

Web Hosting Dilemmas: Who To Avoid - MatCarpenter
http://www.sofamoolah.com/blogging/web-hosting-dilemmas-who-to-avoid/

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bradleyland
A couple of things:

If you follow tech news, you'll notice that every major cloud based service
has experienced some level of down time, so while you should "avoid" shared
hosts like HostGator (I think this goes without saying), you shouldn't expect
that just because you go with a cloud service like MediaTemple, Amazon,
Heroku, etc, you don't need to plan for possible outages. MT also had their
fair share of issues back when they were getting started. Amazon has had some
well publicized issues. Both of these wouldn't be an issue for those who
engineer their systems properly.

It's hard to beat simplicity when it comes to reliability. We don't need the
scaling capabilities of cloud services, so we go with simple VPSs. Our primary
hosting is straight forward VPS systems hosted with a provider colocated at
Colo4 in Dallas. I've had systems with them for 5 years now and I've never
experienced a failure. We still maintain redundant services in a Freemont data
center just in case.

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wccrawford
HostGator does random license/identity checks on customers? What kind of
idiocy is that?

If you sell an service with 'instant' in the name, it had better be. Let them
get started instantly. If you want to do random checks on content, go for it.
But don't piss off your customers before they've even started. Especially if
they've got any weight in the industry.

~~~
garethsprice
HostGator is also one of the largest consumer-facing web hosts for small
sites. They don't require these checks from everyone, just orders flagged as
high risk.

I'd imagine they're flagging these orders using a third party risk
verification/fraud detection service. Sofa Moolah is registered in Australia,
and International orders are a high indication of risk - especially as
Australia's region of the world includes Malaysia (huge hotbed of credit card
fraud).

Given the very large amount of fraud in web hosting (people ordering using
fraudulent credit cards, that can result in $20-50 chargeback fees for that $8
account), it's not unreasonable to ask for verification. Annoying, but not
unreasonable.

~~~
wccrawford
They specifically told him he was randomly selected. Yes, he picked the 'high
risk' web hosting choice, but that's no reason to give him lousy service.

They could have come to the same end as far as service checks go without
pissing him off and losing him as a customer. Not to mention everyone he
tells.

If all they are worried about is the chargeback, they should have enabled his
account immediately, then started running the checks. If he fails the checks,
THEN you disable the account. What would it cost them? Like $.20? Instead,
this way cost them at least 1 serious customer.

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paulnelligan
OR you could get a VPS slice at linode and set it up for yourself, one day of
work, but if you're serious about your product, it's well worth it!

