Avoid NSI: A personal Crusade
Written: Jan 31 '03 (Updated Jan 31 '03)
|
Product Rating:
|
|
|
Pros: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!!!
Cons: Not enough space here. See my review.
The Bottom Line: If I could give negative stars I would. If you value your sanity you will steer clear of this company.
|
|
|
| TheDOZ's Full Review: Network Solutions.com |
1st things 1st: A single "HIDDEN" unhelpful rating on these negative NSI epinions tends to show up directly after posting. Here's a hint to the hidden rater...no one's buying it
I joined epinions quite some time ago and my focus at that time,which remains generally the same, was to write positive opinions about products people might find useful. Anyone can complain, but solid information about a GOOD product is hard to come by. From time to time, however, the very worst must be exposed. This is my tale of woe with Network Solutions Inc..
First, let me say this....never, and I mean NEVER even consider doing business with NSI. Let me say that again. Never...and I mean NEVER even consider doing business with NSI...
Got that? Good....
Lets get one other thing out of the way. NSI is now Verisign, so for purposes of this review the two names are interchangeable. I have worked with NSI customer support when it was it's own company, and I have now worked with the merged entity's customer support. I can tell you this; both are absolutely undeniably abysmal.
I made the mistake of registering a domain name with Verisign. I call this a mistake for many reasons, but chief among them is that in retrospect I could have accomplished the same thing much cheaper using my own regional ISP...and with that registration would have come a good amount of FREE space for a personal page and, for a nominal fee, more space for a business site. At the time, however, Verisign seemed the easiest route. That part is my fault. I should have spent some time researching. To be fair, it was truly easy to register the name at Verisign.
Following the registration I naturally proceeded to look into web space, since a business site was the reason I registered the name in the first place. Well, again Verisign makes it ultra easy to sign up for space through NSI, where you'll be given tools to "quickly build" a nicely laid out site , all at the price of about 90 bucks for a year of service....sounds good , right?
too good, in fact....
Without going into details about why we needed a quick web presence, I'll simply say that we needed nothing more than a template and a place to direct current investors to look at various agricultural real estate parcels. Very simple, and the tools advertised would work well for me, which was important since it was up to me to get the site up. We had sent a snail mailer to direct those current investors to the site, assuming it would take only a couple days at the most to get the site I had already built up on the NSI contracted servers. Well, let me be blunt here...nothing worked at NSI. The tools to build a site with, using predefined templates, were slow and cumbersome. Just getting a few lines of simple text and a jpeg file into the template took nearly 20 minutes. Once I finally got those done I hit the "publish" button....
...and proceeded to wait 35 minutes before I was able to actually get in a queue to publish the page. To make a long story short, 3 days later I was actually able to upload the page....I think...because for almost 2 weeks afterward all that showed up was a place holder error page under the domain name. Keep in mind that by now , during this wait, I have lost the ability to cancel and get a refund within 30 days.
So, having uploaded the page, as far as I knew, and still having NO actual web presence I began using the "customer support" (excuse me for 37 minutes while I laugh hysterically at the use of the term "customer support") options. The first option was the online chat option. I used this because supposedly that was the only way to get immediate action on difficulties with websites. Without boring details, I sat in a chat queue on that day for a little over 2 hours before getting to the #1 spot next in line. Thinking that FINALLY I'd get some resolution, and happy at that, I was informed within about 5 minutes of getting to that position that there were no more chat personnel available for that day's chat session. "Try again later".....can you FEEL the frustration mounting? Multiply that by 50 and you'll have an approximation of where I was at that point....
...but try again I did...several times. 5 to be exact, and I logged 11 hours of queue time before I was finally able to chat with someone at....ok, I can NOT actually any longer type the words "customer service" as they pertain to NSI, so lets agree from here on out to call them the minions of satan....so anyway..I was finally able to chat with the minions of Satan. 2 hours of chatting later I am told that this is all a "known issue" and that engineering will have it resolved in 24 hours or less. Needless to say, nothing was resolved....
...jump almost 2 weeks forward past 9 phone calls, 15 different reps including "supervisors" , and a grand total of 17 hours of on hold phone time (thankfully it's toll free), and STILL NO WEB PRESENCE....I demand for the 5th time that I receive a full refund of money paid, only this time I have enlisted the aid of an attorney,and I am ready to sue. Well, I'm assured that I'll have that refund asap, because NSI is ,in fact, in breach of contract, because they cannot for whatever reason supply a service as contracted. That gets me out of the 30 day clause, according to the friendly supervisor at NSI. "No problem , John....give it a few days to process. We are certainly sorry to lose you as a customer but we understand."
...a week later, no refund...BUT, my broken web page is up, and now the minions of Satan tell me that everything is fine...the page is up! Yay! We don't owe you anything anymore!
.....You get the picture. 3 phone calls and a fax of legal discovery requests later I finally get a confirmation e-mail yesterday that says I am receiving a PRORATED refund. I apparently have to pay for all that time spent trying to get the issue resolved. No big deal..I consider this a win. Very few men can say they battled the Dark Lord and walked away mostly whole. I did so, and I'm proud of it....
Please read my other reviews. Examine my web of trust. See some of the comments people have written to me, and form your own opinion of me and my credibility. If it is positive, and I do hope you see me in that light, then please..PLEASE..I beg you, for your own good and the good of anyone who regularly comes within 50 feet of you...PLEASE do NOT contract any business with NSI/Verisign. I generally like people, even strangers, and I'm making a personal plea...I'm begging you, even....
AVOID NSI at all costs....
You have choices...use them. Don't make my awful mistake. Research prices and services. make SURE you can FTP your OWN HTML creations (you can NOT do this at NSI). Make SURE you know how much bandwidth transfer you have. READ all the fine print. Give your own regional ISP a chance at your business...you tend to get better and more personal service that way..and hold times are minimal usually. Make sure to register your domain name at the same place you intend to have your page hosted(again...this works great with regional ISP's...mine is Redshift). If you even THINK you may, at some point, have to transfer a domain name PLEASE make sure you know the cost and procedure. NSI, for example, has you "request" a transfer, at substantial cost...and even then it might not get done without significant intercession by the target host.
Finally, search the web for information on your intended host and/or domain registrar. Go here and have a look: http://www.nsihorrorstories.com/index_ns.shtml
...in the name of all that is holy, all that is natural, all that is wholesome......think 8 or more times before doing business with NSI/Verisign...
*a special note to NSI/Verisign*
SUE me , jerkoffs....I dare ya!
Recommended:
No
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
TheDOZ
|
|
Member: John
Location: Fresno Ca.
Reviews written: 27
Trusted by: 35 members
About Me:
I throw peanuts at old ladies.
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.