glennn.php

I've been developing for 6 years, have encountered IPower SEVERAL times over
these years through many clients who've unwittingly signed up for their
services. From the very first (a few years ago), i've experienced VERY LONG
phone holds, and very APATHETIC AND RUDE customer service. // Over the past
several months my experiences with them have become absolutely pathetic. To name
a few: 1) they're offering very inexpensive domain purchases -> i've taken
advantage of these "bargains", with gritted teeth, and EACH time i've ordered a
domain, the administrative email for me to manage my domains has taken as many
as three or four days to arrive (when most resellers can automate such an email
within MINUTES). Even after a phone call or two, this considerably important
email would take another day or so. Invariably. 2) more than once the email
contained BROKEN LINKS to an administrative area, (i.e. 169.125.000 - three
groups of digits in an IP address, for instance) - a phone call to tech support
gained me a link to their NEW, all inclusive Members Admin Area that was
supposed to consolidate a customer's accounts. I administered my nameserver
changes, only to find two or three days later that the changes didn't take). 3)
i installed a VERY SIMPLE PHP mail() function on their server for a client of
mine that refused to work. It worked on my own machine, it worked on all the
other servers i tested it on, but it didn't work on IPower's servers. Tech
Support, once i got them on the phone, told me that they don't offer Script or
Code support for web designers, and i had to CONVINCE them that the error was
SERVER SIDE. That took a half an hour for support to decide to "escalate" this
to Tier 2 support. I NEVER HEARD from tier 2 support. The script never worked
for that particular client. I was able to convince him to move to another HOST.
4) A salesman from IPOwer called me once, and i asked him to order three domains
for me, since my CCard was over the limit. he said he could do so by check
online and that the domains would be registered. When i never received my Admin
Email, i WHOISed these domains and they were still available. I called to find
out why and he said "oops" and then talked to someone and then told me that he'd
taken care of it, my CC was good by then so i gave him that. three days later
the domains were STILL available, so i ended up on the phone with the Sales
Manager, Robert Johnson, who DID act like he cared and got me on the phone with
someone who took my credit card # and promised me that the domains were NOW
registered. I got my Receipt emailed, but the Admin Email for my DNS changes was
the one with only three groups of numbers for an IP address. --- ALL THIS just
to register three domain names ---. 5) i called the office of Thomas Gorny, the
President, and got his Amin Asst. who promised that she'd email management in
Tier 2 support to get back with me on this (one of these problems, i forget
which one now). It took so long to hear from this person i had by then forgotten
which problem was at issue at that point. 6) At this moment i have another
client who has PHP/Zend Opt/dll errors all over her website and she has NO
ENCODED SCRIPTING IN her site. she has ZEND errors even in her phpMyAdmin as
soon as i create a database. i submitted a ticket AND called THIS MORNING (the
girl told me she'd "Escalate" this ticket) and it's been all day so far; my
client has errors all over her site and i can't work on it. I called back a
second ago and the Tech couldn't find the previous Ticket. so he started a new
one and told me he'd "escalate" it.

There are as many more issues i've had with this group of ineptness and apathy,
but this is all off the top of my head. IF anyone is to consider using IPower
Web, rest assured you'd rather stick needles in your eyes.

glenn nall
atlanta codeworks.com