Web Hosting Gone Wrong BUT Overage Waived
So that post I made a while ago about the $1000 a month shared webhosting?
EDIT: A follow-up post has been made to this. Please READ THIS for the final update and the resolution. 
To refresh your memory (or simply read if you never caught it in the first place), click HERE.
Apparently, according to Kyle Matthews whom this incident happened to, there has been a resolution offered by Media Temple – namely, $6XX amount of overage fees are being/will be/were waived.
Click HERE to read his update!
According to Kyle’s post, Media Temple sent him an email shortly after his blog post appeared asking him to call them back in regards to the “unfortunate circumstance of the issue”.
Funny, that (in my opinion anyways), when the original customer support emails had stated that nothing could be done when Kyle had first asked.
But.
Media Temple DID get back in touch and did acknowledge at least part of the gaffe on their part – good for them! That’s called customer service gone right. At least… part way.
But.
Like Kyle’s blog post states, it still leaves a sour taste in my mouth, too, and mostly because of what I had explained in my earlier post.
A company trumpeting the robustness of their service and backing it up with percentages and statistics and saying that only 0.3% and 0.03% of users (basically, VERY VERY FEW for the first and out of a random 10,000 for the second!) ever experience overage problems ONLY to be keeled over by the 2 million 404 Apache errors from one website which generated a crapload of overage charges just…
It just doesn’t sit well with me at all in any way, shape, or form ESPECIALLY knowing that once upon a not very long time ago at all, the same site had done just fine on DreamHost’s shared web hosting service.
DreamHost talks about what they offer in their services, sure, and you can go poke at their fine print if you want to, and you can read up on their thoughts regarding ‘unlimited’ this, that, and the other, and they even regularly post status updates on their servers and all but nowhere have I seen the sort of reputation/credibility-building (more like hyping, really!) that Media Temple posted on their FAQs page.
And DH managed to host the site just fine.
Blegh.
So yeah.
Resolution posted!
… But the sour aftertaste is still there and I still can’t help but wonder just what kinds of sites those 10,000 were that MT randomly picked out which generated a grand total of 0.03% of sites going over their resources.
I guess trust (or something like it) once broken is hard to fix and I guess after all the hype, I’m not sure what’s ‘realistic’ to expect from MT or not after seeing something like this happen.
… We’ll see.
~ EMG
7 Responses to “Web Hosting Gone Wrong BUT Overage Waived”
I don’t think all of the information was given here and the lack of the information seems to distort this event.
While I can’t go into the details of why or how this customer exceeded their GPU usage (customer privacy). There were no mistakes in the GPU calculations or the notification system. They all worked the way they were supposed to. The charge was waived as a courtesy to our customer.
The (gs) Grid Server system gives customers access to a very powerful system. The GPU system allows us to provide those resources equitably to all (gs) customers. For more information on GPU’s, http://mediatemple.net/webhosting/gs/faq.php#63
We cannot speak about the DH products specifically but comparing their products to the (gs) system is comparing apples to oranges.
I am more than happy to speak to you or anyone regarding the usage of GPU’s if there is still any confusion.
Please call 877-578-4000 and ask for Andrew. I will be more than happy to speak with anyone regarding this matter.
Hi Andrew!
I really appreciate you coming over and offering additional information on the situation.
I would like to say first of all that I am well aware of customer privacy issues; I understand that you are and will be unable to divulge more personal information due to privacy concerns.
In relation to that, my own information on the matter was both taken from the client in question’s blog page along and also given to me in the form of private correspondence because I wanted to make sure that I wasn’t quoting anything improperly. As much distorted as it can seem (and I can understand where you are coming from in regards to that), it also can’t be that far off the mark in some ways. But since I don’t have the ‘insider’ information on MT, I certainly acknowledge that I could be missing something.
You offer me a chance to call in to talk to you about the whole thing regarding GPUs; I will do just that shortly – thank you for the offer – and I will make another update to my blog accordingly if I get additional information to supplement.
Now about the GPU system:
I actually very much read – and extensively at that – about the GPU system in question and THAT was actually the bulk of my disgruntlement which you can see for yourself when you read both of my posts regarding this event.
The first post I wrote, in fact, quoted multiple sections from the page you linked me to and I explained exactly how my (and any other potential new customer) interpretation and impression of the GPU page could lead to false impressions.
In an attempt to clarify myself:
1) I did not say the GPU system itself is faulty or that the numbers were misread or something went haywire with the GPU system itself.
I simply find it rather unbelievable that a system claiming to be so robust (read back to my first post and look for the quoted sections in regards to the GPU FAQs; I explain my thoughts and reactions there) which experiences only 0.3% of users having overage issues and only 0.03% of sites out of 10,000 random sites experiencing overage issues would have such a situation where a site like the client’s in question would be one of the 0.3% and one of the 0.03%.
1) The reason I was comparing DH to MT is because the client was formerly at DH and without issue.
I share the same web host in that regard and am very familiar with their TOS and with how they work for the most part. When the client said that their site was previously hosted just fine at DH which does not share a few of the same characteristics as MT (the grid system and GPU system for example) and then had such a wallop of a problem at MT who, in comparison, a lot of people would be led to thinking would have a more robust system… it simply leaves a WTF taste in the mouth.
Comparing apples to oranges, sure.
I can see how it’s not entirely fair. But at the same time, the way that MT advertises its services (in the GPU GAQs page for example) can lead to misleading thoughts – the misleading thoughts being that MT’s system – the grid, the GPUs – is superior to the systems implemented by other hosts.
MT would like to be in the position of being a leader in providing above-the-bar web hosting services.
When a site moves from one host (cheaper in pricing, different in its set-up, but it worked just fine) to another host (more expensive, different in its set-up) and then suddenly experiences such a problem like the event described…
How can MT NOT be compared back to the older host?
But apples to oranges, I can see and understand where you are coming from, and after I make the call, I will be more than happy to add in any and all relevant information that might help clarify.
Thanks again for writing Andrew; I really appreciate it.
~ EMG
Based on your last comment, I believe there is a huge misunderstanding or miscommunication. Please call me at your earliest convenience and I will be more than happy to speak to you about this.
[...] It’s been a few long months owing to me having to take care of emergency familial issues, but remember that post I made back in March about Web Hosting Gone Wrong? [...]
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