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Use swiftway experience.

I found it to be very bad after using swiftway.
Send my ticket screenshot.



Note: This is just to use my feelings, but I do not want to have other people with me had the same bad experience.

«1

Comments

  • It's under testing...so I suppose anything can happen...but their website layout looks weird in my chrome...

  • I had the same exact experience as yours in the first screenshot. My 2 Chicago VPSes were deleted, I just found out today, and they're refusing to let me have them back. I went back and forth with 'andrew' but he's been a rigid cookie. No budging on his end, despite it being a hardware failure that caused the VPSes to be deleted.

  • @amhoab said:
    I had the same exact experience as yours in the first screenshot. My 2 Chicago VPSes were deleted, I just found out today, and they're refusing to let me have them back. I went back and forth with 'andrew' but he's been a rigid cookie. No budging on his end, despite it being a hardware failure that caused the VPSes to be deleted.

    Now, I think this is swiftway prank. No one should have chicago node VPS, that only in order to reduce their costs. (My guess)

  • @qingxi Currently there are ~ 900 instances active in the Netherlands and ~ 300 instances active in Chicago. We can handle thousands of instances on the current platform, far more nodes are being installed during November.
    Reducing cost has nothing to do with it.

    We announced in advance, that the promo package will be removed once we started to allow payments to be made. We do not want more promo packages then initially ordered, if we would keep the promo package active while allowing clients to pay additional credit they will certainly add additional promo packages to their account.

    @amhoab We are not unwilling to help you with it but unable to help you. Deletion of the promo package for new instances was announced well in advance. We cannot add it at this point, as all clients will then proceed to add additional promo packages to their account.

  • According to Andrew, the package couldn't be manually re-added by you because it would be visible to all of your customers, allowing them to create more instances of the promo package. I understand that limitation, but that limitation is one that's imposed by software you wrote. Allowing admin-only views to let you manage/add packages is something all types of panels have, and if yours doesn't, you shouldn't let your customers take the toll. Code your panel such that you can enable/disable packages, as well as add disabled packages to active accounts. This way, you can still satisfy customers without irritating them and making them give up on you.

    I understand that the removal of the promo was announced in advance. I provisioned my VPSes WELL in advance of that. They were then deleted by you, and I didn't have enough notice to re-provision them before you removed the promo package. Quite frustrating.

  • @swiftway >
    I want to say is that I was scheduled customers. But it was as if the market mischievous.
    This makes me very depressed.

  • @amhoab This is not that easy, the panel cannot be written in such way, that legacy packages remain available for selection, as package selection is based on the available packages in the Cloudstack backend. It makes sense to align the two, it will be very difficult and very time consuming to do it in another way, besides that, any other way would leave room for many errors and problems.
    I contest that you did not have enough notice to recreate the package. The problem with one Chicago HV node was solved on Oct. 22, 2013, 5:53 p.m. and a notice went out immediately afterwards telling clients they could recreate their promo package. This left you over 7 days to recreate the package. I feel that this is more then enough time to recreate the instance. We even delayed removal of the promo package because of this, as the removal was originally scheduled at the start of the 4th week of October, to give people enough time to recreate their package we moved that to the last day of October (at the complaint of many people i may add, as people wanted to pay in credit to order new packages!).
    Its always a tradeoff.
    In figures - to prove my point:
    We advertised that we would accept 500 Chicago clients and 500 Netherlands clients for prelaunch, we actually started with 1016 clients in total that created over 1100 packages.
    2 people asked for a refund in the first 7 days, they got refunded. Both came from this forum/board. So out of 1016 people, the 2 unsatisfied people came from this forum.
    1014 people remained on the platform. Once we enabled payments and removed the promo package, only 4 people complained that they forgot to readd their promo package in time, 3 of them came from this board/forum. That is 4 out of 1014 that forgot to add their promo package in time.

