Feb

3ix Scam: Looking for Feedbacks

Remember my post how 3iX scammed me of my money and actually got away with it? There had been a lot of comments about that post. The sad thing about it is 3iX is still in the business. Yep, they are still doing business scams.

How you ask? Well, it works like this:

You subscribe to their super duper cheap hosting service (as low as $1/mo). You type in your credit card number or paypal account and they charge you for a whole year of subscription. Then you start using their web hosting service, and so happy that you got an excellent deal.

Or so you thought.

Less than a year after you signed up, your website is now down, and the cpanel is inaccessible. You email them about your website and you get no response. So you go to their website and hit the chat button, which connects you to their “technical support representative”. With their less than below average English skill, they tell you that you have violated their “terms of service”. Of course, you ask them how in the world it happened when you only have a plain wordpress website with less than 10 readers per month? You wait for their answer, and they disconnect the chat.

Thinking that your internet line is crappy, you connect again to their chat support, engage with a technical representative who talks the same, spells the same, but with a different name. You tell them again your problem and they tell you again that you have violated their terms of service. Again, you ask why. And they tell you that you have a script on your site that brings their servers down, affecting other users.

Then you ask for logs and other evidences that prove their findings. They tell you they don’t have it. You ask why, they tell you their backup servers went down yesterday and they are still recovering the files. You ask them to bring your site back online until they can present a proof that your website (among probably thousands of other websites hosted on the same server) is the one bringing the server down. They tell you they can’t. Because they already deleted all your files and those files are in the backup server that went down yesterday.

Frustrated, you tell them that they suck and you will file a lawsuit against them. They say OK, and disconnects the chat. Two days later, you get an email from the 3iX guy that you need to pay them $150 for engaging a technical representative into troubleshooting your website, which caused the server to go berserk (did I mention that there are probably thousands of sites in that server, and he randomly picked you?).

Yes, this happens over and over and over again. And he is still in the business.

Are you one of those customers who paid 3iX for webhosting service? I would like to know your experience with them.

Are you one of those who got ripped off and is in the process of filing a class action suit against 3ix? I am interested!

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7 Comments to “3ix Scam: Looking for Feedbacks”

Steve March 6, 2011 at 5:02 pm
I think it is not so much a scam as abysmal customer service.

Firstly, they cannot charge you this addition $150 or whatever unless the terms of service explicitly state that you agree to it. If the terms *do* state this, then caveat emptor — you should read the contract before you sign!

I strongly suspect that they have poor security, and sites get broken into by crackers who install a phishing or warez website. This causes huge traffic, the provider spots it, sees the illegal content, and shuts down the site — without bothering to see if you are a victim or complicit. Their poor customer service means they simply assume you guilty and then try to make you pay for the problem. With the small amount of money they charge, they have neither the resource nor the inclination to spend any time on your problem — after all, you’re worth less than $10 a year to their bottom line…

It comes down to the fact that you may not always get what you pay for, but if you only pay peanuts then you shouldn’t be surprised when all you get is monkeys.

I’d chalk the lost $24 down to experience, and sign up with a better service (I can reccomend hostdime.com as being good value)
Steve March 6, 2011 at 5:15 pm
I took a look at the 3ix website.

The ‘30 day guarantee’ does specifically state that the 30day limit is from initial signup only, not from future upgrades. If this was not the case when you signed up, they probably subsequently fixed the wording to disambiguate it after your complaints. If this is the case then they should have given you an apology; I can’t tell though as there is no date published on the guarantee document.

The ‘Acceptable use policy’ does specifically state that the site owner is solely responsible for whatever is on the site, even if someone else broke in and put it there. You need to prove YOURSELF that you are innocent, they can assume you guilty. So, they acted within their rights accodring to this (somewhat draconian) contract wording. They also have the right to shut you down at any time at their sole discretion and you have no comeback…

However, I can find nowhere that it states they are allowed to charge you for their time in investigating problems. You agree to indemnify them if they are sued by a third party (eg, if someone puts a copy of Windows7 on your website and Microsoft sue 3ix) but nowhere does it say they can charge you an arbitrary amount for their time. So, this is the only thing they did which seems to be in violation of the T&Cs.

So, it is a draconian SLA and T&Cs, and their customer service sucks, but its what you signed up for and you can’t reasonably expect any better for $1/month.
greg July 20, 2011 at 12:54 pm
i’ve been with them for 4 years. 4 years of headache. i have the same bad experienced as the other people saying the same poor and disgusting service of 3iX. I scream almost everyday talking with their technical live suport and i’m so tired.

I’M SO PISSED-OFF AND DISAPPOINTED WITH 3iX SERVICE AND SUPPORT. VERY DANGEROUS HOSTING COMPANY.

I DON’T WANT YOU TO EXPERIENCE WHAT I HAD WITH THEM SO PLEASE,
PLEASE AVOID 3iX. PLEASE …..
David January 19, 2012 at 5:40 pm
I have been with 3ix for 2 years. I have had one problem. I could not access some folders. This was fixed via on-line support. I have also noticed files appearing in my disk space, which I deleted. I therefore believe there is a security issue. I wouldn’t use 3iX for a commercial website but they are fine as a very cheap host but then what would you expect for so little money?
Eduardo Portillo February 11, 2012 at 10:25 am
the service has no name just stinks!! the sites hosted there had been hacked many times, is infested with virus and malware, imagine the damage to my business when a potential client enter to my site and his antivirus block the acces to my site!! as you can imagine he is no more a potential client. lost for days becouse the mail server is down! lots of clients gonne and the day I finally had other hosting ready to transfer the server craches and I’m right now hanging in the wind hopping nothing is lost like the other times.
Gerar March 14, 2012 at 10:39 pm
Internet marketing scam artists do the same, selling you on the salacious headlines of making money in your sleep with their push button technology which can make you 100’s of thousands of dollars and only cost $39.95. You know the one’s I am talking about right?
In my own foolishness I got ripped $2500.00 in one shot. And you know what? They referred me to a legitimate organization.
CS…mer is a very big scam.. They are thieves
Gerard March 14, 2012 at 10:43 pm
In my own foolishness I got ripped $2500.00 in one shot. And you know what? They referred me to a legitimate organization. Internet marketing scam artists do the same, selling you on the salacious headlines of making money in your sleep with their push button technology which can make you 100’s of thousands of dollars and only cost $39.95. You know the one’s I am talking about right?
CS…mer is a very big scam.. They are thieves