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Honest Review of Zoti Media Group ( MisterHost.net / TightHost.com / Host4Half.com ).
On the 28th of May 2019, I paid for a Premium Alpha Reseller plan on MisterHost.net (AKA TightHost.com and Host4Half.com under Zoti Media Group.
My first issue started just after sign up when the PHP selector in cPanel was not working. I opened a ticket regarding the issue and received the following response:
“We are testing testing the litespeed so it may take 2-3 days until we are enabling.”
Please note that the servers were advertised as already running LiteSpeed. (Sidenote, when I got my own servers, I had LiteSpeed Web Server installed, configured and tested in under an hour).
The second issue was reported on the 2nd of June 2019. I found that the server PTR records were configured incorrectly. I brought this to their attention and they just blamed it on my CDN.
On the 10th of June 2019, the real problems started; a recurring issue with my client IP’s being blocked. Their mail clients were unable to connect to the server in order to send and receive mails.
The connection time limit (CT_LIMIT) in ConfigServer was set way too strict and automatically blocked IP’s that tried to connect to the server too often within the set time limit. This can happen quite frequently when people regularly refresh their mailbox and/or have an intermittent internet connection (common in my country).
I had to contact support a myriad of times over several months in order to unblock client IP’s.
Please take note that before making use of Zoti Media Group’s services, I made use of reseller services with HostGator (3 years) and InMotion Hosting (2 years) for the exact same client accounts that I migrated to MisterHost.net. I never had any serious problems (or an IP block ever) with these providers.
On the 27th of June 2019, I opened a support ticket because none of the sites were loading; most of them timed out. The sever information section in cPanel also showed that the server CPU was overloaded and the disk space was almost exhausted.
To this ticket, they responded with:
“Sir, everything is ok. Sundays we always run the server scannere so it overloads from time to time on sunday. Disk that shows its only one partition si there is enough disk on the server.”
Strangely enough, this did not only happen on Sundays. Around 20% of all visits to sites at random times would time out.
On the 2nd of July 2019, they automatically billed me $29.98 for a service I had already paid for. This seems to happen quite often based on the reviews I have read lately. I managed to get a refund for this amount.
On the 5th of July 2019, I received an email with the following information:
“As you might have already heard from other providers or in the news that cPanel is changing the way they sell their license, and increasing the price significantly. We will like to inform you that Misterhost.NET will keep the corrent pricing and NO change or additional costs will be added on our plans.”
Please take note of this as it will be important for what comes a bit later on.
On the 4th of September 2019, I received an email with the following information:
“We are facing an issue on the server whm.ns7.co and we are wirking since this morning to fix it. Pleasd hold on until we are done.”
I also opened a ticket that day before reading the issue in regard to several sites going down due to database connection issues.
I received the following response in regard to that ticket:
“Sorry our database server wont start, we are working the whole day on it. Please hold on.”
I then followed up on the 6th of September 2019 (2 days later) as the issue had still not been resolved. I received the following response:
“Sir the issue have been fixed. May I know the accounts that are affected to take a closer look.”
I proceeded to respond with a list of all the affected sites. MisterHost.net only got back to me on the 11th of September 2019 (Over a week after the incident occurred) with a proposed solution (Changing the localhost IP in php config files.).
The solution did not work for all sites. I notified them of this.
I then only received a response on the 14th of September 2019 (10 days later) with the following:
“Hello ****, now should be ok.”
I tested the previously affected sites and they appeared to load correctly (when they didn’t time out).
On the 17th of October 2019, my client sites all started getting suspended (same day) for apparent resource abuse. Please note that these were the same sites that ran perfectly on HostGator and InMotion hosting and based on my chat with a Misterhost.net agent before signing up, the account allocated resource quotas were supposed to be significantly higher than on my previous reseller plans.
I decided to perform a reverse IP lookup on the server and found that they are hosting 899 domains (minimum) on a 4c/8t processor OVH server.