  • i beg to disagree. i ordered 50 VMs for our company (25 for chicago and 25 for NL) and was not able to completely create even the NL as i was having limit problems (you placed a limit on an account and you only said you increased the limit october 23)

    honestly i did not receive emails that your chicago is already ok and was prevented from creating and the fund was not even loaded. the ticket about stopping me from creating the VM was not updated but was closed.

    in summary i was able to create 10 of the 50VMs which was promised oct 1 but was only fixed/resolved/loaded oct 23. in my opinion there should be a 1 month "consideration" from october 23 when the VMs should have been functioning properly.

    the reasoning that "bad" subscribers may create the promo account is not acceptable as this can be disciplined. put a warning or delete their instances or accounts.

    it would be best if they can just deploy the instances for us for the "pre-ordered" VMs that is having issues

    I have been asking for consideration on this as i am not a 1VM subscriber and supposed to have 50 VM slots for our company.

    as of the moment I am asking for consideration on this but yes "andrew" is a bit rigid and appears to decide in behalf of the management. instead they are pushing me for just creating the VMs under the current plan.

    we supported swiftway in this pre-launch venture and expect a good relationship with them and was not expecting that they are not doing the extra mile to help the clients on the system they promised to be stable on oct 1 but only was "resolved" in oct 23.

    i hope swiftway can think of a way to have these issued resolved by not making bad impressions, or not willing to make good business with supporters. in our business a client saved is a client earned. but it seems they just want us to go away.

    after asking consideration i was replied with either a refund with penalty or just create the VMs in their current packages.

    there may be "bad" customers who will take advantage of creating packages not for them, but there are better "good" customers that will be sad to be "pushed away"

    you wanted us to "understand" your issues you have with your service but dont want to "understand" how people are confused with your process.

    in our case, the full fund was not loaded on oct 1, was prevented from creating chicago vm, had a limit on account creation, and the consideration i am asking appears to be going to the dump.

    we can always check which client is abusing the VM creation and can always be controlled rather than pushing away clients who we fell was misled by the company we have supported from prelaunch.

    to add insult, I am not yet credited (was charged $50) for the 10VMs i was able to deploy yet their system is deducting me hourly now in addition to the $50 VM prepaid for a month from account creation. when i reported this i was told "we can credit this if you like to" instead of "we will credit this back due to a system billing error on our part"

    I still am hoping a consideration is given to people affected by this. you earn our business we are giving you business and we are not abusing your service for you to treat us this way.

    and we want a better customer service provider than "andrew" who appears to be a personnel without any concrete solutions to client issues. id want this to be elevated to the admin or CEO of swiftway.

  • @whosting did you just say 50 accounts? the maximum allowed amount of promo accounts is up to 5 per customer as the promo accounts are for personal or light business use only and clients should give some feedback on the prelaunch process. If someone allowed you to order 50 of these accounts, then we have to address this as soon as possible.
    There really should be no more then 5 prelaunch packages per unique user/account.

  • Hi Swiftway,

    I'm glad I didn't pay the 5 bucks for the open beta.

    Not only you guys from this thread have the same bad experience. Many people from one of the the Chinese communities have the same feeling like you do. I just want to say to Swiftway, you might succeed in your new product but the way you treat your customers will make you lose more and more customers and reputation. Policy is important but flexibility is also critical. You will learn one day.

  • @kyaky You will learn quickly, that you have to chose: Flexible, Reliable, Cheap - Chose any two, you cannot have three. Push for three, the provider will go bankrupt soon enough or will never expand beyond a one man show.

    Of the 1016 clients, all the ones with trouble (less then 10) seem somehow coming form this forum. This is pretty interesting really, to me it seems that clients on LET work mostly with small providers and expect a lot of flexibility and a bend over backwards support, this is possible with one man shows, not possible once you want to scale aggressively.

    I also note that my presence here invites people too much to use this board as a way to get customer support, this is definately not the intended goal of me posting here, so i regret to say: i have to stop posting here from now on to ensure client support issues are raised in our ticket system, not on this board.

  • Last reply, as i missed one from Kyaky.
    @kyaky About the "many people from the Chinese boards have the same feeling" i can only tell you, that these are likely be the same people as posting here, because all people that reported problems can be linked back to this board (and yes, most are in fact Chinese, however we have ~ 150 Chinese participants that seem very good giving constructive feedback and seem to be exceptionally happy).

  • kyakykyaky Member
    edited November 2013

    @Swiftway said:
    kyaky You will learn quickly, that you have to chose: Flexible, Reliable, Cheap - Chose any two, you cannot have three. Push for three, the provider will go bankrupt soon enough or will never expand beyond a one man show.

