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Review - HardCloud.net
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Review - HardCloud.net

LycaonLycaon Member
edited January 2014 in Reviews

While I am severely disappointed in my experience with HardCloud, i am going to try to be a bit objective in my review.

I ordered a 4GB VPS on Nov 3. During the order phase, I was offered the option to choose a Windows 2008 R2 server license for $3.95, which I chose. I later found that I was given a 180 day trial install, so I was basically scammed out of $4. I could just have easily downloaded the trial ISO myself and installed it for free. This -could- have been a 'convenience fee' but the order page would then be misleading. I was promised a license, not a trial, not a trial license, but a license.

The provisioning took your average amount of time, the Windows install took ~30-40 minutes, which was on par with anything being installed off of a physical CD.

I was sent an email informing me of the install completion. One thing I have to note here is the Administrator password was set to 'Password12345' and when I logged into the VPS for the first time via RDP, the OS had already been accessed, had Chrome installed, and there were a myriad of foreign sites in the browser history. I sent a ticket in about this, and was promptly informed that HardCloud employees never accessed a customer's OS without specific permission.

Thanks to the insecure password, my system had been compromised almost immediately after the install was complete. This is entirely unprofessional, and the first of my complaints.

After the install, I spent a good 6 hours downloading over 150 updates through Windows Update. This never took more than an hour or so on previous dedicated servers I have purchased. As a professional courtesy, the least HardCloud could do was slipstream those updates into their install ISO. This process is simple, and I have managed it myself with no issues. I don't know if the 6 hours reflects a bandwidth bottleneck or not, but it was definitely SLOW and is another of my complaints.

I immediately requested, via ticket, that my RDNS be changed to reflect my domain name. This ticket went completely ignored and was automatically closed after 2 days. I sent in two subsequent tickets at various points throughout December, re-requesting the RDNS change. These were also ignored and auto closed after 2 days. I also requested it twice via LiveChat. These requests went unresolved for my entire month's stay.

The VPS was also constantly offline. The entire point of paying for a server from a hosting company is so I had near 100% uptime. I have other things to do during my day, and I do not have time to check my VPS every 30 minutes to ensure it was up and running. I perused the Windows Event Viewer to ensure that it was not an OS issue causing a crash. Even if it was, Windows Server operating systems are set to auto reboot on a crash.

I brought this issue up via LiveChat, and it was blamed on SolusVM. I do not personally know if this is the actual cause, it's just the reason I was given, and that "it's the best they can do, and all SolusVM implementations crash all the time." After hearing this, I put in a cancellation ticket, at about the 21st of December.

During this last LiveChat, I was offered the ability to test their new Enterprise Cloud services, which I accepted. I was provisioned a VM equivalent to the plan I had just canceled. This was ran through the OpenNebula Sunstone implementation, and for the week I had access to the service, it appeared to run flawlessly. I had no issues with it crashing or being unavailable.

I have to bring up another complaint here. They did say that the OpenNebula was a trial/test and that I would be given the opportunity to keep my VM and pay for it, if I so chose. Not only was I not given this option, I was also not given any notification or courtesy email informing me of a) the VM shutdown or b) the ability to keep the service by paying for it. I was given no opportunity to recover files, which I am pretty sure was also promised in the thread that offered the trial/test.

While their prices are decent, they are severely lacking in any sort of customer service. The representative I talked to was never rude, but lacked some professional courtesy, using terms like "piece of s***" while another representative politely asked me to hold on a minute because he had to "go to the toilet" Again, a serious lack of professionalism.

My final complaint is the narrow money back guarantee window. They give you 7 days. In the hosting world, I understand it is fraught with scams, overselling, fraudulent orders, and all sorts of other scary stuff (or so the LiveChat rep would have me believe), but it took more than 7 days just to find out that this was an unacceptable service provider, so there went $35 down the drain.

All in all, although I was satisfied with the pricing plan, the downtime, whether legitimately the fault of SolusVM or just badly managed VMs, plus the lack of professionalism, makes me suggest that people seeking providers steer clear of this company,

I went with HardCloud because I read some reviews about their great prices and performance, but I just didn't see it.

I hope my random opinions do not cloud (no pun intended) the factual bits I tried to stick to. While I am obviously displeased with HardCloud, i did try to explain exactly -why- I felt that way, and what they did to trigger such opions.

Comments

  • Chargeback.

    Sounds like a horrible experience :(

  • I faced same issue with windows licence. It was trial and they mentioned cannot provide windows 2012 as they promised in their offer. So I requested cancellation and they promptly refunded me.

    Support was really fast in responding. But server was slow.

  • skagerrakskagerrak Member
    edited January 2014

    Maybe it's a good idea to include @HardCloud into the discussion to hear both sides on the matter.

  • It's a review, not a court trial. I don't really think starting an argument between HardCloud and I is going to be conducive to the forums as a whole.

  • Review from a new member is always legit.

