Howdy, Stranger!

It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!


BuyVM 4.5 years, not really a review but a warning
New on LowEndTalk? Please Register and read our Community Rules.

All new Registrations are manually reviewed and approved, so a short delay after registration may occur before your account becomes active.

BuyVM 4.5 years, not really a review but a warning

I've been a BuyVM customer since 2010 summer and have paid several hundred dollars on their services. Back to years ago I had 10+ 128M, 3x 256M and some storage plans with them at the same time.

Long time passed and several things happened. I'll explain what happened in the following. Today I finally canceled all my services there, leaving $63 credit in my account and hope I'll find a chance to use them in the near future.

Moving from San Jose to LV

Bay area are well known to have very good connectivity towards Asia. I understand that this is a hard decision for them, but this effectively impact the performance to all websites I hosted. Several service interruption came later due to electricity and networking made things worse. Some of my clients were complaining about the downtime and I have to move some of the websites to other "more stable" providers, such as ramnode or linode.

Time Traveler

I don't know the exact reason, but their OpenVZ host servers must be time travelers. It's very hard for them to keep the servers on time. I was using server monitoring service on Linode longview and it kept telling me time is not accurate. And it was. Sometimes it's 10 seconds sometimes it's 20 or more. Not a lot, but affecting monitoring AND MySQL replication.

I had 3 tickets with them, first 2 were kindly replied, and on the 3rd time they just deleted my ticket. (No proof because it's deleted from my account)

The "CN" Plans

I have to say, this is the primary reason I decide to leave them.

Last summer, BuyVM announced a promotion which provides free extra IP addresses with the plan. Looks nice and I migrate my 3x 128M to 1x CN256, same price range and easier for management.

The plan can be upgraded like any other regular plans, so one day I decided to upgrade it to CN512 to have more disk space. It worked and I was happy. Some months later I cleaned up some legacy backup files and though to downgrade back to save some money.

It didn't work. The "upgrade & downgrade" option is gone. I ticketed them and was told that the promotion is no longer available and it's completely impossible for me to go back to whatever the original plan I got.

Alright then. I'm fine.

Some weeks later I found myself the demands of DDoS protection and ordered a filtered IP on this plan for $3/month. It was quite smooth and they issued me the IP address almost immediately. Nice job done.

Some weeks later I found myself no longer need the protection, so I removed the filtered IP.

This is what I got:

We have received your order, 6654453667, for the following:
Upgrade/Downgrade Options: Voxility Filtering - 1 => 0 x Voxility IPv4
Amount Due: $-7.96 USD

This is what happened: my plan was converted to their regular plans and all my extra free IPs are deleted. I hadn't noticed this until my clients came to shout at me WEBSITES DOWN AGAIN WHAT THE HECK IS HAPPENING! and I was astonished. Then I was told:

The CN-IP plans were never meant to have addons or extras - attempting to modify these plans causes them to revert back to the base plan type without the extra IPs. Due to abuse, we have discontinued offering these plans.

>

If you remember what the IPs were, I can reassign them to the VPS. The cost is 1$ per IP per month, scaled to the billing cycle of the service. But the downgrade 'broke' the existing plan, which was never supposed to be eligible for upgrades in the first place.

>

It (the price) will be the same as what everyone else is paying. We did away with the mass-IP plans due to unfairness and abuse.

Maybe It's me who asks too much for the money I paid. But I'm tired.

I thank them for the services, and I think this is the end of the story.

TL;DR

Do NOT modify any part of your plan if you got a CN promotion. Just DON'T touch it.

«1

Comments

  • So they have a broken system, and thus make you pay more for something you already had and have payed before. Uhmmm, it doesn't make much sense...

  • NyrNyr Community Contributor, Veteran
    edited April 2015

    This is not fair at all and them wanting to charge now for the IPs... well, not a big surprise considering the fuckton of them which were offered "for free" with those plans with a very clear objective. Reminds me of OVH ;)

  • You were a long time client, just wondering if did you speak to Francisco about the issues you had?

  • raindog308raindog308 Administrator, Veteran

    Paging @Francisco ...

  • FranciscoFrancisco Top Host, Host Rep, Veteran

    Felipe said: So they have a broken system, and thus make you pay more for something you already had and have payed before. Uhmmm, it doesn't make much sense...

    The CN plans were discontinued soon after we launched them. We originally made them to help our CN driven customers that had issues with tripping the GFW and such. Instead, they got adopted by a lot of spammers and Aldryic ended up punting almost everyone out.

