Avoid Servage at all costs!
Written by Alex (nedge2k)   
Tuesday, 30 September 2008 21:16

I'd always heard good things about hosting provider Servage. I'd had it on very good authority that they were one of the best providers around.

"Were" being the operative word here because ever since they were taken over by Swedish telecomms firm Tele5 Voice Services back in May 2007, they seem to have gone from being one of the best to one of the worst.

Unfortunately, I found this out a bit too late after deciding to use them for an e-commerce site I'm currently developing. The alarm bells started ringing for me shortly after I opened an account with them. I was experiencing an unusual amount of database connection timeouts so I contacted their support staff. Their reply appeared to be automated at first as it looked as though they hadn't read my query at all. I replied back and got a similar reply from a different support worker who again, hadn't fully read my query.

At this point the alarm bells were ringing quite loudly so I did what I should have in the first place and read up on them. Sufficed to say, there were numerous posts in hosting forums dotted around the place that did not paint Servage in a good light. The main issues I and others have found with Servage are as follows:

Incompetent support staff

They seem to just pick out a keyword from your query and fire back a standard response without actually reading what you've asked.

Poor support system

The Servage support system operates by way submitting support "tickets". Unfortunately, the only way you can submit a ticket - or contact Servage support at all - is via your hosting control panel. Which is really handy if your account gets hacked and your password is changed!

Incompetent server administrators

From what I can gather, Servage servers have numerous security flaws that rarely get patched. There are so many stories of people's accounts getting hacked, having malicious code inserted into their websites etc. it's a wonder they are still operating at all!

Oversold and slow servers

Now, this one is a no-brainer really. Anyone offering the quantity of webspace and bandwidth that Servage do at a low price should start an instant alarm bell ringing...but as I said earlier, they did at one point, have a really good reputation!

No refunds

No where on their site - not even buried in the terms and conditions - does it state that you only have 5 days in which to cancel your account and get your money back. After this time, you can cancel your account but they will not refund you any remaining monies on the account.

So, not only are they useless but they are also thieves! Buyer beware - stay the hell away from Servage!