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ChicagoVPS - VPS unusable & unreliable, customer support even worse, but lost pp dispute - what now?
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that's why I said "some", and GVH was banned because CC made a decision based on the balance between the negative publicity they were getting and the profits from GVH. Anyway, I'm obviously biased because I'm an old user here(even if my account is new) and I was here when it all went down (LEA->Chief->CC), and since then there's been a lot of shady things going on.
About the thread: all drama threads could be stopped easily with a refund.
I wonder what would have happened if you had asked one more time in this public forum? What would @CVPS_Chris 's response have been if you had posted something like the following:
"Hello Chris - It is clear that we do not agree on events, but are you willing to put our differences behind us? I am. You could demonstrate Chicago VPS's commitment to customer satisfaction by refunding my VPS. In return, I am willing to give up three months of the refund to help defray your deployment and support costs. I think it is a reasonable proposal that will settle the situation for both of us. What do you think?"
Let us put it to the test.
--> @CVPS_Chris - How would you have responded to the above post?
>
Here is how I did it when I was dissatisfied with BlueVM:
http://lowendtalk.com/discussion/31187/looking-for-a-satisfied-bluevm-customer-no-bluevm-complaints-here-please
A few days later, I posted a review in this thread:
http://lowendtalk.com/discussion/31333/bluevm-review-definitely-not-recommended-avoid-bluevm
Haha, indeed a nice touch. I am happy BlueVM customer, meaning rather not unhappy, I get mostly what I expected. In the past I was a customer of CVPS and they delivered everything i was expecting too.
From now on do as I do if you need to test a provider:
1. read reviews before buying!;
2. Get a good special;
3. Throw a couple of tickets at launch see how they react, then set up a non-essential service;
4. monitor uptime and if needed open more tickets later about downtime, see how they react.
If you are happy and no downtime in a month whent he abuse will be the highest, go on and buy longer term.
Disclaimer: Not all locations are the same, you HAVE TO test the location you need. For example, urpad, cvps, bluevm, etc were solid in some locations and absolutely unusable in others.
A few more things about the "move to another node" thing.
1. I consider it is a scam to buy time. I asked to be moved to other locations, but another node int he same location is not an option because if the provider does not care for a node why would care for another? If there are abusers, kick them or limit the resources, or move THEM to a quarantine node (like I was doing with the miners in the cloud to compete for the same CPU resources and they understood the idea pretty quick);
2. As a provider I refuse it when people ask it, I first look for issues on the node and if there are none (since we have monitoring, that is usually the outcome) and offer advice on how to optimize services if I get the message the customer is willing to learn. But in case of a demand and threats, it is best to refund the guy which knows better than the admin the state of abuse on the node.
Suits me? Nope. I couldn't care less for either side.
But I see a - justifiably, so it seems - enraged man on one side, possibly a private end user; and a professional (as in "does that for a living and in the frame of a company") who should damn know the laws on the other side.
And I see that said provider offers a ticket(!) and what he said in it as "proof". That's just ridiculous and I'd hope it doesn't indicate the professional level at CVPS.
Of course, Chris is in a shitty position. After all, what should he do? Show all his log files? Bring up sworn witnesses? And yes, I think that /etc is, at least in part, on a revenge trip (which often disguise as "I want to protect others from repeating what I did and got bitten").
Pretty anything Chris does is wrong. If he says nothing, he's an arrogant a--hole, if he says "You'll get a full refund", some will construe this as proof of guilt, etc.
There just isn't much one can do in public discussions when a client is seriously angry, out to hunt you down in public, and make you look like satan. And he has to lose little but providers need reputation.
But offering "see! Said it in the ticket" isn't worth anything and legally at least grey-zonish.
The problem is, one is predicated on a lie, and the other one not. It's patently obvious CVPS didn't handle it properly. Furthermore, this thread, being visible, does do the community good since it provides another (and from what can see) most visible referendum on Chicago VPS to date.
As I stated, I was willing to accept a reduced level of service. But the Dilbert level of willful incompetence that, without consequence, allows a server to be down for hours without any due diligence is well beyond what one would consider reasonable, even for a "value" host.
