IPowerWeb has the worst customer service I have ever had to deal with
for any kind of service in North America in my whole life. Here is my
experience for the smart ones to learn from.
Besides its domain hosting service IPowerWeb.com also advertises a
domain registeration service for only $5.50 a year. I wanted to register
my domain name at a place different from the place that I host my web site
at so that I could have more control over things and also I could
learn to manage my name server settings on my own.
Nowhere on the IPowerWeb website do they state that if I register a domain
with them then I can host my web site only with them. Or that they themeselves
are not the registrars of the domain name. This I found out the hard way.
I registered my domain name (adnank.com) with them, then set up a web site at
another host. After logging into my account at IPowerWeb I realized that there
is no way for me to change my domain's name server settings so that it would
point to my new host. I called IPowerWeb. The phone was answered after 40
minutes of wait. Their representative told me that all I had to do is email
them at
transfer@ipowerweb.com and send the names of the nameservers to
which I woud like my domain to point to from now on. I did that, got an
autmatically generated receipt for the email but nothng else happened. I
called IPowerWeb customer service again at 2:30 am on April 18th, 2004. After
a wait of 30 minutes I got to speak with a technical support agent. He said
that to change my nameserver settings I would just have to tell my new web
host to do that. After I told him the obvious fact that it is impossible for
them to do that, he said I should go to TuCows.com and do it from there as
IPowerWeb actually registers the domain names through them. I told him that
this sounds ridiculous as I purchased a product and service from IPowerWeb not
TuCows. Therefore, IPowerWeb should take care of the issue and not make me go
to a third party. Upon hearing this he completely changed his tone of voice.
He said that IPowerWeb had done me a "favor" by registering my domain name for
a low price of $5.50. I told him that no matter what the price was, the fact
remains that I paid for the service. I asked him to get his supervisor and he
simply refused. I asked him to tell me his name and ID number and he gave me
only his first name, Mohammed. I asked him to give me something more that could
identify him sine Mohammed is a very common name. He refused to divulge any
more information. When I told him that I will wait on the line for as long as
it takes for him to transfer me to another customer service agent or to his
supervisor he hung up on me. I have never ever heard of a customer service
representative hanging up on a customer before in my life. This was a new low.
When I conducted a WhoIs query on my domain name, I found out that TuCows in
fact is the registrar for my doman name. However, the WhoIs query result,
besides other information about myself and my domain also states the following:
" Registration Service Provider:
iPowerWeb,
hostmaster@ipowerweb.com
888 511 4678
310-314-1610 (fax)
http://iPowerWeb.com
This company may be contacted for domain login/passwords,
DNS/Nameserver changes, and general domain support questions."
It clearly states that I should contact IPowerWeb for making any nameserver
changes.
I called IPowerWeb again at 1:25pm on April 18th, 2004. After being put on
hold for 50 minutes, the line was disconnected from their end.
I called again at 2:20 pm on the same day and this time was disconnected after
40 minutes of wait.
I found another registrar on the web that did not pretend to be a registrar
but actually is one. I tried to transfer my domain name to them. They told
me that my domain name has been locked and that I need to contact IPowerWeb
to get it unlocked first.
So now I am have paid for a domain name that I cannot use, I have lost the
domain name since IPowerWeb has locked it, and IPowerWeb has not yet replied
to any of my emails or phone calls (except for the automatic email receipts
for my emails or the 2 phone conversations I have described above). My website
is ready at a host but has no doman name. The only solution to this problem that
I see is to register another doman name with someone else. But being forced to
change my doman name because my original one (that I OWN, by that way) has
been hijacked by IPowerWeb, makes me feel robbed.
The only silver lining that I can see is this situation is that I did not
sign up for their web hosting plan. I can only imagine how utterly
unprofessional they would have been with that.
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