ReliableSite.net Review

[Samuel]

After a few months of being with ReliableSite.net (RSNET) and supporting them, I've come to the end of my time with them.

Below I will outline some of the reasons for my change, which will hopefully make future buyers more aware.

So, to start: I contacted Radic from SpigotMC about a dedicated server. For the first few weeks he was awesome, answered all my questions, then later stopped responding completely. If I hadn't came here, I'd have been in the dark with sales stuff completely. Luckily Lachy - a wonderful guy, helped me. Lachy is probably the best sales agent I've seen.

The problem is that RSNET is under-staffed. They have 2 people doing all the money stuff. Radic does billing, Lachy does sales. They refuse to hire more people. I don't know why.

So, come a few weeks ago, I contact RSNET's billing department via ticket. I tell them I won't be renewing my first server because I am getting a new server from them. 2 weeks later, I am billed for that very server. ~£170 - gone. I told them to disable the automatic payments.

I contact them via a support ticket, and time ticks by. I phone them, their phone systems are not available because of working hours (though I called during their working hours). Fine.

I get someone else to call, too (forgot who, someone from here, reply and I'll shout you out here ) - same thing. Nobody picks up during working hours. They leave a message.

I tweet RSNET and get an almost immediate response. My ticket is being looked at (this is now quite some time after I made the ticket). They reply telling me that the refund can't be processed for a few days. I was quite annoyed. My payment to them was instant, why isn't the refund? I tell them that I will charge it back (since that is apparently quicker for me than a normal refund), but they then get quite angry (or annoyed, I can't tell) and say I should probably consult a lawyer first. I let it sit for a few days, this is now delaying my PC build, so I am quite annoyed with it at this point.

Their team gets quite annoyed when you talk to them frequently (which sort of makes sense, I guess, but most of my questions were either sales related or asking about hardware that they sell).

Moving forward from that billing issue, I then get my new server. I ask them to setup a private network between the two servers (my old one and my new one) so that I can transfer some data. They do that fairly quickly - all good. At the same time, I asked for my IP blocks to be transferred also.

Hours later: Done!

I check everything, all seems good. I then find out that one of my IP blocks is broken and does not function. I contact them about it and they insist they were setup correctly. They later say they can boot into a live OS to check them for me. I allow them. They come back saying there is an error and that they will fix it. They fix it.

I ask them if that downtime, since it was outside of the new order's intended downtime, was eligible for SLA credit (the IP block wasn't available for HOURS - my VPS were offline). Radic responds with a not-so-friendly denial. It's not their fault that I wanted my IP blocks transferred and their technicians did not do it correctly, it's my fault! My fault that their technicians did it wrong, causing me to have hours more downtime than anticipated.

With all this said, there are a few things I CAN say. RSNET delivers amazing servers. Their hardware is mostly flawless (there's always a chance for everyone), and I can definitely vouch for Lachy. He's a great guy and is definitely helpful. Their technicians and data centre managers are lovely people (at least in New York City Metro), and I thank them for their help.

Unfortunately I will not be renewing, and I will be taking my business elsewhere. I want a company that treats my billing matters AND technical matters with extreme care. I shouldn't be making a million international calls and having to contact their staff on every platform just to get a payment issue sorted. I shouldn't even be getting billed for something I give 2-weeks notice for when I don't want to renew further.

Hopefully this helps anyone considering RSNET. They are a wonderful small team, but they need more people and need to give more care and attention to billing.

I'm not sure if I posted this in the right section. If I didn't, please let me know so I can get a moderator to move it.

 

[Samuel]

Sorry for the wall of text.

 

[Annie]

Thanks, I've seen them and considered but that IP Block was 100% their fault and you should have gotten credit in return.

 

[Samuel]

Thanks, I've seen them and considered but that IP Block was 100% their fault and you should have gotten credit in return.

I was technically eligible for upwards of 50% SLA. \_o_/

 

[Clyde]

Lachy RSNET-Radic

 

[Lachy]

I'm sorry to hear about the experience with us. I take great pride on ensuring customer relations are at the highest standard, and it is a key goal for ReliableSite to ensure our customers are happy.

