Ipower has no power

The horror of Ipowerweb can not be emphasized enough. I hate to say it, but Ipower is my web host. I have had them for almost a year and half. Why an I still with them I’ll explain later. I’m amazed that anyone would rate Ipower Service as being good. Simply put, they stink. However, I can put the following in perspective for those who are reading this. First, when anyone, like me, first joins Ipower your questions are very basic. Their techs can handle these questions with no problems and you, as a customer think they are great. Once you get beyond the basics, the knowledge drops and the excuses increase. If you join, you will see for yourself after you get through basic setup and use of Ipower.

I’m also shocked how Ipower advertises certain features and does not support these features. They brag about guest book features, MySql, PHP, etc, but once you have problems forget it. At this stage you are beyond the basics of Ipower and if you need help with some of the more advanced features forget it. Get use to Ipower techs saying, “we just offer this product as a service to our customers but do not actually support it.” A good example was I had my advanced guest book hacked. I went to Ipower for help and heard their standard excuse, but they told me they would fix it for $50. Most of Ipower features are from 3rd parties, email, php, sql, php, cgi, etc, etc, etc and in all cases they either want to charge to help you, give you excuses that it is not their software and can’t help and if you are lucky, may give you a link to a site pertaining to the feature. Tech support is useless except for getting you through basic setup and basic problems. After that, you’ll quickly grow beyond their expertise and excuses becomes their way of acknowledging their lack of knowledge.

Control Panel...forget any good documentation. Email Support....forget them ever replying to your email....Phone Support....wait and wait and then you will get a tech with a script of excuses----management help, forget it, they are protected like they are gold. It’s terrible, if not the worse support in the business.

Most recently Ipower had a virus on their server. The following should indicate their lack of concern for customers. This virus went on for days (at least 6 or 7) spreading itself and Ipower treated it like a routine problem. Any of my customers who went to my site got the virus as I’m sure was the case for hundreds of other site owners. Even google cache had the virus. Finally, they got rid of the virus, but no followup, no offer of how to help those who got it and so on. Ipower went back to business as normal, ignoring their customers and offering excuses.

Anyone who see’s Ipower being pushed by another site as number 1 as a top host, don’t be fooled. The reason they are pushing Ipower is because Ipower gives them a percentage for every person who signs up for Ipower through them. It’s about money, not service. Anyone who is fooled by rewards, labels, etc are going to swallow Ipowers marketing schemes. Look elsewhere, not for Ipower, if you want service and support after the sale.

Why do I still use Ipower. It has to do with Search Engine Ranking and uncertainty. It took me a year to get ranked well in google for 10 keywords. My fear is if I change servers, that year of hard work goes down the drain. I read all about 301 redirects, etc, but at best it seems to be a message of mixed wisdom when it comes to search engines. So Ipower has my business because of not wanting to lose my rank if I change servers, but if there was a 100% guarantee I wouldn’t lose rank, I’d change in a minute.

That’s my 2 cents. If you got a virus in the week of Oct 18, 2004, don’t be upset at the site. Like me, I wasn’t aware of it spreading throughout the net since Ipower ignored telling me they had a virus on the server. Do you really want someone like this as your host?

I agree. I resell hosting and have about 15 accounts with iPower. After tech support dropping the ball several times, billing failing to renew my accounts (when they were set to AutoRenew), terrible grammar in tech support e-mails (is this outsourced to somewhere overseas, or the techs just don't speak English?), and a variety of other issues, I decided I can't deal with them anymore. I'll be moving all my accounts to another host and suffer the search engine wrath. If anyone is considering iPower - they are great with pre-sales support. But after you've been with them and have a problem that's not in their manual, you are SOL. I noticed the original post was from October 2004. Today is May 2005. I don't see them improving with time.

"terrible grammar in tech support e-mails"
It's funny how small things have a huge impact...
I always notice grammar and spelling in emails from large organizations...
If this is how your company chooses to communicate with the outside world, I can't help but wonder if they put the same level of care into their work.

Then who would you recommend

First of all, you are a moron. I am an Ipower employee so this is coming straight from the company. Why is it that you think we are responsible for educating you in PHP or any other software? If you understand anything about the web hosting environment or even HOW a server runs you might think differently about Ipower. Why is it our responsibilty to train some idiot on how to use php? Do you think they are paying us to be instructors? We are there to make sure that the servers are functioning properly and that is it. I am paying a lot of money for college, so why do you think you can pay 7 dollars a month for an education in web design? Before shared hosting was even an option in web hosting...obviously there was one site per server. Do you have any idea what it is to administrate a Unix based server? Much less making sure that all of the USERS dont **** everything up? Hmmmm Maybe you should look into things a little more before making an *** of yourself....USER.

