MidPhase Hosting is a Complete Scam

Originally Posted on February 18, 2008 Last Updated on March 5, 2015

My first experience with a host came with Lunarpages a few years back. Olivia over at Yummy Wakame had recommended them to me and I appreciate advice, so I went with it. Lunarpages had stellar support for the first few months, and so I started referring all of my client to them.

Almost simultaneously their phone support became non-existent and they were having 2 to 3 day turn around times with email support. Sites were down for days at a time. It was time to move.

By this time, Olivia had switched everything over to AN Hosting, which is a division of some sort of midPhase. It was never clear how exactly they were related to midPhase or why they were considered their own branch, as I received two welcome emails: one from AN Hosting and one from Midphase. Both stated that they would provide me with my cPanel, FTP info, etc. but both fell short. Their automated systems weren’t filling the ftp.clicknathan.com or auto-generated passwords in, so I had to open a support ticket before I had ever had a chance to login to my account. Still, I stuck with them and they served my purposes for a few months.

Then I referred a client their way – for dedicated hosting. midPhase farms all of their dedicated hosting out to a company called SingleHop, who I can only define as the most horrendously inadequate group of people I have ever worked with. It took us over a week to get the dedicated server setup, as no one from SingleHop was getting back to me. To be clear, several people from SingleHop were getting back to me, and it was as if none of them had bothered to read what the past communication was all about. So I would have to keep re-explaining everything that we’d discussed up to that point. At one point, after sending a very pleasant email stating “I’m beginning to get very concerned here. You said this would be taken care of in a few hours and it’s now been three days. Can you please let me know what’s going on?” I received a reply of “PONG!” from someone named Brad. I’m sorry, I should have said, I received a reply of “PONG!” from some dick named Brad.

Yes, I think that more accurately reflects my feelings toward these people. Eventually the server went up, and cost my client $170 / month. Every few months the support would get worse, until one day we received an email that they are no longer offering support unless you fork out another $25 / month. The server would be down for a few days while both my client and I would be on vacation and when we wrote to ask why midPhase says their servers will have 99% uptime (in fact, they guarantee it) they stated “We can only guarantee your server will be up if you let us know. If you want us to monitor your server, it’s an additional $69 a month.”

Dedicated hosting for $170 + $25 + $69 = $264 / month. Trust me, that’s highway robbery.

I advised my client, in December of 2007, to drop midPhase and all of their various divisions, and go with MediaTemple, who have thus far, at least, been working perfectly.

Update August 2014: I was with MediaTemple for eight years, but in the past twelve months their support and the performance of their servers have dropped so drastically as to be considered no better than a shared server could provide. I now use and recommend WPEngine.

I still had my own account with AN Hosting / midPhase however, and had sent an email to billing@midphase.com informing them that when my hosting cycle was up I wanted my account closed. They never responded.

I went through all of the motions of transferring my own sites to my own MediaTemple account, only to receive a bill from AN Hosting several weeks later stating that I had an unpaid balance of $76. That amount was then pro-rated to $21.95, to which I informed them there was a flying bugs chance on the interstate of getting paid, so they bumped the bill back up to $76.

I’d rather tarnish my credit and have to jump through the hoops of getting that removed than give one dime to these modern day thieves.

If you currently use AN Hosting or midPhase or SingleHop, I’m dying to know what your experiences are with them. If you don’t, I’d seriously think twice before ever instigating a conversation with them. They’ll likely bill you for it.

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Discussion

Ms. Wakame 20 Feb 2008

Its a bummer you’ve had such a rough time with MidPhase’s dedicated server option, though I was nervous about it when I first heard you’d signed up.

I’m more than extremely happy with AN Hosting for the average sized site as well as my own, its highly affordable, comes with amazing features, and I havent had any major problems with any of my clients sites that werent solved with a quick ticket. ALTHOUGH none of my clients are on dedicated servers with them. I also love their responsive tech support. That may change over time as it happens with companies that rapidly expand.

Dedicated hosting is a whole different ballgame to general hosting and requires extensive research so I wouldnt have automatically gone with AN Hosting without reading reviews. They are more of a small budget solution for average sites that want a lot of features and tons of space for their buck. Clients with massive sites can afford to be picky and definitely should be when it comes to finding a host that can perform under the load.

There have to be some options out there for reliable dedicated servers that include impeccable support.

Reply
nathan 21 Feb 2008

You’d think so…

And I will state that AN was better as a shared hosting provider than a dedicated one, but it’s hard for me to distinguish so easily.

For example, McDonald’s sells bottled water but that doesn’t justify their Big Macs.

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Cheryl 12 Jun 2008

I’m glad that I found your blog before I talked to SingleHop. I’m having a heck of a time finding a decent managed server option. Can you suggest one that you have had good luck with? Thanks!

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nathan 12 Jun 2008

I hear you Cheryl. I can’t recommend any host at the moment, though for the past 6 months I’ve been using Mediatemple with both their Grid Service and Dedicated Virtual server. The Grid Service has been spotty indeed, but is clearing up.

The Dedicated Virtual server has been excellent and though I’m not sure if it’s technically considered to be a “managed” server, they have always been more than accommodating at helping me install/configure most things on my server. They have a Plesk control panel which is a bit tricky at times but serves me well.

If you’d like, email me and I can give you some referral information that can save you 15%.

Good luck! Finding a good host is difficult.

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jarred 10 Apr 2009

I have to say, i’ve just signed up with singlehop and they seem to have changed from your report (which was written a year ago). I signed up yesterday and got my server within an hour, then today had to open a ticket. They responded within 10 minutes, and then did an hour and a half of work on my server for me. I do not have any managed services from them.

Anyhow, everyone has diff experiences, but I did want to be fair about what i’ve seen from their support.

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A. M 1 Sep 2013

Thanks for your great article, I thought it is important to add that I’ve been working with BlueHost for quite few years and their Reseller account has been disaster for past year and half, I have contacted them many times and it seems they can’t find a reason to get it fixed. their service were usually down, and we had to move more than 50 Clients to another server, which was a big hassle.
For now we are trying Mid-Phase which wasn’t bad so far.

Reply
1. nathan 2 Sep 2013
  
  I would just note that my post here is several years old and Lunarpages or Mid-Phase may have gotten things together by now. I haven’t used either much in years.
  
  Reply