can it? "ANDREW MICHAEL, age 38, BERNADETTE PAGAN, age 36, and PHYLLIS RIES, age 75, all of Las Vegas, are charged with one count of Bank Fraud, one count of False Statement on Credit Application, and Criminal Forfeiture. If convicted, the defendants face up to 30 years in prison and a $1,000,000 fine on each of the charges."

Or this? "

He was a real estate broker, but got his license by fraud. He's deceived both the medical field and patients by posing as a nurse, and later, a doctor. Now, after tracking this local con man for more than a year and half, News 3 Investigators tells us how he may also be duping you, the taxpayer. Andrew Michael claims many degrees, but we found he may simply have a masters in deception. He's forged college transcripts to get real estate and nursing licenses."

Or this? "

Criminal Complaint against Michael Andrew

---

From May 2001 until May 2003, Michael Andrew misrepresented himself as a surgeon and graduate of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He served as chief executive officer of Meadows Diagnostic Imaging Center in Henderson, Colorado and supervised at least ten contrast x-ray procedures while pretending to be a physician. (During such procedures, a dye is injected into the patient to highlight the areas that are being studied. A physician's presence is necessary in case the dye causes anaphylactic shock, a potentially fatal allergic reaction.) Michael had received a bachelor’s degree from the now-defunct Hamilton University, a nonaccredited online school based in Wyoming, and was enrolled in St. Luke’s School of Medicine, a correspondence school that has since been shut down by Liberian government authorities. In June 2005, Michael pleaded guilty to one felony count of attempt to practice medicine without a license. In August he was sentenced to serve 120 days in the Clark County Detention Center to be followed by 4 years of intensive supervision probation."

No, I don't think any of those are you. What you do is worse.

The Famous Terms and Conditions

It's Easter Sunday and you've nothing else to do. Click below into Fasthost's Terms and Conditions and find where it tells you that you are their paying slave forever.

I think this is my favorite: "Note to solicitors: If you wrongfully threaten legal action against UKReg on behalf of your clients your correspondence will be passed onto our solicitors who will invoice you for the time spent dealing with your case"