Take it easy mate, everybody is entitled to their own opinions and expectations.
db3204's post is over two years old.

You're not doing a good job of representing the professionalism that I would expect from a hosting company. Your post alone (not db3204) would be enough to have me switch providers.

Maybe I was out of line. I am 20 years old and I am currently earning my bachelors in data communications(some background for you) Trust me, Ipower is far fromt perfect. Shared hosting itself is far from perfect. The main responsibility of this web hosting company is server functionality. I deal with this day in and day out. Customers want the world for free. They call me asking for help and then they continue to argue if the solution I give them is not satisfactory. Think about it guys...Aside from the whole " I am paying for a service here and my business depends on it" BS...Most customers pay less than 100 dollars a YEAR to "run a business." I really get tired of hearing that. If you think you are going to run a successful business with that program and expect that it NEVER FAILS, you might think differently when we suggest that you purchase a Virtual Private Server or a Dedicated server. If you guys are Ipower customers or have any questions about anything just let me know.

Discordia666,

I definitely see where you're coming from, and I emphasize with you on customer-relations. However, sometimes I think it's easy to forget that a customers' technical-knowledge isn't always reliable. In the case of shared-hosting, I know customers are usually expected to set things up and maintain them on their own. Shared hosting may not be the right choice, but that's the choice they made (probably thanks to excellent marketing by the hosting provider).

I'm personally not an IPower customer, but I hope you stick around these forums. Any insight in shared hosting is welcome. ;-)

Visitors alerted me they were getting viruses from my IPower website. I went to the main page and picked up 5. I have no idea how they got there, and much less idea how to rid the site of the infestation. I'm not at all skilled. I barely manage to create and upload the pages to share my local history research and promote a few books on that subject. Can anyone please tell me how to rid my site of these viruses?

depending on which browser you use locally, check the source code for your index page (front page) You might try looking for something called an IFrame hack. Some builders use IFrames intentionally so this might not be the case. Typically IFrames are detected as trojans. What they will usually do is redirect the viewer to another site or whatever the case may be. If you need further assistance you can email me. Just let me know because I do not want to reveal my indentity to just anyone. Also, Ipower is not responsible for your site having viruses. Our servers are protected..but if your sites code is not strong enough to keep people out you might want to have it examined by a web designer. We can also have it removed by our Pro Serv department. Thanks.

Update on Ipower.....finally after years of idiot excuses, rude support, etc, I switched servers. What a difference. You do not have to wait on line for 30 to 40 minutes and people at blue host actually try to help. The customer service is dramatically different.

Before I jumped ship, I signed up for blue host for a few months wanting to be sure they were the host I wanted. Blue host techs are polite and go out of their way to help. The incompetence of ipower techs are beyond explanation.

A good example is how the person who works for Ipower responded. You can expect the same type of attitude when you call. You don't have to take my word for it. A quick search on google and you will see thousands of complaints. Here are a few that tell the story.

americanbadbusinesslist.com/ipowerweb-complaints.htm

ahfb2000.com/webmaster_help_desk/showthread.php?t=4087


thesqueakywheel.com/complaints/2006/OCT/complaint10261.cfm


geekswithblogs.net/tmoore/archive/2005/08/17/50398.aspx

(note: because of Dev's rules, I could not put the http:// in front of the above links. You will have to copy and paste if you want to check them out).


If you are looking for a good host, look anyplace but Ipower.

Well, I am sad after reading these posts.... just interviewed today for a Technical Support and Sales rep position at iPower!

From the interview and research I did from their website, I thought they seemed pretty exciting of a company to work for. I start Monday March 12, 2007.

Did I make a bad mistake?

I worked at Ipower for quite some time. If you can deal with not being organized, really really mad customers who are not treated right, and micro management...then Ipower is the place for you. The only good thing about Ipower is if you do exactly as they say, its not such a bad place to work for. Do not care about the customers, most of them are idiots anyways. People trying to have a business on the internet...do not know the first thing about websites...and they expect it to work. I could go on forever, good luck to you.

BTW Blue host is a subsidiary of Ipower....