The Liquor Talking

It’s Monday, February 28, 2011 and yeah, we’re a bit late today.

Where to begin….

Friday afternoon, while checking the stats for the blog, I noticed that we were about to go over the monthly bandwidth limit of 1000MB. Not wanting the site to go dark, I immediately contacted my hosting provider to discuss options. Fortunately, they have a live chat thing and I was soon in touch with “Alex.”

Alex isn’t the best communicator I’ve ever come across. Although his typing and grammar were okay, I got the sense that he ain’t from these parts. No matter. In just a few minutes, I found out that I needed to “open a ticket with Sales.”

Fine, fine. I thanked Alex, closed the chat window and opened another one with Sales.

Only it’s Alex again. From a bit more convoluted conversation, I figured out (no thanks to Alex) that their website contained the mechanism for doing the “open a ticket with Sales” task. With just a little bit of hunting, I found the link and filled out the form. Within minutes, I got the auto-reply, telling me that a ticket had been opened. 10 minutes later, I get an email from “Robert” asking for which domain .

Two minutes later, I send the reply.

Then nothing. Since my ticket asked them to simply convert my old account to new one of the same price, only with more bandwidth, I didn’t really give it more thought.

Dammit, dammit, dammit, dammit, dammit!

Fine. I got back to their website and initiate another chat, this time with “Chris.” Again, I get the distinct impression that I’m not dealing with someone for whom English is not a primary language. So, I lay it all out for “Chris.” For a hosting company whose motto is “Web hosting done right!” I’m beginning to get a whole new definition of “You’re doing it wrong.”

After a very frustrating hour and a half with “Chris,” the best I can get is that he’s going to forward the matter to “the concerned department” and they will be in contact with me “asap.”

Yeah, you guessed it. The “concerned department” is Sales whose hours are 8AM-12AM : M-F.

And “asap” means: as soon as we feel like it.

I check back a few hours later. It’s still “Chris.” I ask if there’s a way to escalate the issue. He tells me that he’ll forward it to “a manager” and they will respond “asap.” Which of course means: 8AM-12AM : M-F.

This from an outfit whose motto is “World-Class Hosting, Done Right!” With an exclamation point even!

Cut to Sunday morning. I go on their chat again. This time it’s “Gino.” Sadly, I am still unable to penetrate the 8AM-12AM : M-F barrier. Gino does however confirm that absolutely nothing will be done about this until Monday morning.

Sunday evening, and we’re still dark.

So it’s now today and we’re back up. The email they sent indicates they consider the matter closed. They even sent it with the same “Reply To” address that apparently goes nowhere.

Boy, they just keep getting it wronger and wronger.

Basically, eleven2.com spews.