    Of the 1016 clients, all the ones with trouble (less then 10) seem somehow coming form this forum. This is pretty interesting really, to me it seems that clients on LET work mostly with small providers and expect a lot of flexibility and a bend over backwards support, this is possible with one man shows, not possible once you want to scale aggressively.

    I also note that my presence here invites people too much to use this board as a way to get customer support, this is definately not the intended goal of me posting here, so i regret to say: i have to stop posting here from now on to ensure client support issues are raised in our ticket system, not on this board.

    kyaky You will learn quickly, that you have to chose: Flexible, Reliable, Cheap - Chose any two, you cannot have three. Push for three, the provider will go bankrupt soon enough or will never expand beyond a one man show.

    oh boy~ you mad bro? I'm learning quickly all the time.

    you cannot have three

    Where did you get this crazy idea? I have service with @serverian backupsy. They have 4 features Flexible, Reliable, Cheap and Kindness. I don't see they talk rude like you and I. Don't blame me, I'm always rude. You shouldn't be 'cause you are running business.

    I was gonna say instead of your so-called "customer servicing" on this bloody forum, just learn to reply kindly to customers in your ticket system more, mate.

    Of the 1016 clients, all the ones with trouble (less then 10) seem somehow coming form this forum.

    oh well. you've got the statistic, haven't you. sounds like this forum is a trouble maker to you.
    The friends I know who pre-paid your beta product saw the deal from WHT. It's got nothing to do with LEB. Back to Sept, they all saw your deal from WHT forum not here.

    well... you don't have to regret and you don't have to say you are leaving. I'm not using ur service, I haven't used. I've seen a few people having problem. That's all. btw, I'm just teasing you here, mate. Take easy.

    (less then 10)

    they must be all bloody Chinese, right? lol. none of my business. you can ban their IPs.

    (and yes, most are in fact Chinese, however we have ~ 150 Chinese participants that seem very good giving constructive feedback and seem to be exceptionally happy).

    Yes, mate. I guessed you were gonna probably say that. You are in their chatting groups? you not but I'm. there is fact that most Chinese don't like to express their unhappiness and their complaints due to the language problems. I've seen the problems with other providers but hardly any of them uses this stupid statistics to support their opinions. if you were gonna be rude like me, be more.

  • You are lucky.

  • @zen you really need to learn to read, seriously :)

  • SpiritSpirit Member
    edited November 2013

    @Swiftway why you're keep repeating that people come from this forum? Should this means something? You're at this forum too. And in order to get this special deal everyone needed to come from WHT too. So what makes this forum so special to stress that out? Discussion about budget VPSs? Yes, this is what we do.
    And yes, that's most likely the biggest community to talk about budget (what this your plan for sure is) virtual private servers and people have usually pretty good idea what they talk about.

    I am quite pleased with your product but I can't overlook your rigid unflexibility which makes things harder for everyone, including you. It's not about drawing the line but complete unpreparation to solve problems which wouldn't be here in the first place if you would do things well from beginning.
    It's new untested project for you, mistakes happen, I understand. But why you're so damn stubborn to work with clients on issues which wouldn't even be here if you would deliver product in promised timeframe and this product would work from beginning within basic industry standards (which right on beginning with all limitations clearly didn't).

    tl;dr
    It would be easier for everyone, including you, if Swiftway would work with clients at problems which wouldn't be here in the first place if your company woudn't have so many problems with delivery of fully working product in promised timeframe. Don't blame clients. Don't blame this community. Swiftway is the one who messed up in the first place .

    Thanked by 1JerryHou
  • Last reply

    You back!!! Gratz. yeah~~~

  • MaouniqueMaounique Host Rep, Veteran

    Come on...

    They are not undercutting everyone and this was a one-off deal that got posted here by someone else than them.
    They saw it and provided here a bit more info.
    From where i stand it is obvious they did not intend to cater for this market and now they are saying it clearly by raising the prices and telling people which insist to get the good deal to fuck off.
    While that is not nice and they should have anticipated some of the problems, it is much better than many providers do here.
    This was in order to get a few beta testers and see how it works. When we had this need we invited our customers for free and paid them some credits too at the end, we cannot allow anonymous service and they probably had the same issue so put the 5 $ token entry price. People thought that is the deal and flocked in, now they saw it is not so and are upset.
    It is the provider's right to have limited promos and deny anyone they seem fit. It is their business after all.