    If you have a ticket ID I can ref. I can work from there and likely get the addressed assigned back if you remember them (or we just give you one from the location pool).

    Francisco

  • FranciscoFrancisco Top Host, Host Rep, Veteran

    Nyr said: This is not fair at all and them wanting to charge now for the IPs... well, not a big surprise considering the fuckton of them which were offered "for free" with those plans with a very clear objective. Reminds me of OVH ;)

    The customer in question isn't on the plan anymore, nor is the plan offered anymore, so why should we be forced to sell one to people?

    As I said, I can likely arrange to have them re-enstated if I get a ticket or someway to identify, but as someone stated, addons weren't supposed to be available on those plans.

    Francisco

    Thanked by 1ATHK
  • I don't think there is much significant change in performance in SJ > LV change, if you have servers in SJ you will notice it has also degraded. The real problem is more and more Chinese take advantage of these cheaper USA server and the link has gone much more saturated then before.

    The remove of IP sounds like their screw up, however I don't think one have the right to upgrade and downgrade special offer and expect they are there since it's a.. promotion.

  • iSkyiSky Member

    i found @Francisco is very helpful as long as i know him, try discuss it with him and maybe there will be a solution.

  • NyrNyr Community Contributor, Veteran

    Francisco said: The customer in question isn't on the plan anymore, nor is the plan offered anymore, so why should we be forced to sell one to people?

    Because if I understand correctly, the IPs were removed without notice after a downgrade within the plan. Is not selling a new plan, just keeping the resources the customer got in the first place.

    You guys told him to pay for the IPs if he still wanted them, but they were removed without notice in the first place. If I understood correctly, that is.

  • FranciscoFrancisco Top Host, Host Rep, Veteran

    belinik said: The remove of IP sounds like their screw up, however I don't think one have the right to upgrade and downgrade special offer and expect they are there since it's a.. promotion.

    It should be added that the CN plans are literally the only promotion we've run that wasn't something like '2nd month free' or some short term coupon (I don't think we've done any of these).

    Since we have so few of those plans in play now (I think we have like < 5 people still using those plans) I can probably sweet talk Aldryic into letting the OP still have it sans any addons.

    Francisco

  • FranciscoFrancisco Top Host, Host Rep, Veteran

    belinik said: I don't think there is much significant change in performance in SJ > LV change, if you have servers in SJ you will notice it has also degraded. The real problem is more and more Chinese take advantage of these cheaper USA server and the link has gone much more saturated then before.

    The china market is hard. Another part of the problem is the minute people find out a certain ISP is running better to CT/CU, everyone rebalances their CN traffic for it. Direct CT/CU peering might be OK but you won't have any guarantee on speeds.

    Francisco

    Thanked by 1hiphiphip0
  • FranciscoFrancisco Top Host, Host Rep, Veteran

    Nyr said: Because if I understand correctly, the IPs were removed without notice after a downgrade within the plan. Is not selling a new plan, just keeping the resources the customer got in the first place.

    You guys told him to pay for the IPs if he still wanted them, but they were removed without notice in the first place. If I understood correctly, that is.

    Any sort of change to the plan (minus upgrading within the CN IP plans) was supposed to be disallowed. This is where the ball was dropped on our end since it shouldn't have been allowed in there, period.

    The OP changed their plan, it'd be like they order a 32 IP plan, downgrade to a 4 IP plan ($25 -> $3.50/m) and we should allow them to keep the 32 at that price? Should we let them keep the 2GB RAM as well because they had it at one point too?

    The OP agreed to the plan change to get access to filtered IP addresses. Technically they gave up their promotion plan all together and it was a no go.

    At this point I'm hopeful to honor what the CN plan came with, with the agreement that they can't upgrade/downgrade/change the plan (minus billing period).

    I think that's more than fair for the OP.

    Francisco

    Thanked by 1k0nsl
  • @Francisco said:

    Thanks. The ticket in question is #993860 however I had to migrate all my websites to other providers when I read Aldryic's reply. Don't want to bother moving them back and forth again.

    @Nyr said:
    You guys told him to pay for the IPs if he still wanted them, but they were removed without notice in the first place. If I understood correctly, that is.

    That's exactly what happened.

  • NyrNyr Community Contributor, Veteran

    Francisco said: The OP agreed to the plan change to get access to filtered IP addresses. Technically they gave up their promotion plan all together and it was a no go.