And, given the policies in place and ChicagoVPS' position on refunds, etc - it's precisely the type of scam operation that should be lambasted by admin and user alike. If LET wants to accept CVPS' continued participation because they advertise here, so be it - but when the overarching and seemingly ubiquitous opinion of CVPS is so piss poor, with much of the community accusing it of being a scam, its continued license of operation on these forums is a reflection of the forum's priorities and principles.
I don't say that as an accusation against the administration or forum. Some forums are made to be a wild west free-for-all. That's ok.
That's because it was distinctly his fault.
Like I've already pointed out, either his staff was lying about there being a network downtime, and lies about it because that's the standard of excellence at CVPS. Or Chris is lying when he says there was no downtime. What's far more likely is the logging and troubleshooting at CVPS is so piss poor, Chris doesn't have that data to say it definitively either way.
No one is asking him to cough up every log, but other than a broad based accusation, Chris provided nothing. Stop getting defensive and trying to "prove" your equanimity by trying to rationalize or justify what is, quite obviously, a complete and utter dereliction of duty, and an accompanied attitude.
I'm not trying to get "revenge," unless by revenge you mean to share my story with the broader community. I would have loved to have seen a CVPS thread this visible when I was doing my research which detailed the degree to which CVPS is incompetent as a provider, both from a technical and customer support perspective, as well as the effective outcome of their refund policies.
Seriously, just break it down. The best support I got was by attempting to cancel, where the CEO of the entire organization offered a tracert.
All of the suggestions thus far seem to completely ignore what actually took place, or predicated on this notion that CVPS is a scam operation and I should have known better.
But if the latter, why in the hell is it allowed to even posture as a legitimate provider on these forums? I tend to avoid abject complicity in my governing ethos, and I don't get the pervasive "blame the consumer" attitude that some of the members here espouse.
I already acknowledged that even me tempered expectations for CVPS were foolish, but what I received was well beyond shitty service. The complete package was unusable in any way, shape or form.
The offer still remains - if the community can use a 5gb vps for 2 years - the whole thing is yours. I'm not here to raise hell for the sake of raising hell, I have more important things to do. And if I was really out for revenge, as an attorney, there's a whole arsenal of things I could do to make CVPS' life hell, but that's not what this is all about.
Done - the admins can have the server. Of course, none of the community would actually like that to happen, because the forums would be perpetually down.
I tried. Twice.
Would love to hear Chris' answer to your proposed refund terms. Even 3 months is ridiculous for "support" I never received, but it's still a concession. As of right now, I have no active server at ChicagoVPS, so it's not like I'm deriving any benefit from the subscription whatsoever. ChicagoVPS just wants to keep the money.
Welcome to LET, to a degree. I am not saying they handled it well, they did not.
Which was available and reasonable to conclude from it that if you did not want the service there was a strong chance you could loose your money. So whichever way you look at it you agreed to that risk. Albeit you got credit.
By the users yes, by the admins, not so much. Why? Well thanks to the hacks of the past we have had a fairly good insight into the number of nodes CVPS has and even more than that the massive overselling that takes place on them. Then all the threads of which there have been many in the past, although very few of late.
It's fair to say that their customer volume is in the thousands, the number of complaints I see are very small in comparison.
No I am not excusing them but overall the issues between CVPS and customer appear small of those being reported here. Largely I am going to "assume" based on what I see and no evidence to the contrary that most are happy with what they have.
Some will argue CVPS were totally in the wrong, others will say you could have moved node first or were impatient and abusive that it caused them to react the way they did.
Ultimately though people see different things, it's here, being discussed. Will anything in this thread stop people buying? Probably not. In fact I bet some have probably purchased because of it. Odd fekking world, hosting.
You did not give them much time to respond, nor have you made any conciliatory moves. At this point, I suspect you have achieved a self-fulfilling prophecy.
That is a pretty bold statement, ChicagoVPS uses Enterprise software to monitor our servers, that no other VPS provider here can afford. In the past we have been accused for downtime, etc. Many years ago yes, our monitoring was terrible, but I wanted to change that. PRTG is by far one of the best programs any company can use for server monitoring and it has vastly improved our infrastructure.
I dont like showing internal data, but here is a screenshot of the node you were on showing the up time and downtime.
As you can see the node was not down like you have explained or stated. I was willing to work with you, like stated in the ticket offering an account credit to be used for something else. I honestly do not believe that the issues you faced were that of our own and Milan stated in the ticket that your VPS was up when asked to check.