I'll be commencing an investigation into what happened.

 

[Samuel]

Lachy RSNET-Radic

Sent the thread to him via Discord just after I wrote it. I win! \_o_/> (that's a flag)

 

[RSNET-Radic]

I saw this when it was posted and would prefer not to start and back and forth fight. The OP specific chose not to post a few things here.

1. The refund was processed immediately on our end. We have no control over how fast his bank credits the amount back. We provided all the proof that the refund was processed on our end and were more than willing to provide the necessary documentation.

I will have to say that we dropped the ball on automatic payments, this was mentioned sometime in an unrelated ticket and wasn't picked up by billing. Our fault there, but we processed the refund as soon as we saw it.

2. All replies from us were professional and on point. The same cannot be said for the OP.

Billing hours are 9 AM to 5 PM Eastern. Support is 24/7, but do not have access to billing.

3. The OP did not qualify for a SLA. The IP block that was not working was one that was part of a server transfer (a server that we setup extremely cheap for the OP out of good faith so he could have enough funds to build his new computer). The server was still accessible over the internet via the primary IP block, but the block transferred was not setup correctly. This does not qualify for a SLA credit as changes were made per the OPs request and was not related to a network, power, or cooling related outage.

Here's our SLA: http://support.reliablesite.net/kb/a55/service-level-agreement.aspx

There's no win/lose here. Just honesty and respect. I initially chose not to reply to this thread, but have been pulled in.

I will be more than glad to provide complete communication should the OP try to escalate this. My preference would be to close this thread out altogether and not make a mess of it. Things like these are a lose/lose for everyone.

 

[Samuel]

I saw this when it was posted and would prefer not to start and back and forth fight. The OP specific chose not to post a few things here.

1. The refund was processed immediately on our end. We have no control over how fast his bank credits the amount back. We provided all the proof that the refund was processed on our end and were more than willing to provide the necessary documentation.

I will have to say that we dropped the ball on automatic payments, this was mentioned sometime in an unrelated ticket and wasn't picked up by billing. Our fault there, but we processed the refund as soon as we saw it.

2. All replies from us were professional and on point. The same cannot be said for the OP.
View attachment 38394

Billing hours are 9 AM to 5 PM Eastern. Support is 24/7, but do not have access to billing.

3. The OP did not qualify for a SLA. The IP block that was not working was one that was part of a server transfer (a server that we setup extremely cheap for the OP out of good faith so he could have enough funds to build his new computer). The server was still accessible over the internet via the primary IP block, but the block transferred was not setup correctly. This does not qualify for a SLA credit as changes were made per the OPs request and was not related to a network, power, or cooling related outage.

Here's our SLA: http://support.reliablesite.net/kb/a55/service-level-agreement.aspx

There's no win/lose here. Just honesty and respect. I initially chose not to reply to this thread, but have been pulled in.

I will be more than glad to provide complete communication should the OP try to escalate this. My preference would be to close this thread out altogether and not make a mess of it. Things like these are a lose/lose for everyone.

1. Understood, but silly.

2. When you take almost £200 for someone with 2 weeks notice, what do you expect? Me to be all happy and not threaten to devouch for such service? You'll also notice that at the end I started to calm down and didn't USE AS MANY GOD DAMN CAPS.

3. If your technicians cause downtime on any part of a customer's product, you should be responsible for that. Not the customer just because they ordered something.

Again, you need more staff and you won't be miss-billing customers.

 

[RSNET-Radic]

1. Understood, but silly.

2. When you take almost £200 for someone with 2 weeks notice, what do you expect? Me to be all happy and not threaten to devouch for such service? You'll also notice that at the end I started to calm down and didn't USE AS MANY GOD DAMN CAPS.

3. If your technicians cause downtime on any part of a customer's product, you should be responsible for that. Not the customer just because they ordered something.

Again, you need more staff and you won't be miss-billing customers.