    Then I didn't understood correctly. I was under the impression a filtered IP was just an addon to the current plan and not a entirely different plan. Very different situation then.

  • @Francisco said:

    The OP changed their plan, it'd be like they order a 32 IP plan, downgrade to a 4 IP plan ($25 -> $3.50/m) and we should allow them to keep the 32 at that price? Should we let them keep the 2GB RAM as well because they had it at one point too?

    >

    The OP agreed to the plan change to get access to filtered IP addresses. Technically they gave up their promotion plan all together and it was a no go.

    I ordered the CN256 plan, 4x IP. Later I upgraded to CN512, no IP count increased, still 4x. Never complained.

    Since when I agreed "the plan change to get access to filtered IP"? It's there on the first day until yesterday, when the plan said "CN 512" right before it reverted back, yesterday.

  • FranciscoFrancisco Top Host, Host Rep, Veteran

    Nyr said: Then I didn't understood correctly. I was under the impression a filtered IP was just an addon to the current plan and not a entirely different plan. Very different situation then.

    That's where we dropped the ball, it shouldn't have been listed on the page but given what OP is saying, it was there.

    msg7086 said: I ordered the CN256 plan, 4x IP. Later I upgraded to CN512, no IP count increased, still 4x. Never complained.

    Since when I agreed "the plan change to get access to filtered IP"? It's there on the first day until yesterday, when the plan said "CN 512" right before it reverted back, yesterday.

    While it's not your fault or your job to keep track of any quirks on our end, I wish you had informed us of the 512MB plan acting up since we would've spotted the provisioning errors on our end.

    Francisco

  • FWIW

    Ordered

    Order Number: 7951348835
    Product/Service: CN Promotions - CN - LV BuyVM-256MB
    Domain: buyvm256
    Operating System: Debian 7.0
    Extra IPv4: 0
    DoS-Filtered IP: 0
    Extra Bandwidth: 0
    Extra HDD Space: 0
    First Payment Amount: $15.31 USD
    Recurring Amount: $17.50 USD
    Billing Cycle: Semi-Annually
    

    Upgraded

    We have received your order, 1145596788, for the following:
    Upgrade/Downgrade: CN - LV BuyVM-256MB => CN - LV BuyVM-512MB
    Billing Cycle: Semi-Annually
    Total Due Today: $8.32 USD
    

    Bought extra IP

    We have received your order, 8508828174, for the following:
    Upgrade/Downgrade Options: DoS-Filtered IP - 0 => 1 x DDoS Protected IP
    Amount Due: $17.80 USD
    

    Removed extra IP

    We have received your order, 6654453667, for the following:
    Upgrade/Downgrade Options: Voxility Filtering - 1 => 0 x Voxility IPv4
    Amount Due: $-7.96 USD
    

    This is when IPs are removed and plan is reverted.

    Cleaned up and ready to cancel

    We have received your order, 5327396644, for the following:
    Upgrade/Downgrade: LV BuyVM-512MB => LV BuyVM-256MB
    Billing Cycle: Semi-Annually
    Total Due Today: $-5.41 USD
    

    Canceled

    This notice is confirmation that we have received your cancellation request for the service listed below.
    Product/Service: LV BuyVM-256MB
    Domain: buyvm256
    
  • jarjar Patron Provider, Top Host, Veteran

    Francisco said: I think that's more than fair for the OP.

    Yep. @Francisco handles business. I signed up with BuyVM on October 04, 2013. I would trust no one more with my data (I might trust a few others as much, but not more). Fran has been unbelievably helpful and has bailed my ass out of a jam more than once. Let's just say there are two companies that I really trust and do not have to pay for VPS from, and I still pay BuyVM. That fact is worth more than any review I could throw together.

    Thanked by 1k0nsl
  • FranciscoFrancisco Top Host, Host Rep, Veteran

    msg7086 said: FWIW

    Christ what a mess you made. :P

    Francisco

  • msg7086msg7086 Member
    edited April 2015

    @Francisco said:
    Francisco

    The plan was bought 9 months ago, DDoS IP added 3 month ago and removed yesterday. I hope this is not so frequent change that you can't handle, is it? :p

  • FranciscoFrancisco Top Host, Host Rep, Veteran

    msg7086 said: The plan was bought 9 months ago, DDoS IP added 3 month ago and removed yesterday. I hope this is not so frequent change that you can't handle, is it?

    No, that's just fine, we got people that up/down their filtered/etc IP's all on a monthly basis.