If you have any other questions feel free to contact me directly, and maybe we can come to a "middle ground".
@/etc
Maybe things aren't that black and white. I think it would be fair and the most reasonable thing to do to accept Chris' official invitation to solve your problems in private and constructively.
Over two days to get any kind of response from support except "your server is up?" You have extremely low standards.
I tried solving it through the ticket and then the dispute process. What else am I supposed to do? Visit him for coffee?
To quote Chris: "If you have any other questions feel free to contact me directly, and maybe we can come to a "middle ground"."
Sending him a PN and asking him what he proposes for a solution shouldn't be too cumbersome, no?
This is a specious and non-serious offer. After the way you guys supported the first node, with a different story depending on how was asked, why do you think it would be reasonable to double down and try another node? That's like a babysitter saying, "sorry I kept dropping your baby, would you like me to try holding it a different way?"
You say it was up, and show monitoring software (that really proves nothing, since we don't know the scope of the monitoring, and it could have been a routing failure with your equipment, etc) but beyond that, once again, your own staff acknowledged it was a "network outage." Either you're lying, or they were. You can't have it both ways, but either way is laughable.
I never utilized your service in any useful manner, and I am willing to accept a prorated refund. I don't want credit for service with you - that's a false option, since your own customer support removed that option out of my discretion.
No one should provide a VPS service in which their support staff refuses to answer any questions, or perform even the slightest due diligence to explain the downtime.
Furthermore, as it stands, it's still inexplicable why the entire node wouldn't even response to SolusVM if it was up. I couldn't even get it to reboot through the panel...it literally just errored out. If the server was indeed up, and it was a local configuration issue, what would explain that behavior.
The reason it is a lose/lose for you, Chris, is no matter how you slice it, this was a distinct failure of ChicagoVPS, at least as a relates to customer support, but likely technically as well.
While you're here, if you don't mind answering a few questions:
Explain why you and your staff are on two completely different pages.
Explain why your staff just assumes rampant network downtimes.
Explain why your staff wouldn't give me the slightest explanation even though it was directly asked at least four times.
Explain why my server stopped responding for hours at a time, multiple times, over the course of two days.
Explain why it took me getting to you after canceling the service before ANY support was given.
Explain why the extent of your support was a tracert.
Explain why just as a matter of human decency, when a customer, who gave your company every opportunity to remedy a situation, and you refused, asks for a refund for the unused portion of his subscription, would you refuse.
Explain why the pervasive opinion and reputation of ChicagoVPS is so piss poor. This seems to be endemic of ChicagoVPS, not an anomaly.
Explain why your own standards of service are so damn low.
Explain why you'd be satisfied with your own level of support if you were your own customer.
You've got everyone's attention and Chris is here. Drop him a PM, then try and iron out the issues without switching to CAPS RAGE mode, then post back here to let us know how you get on.
Isn't that effectively what a ticket is? I had already asked to speak to him directly in the ticket - I never received a response. This was at least two days ago, and he's responded to here since. Now you want to give him credit because he asked me to PM him?
Come on. You're trying so hard to be "fair," that you're coming from a position of artifice.
This situation has been brewing for weeks. Other than a tracert, and an empty offer to move me to another node despite the CEO's insistence it was NOT infrastructure failure, I received nothing. This is ridiculous.
The point Nekki is making is that you have his attention however that has come about, so you either take up his offer or you don't, your choice.
If all this is going to be is you asking questions he is not going to answer here then this thread is pretty much done and serving no use.
He probably isn't, he admitted to outsourcing a while back and was and may still be looking for more qualified techs.
Not exactly. I suggested that you and Chris put aside the past and find a mutually agreeable solution. When you ignored that, I literally spelled it out for you. Both you and Chris have entrenched your positions since then. My original post was going to be, "I tried. Twice. I give up." but I deleted "I give up" because it was implicitly obvious.
My father tried to teach me this lesson all his life, but sadly, I have not been able to apply it. Here is a poem:
http://holyjoe.org/poetry/McGin6.htm
Yeah right. Whoever is not 100% on your side is your enemy, right?
What's next? Starting WW3 and going nuclear because writing a PN in response to a public invitation and peace offer is too much to ask from you?
