Over the years, I have dealt with many vendors. While I have had bad experiences with a few companies, no one is as reprehensible as iPowerweb. When I began using them to host my client's websites years ago, they were a small company with excellent service. Since then, I have had several negative experiences which I will detail below. But before I do, I want to add that two companies have been wonderful and were really helpful when I need to move my accounts from iPowerweb. One excellent hosting company is The Hostal Service. Their customer service is always available (no long hold times) and they are very affordable and offer a ton of features. The control panel is a bit clunky though. My other all time favorite is HostMySite. They answer calls on the first couple rings. They rarely put you on hold, and 99% of the time, the person that answers is the person that helps you. You don't have to wait while they "escalate" your issue to a "level 2" rep. They even follow up with a phone call when your issue has been resolved. I LOVE them. If you are on iPowerweb, get out now and try one of these companies. If you are thinking about signing up with them, DON'T!

While I have had many bad experiences with iPowerweb, I will detail just a few here.

1. Their servers get hacked. This has happened more than once for different clients. In the most recent case, it is not the site that is hacked, it was the server. When anyone clicked a Google search result to my client's website, www.zocalonyc.com, they were redirected to a SPAM site. There is a support thread about this here: http://support.mozilla.com/tiki-view_forum_thread.php?locale=el&forumId=1&comments_parentId=115906.
iPowerweb refused to look into the problem or claim any responsibility.

2. Customer Support is awful. I dread ever having to call support. You are usually on hold for a MINIMUM of 20 minutes with annoying static-y music. I have been on hold for the better part of an hour. If you do get through to someone, it is usually a person with no technical knowledge. They read from scripts and have to "escalate" your issue to a more senior operator. This means you get to sit on hold again. Often, they never do end up resolving the issue or several calls are required before it is resolved. Mind you, many of these issues are caused by iPowerweb themselves (hacked sites, servers down, billing errors). Oh, and good luck if you don't remember your security codes and call in PIN.

3. The servers go offline. I have had the servers go down for hours and days at a time, many times. Once they were down for 4 or 5 days. The hours spent trying to get updates and refunds was ridiculous. The heat I took from frustrated clients was enough to make me move most of the sites off iPowerweb. (Which of course I could not do until the sites were back online and could be backed up).

4. They take your domain name hostage.Don't register your name through iPowerweb. In fact, it is best not to register through most hosting companies. She short explanation is that they buy domains in bulk and gaining complete control and ownership of your domain can be difficult and tedious. You risk losing your domain because of a renewal error, change of guard at your hosting company or the hosting company closing its doors. This has happened to someone I know, but that is another blog. Suffice to say, spend the extra bucks for a reputable registrar like Network solutions.

Other serious problems include:
- Server migrations that cause your site to go down without warning (and your site may stay down unless you bring it to their attention)
- Getting disconnected while on the phone with support.
- No backups! There was an issue and iPowerweb did not have backups of our site! HostMySite has backups of your site from a day ago, a month ago, etc. that can be purchased for $30.
- Your site and email get blacklisted

There you have it, a list of some of the problems I have had with iPowerweb. The hours I have spend dealing with iPowerweb can never be retrieved, but hopefully this little post can save someone else out there some valuable time.

Other reviews of iPowerweb (in case you are not convinced)
http://hostjury.com/reviews/ipowerweb
http://webhostinggeeks.com/user-reviews/index2.php?item_id=5