Our first story was submitted by Jonathan. His story just validates my decision not to host any of my websites on Philippine soil. I would hate to generalize but too many stories from colleagues and personal observations have led me to believe that it isn’t reliable to host your online real estate here.
Here is an excerpt of his experience with Philhosting, a local web hosting company.
I was in China before and I just want to try a different hosting company so I browsed and looked for Philippine hosting companies that allow credit card payments. I am just testing a website so as long as I can find one that is cheap and allows card payments. Philhosting Company Ltd. was on the result from Google so I just checked the site and there are cheap plans and would be perfect as my test server. I signed up and was expecting to receive an email for my login details. Well, I did receive an email but just as a confirmation that I paid and such, and I want my site to go live and was expecting the nameserver details. I browsed their site for FAQ, but nothing on those are really helpful even for other technical issues. I even submitted a support ticket but did not receive and replies.
You can read the full post on his blog.
What disappoints me the most is the fact that the customers can only complain but the company hasn’t done anything significant to address it. There are no updates on the blogs that showed any sign of change. The comment threads are long and I can feel the rage and frustration from each disappointed customer.
Here are some of the sites, excerpts included, that have written about their personal experience on Philhosting’s lack of accountability and poor service:
Now, what does this mean? “You applied for SHARED HOSTING, and you demand like you have your own admin access. Much better if you apply an hosting account based on outside the country. While local hosting company like us giving you FREE support.Let’s see if you can get support without paying dollar.” Wow – such sarcasm. – gogirlcafe
Hi guys, sorry if my blog was down for several days, my webhost has a server problem. My newly installed Wordpress 2.7 become Wordpress 2.5 again! OMG! And my November 2008 – December 2008 posts was lost. I was restoring my previous post from the Google cache. Hope I can retrieve them all. – gl3nnx
And they claim, they are “Philippines’ No.1 web/email hosting provider. We endeavor to make our customers happy”. Yeah right! Nice marketing! Evaluate your clients feed back! Read your clients comments on web hosting review sites! They are all negative! – dox ltd
Dox Ltd has more links to other blog posts complaining about the service. Some posts have been deleted (I wonder why) and also found a link that points to philhostingsucks.com (as of this writing, the domain isn’t owned so it could’ve been just placed in the thread to spite the company).
I am reaching out to Philhosting’s management to listen to these customers. Look at your processes and personnel and weed out the culprits that give your company a bad name. I know that things can be addressed. The time to act is now. Imagine how much business has been lost and more in the future if it isn’t fixed.
Thank you for posting my story. I am happy with one Philippine hosting company and will back to them again as soon as the month is over.
I’m no longer hosted in Philhosting, but they are my registrant. When my domain expires I’ll be registering it thru my current host.
I like your last message. I hope Philhosting’s management will listen to their customers. Mabait naman si Ruel and he’s approachable, I have nothing but good words for him. Kaso may mga personnel sya na hindi ‘yata’ dapat nandun hehe.
Merong isang blogger na employee nila. Sinasagot nya mga reklamo ng iba about their company thru his blog. Next in line na nga dapat yung sagot nya sa post ko, pero hindi nya na tinuloy pag post, I wonder why. I just dont want to include the link here. For sure, mababasa nya rin ito coz as he said, he’s in the look out for negative posts about their company. Iniipon nya lang daw.
Vertito – I normally don’t post comments that have a sales or marketing tone but I am allowing it this time so that other consumers can check your services to validate your offer.
One comment though – your contact page states “Whether by mobile, phone, email, or ticketing system, we are looking forward to…” I tried looking for a phone or mobile number on your site but don’t see any. Also wondering why there is no business address as well. I’ve learned to keep an eye on these things before I do business with a company.
For the benefit of fellow consumers, it’s part of customer service to be transparent and provide the necessary communication lines for any feedback, both good and bad. Hope this can be fixed. Thanks for dropping by.
Jonathan – my pleasure. It’s my role to share stories such as these, this being part of my mission to create a feedback mechanism for all businesses and consumers alike. Appreciate it greatly.
Amor – thanks for dropping by.
It pains me to see companies getting such a hard beating, being a business owner myself. But, being a consumer as well, it is important that the communication lines are open for both. The goal really is to have them hear the feedback and fix it. The customers will then start to trust again and even probably give them another chance. I know that customers are only upset at the situation until it gets out of hand, if not addressed properly, then will turn into a personal attack.
Good to hear that Ruel has gained your trust. Kudos to one of his employees for being proactive and addressing it. It’s a good start. I’m keen on getting more feedback from them so that we can inform their customers.
Jam – i searched for Vertito and here’s the address i gathered
East Bank Road
San Mateo
Rizal Manila 1255 Philippines
Sales Hotline: 639-184477120
Tech Helpline: 639-184477120
it is still a bit incomplete and the fax number on their website on the Contact page has a different country code i think. just wondering… I always see Vertito comments on other posts regarding Philhosting.
@Jonathan
We are grateful for you to clear that up with that billing address issue. To be exact, a whois to our domain would show the numbers of our address and contacts.
VERTITO is shown from one link to another of another hosting company, as we are in a difficult pursue, to bring back hosting confidence, reliability and trustworthy of Filipinos on hosting grounds owned and managed by Filipinos. Greater statistics shows that no longer that Filipino have the trust to our local hosting companies, we are in fight against that to regroup pinoy clients to choose our very own, though it would be a tough mental and marketing fight, so we have come to rely on marketing words by our yet satisfied clients, as we continue to grow. Hope this answers that.
@Jam Mayer-Flores
Merry Christmas to you also and thanks for the criticism and opportunity you’ve given to us.
Nowadays, at this decade, posting address, names and contact numbers does not really sum up the confidence, trust, quality and reliability that is due to or by a company.
