North Country Gazette



IPowerWeb Disaster Deepens

Posted on Thursday, 10 of January , 2008 at 11:37 pm

COMMENTARY

It’s been a little over two months since IPowerWeb, aka Start Logic, implemented their mandated “transition” for their customers to a “new hosting platform”, presumably going from VDeck 1 to VDeck 3, that is if your website doesn’t disappear in the process and you don’t end up going bald from tearing your hair out over the lack of or arrogantly unhelpful “customer support”.

Now, issues of security and privacy are occurring at IPowerWeb, the last straw for many of their claimed 700,000 customers who are frantically trying to cancel their accounts and find a more stable and reliable hosting service for their websites.

Within 8 hours after NCG’s last article about the ongoing problems with IPower, The North Country Gazette sustained even more down time when IPowerweb took down the server in an obvious retaliatory action for the exercise of First Amendment rights after NCG published its article encouraging dissatisfied IPowerWeb customers to file a complaint against the company with the Arizona Attorney General’s consumer frauds division.

Let’s see if they choose to retaliate again in an attempt to silence the dissent.

Scores of complaints have been filed against IPowerWeb within the last several weeks and the attorney general’s office has confirmed that an investigation has been opened in the matter and that have contacted IPower for responses to the complaints.

IPower caused their customers to incur substantial losses during the Christmas retail season, seriously impacting their websites and their business operations.

The outcry over the lack of customer support is becoming deafening.  http://www.northcountrygazette.org/2007/12/22/ipower_grinch/

In July, IPower merged with a firm called Endurance International and since that time, the unreliability of IPower has increased 100 fold.   On Oct. 23, IPower announced that they were switching to a new server configuration.  That has resulted in a horrendous situation for their customers and quite frankly, it has become obvious that customer service and satisfaction is not IPower’s primary interest.

There are nightmare stories of people who have lost their businesses, their income, their livelihoods because of IPower, because their website no longer functions and because customer support at IPower is virtually non-existent. They create a problem and then run like hell, denying their involvement as they run or give you insulting replies, IF you are fortunate enough to get a reply. https://www.thepoint.com/campaigns/just-say-no-to-i-power-web

“There are no options”, the customer is told.  You either allow IPowerWeb to transfer your website and business for you or you pay someone to do it if you can’t do it yourself and brace yourself for multiple and ongoing headaches.

A campaign calling for a boycott by potential new customers of IPowerWeb has been initiated as well as an organized effort to commence an class action lawsuit against IPowerWeb for business interruptions and monetary losses incurred as a result of IPower’s mandated “transition” to new servers and “hosting platform”. Several law firms have expressed an interest.  Others may contact news@northcountrygazette.org

Injured and disgruntled customers are urged to file complaints with the Arizona Attorney General’s office, the Arizona Better Business Bureau and the Federal Trade Commission, all of whom have on-line complaint forms.

http://www.azag.gov/consumer/ http://www.arizonabbb.org/file_a_complaint.asp http://www.ftc.gov/ftc/cmplanding.shtm

Attaining access to your control panel that used to take one or two clicks of your mouse, now takes four or five, using a “transition kiosk”, that is if you can access the control panel at all.

Email service has become virtually non-existent through IPower, causing many customers to throw up their hands in despair and frustration.

In recent days, a security issue has come to light at IPower and their “support” persons are engaging in virtual harassment. In the case of The North Country Gazette, when an e-mail was sent to Gary Engel, supposed vice president of IPowerWeb Customer Support, advising that access to the control panel was being denied, emails began coming from “IPower” with the subject “The Information You Requested”, telling us our user name and password and advising to change the password.  The thing was, we hadn’t requested anything from IPower.  We recognize an exercise in futility by now. 

NCG filed yet another complaint with Engel, telling him that nothing had been requested from Ipower.  He then tried to claim that we had filed a support request through our “control panel”.  Such was obviously untrue on its face as if we couldn’t access the control panel, how could we file a support question from there? When he was challenged to produce a copy of the alleged support request we had supposedly filed, he got silent.

Three times IPower tried to force us to change the password, falsely claiming we had made a request to do so.  Some readers relate that same ploy has been tried with them and when they attempt to change the password, they are totally denied access to their website and cannot connect with a “customer care representative”.

NCG isn’t the only one experiencing access and security issues with IPowerWeb.  One NCG reader wrote, “I’m writing in regards to your 12/6 article regarding iPower web hosting to describe my own grievance with iPower and also to alert you to clearly negligent behavior on their part in regards to their privacy policy and security practices.