PM mate , private message.
Not private nag...
There is no agreeable solution except a refund. The service is unusable, no different than a babysitter that dropped your baby. A refund has been steadfastly refused despite multiple attempts over the course of weeks.
I don't have any animosity harbored - ChicagoVPS is just not a company that is reasonable to deal with, or that I could entrust with even the most non-mission-critical of servers. Once again, when support has no idea whether a server is down or not, and no one really cares - what other possible compromise might there be? Perhaps ChicagoVPS is willing to take my credit and give it to another provider so I can utilize them?
I really see no point in this thread continuing then, there is no sense in trying to come up with a compromise here, contact chris by PM and ask him, if not move on, this is really done now.
You just seem to be trying to stretch the issue out as far as you can now and are starting to make CVPS look good.
What are you talking about? You got questioned about one position that you took, and then you've spent the last 3-4 messages backtracking, trying to "prove" your equanimity. I'm not accusing you of being my enemy - I'm just stating that the request to PM him is ridiculous given the open and standing request I've already made to him, which has been ignored.
I've had a ticket open with ChicagoVPS for weeks. Just a few days ago, I explicitly requested Chris respond to me directly - a request that was summarily ignored. If Chris wanted to discuss things in private with me, he's had a myriad of opportunities to do so - INCLUDING THE STILL OPEN REQUEST IN MY TICKET.
Now, even though there's an open request, in private, where we can talk (and which has failed us in the last weeks), I'm supposed to jump through another hoop because you're claiming it exemplifies some kind of good faith maneuver by him?
That makes no sense.
What happened was clear:
Server went down for hours on end, multiple times, within just a couple of days
Despite my numerous requests, all of which were ignored, CVPS never told me what was wrong, other than "it's back up"
Even though an offer to switch nodes was made, this was done in the same thread where the CEO said NOTHING WAS WRONG
The CEO said NOTHING WAS WRONG and still holds that position, despite EVERY TECH that responded all acknowledging a "network outage"
The most support I ever got was on the third or fourth day, after requesting a cancellation and refund, where the CEO of the company offered to do a tracert.
I directly requested a refund multiple times, all of which were explicitly rejected. I was told to file a dispute, which I did, and was denied - no doubt something Chris knew would be happening.
During this entire time, I've had a private ticket open with CVPS, and requested the attention of Chris a multitude of the times. The last OPEN AND STANDING request to talk was 3 days ago. Why wasn't that request fulfilled?
Again, the sheer visibility of this thread has value in and of itself. If anyone were to read through this, and think CVPS looked good, despite what some might say is a lack of diplomacy is, quite frankly, and mouth breather.
I already requested the refund again, and private counsel with Chris through the ticket. I did that days ago. If Chris was willing to talk, he's had the opportunity.
The request to PM him to find a solution was specious. The request to talk in private is still standing, and has been for weeks.
I didn't spend all this time in this forum just to try to find a compromise. The only way to provide a countervailing force against a company that many are claiming is deeply embedded with the administrators and governing body of this community despite being a sham operation is to create visible, highly trafficked threads that provide a point of search and discussion.
Airing grievances about ChicagoVPS is for the good of the community, especially since they're actively allowed to market on these forums. Consider this reverse-marketing.
As well, I was more than willing to give the proceeds of the "refund" or "compromise" to this community, so I don't appreciate your implicit accusation of petulance, when it's a reflexive reaction to communal imprudence.
The beauty of a forum is that one can be selective about the threads and discussion they participate in. If this has grown beyond what some people perceive as being personally valuable, they're more than welcome to unsubscribe and move on. I'm not sure how a discussion of one of the most prominent marketing entities in this community, and how they're providing sub-par service could ever be considered unproductive.
Are we seeing the manifestation of a cabal?
It's attitudes like this which lend truthiness to the assertion there are conflicts of interest, despite the fact that it may, in fact, not be true.
There are very reasonable, and distinct questions that have still not gone unanswered, including why Chris and his entire support staff seem to be on two completely different pages.
Sadly this is LET, and the entire "forum" is one RSS feed. Vanilla is... "great".
Alternatively, per category; but you went and posted this in "Providers".
@W1V_Lee , Is this thread a disgruntled "Review" at this point or..?