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Ten Reasons Sitestar Sucks

Modified on 2010/05/12 08:49 by Administrator Categorized as Rants
We originally signed up with our ISP oz.net in about 1996.  We used dialup with Trumpet Winsock and we liked it!  When we moved to Sycamore Ave in 1998 we made the move to Qwest DSL, still with oz.net and life was good.  

Then ISP consolidation hit us.  Our local ISP with great customer service was sold down the river to The River, an ISP based in Arizona.  Inertia was strong and kept us with them.  Then The River was sold to Nationwide Internet, which in turn was sold to [http://www.sitestar.net|Sitestar], a faceless borg of an ISP somewhere far to the east, who still seems to cling to dialup as one of their core service offerings.

Finally fed up with Sitestar (and to a lesser degree Qwest), we dropped Sitestar and DSL in May 2010 and moved to Comcast.  So with no further ado, allow me to vent on my Top 10 Reasons Sitestar Sucks:

# '''Webmail Fail.'''  Their webmail does not work for oz.net email addresses.  No explanation, just doesn't work.
# '''Their web site sucks'''.  As of May 2010 the most recent "news" posted on their website is from 2008.  Clicking on the "signup now" link on sitestar.net gives a 403 error.  Over-compressed jpeg images with text embedded in the image.  The list goes on and on.
# '''Outages.'''  We saw an outage of 4 - 24 hours approximately once a quarter.
# '''No Self-Help Content.'''  Once I got a new DSL router and needed to set it up.  I couldn't find where I stored my instructions with the gateway, mask, DNS servers, etc. required to set it up, so I went to the SiteStar website expecting to find some self-help content on setting DSL up.  Nothing.  (even Nationwide, who were not much better than Sitestar, had this content on their site).  When I called to get this information, after being on hold 30 minutes, I asked why this wasn't on the web site and was told that they found most customers were confused by it and preferred to have someone walk them through it.  
# '''Technical Support Wait Times.'''  Hold times averaged 20 - 40 minutes before you could speak to a human
# '''Proactive Notifcation Fail.'''  Whenever I did reach a human during an outage, their immediate question was "are you in Washington?  We have an outage there" with the only solution being "be patient, we are working on it".  Once I suggested that both customers and Sitestar would save a lot of time if they had a system status page on their web site, an RSS feed of system status, or a twitter account for announcing status.  The tech said "that's a great idea, that would help a lot!"  Wow.
# '''Billing Lock-In'''.  They have a nice link on their customer account maintenance site to let you cancel.  When I tried it on May 11, it let me enter my comments to "top management" on why I am canceling, and when I clicked submit I was informed that I have an unpaid invoice and all invoices must be paid prior to cancellation, and 20 days notice is required to cancel.  Let me get this straight:
# '''No Pro-Rating.'''  OK so it is May 11 and I am cancelling.  I have already paid in full for the month of May (Paid on May 1 for service from May 1 - 31).  No refund for the last half of May where I am receiving no service.
# '''20 days notification required to cancel.'''  If I cancel May 15, I have to pay in full for service for the month of June as well.  So I need to pay for up to 51 days of service that I do not want or need, and that in fact I won't receive since I already canceled DSL with Qwest (who do cancel immediately and pro-rate a refund).  This is insulting, and probably grounds for legal complaint.
# '''Date Math Fail.'''  Note I tried to cancel on May 11, and my next invoice due date is June 1.  Hmm, 20 days prior to June 1 is May 12.  They are probably doing stupid date math as "all months have 30 days and 30 minus 20 is 10".  Idiots.  Not all months have 30 days.  Computers are pretty good at date math, and I suspect even your lame-ass cold fusion web site could do this for you if you bothered to lookup its date math library and use it.

I am tired and depressed and can go on no further.  Thank you for allowing me to vent!
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Ten Reasons Sitestar Sucks