Digging Google deeper would lead your inquiries to us anyway. As always, the #1 seal would not always say that the seal holder is truly a number 1 as Filipino’s are above naive generally speaking. Though, that transparency suggestion would be updated soon, thanks for that.
Now, on the fax numnber thing.
Fax communication is generally a slower form of communication type compared to email/ticketing system that we have specially on non-working office hours. To reach a faster communication (esp. on billing verification via fax), we approached this slow communication problem in a way that it would be traditionally faster and convenient BY RECEIVING FAX via mobile!
We have the means to receive fax communications by mobile, thus eliminating the problem of non-working office hours of fax communication. Secondly, fax machines does not always need to be located besides each sales/technical guys for handling clients, it actually adds more minutes on dealing with clients. Therefore, our means of receiving faxes are better, faster and convenient than what we tradionally used before.
Why our fax number is UK number (+44). Well, its actually an efax number and efax numbers that begins with +63 are not yet available for Philippines. Hope this clears up.
Why no phones? It is not fair not to document any technical support converstation via phone converstation and suffer client’s satisfaction at the end. That is why, we prefer email/ticketing support as it documents every converstations to our clients for future refence and records. IF WE TRULY offer 24×7 sales/tech support, we’ve come to realize that phone support is no longer needed on sales and tech support then. This is logically speaking on business world that do business transactions online. The rest of the world still practice that, but we see it conventional in this decade and world with fast-emerging and fast-improving technology.
YOU CAN try to shoot us an email at support at vertito dot com, bearing any test subject or questions, we would reply that manually 24×7 FOR YOU TO TEST our responsiveness as we aim for longer client relationship for better business growth as our business model.
Hope we answer you then. We would be happy to be of service to anyone.
Merry Christmas to all!
@jonathan of toastedbrains.info , thanks for subscribing to us!
And with more fellow wishful address inquiries:
VERTITO Hosting Solutions
Mobile: +63.9184477120
Mobile EFax: +44.1446500100
Email: support@vertito.com
34 CV Bdlg, East Bank Road,
San Mateo, Pasig City,
METRO MANILA , PH
We have explained the legality and referential weight gain of having email and ticketing support against phone support with our previous comments. Hope that helps.
We are not number one, we want to be, though IT IS not possible. Being number one is a figurative word and referential just as as the word beauty. We all know that, ‘coz no one can please everybody.
Vertito – appreciate the explanation of your service policies. This is indeed helpful for your current and future clients.
As you explained, phone conversations may not be best for documentation and customer service purposes. This is to be respected, as you know your business.
May I suggest that this be taken out or perhaps be reworded instead? A client might expect this and will still look for the number on your site. One can’t be expected to look through Google as not everyone is techie enough to know this.
Agree 100% that we can’t please everyone but setting expectations, having the ability to assist and offer solutions is one way to attain business and trust with customers.
I see that Jonathan has subscribed to your service. I’m glad that a connection was made.
More power to your business and keep the standards as you may see fit to bring excellent service. Appreciate your feedback and let’s keep the lines open.
@Jam
We are grateful with your deeds of having open discussion on this commentary forms including your fairly suggestions.
Rest assure that we would continue on to provide hosting reliability, service quality, platform stability, good and timely support aiming for long-term customer satisfaction for a win-win make over of web hosting in Philippines.
Thanks for the bump and happy new year to all!
Vertito : stop pretending you are a local host. nakakatawa mga sagot mo, a local landline phone is one important means of communication, phoneline for sales and billing would suffice. kahit di na kailangan ng phone ang support.
You can laugh all day, its good for our health, but let us not pretend. Unconsciously am sure you’re not even aware in our daily life, we do practice this approach.
Paano?
Most of us, doesn’t even bother to get contact phone numbers of fuel stations when we drop by for fuel and fuel service…, the phone numbers for Levis stores when we buy their jeans, Jolibee’s hotline perhaps?
YES, phone contact details IS ONE important, we never say IT’S NOT. WHAT we did say, is we chose and prefer email and ticketing support and documentation system for all our billing and support po. IMHA, pls re-read po.
Thanks!
hi guys! this philhosting let my domain name expired even if i paid ahead of time
na extra pla ako dito slamat po .. walang kwenta ang philhosting!
@admin
We appreciate the opportunity you’ve given us to enlighten more of our local philippine hosting products and services coz of your website’s referral.
Our clients have expanded a lot and continue to grow.
In connection to this, everybody is granted and invited to use
PINOY
as a new signup discount coupon to avail 10% on all our hosting plans. Get yours today, we are open for feedbacks and reviews – glad to answer them all.
Vertito.com
hi. i have the same issue on philhosting (or “phailhosting” i should say). me and my thesis-mates have been doing this website of our school. we purchased a domain from philhosting and it went well for a couple of months anyway. but then things started to get “annoying” last month..everytime we log in to cpanel we receive their “service temporary unavailable” message, stating that they’re experiencing server glitches. we tried to contact them but to no avail. we even e-mailed them stating our problem but all we got was a ticket..a ticket???can you imagine that????we we’re so pissed off. we called them earlier this day but we found out they will only cater their customers from monday-friday. @ 9am-6pm. what the—??? this all too much,especially for beginners like us. we’re just trying to finish a project for crissake! and now we can’t even access our own files!! darn it. excuse me but this is just how i feel..see,i’m the programmer and all those sleepless nights for this???we’re getting back at them this monday and i hope they’ll answer cause if they won’t,well..this is the internet, right?
4:41 AM
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We have posted a general approach on choosing local web host as you can folow here
http://www.pinoyblogosphere.com/2009/12/08/basis-for-choosing-a-good-web-hosting-platform/
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