  • AnthonySmithAnthonySmith Member, Patron Provider

    SolusVM itself does not cause down time, it has a very annoying "feature" which will show your VM as offline even if it is not though, it happens when the master cannot talk to the slave/host node, after 4 years you would think they would have fixed this but instead if just 1 person tries to do anything in solusvm while the master cant talk to the slave it can lock the whole thing up for hours and make servers seem offline when they are not.

    Anyway, sounds like a fair review on the surface, just stating your experience and gives them great opportunities for improve from the feedback.

  • @Lycaon said:
    while another representative politely asked me to hold on a minute because he had to "go to the toilet"

  • skagerrakskagerrak Member
    edited January 2014

    @Lycaon said:
    It's a review, not a court trial. I don't really think starting an argument between HardCloud and I is going to be conducive to the forums as a whole.

    It's merely a matter of socially adequate behaviour to let someone know if you talk about him that might influence others peoples decision on buying the product. Especially since you name the Host and the SEO popularity of LET will put this thread in Google's ranking when searching for the Host. Plus this insight might help the Host to improve.

  • @Lycaon Did you mention the Windows trial version to support? I did, and apparently this is just something hardcloud do with all Windows installs initially, after 15-30 days they then license the install. I never got an explanatation for this, and I had to raise another ticket around 30 days to remind them, but they did license my Windows by my 2nd month.

  • LycaonLycaon Member
    edited January 2014

    @AnthonySmith I'm aware, however, the OS was literally offline. No RDP, no ping, no VNC access, no website availability.

    @GaNi I do not see where post count has ever mattered in regards to a person's honesty. True, there are people that register on a forum just to put down competition, but I think my review was a bit more detailed than "hardcloud sux, dont bai" Anyway, please stop polluting the post with completely useless and nonconstructive opinions about what you think about me. It has nothing to do with the topic.

    @Nekki I did. The rep I talked to said that their other employee was offering it, and that they did not actually offer full licenses of any kind for Windows.

    Also, on a side note, I did bring up all of these issues to the CEO (or so the LiveChat panel said I was talking to). He -was- apologetic for the issues, but really did not offer any solutions or compensation for neither the downtime nor the ignored tickets.

  • VPNVPN Member
    edited January 2014

    @Lycaon said:

    I actually think this is one of the best reviews I've read on LE*. It doesn't matter if you've been here 1 day or 1 decade, an honest review is very valuable.

    I agree, most people just start a thread entitled something like "{insert summer host here} stole mi munnies" and then give a few lines about how they expected a $3 VPS to do quantum mathematics while curing cancer and dancing the balero but you had reasonable expectations that weren't met.

    I think @skagerrak is right including HardCloud in the discussion because then it will help people who are looking for reviews when purchasing from them. At the end of the day, why write the review if you don't want people to know your experience?

    I would want to know about bad reviews of my services.

    Thanked by 1AnthonySmith
  • Lycaon said: I did. The rep I talked to said that their other employee was offering it, and that they did not actually offer full licenses of any kind for Windows.

    That's absolutely disgusting in that case, if it wasn't clear you were paying for a trial license up front. They weren't so bad from my brief experience with them, but I certainly won't be touching them with a barge-pole now.

  • GaNiGaNi Member
    edited January 2014

    @Lycaon said:

    I am not seeking for a hot discussion between us but I do not care if your review was more detailed because everybody likes to put down a host who recently open fired at his server provider. Look, it's human tendency to raise such question on a newbie and you should admit it politely rather than approaching it negatively.

  • VPNVPN Member

    @GaNi said:
    I am not seeking for a hot discussion between us but I do not care if your review was more detailed because everybody likes to put down a host who recently open fired at his server provider. Look, it's human tendency to raise such question on a newbie and you should admit it politely rather than approaching it negatively.

    I don't really understand what your point here is. Are you saying because he is new he isn't allowed to post his opinion?

    He has just as much right to an opinion as you do.

  • Hello,

    Thank you for including me in on this; as I would love to deal with issues such as these in a public manor (unlike a certain someone I've recently had to call out on LET...)

    Regarding your purchase date, November was before I purchased HardCloud; so I cannot speak for anything that has happened before I came into the picture (such as the extremely misleading order form, which we are working to replace.)

    Windows Operating Systems on our order form have an additional price because they have to be installed manually, and we do not (at this time) provide any Windows Server licensing. We have some Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard Edition licenses available, but not any Windows Server 2012 licenses. I have revised this in our order forms and have added a comment regarding the licensing, thank you for bringing this up.


    Our old owner (and even our previous support members) have had a bad history of using terrible installation passwords. With this report, I have made another internal bulletin regarding using cryptographically secure/random installation passwords.


    After the install, I spent a good 6 hours downloading over 150 updates through Windows Update. This never took more than an hour or so on previous dedicated servers I have purchased. As a professional courtesy, the least HardCloud could do was slipstream those updates into their install ISO. This process is simple, and I have managed it myself with no issues. I don't know if the 6 hours reflects a bandwidth bottleneck or not, but it was definitely SLOW and is another of my complaints.

