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Gary O.

2
Level 2 Contributor

Contributor Level

Total Points
1,267

8 Reviews by Gary

  • GoDaddy

9/18/11

It's sort of an OK povider of domain names, which I think is how it started out. But beware of the fine print and the empty promises by salesmen ready to say anything you want to hear just to make a sale. And it can be very confusing for inexperienced customers trying to set up their own websites. The prices seem cheap and one can usually negotiate good deals with the salesman, but the after-sales service sucks!

I have some domain names with them, but the real problem was with their hosting services. I ordered a Windows-based virtual-dedicated server for my mass emailing (to 40,000-strong client base). The salesman assured me that there would be no problems so long as I complied with antispam guidelines, which I do meticulously. He also offered me a great deal if I signed up for 3 years, which I did. I also purchased additional dedicated IPs so that I could separate my email campaigns, depending on the website/service offered.

Well, there were dozens of set up problems. The control panel on the website (actually, control panel*s* because there are different panels for different functions) is hopelessly confusing. I had to call the support line several times just to ask where the appropriate buttons were on the panel in question.

But the real kicker was when it turned out that I couldn't send out my mass email campaign. I had a really urgent campaign to go out, re-advertising a workshop to be held two weeks later, to be followed up with a reminder a few days before. The emails were rejected. I called up the support line and it took several days before I was eventually told that my email limit was only 500 per day.

I had to make a formal request to increase this (never mentioned by the salesman or in the terms & conditions, nor in any of the emails sent to me since)!

Another 3-4 day's delay, by which time it was no longer possible to send out the first email campaign - and so I had to postpone the workshop by 6 weeks (and then deal with a lot of angry customers who had already blocked off the necessary dates from work). I lost several thousand dollars in having to pay refunds, not to mention loss of good will from inconvenienced customers.

I explained the situation to one of the senior managers (Jeff) who wouldn't budge on allowing me to use my account as a mass emailer - despite having received plenty of assurances by the salesman (in writing) that I could do so. He eventually agreed to allow me to send 5,000 per day, and gradually increase it over several weeks so that they could monitor if there were any complaints. But it was too little too late. I could never have got the emails out in time and would have had to dispense with the last-minute reminder.

It was false economy on my part to try to go for a "cheap" service, but I was taken in by their slick website and sales patter. Luckily I found another provider (knownhost.com) who set up a new server for me almost immediately and I was able to shoot off my 40,000 emails over a 20-hour period. I could have done it more quickly than that, but I kept it slow so as not to trigger automatic antispam filters from big sites such as hotmail, yahoo and google.

To be fair to godaddy, they did refund me in full when I requested it. And I can understand their reluctance to allow just anyone to send out mass emails in case they are spammers.

Nevertheless, I was very clear about my intentions right from the beginning; and they could have been a bit more flexible for genuine customers... maybe they could have checked my campaign before granting permission for it to be sent out and then allowing me to build up a good 'reputation' over time...

It was a very costly waste of time for me and left a sour taste in my mouth.

  • Kionic

9/18/11

I can't recommend this company more highly... a top quality hosting service with quick and efficient support at an unbelievably low price. They were also extremely helpful when I needed to transfer websites or deal with customers' problems.

I had a reseller hosting service with them but I needed to move my sites to a Windows platform. Unfortunately, kionic don't have any Windows packages, so I reluctantly had to find a new hosting provider.

I didn't notice any degradation in access to my websites, despite the fact that it's a shared host. So I think they keep the load well-balanced.

  • KnownHost

9/18/11

I can't recommend this company more highly... a top quality hosting service with quick and efficient support at an unbelievably low price.

I have a virtual hosting service with them and a number of dedicated IPs that I used for mass emailing to my 20,000-strong client base. They're quite strict about spam and will follow up on any complaints, but so far they've resolved these quickly once I demonstrated my compliance with spamcop guidelines.

I also haven't noticed any degradation in access to my websites, despite the fact that it's a shared host. So I think they keep the load well-balanced.

