Complaint Review: Arvixe

I have been using Arvixe for about 6 months and that was the worst mistake I have ever made.  They run business very dishonestly and they use shady techniques to get clients to upgrade to more expensive plans.  I signed up with Arvixe after my old hosting provider could not offer the memory I needed to run my website.  Before signing up with Arvixe their customer support checked my website and told me that it should not be a problem for them to run my small forum.  I believed in what they said and signed up.  In a few weeks they suddenly suspended my service.  I contacted them and after a few hours they reinstated the account and promised that they would not suspend my service again without sending me a warning.  Note that the website I have in my account is a forum with no more than 100 active users so it's not a big website and it seldom has more than 500 visits per day (it's run through IP Board).

On April 4, 2014 at 12:30 am Pacific time (probably a coincidence but probably the best time to suspend an account) my account was suspended for “using too many resources”.  I received an email from them requesting my ip so that I could access my website while it was offline.  I gave them my ip by email, also by updating a ticket they have created and also through the chat feature they offer.  Since this did not change anything I contacted them right away and to fix this sooner and I said I would not mind upgrading to a VPS (they have suggested in several occasions to do it).  Then I tried to sign up for the VPS and as soon as I did it I received an email saying that it was going to take 24-48 hours to complete the transfer.  The reason why I accepted to sign up to the expensive VPS was so that I could have the website running again ASAP but 48 hours was a joke.  Then I contacted them and told them that I was not going to pay the invoice they had created because of the time it would take to have the website running again.

I made it clear that upgrading to VPS was not an option any more and I was not going to do it, I went to the chat feature on their website and told at least 4 people that i was not going to buy the VPS.  I gave them all my ip address so that i could access my old account but they continue to give me the same answer I have been receiving during the last 12 hours "I have escalated your ticket" to ..."

I continue to get automated emails.  I continue to receive replies from different staff members, all of them trying to push me to pay for the VPS despite the fact that I have told them that I am not going to do it.  They have all they need to give me access to my account (they just need my ip) but they continue to delay it -- all this is obviously done intentionally so that I upgrade to an expensive VPS.  I do not know what else I can do, they have locked all my files and are not letting me fix the problem.  All I have been asking for more than 12 hours is to let me access my account so that I can download my files and take it somewhere else.

I strongly recommend people to avoid this company at all costs.  When contacting their customer support little explanation is offered, with dismissive tech support ignoring their clients or making excuses and accusations when they clearly do not have an idea what the problem is.  My website has been take down without a warning, requiring me to demand a response from their staff members. Support tickets are being ignored by their staff or take long LONG hours to receive attention, and that many customers are having to resort to publicly begging for assistance through the hosting forums.  Communicating with their technical support staff members in chat is almost impossible (it usually takes an hour to get a response in the chat, and that's if they are not too busy), with a robotic-like response and seemingly nothing but excuses.

Do not fall for the reviews (likely posted by themselves) that are posted on different hosting forums.  This company is terrible and their non-existent customer support won’t help you when you need it unless you are willing to open your wallet, do not fall for it and take your business somewhere else.