The refund was processed on our end immediately. We have no control over what your bank does. You can get mad at us all you want, but we physically had no control over what your bank does.

Our billing hours are industry standard, companies 10 times our size do not have 24/7 billing.

Mistakes happen, but this was a result of a change requested by you, not part of an outage. This does not qualify under the SLA. The amount of freebies and discounts we threw your way more than justified the misconfigured IP block.

The SLA clearly outlines what is covered. This was not covered as the server was still accessible through the internet.

 

[Samuel]

The refund was processed on our end immediately. We have no control over what your bank does. You can get mad at us all you want, but we physically had no control over what your bank does.

You had the option (as I stated in the ticket) to get your bank to fax my bank (banks can fax internationally) in order for an immediate release of the funds to my account to be permitted. You did not. I don't know who/what you use for this stuff, but there's always an option for someone to fax this stuff.

Our billing hours are industry standard, companies 10 times our size do not have 24/7 billing.

Sometimes I would wait days for a reply from billing. 1-2 days is fine, more is bad. I was not satisfied that my billing matters were being taken care of with the right priority.

Mistakes happen, but this was a result of a change requested by you, not part of an outage. This does not qualify under the SLA. The amount of freebies and discounts we threw your way more than justified the misconfigured IP block.

Mistakes happen. Yes. Doesn't mean you don't pay for them. When I originally ordered my new dedi, I included with that request that my IP blocks be transferred with the server. That message should've gone through all the way. I shouldn't have had to make a request after it being setup, that my old IPs be moved over. That's bad management.

In addition to that, your freebies do not make up for the possible sales that I lost due to the downtime with my /28 block. That /28 block had one of my main servers. One of those servers is where I handled client payments (but no longer, I took that stuff to Google, where I know it will be up 24/7/356). Giving me an extra 2TB of storage, or a free RAM upgrade on the first server, does not make it any better. I'd be interested in knowing how many of your customers get these "freebies" so that you can use that as a defense when questioned on your SLA.

The SLA clearly outlines what is covered. This was not covered as the server was still accessible through the internet.

My /28 was inaccessible. My /28 had individual servers. My service was partially offline due to a network error that was out of my control. Not for minutes, for HOURS (even after I gave notice).

 

[RSNET-Radic]

You had the option (as I stated in the ticket) to get your bank to fax my bank (banks can fax internationally) in order for an immediate release of the funds to my account to be permitted. You did not. I don't know who/what you use for this stuff, but there's always an option for someone to fax this stuff.


Sometimes I would wait days for a reply from billing. 1-2 days is fine, more is bad. I was not satisfied that my billing matters were being taken care of with the right priority.


Mistakes happen. Yes. Doesn't mean you don't pay for them. When I originally ordered my new dedi, I included with that request that my IP blocks be transferred with the server. That message should've gone through all the way. I shouldn't have had to make a request after it being setup, that my old IPs be moved over. That's bad management.

In addition to that, your freebies do not make up for the possible sales that I lost due to the downtime with my /28 block. That /28 block had one of my main servers. One of those servers is where I handled client payments (but no longer, I took that stuff to Google, where I know it will be up 24/7/356). Giving me an extra 2TB of storage, or a free RAM upgrade on the first server, does not make it any better. I'd be interested in knowing how many of your customers get these "freebies" so that you can use that as a defense when questioned on your SLA.


My /28 was inaccessible. My /28 had individual servers. My service was partially offline due to a network error that was out of my control. Not for minutes, for HOURS (even after I gave notice).

Sigh, all of this was covered in the ticket, tired of covering the same things over and over (and over) . I wish your next provider a lot of luck.

 

[Samuel]

Sigh, all of this was covered in the ticket, tired of covering the same things over and over (and over) . I wish your next provider a lot of luck.

My next provider has a good billing team.

 

[FTSOwner]

Giving me an extra 2TB of storage, or a free RAM upgrade on the first server, does not make it any better.

While your experience could has been better I has to side with ReliableSite on this one.