  • SendBlaster

9/18/11

This is the same company that operates SendBlasterSMTP.com and mass-emailer.com and a huge variety of other domain names all selling the mass email product (and so-called dedicated SMTP hosting) SendBlaster. They also have wstb.net.

I ordered an SMTP server to send out emails to my client list (about 20,000) with a dedicated IP address. I stated that this was my intention before making the purchase. But then I was told that I cannot use the server for mass emails because all emails go through a shared IP address; and so I requested a refund. This is the response I got:

After speaking with my partners and reviewing emails and chats we still feel we have supplied a service as advertised. In addition we do not offer refunds for mail server packages. The reason is any server customer
Could use the service, send out tons of email and then request a refund.

As I see it, you are asking that we allow an open relay server. This would cause any server to be blacklisted.

It is just not allowed and to have a different sender as the mail server domain name would cause a high percentage of your emails to end in the junk folder.

This is also the reason why we suggested a mailing domain to match closely with yours. This was also confirmed by your company as the domain to setup.

It has been our business model to try and please every client but we have also learned that is not possible. Any negative advertising on your
Part is up to you. Where we live its a free country and as long as what you present it true. False or misleading statement will be vigorously defended by our legal counsel.

The mail server will remain available for your usage for the remaining year from the date of purchase.

Sincerely
Mark T

  • Mass-emailer

9/18/11

This is the same company that operates SendBlasterSMTP.com selling the mass email product (and so-called dedicated SMTP hosting) SendBlaster. They also have wstb.net.

I ordered an SMTP server to send out emails to my client list (about 20,000) with a dedicated IP address. I stated that this was my intention before making the purchase. But then I was told that I cannot use the server for mass emails because all emails go through a shared IP address; and so I requested a refund. This is the response I got:

After speaking with my partners and reviewing emails and chats we still feel we have supplied a service as advertised. In addition we do not offer refunds for mail server packages. The reason is any server customer
Could use the service, send out tons of email and then request a refund.

As I see it, you are asking that we allow an open relay server. This would cause any server to be blacklisted.

It is just not allowed and to have a different sender as the mail server domain name would cause a high percentage of your emails to end in the junk folder.

This is also the reason why we suggested a mailing domain to match closely with yours. This was also confirmed by your company as the domain to setup.

It has been our business model to try and please every client but we have also learned that is not possible. Any negative advertising on your
Part is up to you. Where we live its a free country and as long as what you present it true. False or misleading statement will be vigorously defended by our legal counsel.

The mail server will remain available for your usage for the remaining year from the date of purchase.

Sincerely
Mark T

  • E-Tools Software

9/18/11

This is the same company that operates SendBlasterSMTP.com selling the mass email product (and so-called dedicated SMTP hosting) SendBlaster. They also have mass-emailer.com.

I ordered an SMTP server to send out emails to my client list (about 20,000) with a dedicated IP address. I stated that this was my intention before making the purchase. But then I was told that I cannot use the server for mass emails because all emails go through a shared IP address; and so I requested a refund. This is the response I got:

After speaking with my partners and reviewing emails and chats we still feel we have supplied a service as advertised. In addition we do not offer refunds for mail server packages. The reason is any server customer
Could use the service, send out tons of email and then request a refund.

As I see it, you are asking that we allow an open relay server. This would cause any server to be blacklisted.

It is just not allowed and to have a different sender as the mail server domain name would cause a high percentage of your emails to end in the junk folder.

This is also the reason why we suggested a mailing domain to match closely with yours. This was also confirmed by your company
As the domain to setup.

It has been our business model to try and please every client but we have also learned that is not possible. Any negative advertising on your
Part is up to you. Where we live its a free country and as long as what you present it true. False or misleading statement will be vigorously
Defended by our legal counsel.

The mail server will remain available for your usage for the remaining year from the date of purchase.

