Serious issues with Webhost...What to do?

[DJ_B]

I posted a message a few days ago about having problems accessing my email. I figured out the problem is that all of my webhost's mail servers are down.

I run an e-commerce site and these servers have been down since Saturday. Needless to say this is completely unacceptable and is seriously harming by business.

I won't mention the name of the webhost but a very similar issue is raised with this company in this thread http://www.geekvillage.com/forums/showthread.php?t=12023&highlight=valuablehost.com

The worst part is the webhost does not communicate AT ALL. I emailed them on Tuesday asking if they knew why I wasn't accessing my email and received no response. It was only through a "server status" page they have that I knew their mail servers are down.

About 2 months ago I emailed them asking to change the name servers for one of my domains (so I could get away from their webhosting) and they told me they would do it at the end of the week but never did it. I emailed them again a couple of weeks later reminding them and they never responded to my email. Things got busy for me after this and as I was just using this domain for email (and still receiving email at this point) I figured I would address the issue later and not pay the invoices they send me.

Of course, now I can no longer ignore the issue and address it later!

I emailed them again on Thursday asking them to change the name servers and still no response.

They have no address or phone number listed anywhere.

I am confident the reason for their irresponsiveness is that this is a 1-man webhost and the guy doesn't have time to answer all the angry emails he is likely receiving while trying to figure out his server issues. While I have some sympathy for the guy this sympathy can't be at the cost of me getting ******* over.

So what should I do now? All I want is to do is switch webhosts and forget about this company but I can't even do this.

[Tyme]

Do you own your domain? Meaning are you the billing or adminstrative contact for the domain? If you are and this company is not responding to you, you could switch the domain to another registrar and then move your domain to another webhost.

[DJ_B]

Yes I am.

The domain was registered with the aforementioned webhost...is it still possible to switch the domain without any help from them?

[wsz]

As Tyme said, you can transfer the domain to another registrar. So just go some other domain registrar, and find their "Transfer A Domain" form. And then submit your domain, to be transferred. You might have to pay for a year there. But I am fairly sure that you will get credit for time remaining on your current registration.

The new registrar will contact the old one (sounds like your current host is also a registrar or reseller?) And, if all goes well (according to ICAAN rules), the domain will be transferred within maybe a week.

Then, go to the new registrar, and set your new nameserver info.

I like Stargate (http://stargateinc.com/) . You can change the nameserver and other info yourself in their customer interface.

BTW, this relates to my policy of keeping domain registrations and hosting at separate providors. Less hassle to repoint the domain if there is a severe problem at the host. Also, beware of some hosts that will actually register domains in such a way that you cannot shift it away without their permission.