Firstly...
1. Mistakes happens but that doesn't qualifies you for "express" refunding. Hell they could of been like "sorry but we will only be able to put this as credits" which IS industry standards. Be glad you got a cash refund at all.

2.Threats are not tolerated ANYWHERE. Threatening can lead everything from denial of that ticket request to termination depending on the provider. This is too industry standard, I wouldn't be surprised if your "new" provider have similar no tolerate for these behavior.

3. As I quoted at the beginning they DID compensated for downtime caused by human error. Even though it was NOT an SLA violation they elected to go the extra miles.

Couldn't they been better? YES

But remember you weren't on your best behaviors and expecting services outside of reasonable commercial means. Given these conditions they did went above and beyond of what many providers would.

 

[Samuel]

While your experience could has been better I has to side with ReliableSite on this one.

Firstly...
1. Mistakes happens but that doesn't qualifies you for "express" refunding. Hell they could of been like "sorry but we will only be able to put this as credits" which IS industry standards. Be glad you got a cash refund at all.

2.Threats are not tolerated ANYWHERE. Threatening can lead everything from denial of that ticket request to termination depending on the provider. This is too industry standard, I wouldn't be surprised if your "new" provider have similar no tolerate for these behavior.

3. As I quoted at the beginning they DID compensated for downtime caused by human error. Even though it was NOT an SLA violation they elected to go the extra miles.

Couldn't they been better? YES

But remember you weren't on your best behaviors and expecting services outside of reasonable commercial means. Given these conditions they did went above and beyond of what many providers would.

1. That would've been illegal. They had no right to take my money, so issuing it as credit would've been theft.
2. It's not bad to threaten to take money that you did not authorise be taken from you, in my opinion.
3. They didn't compensate me.

I was behaving very well until they billed me incorrectly after being given 2 weeks prior notice to cancel the automatic billing. They definitely don't go above and beyond when it comes to taking your money and handling service disruptions. They do the bare minimum in that regard.

As stated though, when it comes to servers, they are great. The hardware is smooth running and I faced zero issues. I just don't like how they dealt with multiple issues that I faced with them.

 

[FTSOwner]

1. That would've been illegal. They had no right to take my money, so issuing it as credit would've been theft.
2. It's not bad to threaten to take money that you did not authorise be taken from you, in my opinion.
3. They didn't compensate me.

I was behaving very well until they billed me incorrectly after being given 2 weeks prior notice to cancel the automatic billing. They definitely don't go above and beyond when it comes to taking your money and handling service disruptions. They do the bare minimum in that regard.

As stated though, when it comes to servers, they are great. The hardware is smooth running and I faced zero issues. I just don't like how they dealt with multiple issues that I faced with them.

All I am saying try the similar attitudes with others and let us know how far you get.

 

[Samuel]

All I am saying try the similar attitudes with others and let us know how far you get.

The quote RSNET-Radic provided doesn't show the rest. Yes, I threatened. That was in a ticket with about 100 or so replies. Through-out the majority of it I was quite calm with them. When someone appears to make no effort in providing a quick refund for a near £200 billing error, it's likely most of us would get quite angry. It was stupid on their part, and quite a normal reaction.

 

[FTSOwner]

The quote RSNET-Radic provided doesn't show the rest. Yes, I threatened. That was in a ticket with about 100 or so replies. Through-out the majority of it I was quite calm with them. When someone appears to make no effort in providing a quick refund for a near £200 billing error, it's likely most of us would get quite angry. It was stupid on their part, and quite a normal reaction.

You're right I would be very upset if I lost over $250 due to an error. But does that constitute for me to throw up a threat? Nope.

Likewise there is not much they can do to express refunds (in a commercially reasonable manner that is). Once a request is sent a bank does take a few business days to reverse it.

The damage is already done but at least you can practice better means.

For instance I already asked Radic a few weeks ago if there a way to deactivate my auto payments if they do this by default. He mentioned all I would have to log a billing ticket and they can do that on the concerned card. As long as I do it soon after I file an order then this sort of issue would never happens.