Sincerely
Mark T

  • MessageTag

9/18/11

This is the same site as msgtag.com. I bought MSGTAG Status 2 in Jan 2009 ($60) and when I had one or two configuration problems, the developers took several weeks to respond and then stopped replying completely. MSGTAG works after a fashion, their mail servers are still being maintained - but it is VERY VERY SLOW (about 20 seconds to send each email). This is useless if one has hundreds of messages to send - even sending to a small group of only 20 people (e.g. My soccer team) will take 7-10 minutes! I requested a refund but got no response. I asked PayPal to issue a refund, but they refused, saying it's up to the company concerned.

It's a fraudulent company - ok so it works sort of as advertised, but there is no support, the automated servers won't respond if you forgot your password, and no one will reply to your calls. It's a clever little money making machine for a company that has been defunct at least since end 2008.

The so-called 'company' behind msgtag is Fisher Young Group Limited in Christchurch New Zealand, owned by Roger Nesbitt (*******@fisheryoung.com), but he's not there either. He also used to have a company called Serious Orange (*******@seriousorange.com), but that's also defunct.

On their press page, the contact at Fisher Young is stated as Matthew Miller (*******@fisheryoung.com) but the emails to this and all the other addresses bounced back undelivered.

The other domain is messagetag.com. fisheryoung.com goes to seriousorange.com. Roger Nesbitt, who claims to be a software contractor. On linkedin, Daniel Sim Lind also used to be a director of Fisher Young. He was the director eCOSM ('contracted by Fisher Young to produce MSGTAG, and also supposedly produced Mailwasher Pro (so avoid this product too!) and now owns Stellure and Gennaker Performance, which means you should also keep clear of these companies and their products & services...

  • MSGTAG

9/18/11

I had the same problem as other customers. This is the same site as messagetag.com. I bought MSGTAG Status 2 in Jan 2009 ($60) and when I had one or two configuration problems, the developers took several weeks to respond and then stopped replying completely. MSGTAG works after a fashion, their mail servers are still being maintained - but it is VERY VERY SLOW (about 20 seconds to send each email). This is useless if one has hundreds of messages to send - even sending to a small group of only 20 people (e.g. My soccer team) will take 7-10 minutes! I requested a refund but got no response. I asked PayPal to issue a refund, but they refused, saying it's up to the company concerned.

It's a fraudulent company - ok so it works sort of as advertised, but there is no support, the automated servers won't respond if you forgot your password, and no one will reply to your calls. It's a clever little money making machine for a company that has been defunct at least since end 2008.

The so-called 'company' behind msgtag is Fisher Young Group Limited in Christchurch New Zealand, owned by Roger Nesbitt (*******@fisheryoung.com), but he's not there either. He also used to have a company called Serious Orange (*******@seriousorange.com), but that's also defunct.

On their press page, the contact at Fisher Young is stated as Matthew Miller (*******@fisheryoung.com) but the emails to this and all the other addresses bounced back undelivered.

The other domain is messagetag.com. fisheryoung.com goes to seriousorange.com. Roger Nesbitt, who claims to be a software contractor. On linkedin, Daniel Sim Lind also used to be a director of Fisher Young. He was the director eCOSM ('contracted by Fisher Young to produce MSGTAG, and also supposedly produced Mailwasher Pro (so avoid this product too!) and now owns Stellure and Gennaker Performance, which means you should also keep clear of these companies and their products & services...

Gary Has Earned 27 Votes

Gary O.'s review of GoDaddy earned a Well Said vote

Gary O.'s review of Kionic earned a Very Helpful vote

Gary O.'s review of Mass-emailer earned a Very Helpful vote

Gary O.'s review of KnownHost earned 2 Very Helpful votes

Gary O.'s review of GoDaddy earned 3 Very Helpful votes

Gary O.'s review of MessageTag earned 4 Very Helpful votes

Gary O.'s review of SendBlaster earned a Well Said vote

Gary O.'s review of E-Tools Software earned 2 Very Helpful votes

Gary O.'s review of MSGTAG earned 5 Very Helpful votes

Gary O.'s review of SendBlaster earned 7 Very Helpful votes

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