    Thanked by 3Zen JerryHou alexvolk
  • @Maounique said:
    It is the provider's right to have limited promos and deny anyone they seem fit.

    You don't have clue what this thread is about and where's the problem, don't you? :) Do some reading before generic response ;-)

  • We do not want to appeal to the low end market at all! maybe this is the misunderstanding here?
    The final product will be what we call "cloud building blocks" a full range of cloud products that can be used to build a IaaS platform tailored to a business specific application needs and requirements.
    Offering various blocks:

    1. SSD CLoud with a lot of IOPS, at reasonable rate to allow for small and medium sized databases.
    2. SSD cloud with guaranteed IOPS, for larger databases
    3. SSD cloud with centralized, duplicated storage, for mission critical databases.

    4. Storage Cloud, Local storage for low cost, longer term storage

    5. Storage Cloud, centralized storage for mission critical storage
    6. Storage Cloud, with low cost storage for very long term storage (ie backups)

    7 High availability cloud, with local HA zone
    8 High availability cloud, with duplication global and a load balanced GEO DNS services.
    9. HA Cloud / CDN hybrid

    10 Hybrid Cloud, Cloud+Dedicated server solutions
    11 Hybrid Cloud, Cloud+Colocated server solutions
    12 Hybrid Cloud, Cloud+Company inhouse solution

    And various other Cloud Building blocks/product groups.
    Every product will know several launch stages:

    1. Prelaunch stage, with limited group of clients, In this time there is a high risk of problems and downtime of the product, Clients get rewarded with an attractively priced instance that, while at entry level pricing will have above entry level specifications.
      Feedback during this stage is required to finetune the offering and learn to control the backend and product. Slow roll-out of features.
      In this period, support is limited.

    2. Beta stage, with the same customers as the prelaunch stage, now allowing these customers to order the standard products and services in the product group. Faster roll out of features, faster support.

    3. Launch stage, where new customers get invited to platform and all new customers can order products in the product group. Standard support as originally intended with paid escalation possibilities and possibility for "Instance management bids"

    Client were invited to join prelaunch stage in the following ways:
    1. A invitation of selected Swiftway clients that we feel may benefit from this product
    2. Invitation by Email of customers that indicated in meetings or sales calls that they are interested to test this with us.
    3. An advertisement on Webhostingtalk forum.

    The facts are:
    1016 clients started the prelaunch stage of product #4
    4. Storage Cloud, Local storage for low cost, longer term storage

    2 people asked for a refund on the first 7 days, we allowed the first 7 days for refunds.
    1014 clients continued testing the platform.

    In the first week, we informed people that the promo package should be setup ASAP as it will have to be removed once we accept payments on the platform. The original removal of the promo package was planned for Monday 21 October 2013 as this was the date that we wanted to start accepting payment on the platform (to test this feature).
    Unfortunately Oct. 19, 2013, 5:12 a.m.one Hypervisor in Chicago failed, taking down 45 Instances. This Hypervisor failed before on Oct. 12, 2013, 11:21 a.m.
    The decision was made to replace the Hypervisor completely, this however resulted in a loss of the 45 instances on this Hypervisor.
    The affected clients were mailed and asked to recreate their Instances.
    We decided to delay the removal of the Promo package because of this incident, with at least 7 days.
    Thursday the 31th of October we removed the Promo plan and enabled payments. We also gave a lot of customers a complimentary bonus credit of up to $10,- and started to invoice all plans per hour in advance, instead of per month in advance.
    1010 clients had no problems, the bulk even made a payment into their SWC wallet, 4 customers had problems as they did not activate all their promo packages yet, they ask for flexibility from our side and enable the promo package for selection. This is not possible, as the system we used and integrated our panel with, does not easily support adding any product or service without making it available to all customers on the platform.
    Despite multiple explanations that, sure we want to help but unfortunately, we cannot help with this specific request - these 4 seem to be intend to push their request trough while:

    A It is mostly their mistake for not adding the instances in time.
    B Its not possible for us to add the promo package, without making it also available to the other 1010 customers.

    Flexibility and customer friendliness has a limit as well, these customers want to cross over that limit and we cannot accommodate their request.