Furthermore if you got unlucky with a bad provider then you have proof that requested a non automatic payment. Then either pay manually or load your account as you see fit.

 

[Samuel]

You're right I would be very upset if I lost over $250 due to an error. But does that constitute for me to throw up a threat? Nope.

Likewise there is not much they can do to express refunds (in a commercially reasonable manner that is). Once a request is sent a bank does take a few business days to reverse it.

The damage is already done but at least you can practice better means.

For instance I already asked Radic a few weeks ago if there a way to deactivate my auto payments if they do this by default. He mentioned all I would have to log a billing ticket and they can do that on the concerned card. As long as I do it soon after I file an order then this sort of issue would never happens.

Furthermore if you got unlucky with a bad provider then you have proof that requested a non automatic payment. Then either pay manually or load your account as you see fit.

Perhaps the threat wasn't necessary. Doesn't excuse them and doesn't make any difference here. That's just one of a handful of issues.

Their automatic billing thing tried billing me, but failed the first time. The email said to email support to get them to cancel the automatic stuff. I did that. They did not do their job. They don't get my business further for that.

As for the refund time - yes. The damage had been done. They could've contacted their bank though and had their bank fax my bank for the funds to be released into my bank account immediately (without any delay). They did not contact their bank, they simply did a thing online. They kept saying their fax systems couldn't work internationally. Banks have international fax systems.

At the end of the day, I paid them a lot of money. I was not satisfied. They try to defend themselves by showing quotes from the ticket without any context (and it's good they didn't show more, because they could possibly reveal private information shared within that ticket) and stating that they gave me lots of freebies ("The amount of freebies...") [which they didn't give me lots of]. It's quite pathetic. I never asked for the additional RAM. They decided that when I ordered for the first time with them. I don't know why. I also never asked for the extra 1TB on each of my 2 drives on my second server. They decided that themselves. This was all before the IP block failure and the server was already built before the billing issue. It was not a thing they did to apologise (which they never mentioned, don't get me wrong here).

It's their fault the IP block broke. That is a network outage caused by them. They should be responsible for it. It's silly that they don't think it's their responsibility. I've asked a few hosts at this point and they agree that it's silly that they didn't take responsibility.

 

[FTSOwner]

I seem that I may of been misunderstanding what happened. I will split this up to get some clarifications.

Perhaps the threat wasn't necessary. Doesn't excuse them and doesn't make any difference here. That's just one of a handful of issues.

Their automatic billing thing tried billing me, but failed the first time. The email said to email support to get them to cancel the automatic stuff. I did that. They did not do their job. They don't get my business further for that.

Firstly, when and what day did you contact them in their EST timezone? Finally when and what did they said when you explained to them of the first instance?

As for the refund time - yes. The damage had been done. They could've contacted their bank though and had their bank fax my bank for the funds to be released into my bank account immediately (without any delay). They did not contact their bank, they simply did a thing online. They kept saying their fax systems couldn't work internationally. Banks have international fax systems.

This MAY of been a simple misunderstanding. What they most likely talking about is that their in house faxing machine cannot access the internet. This is common security practices and thus why your request been denied. In other words it was not commercially practical for them to speed up the process for you.

At the end of the day, I paid them a lot of money. I was not satisfied. They try to defend themselves by showing quotes from the ticket without any context (and it's good they didn't show more, because they could possibly reveal private information shared within that ticket) and stating that they gave me lots of freebies ("The amount of freebies...") [which they didn't give me lots of]. It's quite pathetic. I never asked for the additional RAM. They decided that when I ordered for the first time with them. I don't know why. I also never asked for the extra 1TB on each of my 2 drives on my second server. They decided that themselves. This was all before the IP block failure and the server was already built before the billing issue. It was not a thing they did to apologise (which they never mentioned, don't get me wrong here).

This one is quite interesting to me indeed. So I follow you correctly...

They attached additional RAM on top of your first order that you didn't order/upgrade to?

AND attached a pair of drives that were +1TB larger?

All without telling you when each of those actions took place? Until you had issues with them?