Aplus Hosting Gets an F-
First let me thank everyone who has e-mailed asking what was up. The fact I had not posted last week and that the posts from the week before went MIA had some concerned as to my status.
I’m fine. A little worse for the wear and had more meetings with my friend Jack Daniels than usual but things are now finally getting back to normal. What happened to me is a hosting company that went bad — very bad.
I stopped recommending Aplus.net Web hosting earlier this year. Moved all 20 of my other sites before summer. WordPress sites began having resource issues (that once moved to HostGator became a non-issue) and customer service was anemic at best.
For the past year I communicated with the SVP of “Customer Care” about my concerns and problems. They would get remedied but I was clearly treated as though I was a PIA, demanding and in general expecting too much.
The last straw was their announcement that they would be “upgrading” servers (the second week of the Holiday shopping season none-the-less) and that all customers would be locked out of their sites and literally unable to make any changes to their sites for an entire week. What is that about!?
The SVP couldn’t explain it either. Nor could he give me any confidence in tone or verbiage that this “upgrade” would address my long time concerns. So I did what any good consultant does — I recommended my clients move to HostGator before this “upgrade.”
Most did and thank goodness! I took the position “the captain is the last to leave the ship” so I still had skin in the game and left this site with Aplus through the upgrade. Big mistake. Missing applications, broken scripts, my site and WordPress throwing errors all over the place and the worst part — no e-mail. Seems I didn’t have it as bad as so many others when you go to Aplus’ forums which they removed the link from their main nav — so you’ll find the link hidden in the small text links at the bottom of their home page.
Aplus solidified their incompetency with this “upgrade” and clearly did not think the process out or have any contingency plans when it hit the fan. The SVP took the opportunity to pass me along as he was only responsible for the “legacy” platform. I’m sure he was glad to be done with me… The lady he passed me on to, while sending apologetic e-mails that stated what I wanted to hear was clearly impotent to get anything done. After a week, I had to move my site to HostGator as well just to get reliable e-mail back.
When I asked for a refund for all the down time — I never heard from her again. As a matter of fact for the entire 6+ years I was with Aplus refunds were offered automatically upon cancellation for any services paid for but not used. Up until now, when clients whose WordPress sites had to be moved, the balance of their annual payments were refunded without question. Now, they decided to use their “choice of discretion” and no longer provide refunds for unused services. Understand these were not clients who received discounts for paying annually either.
Why didn’t I leave sooner? I had a ton of clients to be concerned about who I knew would not want to incur the expense or inconvenience of having to move their sites. I assumed incorrectly if I stuck around and worked with and through these problems with Aplus I could hopefully help to avoid that hassle. You know what happens when you assume…
You can tell the true character of a company in how they handle their shortcomings. Clearly Aplus did not do so with grace and professionalism. Instead they chose to punish my clients due to all the business they were losing. “Stay with our poor service or lose money.”
When it comes to your hosting company:
- If a hosting company does not treat you like they care about your business, they don’t. Move on. In the case of Aplus, the writing was on the wall and I have folder chock full of condescending, incomplete and unresponsive support requests. Many replies coming 24 hours after my request asking for information that was actually in my initial request!
- When you call a hosting company and the techs sound down right hemorrhoidal — they are not happy. When they talk to you as though you are an idiot who doesn’t know any better when in fact the situation is you know more than them, which was a common occurrence with Aplus, leave.
- If a hosting company changes the rules of the game because they do not like the fact you are taking your business elsewhere, that is a clear indication that the company’s culture is not one you want to trust with your online business presence. Time to find a new host!
So in summary:
Thank you for your patience and concern over the past couple weeks as my site was hiccuping and having problems. I’ve got most of the bugs worked out and should be back on my regular posting schedule shortly.
If you sent me an e-mail during this time-frame and I did not respond it is because my e-mail was not working and I did not get your message. If you don’t mind, please do resend your e-mails and you will receive my usual prompt response.
At your service,
Judith
Tags: hosting
2 Responses to “Aplus Hosting Gets an F-”
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Hi all.
I agree with that described above.
Aplus hosting system is the worst ever existed a few months.
I think they’re failing and I think that they will close soon because many like me had to move all their domains elsewhere.
They are incompetent: you call tech support and after they did not understand your question the move you to a new operator who will ask again what is your problem. After a rebound continuously they tells you to contact the administration (What does the administration with technical problems? Mah!).
The fact is that after all this time the problem is not solved.
We are very angry and we think seriously about advancing a lawsuit against aplus for the total incompetence of its operators and so much damage to us and that is leading us!
Avoid aplus.net!
Hey, Marco:
I feel for you! I had over 20 sites with them and was a strong reseller with tons of clients — then they started going down hill about 2 years ago in a steady decline. I tried to work with them and the incompetence was astounding, and to be honest, sometimes down right insulting when techs who didn’t have the experience I did would argue with me. So I pulled out most of my clients before the “upgrade” last fall and thank goodness! I was accused of wanting to avoid the “upgrade” (duh!) and was also told at that time that’s when Aplus decided to change their policy for resellers of no refunds! Clearly a company that has no integrity.
When they couldn’t get my site working, after their “upgrade” — which proved my point but still didn’t get my all my refunds — I had to ditch too just to get my e-mail back! The clients who ignored my warnings and stayed behind because they didn’t want to go through the hassle or expense of moving to a new host are now wishing they had done the same.
I would move your site now — I see no indication of things getting better. To this day (03.11.10) I can’t get a response from billing for clarification on the charges on my card, and customer support requests take at least 6 follow ups.
I have all my sites hosted with and highly recommend HostGator — their support is unparalleled and they go the extra mile! Go over there and signup for an account today and they’ll even help you move your site over! Do it!