    Thanked by 2Zen JerryHou
  • MaouniqueMaounique Host Rep, Veteran

    @Spirit said:
    You don't have clue what this thread is about and where's the problem, don't you? :) Do some reading before generic response ;-)

    On the contrary, I followed the other thread a lot and read all this one.
    People here thought this is a leb offer and jumped in, not understanding it was a beta/limited promo.
    As expected, problems appeared and many people wish to join now that the word got out. However, I am sure they have all the testers they need and will no longer offer the same pricing while also enforcing limits.
    Nothing wrong with that, I see no problem.
    The issues I have are with the one-man show stuff and bashing and, the well-known fact that you need a multinational company to be able to run a serious offer, but those are not so important for the discussion at hand and i dont want to bring them in as it could be interpreted as the butthurt maounique bashing another competitor after OVH even tho it is clear for everyone that is not so.

  • Swiftway said: We do not want to appeal to the low end market at all!... these customers want to cross over that limit and we cannot accommodate their request.

    Ok, No Donut for you ;)

  • anyway, now it's still under beta stage, anything can happen. I'll wait to see the plans in official launch...

  • What is wrong with some LEBers? Swiftway has made it clear that the their system was in a testing phase. Even if they have gone officially live it will take time before things settle down properly, so to complain that this stuff or that stuff is broken is really neither here nor there.
    I can't see why people are so inclined to depend on a newly established system.

  • GuanYuGuanYu Member
    edited November 2013

    @rchurch said:
    What is wrong with some LEBers? Swiftway has made it clear that the their system was in a testing phase.

    They did not. It was pointed out later with problems arising.

  • PatrickPatrick Member
    edited November 2013

    @rchurch said:
    What is wrong with some LEBers? Swiftway has made it clear that the their system was in a testing phase.

    To be fair people have the right to complain, they paid for a usable service.

    In no way did Swiftway say they will be using the pre-order clients as monkey testing.

    Correct me if i'm wrong but in no shape or form did they say this in there offer:
    http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=1299155&highlight=Swiftway

    They guaranteed delivery on 1st october which should have been a completely stable service.

  • MaouniqueMaounique Host Rep, Veteran

    @GuanYu said:
    They did not. It was pointed out later with problems arising.

    Hum, from what i remember from much more than a month ago, it was said that services will be launched later on and you could preorder.
    I just reread the WHT announcement and you are right, it says nothing about a beta, however the thread here made it clear many times they are launching a new service, before actually delivering the first VPSes.
    I am sure they never thought this will go so popular and didnt plan accordingly, so now are in the difficult situation to hold the gate so no more customers take the deal.
    It generated enough publicity though, many people got a good deal, there were problems with communicating, agreed but, all in all, i see it as decent deal for all parties.
    Who didnt manage to get the good deal in the location they wanted and/or lost the instances, well, I can see your problem, but maybe asking for a refund would be better than asking a lot of extra service even if it was their fault.
    On the other hand, i dont like some replies, getting a cheap deal from a provider does not mean they have the right to treat you as beggars, if they didnt want to back it up, should have not offered it, but, meh, when this happened with OVH people were much more forgiving and i do not understand the difference.

  • GuanYuGuanYu Member
    edited November 2013

    @Maounique said:
    Who didnt manage to get the good deal in the location they wanted and/or lost the instances, well, I can see your problem, but maybe asking for a refund would be better than asking a lot of extra service even if it was their fault.

    Those were keywords. Netherlands clients don't complain. Chicago do. Chicago got delivered with a lot of delay, was faulty, instances were deleted by swiftway staff or at their request with warning to wait. And some of those who were waiting in this chaotic situation are blamed now and can't get what they paid for.

  • MaouniqueMaounique Host Rep, Veteran

    GuanYu said: And now some of those who were waiting in this chaotic situation are blamed and can't get what they paid for.

    So they should ask for a refund. Swiftway said they wont deliver what was promised so will probably not deny a refund. I am sure they didnt plan it this way, but since they cant or are unwilling to provide the service, will probably refund you.

  • @Maounique said:
    So they should ask for a refund. Swiftway said they wont deliver what was promised so will probably not deny a refund. I am sure they didnt plan it this way, but since they cant or are unwilling to provide the service, will probably refund you.

    Unfortunately, they clearly said can't get a refund.

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