Carolynkomar

Okay, so I used to be the biggest Surpass fangirl. I've single-handedly referred at least 5 people to this site in the few years I've been here. At first I was extremely happy, but within the past few months, I've been more than disappointed.

So it started a few months ago, when my sites started going down every day. Usually I just ignore downtime and let it pass, but because it was so frequent, I started sending in tickets. After a few "it's fixed now" tickets, I finally asked to change servers. Although they were reluctant, my threat to leave seemed like enough to get them moving. They moved me to their "brand new, no downtime" server, SH141, from SH101. It took a few days, but I was optimistic.

A few days after that, it started up again. A half hour to an hour, every day. I'd send in a ticket, it would fix itself and I'd get an "it seems to be working fine for us" email. Well of COURSE it works fine for you, three-freaking-hours later (I'd say that 1 out of my 20+ responses was answered in under an hour by the way, contrary to what the website says). I finally sent in a ticket saying basically "Find out what's wrong with it because I can't deal with this anymore". And what do I get? "It works fine, your IP address isn't blocked and next time, send us trace route results". W-T-F?! YES it works fine, almost 24 hours later; no duh it isn't blocked (I always have people check); and what the hell is a trace route?!

I'm just so fed up. I'm tired of being sent through five different departments and waiting a day to get answers, I'm tired of no one understanding my questions and most of all, I'm tired of not getting ANSWERS. I'm sorry Surpass, but I have no faith in you or your support at all. Everything about this just sucks.

To anyone thinking of coming here: . Go somewhere with live chat, somewhere with a phone number to call, somewhere where the packages aren't so huge that your website goes down every day. Just stay away!

Tickets (for reference): SXD-197710; BCQ-405732 (there's only two, but I got tired of sending in new tickets so I kept replying to my old ones).

Kayla

Hi Carolyn,

First I am sorry to hear of your frustrations.

Before I take a look at your tickets I would like to point out that you mention that people should go to a host that has a live chat and someone to talk to. That is what this very forum is for that you have posted in - it is here so that we can help beyond tickets or beyond anything that you do not feel is going correctly. So with that said I will help you with this issue and find the root of the problem. Only wish you had posted sooner.

Thank you,
Kayla

Carolynkomar

Thank you, Kayla. I'm glad my tickets will finally get the proper attention (I guess I had too much faith in the support desk)

However, by live chat and phone, I mean people who will answer you INSTANTLY. I know there is a pretty good response time on the forums (wish the same thing were true for tickets), but if you go to somewhere like HostGator or WebHostingBuzz, you can be talking to someone in under a minute. That's the kind of customer support that people should be looking for; not dealing with 50 people at the support desk and then having to post an angry topic on the board to get their questions answered.

dad

As a Surpass customer,I actually appreciate this and it is common practice with the few hosts i have been with in the past. When i get support passing it on to me that the next level will be looking after it reveals there is a heirarchy of support and although we all want our issues to be fixed asap we can also be reassured that the first person who isnt capable or have the technical savvy for the degree of difficulty isnt doing something that may compromise or cause further harm to my data and in essense extend downtime drastically. There has always been a high level of competancy in dealing with my issues albiet not neccessarily by the first person that responds. There is an effective system in place.

huckyboy

Hi Carolynkomar,

its very sad to hear that. i'm not 100% sure on this one, but it might also be possible that your isp might be the one having problems. here in our place, the problems you mentioned is very similar to what we are experiencing with our isp. though lucky for me, the access to my server is not affected. but some of the popular sites are not accessible like yahoo mail.

so you might have unknowingly thought that your server is down, but actually you just cannot access it from your isp.

but to be sure, you could sign up for a site uptime monitoring service which could alert you every time that your site is down. basicstate.com is one of them that offers that service for free. they check your site every 15 minutes and would send an email to you immediately when it detected that your site is down.

btw, the support guys obviously failed to explain to you the trace route thingy. its main purpose is for them to have an aid in determining on which part of the network your connection to your website fails.

to get a trace route to your site, open a command prompt (start -> run -> then type 'cmd' without quotes). from there type in the command, replacing floroworks.com with your website:

I changed some of the entries to xxxx btw. but your result should display the ip address of the path that it has gone through. If your site is down, you might see a "Network unreachable" message in there. From that information, they could determine on which part of the network the connection fails.

hope everything gets sorted out for you.