    Unfortunately, it is not as easy as one might think to "slipstream" these updates into the installation media. However, it is now part of our standard practice to start Windows Updates installation as a part of our initial service setup (installation, activation, updates.) Thank you for this much needed criticism. I have opened an internal bulletin regarding this as well.


    I have to bring up another complaint here. They did say that the OpenNebula was a trial/test and that I would be given the opportunity to keep my VM and pay for it, if I so chose. Not only was I not given this option, I was also not given any notification or courtesy email informing me of a) the VM shutdown or b) the ability to keep the service by paying for it. I was given no opportunity to recover files, which I am pretty sure was also promised in the thread that offered the trial/test.

    We had stated numerous times in our thread, the ticket responses and our messages to our users on LET via PM that this was a testbed that we would bring down at any time. We were hoping we would be able to warn our users beforehand, but the dates at which the datacenter decided to pack up and ship us our hardware were earlier than we had planned for. We were running the testbed on hardware that was straneded at a datacenter and we could not ship at the time, but they were able to (finally) pack and ship it shortly afterwards (about a week or two after starting the nebula testbed.) Which is what caused the servers to be brought down. We do apologize for not having a means to warn you beforehand.


    While their prices are decent, they are severely lacking in any sort of customer service. The representative I talked to was never rude, but lacked some professional courtesy, using terms like "piece of s***" while another representative politely asked me to hold on a minute because he had to "go to the toilet" Again, a serious lack of professionalism.

    We will not attempt to make any excuses regarding the lack of professionalism of our previous support technicians, this is why I am the only agent on LiveChat now; and personally handle all customer affairs and complaints.


    My final complaint is the narrow money back guarantee window. They give you 7 days. In the hosting world, I understand it is fraught with scams, overselling, fraudulent orders, and all sorts of other scary stuff (or so the LiveChat rep would have me believe), but it took more than 7 days just to find out that this was an unacceptable service provider, so there went $35 down the drain.

    Please tell me the transaction ID of your purchase (either via a Support Ticket, LiveChat or via PM here on LowEndTalk) and I would be happy to refund your service fees, as you clearly had an unacceptable level of service.

    I fear however that the transaction may be in the old owner's account, in which case we are willing to PAY YOU, IN FULL your entier service fee to an account of your choosing, or assign a service credit of 1.5x the paid amount to an account of your choosing in our services.

    We really do apologize for the way in which you have been treated, and hope that the above is a suitable and acceptable offer; either 100% refund / paid back or a 150% account credit to an account of your choice.

  • @OkieDoke said:
    I would want to know about bad reviews of my services.

    I agree whole-heartedly, which is why anyone having any bad experience with either the HardCloud of the past (previous management), and especially the HardCloud of the current (under my management) is invited to contact me directly via my electronic mailing address: webmaster (at) goodhosting (dot) co . (yes, co; not com.) I will gladly deal with any of these issues that customers are facing, and am willing to extend suitable refunds and assistance such as what was offered above.

    We thank you for considering us for your business, and would like to again apologize for the horrible way in which you were treated during your service period.

  • @Lycaon Please advise on the above, our offer of a 100% refund or 150% service credit.

  • @HardCloud I am glad you took the review information and are going to use it (or already in the process) to improve your recent acquisition of the company. I would definitely not go so far as to say the service was horrible, just not up to standards, so to say. Knowing now that you're in an acquisition transition, I can better understand why service may have been subpar.

    I am willing to give it another go, and see how it works out. If I need to contact you directly via email to claim the account credit, let me know. I'll use the credit to set up service again and hopefully we'll have a better interaction this time around. :)

  • @Lycaon said:
    HardCloud I am glad you took the review information and are going to use it (or already in the process) to improve your recent acquisition of the company. I would definitely not go so far as to say the service was horrible, just not up to standards, so to say. Knowing now that you're in an acquisition transition, I can better understand why service may have been subpar.

    I am willing to give it another go, and see how it works out. If I need to contact you directly via email to claim the account credit, let me know. I'll use the credit to set up service again and hopefully we'll have a better interaction this time around. :)

    Hello @Lycaon,

    Please either email me at the personal address above, PM me here on LET, or open a Support Ticket in our Client Area (either in the account, or as a guest.) Please include a transaction ID, service ID, or order ID (or some service ID) so that we may verify which service / account was yours, to give you the credit (make sure nobody else tries to claim it, haha.).

    Thanked by 1namhuy
  • I followed up with @HardCloud tonight, and despite a VERY VERY rough second order/provision/setup, the CEO did stay up until 5am with me working out the issues. There are still some serious customer service issues to address, but he did his best to make up for it this evening. Thumbs up so far.

    Thanked by 1namhuy
  • It's good to see happy ending

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