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Avoid BudgetVM at all costs
It's about time I post a short summary of my experiences with BudgetVM (or Enzu, as they're apparently also called).
I signed up for their 256MB VPS on 2013-06-21, switched from their LA datacenter to the one in Chicago (IIRC) on 2013-06-22, then upgraded to a 512MB VPS on 2013-06-30.
The datacenter switch was surprisingly easy — I created a ticket, confirmed that I didn't mind loosing the data on the VPS and had it recreated at the new DC.
Now on to the events that lead me to calling them the worst hosting company I've ever encountered:
- On 2013-07-13, they had a "scheduled" maintenance window (where "scheduled" meant a notice posted on their website just under 11 hours before the downtime) of two hours (9 a.m. to 11 a.m.). I noticed that my server was down at around 11:30 and saw the maintenance announcement, according to which the server should already be running again. I couldn't start it via SolusVM, so I opened a ticket. The ticket yielded little more than "It's taking longer than expected; we're on it." and the server stayed offline for a total of 15 hours and 14 minutes. Once it was back up, I noticed that they hadn't even bothered shutting the VPS down, but just switched it off mid-run.
- The server was originally provisioned with 2 IPv4 addresses and 16 IPv6 addresses, as stated on the order form, though I only used one of the v4 IPs in the beginning. On 2013-07-13, I discovered that one of the v4 IPs and 10 of the v6 IPs had vanished from SolusVM and the VPS itself. I opened a ticket and had the missing IPs re-assigned after 23 hours. Since I hadn't used them before, I'm not sure what happened and whether I got the same IPs I had before they vanished.
- On 2013-07-15 (about one day after opening a SLA ticket), I was credited $2.66 for the 15-hour downtime.
- On 2013-09-21, my VPS started rejecting incoming SSH connections, claiming the host key was corrupted. Eight ticket replies, a few useless traceroutes and 45 hours later, they informed me that "Due to the error we are seeing we will need to reinstall your VM. All data will be lost in doing this. Please confirm this is ok.", which they kept reiterating when I asked them to at least make the data in the container accessible to create a backup (I only had weekly backups back then).
When it became clear that they had actually deleted the VPS container (while it was still running), I asked for a cancellation and refund. A BudgetVM reprensentative accepted the cancellation, but declined the refund ("As you are outside our 30 day money-back guarantee, you are no longer eligible for a refund. Please also note that account credits are only for use against services directly, they cannot e refunded or redeemed as cash.") and offered me to set up a new server — fat load of good that would be, considering they might delete my container again at any time…
So that's how I ended up with a $40/year US tunnel server.
I would also like to mention the occasional network issues and unannounced reboots during the time when I actively used the server, but I no longer have the logs to prove that.
I originally didn't want to waste any more time on BudgetVM than I already had during the various downtimes, but they actually encouraged me today: After the one-year contract ended, I opened a ticket to have my account and all associated data deleted, as I obviously never wanted to hear from them again. They confirmed that on 2014-06-13.
Now guess what I received today… "BudgetVM - We Want You Back!". Sent to the very email address they claimed had been deleted (and which I only used for BudgetVM).
So, here's how much I want them back (i.e., not in a thousand years) and hopefully enough information for you to form an opinion as well.
I will provide any additional information, tickets, etc., as needed.
Comments
Wow! thank you for the warning.
I got it too. But I have lots of idle vps so I won't go with them.
At least budgetvm more better than gvh.
I still have 1 vps at budgetvm, been using a vps at there more than 1 year. Recently got issue with several network downtime.
Best uptime record with gvh: 21 days
Best uptime record with budgetvm: 258 days
Best uptime record with 123system, 5 min.
I still have 1 vps at budgetvm, been using a vps at there more than 1 year. Recently got issue with several network downtime.
Best uptime record with budgetvm: 258 days
Stupid analogy, period.
We need screens.
I just got the same email from budgetvm and was going to try them for a test vm that i use for development so it would not be a big deal but what your saying is worry sum. I had an issue with budgetvm in the past. It was my fault for not paying the bill on time but they noted my account as suspended and I paid the bill and when I got it back up it was really terminated I no longer had the data so I paid the monthly price plus a late fee for an empty vm. Again my fault for not paying but sucked that it was setup to look like I would get everything back by paying the bill.