Complaint Review: Webs.com complaint webs.com website builder webs.com websites complete failure webs.com website hosting complaints webs.com website builder F rating BBB - Silver Springs Maryland

Webs.com is a webhosting provider that hosts over 23 million websites, with a site builder that is user-friendly and doesn't require technical expertise.

On Jan 14, 2011, AT&T blocked username.webs.com due to it mimicking their login window. In other words, it was a phishing site. The site was created on Jan 14 at 6:38 am, ET. It was reported to our abuse team by AT&T that same day at 11:21 am ET. Our abuse team froze the site at 1:02 pm, Jan 14 - within 2 hours of being notified, and the site was no longer accessible. We immediately replied to AT&T, reporting the site was frozen.

By 2 pm on Jan 14, reports began rolling in that some users were unable to view their sites. We suspected a blockage, and reported our suspicions to our users via our community support forums.

At no point were our servers down. We were able to view user sites from within the office, as well as from our home computers and through 3rd party tools that check server statuses. It was clear that there was an issue with ISPs denying access to some portion of their users (but not all users).

The ISPs share networking resources, so a blockage with one major ISP (such as AT&T) will result in blockages through other ISPs as well.

Of the 23 million sites we host, we received complaints from about 600 that they were having access difficulties.

We contacted ISPs whose users were reporting problems (including AT&T) through email, phone support numbers, live chat support, Facebook, and Twitter. Additionally, we sent an email to the AT&T security team on 1/15/2011 with no reply.

We were told by the ISPs that multiple complaints from customers would result in the issue being taken more seriously. Comcast told us they were watching "trends" and AT&T told us that they needed customers to call, and then they could follow through with individual customers directly.

We were diligent in ensuring the customers were aware of the actions we were taking, and aware of what they could do to speed up resolution of this issue.

Unfortunately, there was a break in communication within AT&T's internal departments. This resulted in a delay of the resolution of the issue. Furthermore, we were told that their Tier 1 team cannot handle blockage issues and are trained to state no site is blocked regardless of the evidence.

While we continued to attempt to reach someone at AT&T who could resolve the issue, our efforts were not effective until Tuesday. This was due to the blockage occurring on a Friday afternoon, followed by a 3-day weekend. The only AT&T staff whom we could reach did not appear to be trained to understand the issue, let alone resolve it.

Nevertheless, the Webs Community Support Manager, and the Manager of Technical Support of Webs were both in the community forums and reaching out to the ISPs all day, every day, from Friday until Tuesday.

On Tuesday, we were able to reach the security personnel at AT&T, and they confirmed that a block was placed on Friday and was still in effect. Once they understood the issue, saw that we had taken action on Friday against the offending site, and realized the impact the block had on their own customers (largely by seeing the number of complaints they'd gotten to their call centers and through public forums such as Facebook), they took quick action and lifted the block.

We now have contact information for the security team and social media outlet at AT&T, and they have contact information for us. They have assured us that before placing a block on our entire IP, they will contact us first and allow us the opportunity to freeze any offending site first.