 “On Dec. 14,  I received an email from iPower with the subject “Important: IPOWER Account Moving to New Platform Next Week.” We don’t use iPower’s services (at least, not for a long time) but a few days later I decided to check into the email to make sure it wouldn’t affect us. I didn’t remember the password and clicked on the familiar “Forgot Password” link. iPower’s password retrieval mechanism asks you to input the domain name in question and it will email your password to the email address on file. The problem is that after you click submit, the system spits back the following confirmation message: “The account settings e-mail for your username has been sent to me@example.com”…except it had my real email address! It doesn’t take a security expert to see the problem here. Any enterprising young hacker could compile a collection of domain names hosted at iPower (there are many ways to do this, none of which I will mention), write a short script, and thus have access to the email addresses associated with those domain name accounts at iPower! Personal information is being exposed to users who have not properly authenticated themselves. This is a huge problem!

“But what’s worse is the response I’ve been met with from iPower. They have no process for properly directing my notices, all I get back each time is an incredibly naive ‘there is no problem with our security’ or something along those lines — even when I cite specific examples. You can read http://groups.drupal.org/node/7976 for some of the details… They are clearly being negligent in ignoring this security hole.

“My guess is that thousands of other people have a beef with IPower too”.  He has set up a website for people to post their complaints and experiences regarding IPower http://ipowercomplaints.com./

Another IPower customer wrote to NCG, expressing her dissatisfaction.

“I was on the phone, on hold for four hours tonight.  The first time, almost two hours, I get a rep and he says let me look into this and after 5 minutes on hold I am disconnected.  I call right back, almost another two hours on hold and I get another rep who says he will look into it and I said hey, that is what the other guy said, and after two hours holding I was disconnected.  The guy says that is because IPOWER disconnects calls AFTER 2 HOURS!!!!  Then they should speed up the service and not leave us on hold for two hours.

“They screwed up my billing, moved me to a new platform, transferred my account cancelled my old one, when I went to get a refund of my payment from the old account, they deducted $50 for a cancellation fee!  I told them you made me a new account when you transferred me to the new platform and made me cancel the old account, and even though I am a still a customer, you are charging me $50??  They finally saw the light after I threatened a lawsuit and gave me a refund.  I wait for the credit…. 

“Today, what prompted the call was that my domain privacy was dropped, and they sent me an update for my website blog and when I did it, my blog crashed due to an internal server error.  Still, after 5 hours,  I have no answer as after holding for almost two hours twice in a row, they disconnect me for being on their line for two hours.  Go figure”.

Another reader writes, “I am aggravated, insulted, lost business, lost countless hours of sleep and valuable time!  I was with IPOWER for five years…they used to be ranked #1…but in the recent months, we have experienced nothing but pain.  For the past 2-3 weeks we have attempted to get them on the phone but we have given up after 1.5 hours of holding.  On Sunday I actually attempted to hold for as long as it takes to get a tech on the line, I must regret that after 4.5 hours I gave up.

“On Monday I figured the sales people would pick up the phone.  Well, after a few attempts to the sales people I got through and requested a supervisor to get on the line or else we’ll take our hosting needs elsewhere.  After the supervisor was on the phone and about 30 seconds into my complaint to him, he simply put me on hold without telling me. I was talking to myself and I was holding for about 10 minutes and I just simply gave up.  I called back and got him on the line again and this time he just hung up on me. I have never ever been so insulted and disrespected. I demand answers! I have paid for services and they are not fulfilling their end of the contract by providing the services I have paid for.  I am unable to contact them to fix the problem.

“I will not allow this to continue any further, after I was hung up on, I called back and told them I will be taking my business else where and that is exactly what I did.

“I have complained to the district attorney’s office in Arizona about a few hours ago. I will continue voicing my concerns about this company’s bad business practices to every website and every organization I can find”.

Irate customers of IPowerWeb hosting services are organizing a mutli-faceted approach in attempting to recover losses sustained by IPower’s recently mandated “transition” process, the serious lack of customer support and alleged breach of contract.

While efforts are being mounted to initiate a class action lawsuit against the company, individual customers are also being advised to file their complaints with the Arizona Attorney General’s Office, Consumer Fraud Division http://www.azag.gov/consumer/

Although the attorney general’s office cannot represent a specific individual consumer, they can represent a class of consumers.

IPowerWeb’s offices are located at 919 E. Jefferson St., Phoenix, Arizona.

The Arizona Attorney General has the authority to bring actions alleging violations of the Consumer Fraud Act. Sometimes the enforcement authority is delegated to County Attorneys. A private citizen can also bring an action for a violation of the Consumer Fraud Act within one year from the date the claim arises.

There is strength in numbers.  Let your voice be heard, not only by seeking a state investigation of IPowerWeb but a federal investigation by the Federal Trade Commission. 

http://www.northcountrygazette.org:80/2007/12/16/boycott_ipower/ http://www.northcountrygazette.org/2007/12/06/stay_away_ipower/ http://www.northcountrygazette.org/2007/12/09/ipower_customers/ http://www.northcountrygazette.org/2007/12/14/transition_disaster/

http://www.vistainter.com:80/reviews/I/ipower.com/  

http://www.northcountrygazette.org/2007/12/17/ipower_fraud/   1-10-08

 

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