Kayla

Every issue like the one you had cannot be handled in chat. Chat is for issues that are usually smaller, add this or enable this to my account, etc. I understand the convenience of it but we cannot operate in only that type of way.... your forum post here was responded to in less than 15 minutes and action was took upon it right away. It's very comparable to chat in my opinion.
The thread you posted would have been answered, had it been angry or not. Being angry does not make anything get answered faster. We treat every thread equally and aim to please everyone with the same haste as the next issue, our goal is no unresolved issue at any time.

Partsking

FWIW, the gurus in support have always answered and dealt with my problems quickly the few times I've had to submit a helpdesk ticket. Perhaps your case is the exception and not rule. The rare, rare times that I've dealt with consistent downtimes, I've always copy and pasted traceroutes stamped with the time and date in case support wanted to look them over.

No disrespect to you, but doing so is common sense IMO. You can't realistically expect immediate/lightning fast responses to issues in *any* field of business so having proof of your problem, especially time sensitive ones, is a must.

Last thing, before anyone thinks about jumping ship I would suggest getting in touch with Kayla. She goes above and beyond to satisfy her clients.

Cheers.

PhoenixRisen

I've been a client practically since Surpass started. I was very happy for a while but as they've grown, the service has gotten less and less reliable. Like many, I ignore the little down times and wait for Surpass to get it together on their own. But those times have gotten more and more frequent. Today I am waiting again to be able to get my email or even access my site.

Before I get a face full of pom poms from the official cheerleading team, let me just say that I all I am interested in is solutions and reliable service. Those were the things that won me over and kept me here all these years. It is clear that those things are no longer a given. So I will be moving on as soon as

The fact is that when I signed up, they really were the best deal around. But that was years ago and there are more competitive deals out there. A brief search online will show that there are equal and sometimes better deals for registration and hosting (registration costs have especially gotten more reasonable than $15.99!)

No, there is nothing wrong with my ISP. Yes, my bills are paid on time and in advance. I have made no changes to my setup although there have been times when I lost access because Surpass made changes they didn't think warranted mentioning! The lesson here is: Find a good hosting company and, like many relationships, enjoy it while it's good but don't ever make the mistake of assuming it's always going to be that good! Also like any good relationship, it an ongoing thing that will fall apart if either party begins to take the other for granted!

PhoenixRisen

Kayla, with all due respect, telling someone that being angry doesn't help does nothing to make them less angry! In fact, it probably makes them even angrier. As a former supervisor with a large communications company I can tell you that a comment like that one is at the top of the "do not do this" list. Customers are irate and frustrated when companies do not deliver on the services and promises people pay for. So I can just as easily say, "Giving poor service doesn't help either".

I have a current issue that I am certainly frustrated with because it's far from the first time it's happened. This other poster's problem wasn't even mine and your response annoyed me and solidified my feeling that Surpass has gotten too big by comparison to the tech assistance they have. I know from personal experience that when I have a problem it usually takes several people to figure it out - Some times it was some change Surpass made that they didn't inform customers about and other times I was never told what the problem was - all I got was the canned "Everything is working fine now" email (which really just means that once more it was a Surpass issue).

You might want to reconsider criticizing people (albeit indirectly) because they are angry. It just ticks more people off because at the end of the day it comes down to just two things: They are not getting the service they are paying Surpass for and they need to access their data and are frustrated that they can't. Today the reason seems to be Surpass having power issues. (I am a grad school student who is trying to get my email from school regarding financial aid for the semester starting in one week and this is the last thing I needed!)