It was at this point that I decided it was too much. My clients were fed up, my business reputation was being negatively affected by all of the aforementioned issues. It was time to get my own servers.
In my 5 years of reselling hosting packages, I had not encountered a fraction of the issues encountered with MisterHost.net in just 5 months.
I proceeded to migrate all of my hosting clients that had active websites to my new server before I requested a partial refund for the 30 paid for unused months from Zoti Media Group citing the aforementioned issues. They flat out refused to partially refund me. There was a bit of back and forth regarding the issue but at the time I was preoccupied with large projects and couldn’t dedicate the time to pursue the matter further.
Noting the aforementioned, I left a total of 5 active client accounts (email only) on their servers as I didn’t think they could be suspended for “alleged” resource abuse.
On the 23rd of November 2019 I received an email with the following information:
“We are facing an issue with server whm.ns7.co at the moment. Our techs are working already on it. We will inform you once we are done.”
An hour and a half later I received an email that the issue was fixed.
On the 17th of July 2020, I had noticed that my one suspended account was deleted. My auto-provisioning system automatically suspends accounts for non-payment after 7 days. It turns out their terms make a provision for this:
“We keep suspended accounts for 5 days on the server. After the day 5 accounts are getting terminated”
Just a handy tip for anyone making use of WHMCS.
Yesterday, the 6th of January 2021, I received calls from 2 clients that they were unable to send or receive emails. In order to troubleshoot the issue, I attempted to log into WHM and it would not accept my credentials.
Visiting their domains also resulted in an “Account Suspended” page. At this point I know the auto-provisioning system did not suspend them as their accounts were up to date.
I logged into Zoti Media Group’s client area only to find that there was an outstanding invoice for $7 and they suspended my account because of it. Please note that I should still have over $150 in credit with them.
Furthermore, upon checking my spam folder, I found 2 emails from the 2nd of January 2021. The first email contained the following information:
“Dear ****,
Due to cPanel price increase back in 2019 we have covered the fees without increasing the cost for our clients. This motivated many clients from other providers to migrate hundert of accounts to us.
Cpanel announced again a price increase of +75% with effect from 1. January 2021.
Unfortunately, the new price increase forced us to reevaluate our pricing in general (reseller, master & alpha plans).
Starting from today, we will increase the price of every reseller level plan by +$7 per month. This will keep your service with unlimited cPanel accounts!
Yearly and higher plans will get an invoice of $7.00 in the next days.
Monthly plans will get a price increase of $7.00 on the next billing.
We are really sorry!”
The second email was an invoice for $7.
It is important to note the following:
- At the time of ordering (28 May 2019) I paid 3 years in advance for unlimited cPanel accounts (https://web.archive.org/web/20190210053627/https://misterhost.net). I am aware that they have increased their pricing but that should not affect an existing order that has been paid years in advance.
I have my own cPanel Metal licenses and I have also needed to adjust my pricing but it only affects users upon their next renewal and only after 30 days of notifying them.
- I have essentially not used their service since October 2019 when they refused to refund me. And based on the volume of cPanel accounts on their server, the highest they would pay per account is around $0.25, my clients were actively using 4 accounts. This however is not relevant at all as I initially paid for unlimited accounts (at least until the end of the current billing cycle).
I proceeded to open a ticket requesting them to immediately reinstate my account so that I can transfer my 4 client accounts away from them. I also told them the following:
After the accounts have been transferred away (less than 1 day) they can keep the $150+ credit. I just want to be done with them.
If they are not willing to accommodate my request, I will report their unethical behaviour and poor service.
They proceeded to close down my entire account. I believe that my offer was more than fair given the issues (from their side, and from my clients as a result of their poor service) and reputational damage I have experienced.
I am now sitting with 4 clients that have no way to recover their personal information and emails.
I have found verified reviews of at least 6 other former Zoti Media Group clients that have experienced the same in the last 2 years, most losing their accounts and over $100.