    The issue is likely more that the plans were just added to the system incorrectly.

    As I said, the filtered IP shouldn't have been allowed but it was. Technically you should've needed to change the plans as Aldryic did with you back then, just it took place now.

    I can likely arrange the IP's be applied to a plan of your liking, but I'm not sure if we're past that point now or what.

    Francisco

    Thanked by 1Steve81
  • @Francisco said:
    Francisco

    You are right. Lost of IP addresses is not something that I can wait some days for a solution. I have to migrate all the websites and services to other providers as soon as possible. Mail servers, forums, enterprise websites for local start-ups, a lot. I'd appreciate if you would make a refund, however you said no in your faq or whatever legal document. So that's it and I hope to come back later if you'll have some new services with, uh, more fun. ;p

  • FranciscoFrancisco Top Host, Host Rep, Veteran

    You wouldn't have waited days on it, for the most part I only get 6 hours sleep and I'm usually pretty fast to reply to messages :P

    Let me know.

    Francisco

  • Aldryic is a very funny guy. I also have 4 vps with buyvm for almost 5 years (since August 4, 2010), but they've canceled my account 2 months ago.

    Because, I want to order a new LU VPS from them 2 months ago, Aldryic asked me to submit my government-issued ID for manual verification. I refuse. Then I get canceled (including my old VPS).

    We talked for hours on the support ticket system. I think Aldryic did a good job. This guy just hates chinese people if you ask me.

    @msg7086 said:
    You are right. Lost of IP addresses is not something that I can wait some days for a solution. I have to migrate all the websites and services to other providers as soon as possible. Mail servers, forums, enterprise websites for local start-ups, a lot. I'd appreciate if you would make a refund, however you said no in your faq or whatever legal document. So that's it and I hope to come back later if you'll have some new services with, uh, more fun. ;p

  • FranciscoFrancisco Top Host, Host Rep, Veteran

    youknownothingjon said: We talked for hours on the support ticket system. I think Aldryic did a good job. This guy just hates chinese people if you ask me.

    Why in the world would we hate chinese people? o_O We have plenty of them, infact we even have Chinese speaking workers on our team just to better help with sales/support.

    If you used a virtual office that may have been an issue. We had a wave of spammers all trying to signup using the same virtual office.

    Francisco

    Thanked by 1jar
  • I have many vps with other providers (Ramnode, Crissic, Inception, UltraVPS, Digitalocean...) and never had a problem with them. Sorry, I can not answer your question "Why in the world would we hate chinese people?"

    @Francisco said:
    Francisco

  • FranciscoFrancisco Top Host, Host Rep, Veteran

    youknownothingjon said: I have many vps with other providers (Ramnode, Crissic, Inception, UltraVPS, Digitalocean...) and never had a problem with them. Sorry, I can not answer your question "Why in the world would we hate chinese people?"

    I dunno, all I can think is that you details were really off. I'd like to see a ticket ID if you have one, but if but not, no worries.

    Francisco

  • ATHKATHK Member

    Francisco said: If you used a virtual office that may have been an issue. We had a wave of spammers all trying to signup using the same virtual office.

    @youknownothingjon did you sign up using a virtual office?

    BuyVM is a great provider just from looking at the professionalism and manner @Francisco has on these forums. I've never been a client despite @Francisco asking me multiple times..

    Maybe I should take him up on that offer..

  • RadiRadi Host Rep, Veteran

    Never got the chance to be a customer, will never order anything from BuyVM.

  • MaouniqueMaounique Host Rep, Veteran
    edited April 2015

    Radi said: Never got the chance to be a customer.

    You may find this is the case in many places. VAT regulations do not make it easier for us, we have now to demand verified paypal accounts to have at least a way to prove location.
    However, forging papers pictures is easily done by a 7 yo and sending real images is a serious security risk, therefore we would never ask for them, yet many people volunteer. If I see someone doing it after the order was rejected by maxmind, that is a clear no-no sign for me, first because they likely have them forged already and know the drill which worked with many hosts before and second because a potential breach would probably leak them and if they are real that is serious trouble. So, by sending papers to us you practically force me to reject the order and since i almost always handle provisioning, it means you cannot become a customer.
    I think keeping a high entry bar and low exit one is the way to treat customers in a small family business, once they are part of the family for a while, anything goes within the limits of legality and decency, but a thorough selection has to be done before to ensure the people already in and trusted implicitly do not get to suffer.

Sign In or Register to comment.