Is there any sort of code of practice or redress with webhost services? I ask now because I have two websites on a big, well-known hosting service who say they have 24 hour email support - in fact, this means you get the auto-responder immediately and a 'we are dealing with this issue' type comment within 24 hours but it takes them days to actually resolve an issue.

A few weeks ago the forum on one of my sites suffered all sorts of code-changes and more recently the other one went off line with an error message. It took me days to figure out how to get it back. My patience was sorely tried (and so were some members of this forum who made an excellent job of helping me to solve the mystery on my own). AFTER I had got the forum running again, I got an email from the hosts saying the problems 'had probably been caused by their upgrading the server'. It seems to me the promise of 24 hour support should include telling people within 24 hours if they've cocked up your site - but I've no idea how you go about calling these companies to account.

The hosting industry has no "code of ethics" and is basically unregulated.

Your only redress is to vote with your pocket book. If you aren't happy take your business elsewhere.

We can hope for change, but that is the way it is today.

Hosting companies will have clauses in their TOS that get them out of a lot of problems such as data loss and other things.

Customers such as yourself who suffer problems tend to switch host, so your host will be doing their best to sort issues that arise.

In regards to informing you about the issue, be glad that they did, many hosts would carry on as normal. The problem may not of been fixed in the time you want an e-mail. What would you prefer, them to send you a half filled e-mail saying we are working on it, or a report of what happened later on when its been fixed.

I neglected to say that I emailed them each time the sites went down and it was 3 days after the second one went that they decided to own up. That was what annoyed me.

There are a number of things you can do:

• Contact Trading Standards
• Leave that hosting provider in favour of one that treats you with respect (as Matthew suggested)
• Look for providers who are members of an industry scheme such as ISPA, BBB, etc. These schemes often offer some form of "code of ethics" and potentially even an abritration service; however, my view is that if the relationship between customer and provider is at the stage where either of these even need to be referenced, there is a big problem anyway.

Basically, there are a few schemes out there, but I don't know of any that carry suitable weight with both customer and provider for their to be any real benefit (just a potential marketing benefit for the provider).

In my experience, these schemes are also restricted in some way (e.g. provider has to pay some subscription/membership fees, or only applies to providers in a local area / country).

The other thing I would recommend is looking for providers with strong partnerships with suppliers. Providers in this position are generally well established, and will have industry credibility. Depending on the supplier and the seriousness of the issue, it may be worthwhile complaining to the supplier about the conduct of your provider as this may have consequences.

For example, we are SWsoft Platinum Partners, which means that we have a very strong relationship with SWsoft. They advertise this on their website, and virtually endorse our products/services by this act. Therefore, any customer who recognises this relationship, and subsequently suffers problems with our services will become less trusting of SWsoft and us - so SWsoft would put pressure on us and/or revoke out Platinum Partnership in order to maintain their brand.

I expect other provider/supplier relationships would work the same way, so your large provider is likely to have some serious relationships that you can use to draw attention to the issue.

I'm not sure what you'd gain though, as you're still left looking for a new hosting provider that you can trust...

All you can do is make others away of your story with that provider (forums, reviews etc.) and move on. Potential new customers can only smell the rotten eggs if former customers with bad experiences tell their story.

I agree with with what damien said, all apart from trading standards. Your situation is not uncommon in the hosting world and as i said before their tos is likely to have a disclaimer getting them out of any trouble

Originally Posted by wantingawebsite

I agree with with what damien said, all apart from trading standards.

I should clarify:

I wasn't suggesting that trading standards are likely to be appropriate in this case - but where a bigger / more obvious problem occurs (e.g. a provider takes your money but doesn't provide the service etc.) this kind of issue may get some attention from trading standards.

Of course, if you pay by credit card, you may also have some form of protection from that - again depending on the type of issue that you experience with your provider.

Kay: First off, let me say I'm sorry this has happened to you. Anyone who has had any degree of success in web design has gone through the crappy host syndrome, and it's one of the biggest problems facing web designers today. There are so many hosts out there that are kiddie hosts, one-person shows, or just plain garbage.

As Matthew suggested, any form of compensation or entitlement that you may have will depend on your host's Terms of Service (ToS for short).

I'm making two assumptions in the next bit:

1) that your site is one of the two associated with your WWW button (note: you should put both of them in your Signature, not the WWW button...it's in your User Control Panel);

and 2) that your host is supanames.co.uk, as it appears to be.

If I'm right, you're pretty well screwed. Depending on your plan that you've selected, it looks like you have to pay up either one or two years (if it's one of the cheap plans, you're locked in for two years) with no possibility of a refund beyond 30 days:

1) By signing up with SupaNames for the Linux Mid, Linux Premier, Windows Start or Windows Venture packages you agree to a contract of either one (1) or two (2) years. As a result of this if you make a cancellation of this contract at any time during the length of the contract, after the first 30 days, there is no refund available to you.

That's not even the worst part, IMHO. It's here:

3) Linux Value (previously known as Value Host) and Linux Value PRO (previously known as Value Host PRO) accounts can be suspended or terminated by SupaNames, without any advance notice, if they are being misused by the user. In most cases SupaNames will attempt to contact the account holder although email notifications are not guaranteed to be received. Misuse includes, but is not limited to, all of the following:
a) The sending of bulk unsolicited email of any nature, commercial or uncommercial and the sending of any volume of Unsolicited Commercial Email (UCE) through our servers promoting any website or service or through third party servers promoting a website hosted by us.
b) The offering, hosting or storage of "downloads" of any kind. A download is any content that isn't a web page, image, flash or browser readable document. These include, but are not limited to .exe, .zip, .rar, .arj, .avi, .doc, .rtf, .mp3, .mov, .avi, .mpeg, .mpg, .wav, .rm, .ram, .rmx, .asf, .wmf, .wmv, .wmp, and .wma.

I don't think I've ever seen that restriction put on a hosting plan before. What happens if some poor schlub puts his/her resume online in a downloadable Word doc or PDF (although PDF isn't listed, I wouldn't be surprised if this were part of it)?

Kay: what all this boils down to in a nutshell, if I'm right, is that you're completely up the creek through no real fault of your own. Hosting is, as Colby pointed out, largely unregulated and caveat emptor is magnified by a factor of 10 here. So the only thing you can do about it is to have your domain(s) hosted elsewhere.

Very important: if you can, Kay, try to make a backup of all the stuff related to your site. If your host is that bad and you have changing/dynamic content, you may even want to do it 2-3 times per week until you switch it over. If your host loses the data, you're even more up the creek than you were before. So please, for your own sake, make backups.

To those of you who say she should have read the ToS you're right, but come on...how many people who are new to dealing with the hosting industry actually do that and understand it? No one does. A good host would know that.

Originally Posted by ADAM Web Design

Very important: if you can, Kay, try to make a backup of all the stuff related to your site. If your host is that bad and you have changing/dynamic content, you may even want to do it 2-3 times per week until you switch it over. If your host loses the data, you're even more up the creek than you were before. So please, for your own sake, make backups.

I completely agree with that - always important to select a hosting provider that will take reliable backups etc., but even more important to ensure that you take your own backups - particularly if you have any suggestion that they're not turning out too well...

Originally Posted by ADAM Web Design

To those of you who say she should have read the ToS you're right, but come on...how many people who are new to dealing with the hosting industry actually do that and understand it? No one does. A good host would know that.

I'm sure you meant that a bad host would know (and take advantage of) that?