The irony is that they advertise "99.9% Uptime" and "we consider every one of our customers to be a part of our family and we respect them as members and not as numbers.".
Comments
I have very bad story about them. They billed my card on an terminated service.
And then never resolved that. Never replied and blocked on chat.
Same here. Blocked my client area access and WhatsApp.
I'll post first the ticket from the respected thread poster and then will write a detailed reply when I get on my office as 99.9% what is he typing it's not correct.
You probably shouldn't leak your customer's IP address..
Please do. I'd love to see how you disprove a direct quote I made from a ticket. (Screenshot below)
https://imgur.com/72YpLD0
@pctech
Thanks for the warning! I have just blacklisted MisterHost.net / TightHost.com / Host4Half.com.
Hope it helps. I am out basically $450 (as I only really used the service for 5 months) + dedicated server setup costs for migrations, etc. and have 2 pissed clients and likely 2 more when they read my emails.
Would prefer not to have this happen to someone else.
Oddly enough, my day is still better than most of the days when all of my client domains were hosted with them. Always needed to anticipate the sky falling.
I am against using chargeback / dispute to fight providers but if they are confirmed scammers, this will be another story.
Any luck in minimizing your loss?
Too late for a chargeback. Reported their behavior to PayPal, OVH (current server provider) and will be contacting Hetzner (my server provider which they want to migrate to in 2021) for a heads up.
Thus far. Getting a dedicated server and moving my client accounts has probably saved me a lot more than I lost. Just wish I remembered to move the last 4 accounts.
Still don't know what you're attempting to prove mate.
I supplied you with an excellent alternative given the circumstances and how you guys have screwed me over in the past year and a half and I told you what would be the outcome if you were not able to accommodate it.
I referenced that in my original post.
I still have over $150 credit with you which I said you could keep to reactivate my account for 24 hours. This even after you suspended my client accounts for a $7 invoice that went to spam and which should not even be applicable to me as I paid you 3 YEARS IN ADVANCE. You can't just change the terms half way through my billing cycle.
My apologies for "threatening" you with "an in-depth honest review" as referenced in the screenshot. Well actually around 70 by now.
Decided not to use a freelancer as quality control for these posts is paramount. 2 of them are already indexed and in search results.
You are just making yourself look worse by keeping a paid up account suspended for childish BS. You do realize that your actions today have negatively affected 4 peoples businesses?
A 24 hour unsuspension really would not have made a difference to you but to them, they'd have all their data back.
This being said if you haven't already deleted the accounts in order to save on that WHM/cPanel licensing fees. It seemed like my accounts were just being suspended so that they would be deleted in 5 days so that you guys pay less on licensing.
This line alone "Threatening us is illegal and we won't tolerate it." proves how terrible of a company this is. Thanks for the review, I will make sure to avoid this company.
Hm, seems drama is boiling... This would be the first drama the qualitat this year. @ZotiMediaGroup i encourage you to sue the op for public defamation. @pctech i encourage you to counter sue him and post every single detail on this thread.
Thank you both and have fun.
we're still waiting for the detailed reply big boy 🤡🤡🤡🤡
I stopped reading here. No php selektor...
I did not read most of it, but clearly both sides made mistakes. Does op deserve to get suspended? Maybe. But op deserves to get his files back.
But seriously, making threats like that was a very bad move. Suing them for $150? You end up losing money no matter the outcome.
Place yourself in my shoes mate. I had the worst 5 months of customer complaints in my life when I hosted all of my client sites with them. I lost a few clients in the process yet I still gave them the benefit of the doubt for the majority of that time.
(You will need to read way past the PHP selector part to get an overview of it).
When I requested a partial refund (after having more than enough valid reasons to do so), I was essentially told to screw off (in somewhat more polite terms).
At the time I was too preoccupied to pursue the matter further.
After that there were a few more incidents. And most recently they suspended all of my client accounts for an invoice of $7 that went to my spam and I would not have agreed to pay on principle as I prepaid for that service 3 years in advance.
That is the TL;DR of it.
I will not be suing them for $150. I'll be suing them for the provable damage (I have kept extensive records of the fallout that can be linked to their lack of service delivery).
Furthermore, they just leaked my personally identifiable information on this public thread a few hours ago. My lawyers will have a field day with this.
My lawyers will have a field day with this.
Yes! How many millions was lost and how many lawyers in your team?
I'm willing to go quite far on principle but I don't even require lawyers anymore at this point.
Do you know what the penalties for GDPR violations are?
I don't, so please educate me.
Taken from https://gdpr.eu/fines.
The reporting process is also super simple but I will wait on a response from Zoti Media Group before I take further action.
Basically, you somehow managed to get shared hosting worse than EIG hosting, and these guys tried to bill everyone for extra but messed up their billing. It is also shady to bill you for extra before your billing period ends. All in all, zoti media group is looking pretty bad here.
But that doesn't change the fact you shouldn't have threatened them. Especially before you recovered your files. (This is why you should always have backups) I'm no lawyer, but I imagine your "provable damage" wouldn't exceed what is usually disputed in small claims court.
However, I recommend you keep it up at this point. Get your files back from them. If they truly deleted your files along with the cpanel account suspension, we all would know to avoid zoti media group.
Asking them nicely did not help either when OP asked for a partial refund.
I would fully agree with you in your first sentence. I left HostGator just after EIG acquisition.
I partially agree with your second sentence. Imagine going through a customer service/support nightmare (which you had minimal control over) and believing it's over for a few months and then just as 2021 is starting to look better than 2020 was, it comes back to bite you.
I did possibly have a strong reaction but you need to also take the past experiences into account. I would not interpret it as a threat but rather an option and ultimatum. Still could have presented it better.
Going the legal route is not about money but inconvenience.
Backups for these 4 accounts would be pointless as their servers don't support directory restoration (zipping files takes forever) and all the affected hosting accounts mainly use email services (where storage, files fluctuate regularly). It would just not have been feasible to make regular manual backups of email accounts in this regard.
The majority of these email accounts are configured as POP3 but there are some IMAP accounts.
With this being said, my mistake was not migrating them over to my own server sooner.
Yes after you tested it you wanted to upgrade:
Yes there was a issue with Litespeed back in 2019 so we switched to Apache until we fixed the issue, your websites was up and running, where is the problem? Btw. if it was so bad, why on the next day (see the upgrade ticket up) you upgraded your plan?
We never advertised that we use Litespeed you may check even now the website.
Its not same installing and configuring Litespeed in a server with 4 accounts and in a production server with hunderts of firewalls etc.
Not able to find any record on it, will take a look again as there are over 1000 replies on your tickets.
Yes every serious provider will block ips who are trying to bruteforce. Btw, you got always unblocked and even many ips got whitelisted.
Having issues with your internet Provider and blaming us is not a good.
Yes it happends mostly on Sunday when backups and scanners are running. You opened the ticket on Sunday as you can see.
Again not true. You never talked about websites are not loading:
Correct, we refunded you as you dident canceled the subscription for the monthly plan.
Correct, we covered the additional fees for you from June 15 2019 to 2nd January 2021 (over 17 months). Did you thank us with this thread?
I also opened a ticket that day before reading the issue in regard to several sites going down due to database connection issues.
The issue with mysql fixed the same day but some of your websites stopped working, we fixed it for you very fast.
Sorry the Entire Screenshot not working something properly.
You received a reply 10 days letter? Not with us. Check the reply date.
Going to another part shortly as there are Thousand of replies.
You just leaked @pctech's ip address again...
Where?
After "Having issues with your internet Provider and blaming us is not a good."
You seems to censor all of them, this one failed through the cracks
Got it thank you.
And so the plot thickens
TL;DR; no backups - no mercy.
I am currently online. Give me a moment to compile my response. What is the best method to include images in my posts/comments?