Why not to use UK2.net
Updated: UK2.net 2 years on on 10/11/2006
Some years ago I received a birthday present in the shape of a domain name. That was when www.elfden.co.uk was born. At the time it was purchased through uk2.net because they were relatively cheap.
Everything went well, for a while, and I extended the domain name to a small hosting package as well. That was when the trouble began. The package lacked various little things like cgi and php. But at the time that wasn’t a problem.
Then came a time when I wanted to move the site. Despite the lack of fax machines in most peoples homes, they wanted a fax. Although we have several PC’s in the house, not one of them had any fax software. I scoured the web and eventually found something that sufficed and sent the fax. I was transferring my domain and hosting to UKWSD (UK Web Solutions Direct). Although the DNS took a while to be transferred, it all went reasonably well.
From there the trouble started! When I wasn’t even a customer anymore!
I was being sent their members newsletters. I tried to unsubscribe, but to do that you had to be a member, i.e. have an account with them. Of course my details had been deleted, and I couldn’t access anything.
I emailed them. Apart from the auto-replies, I didn’t receive anything. Then the following month, another newsletter. So I emailed again, adding in all the email addresses I could think of at the time. Finally a reply, yes they would remove me from their list.
3 months later I received another newsletter.
I started the cycle of emails again.
This same thing happened every few months. Then by the beginning of this year I had had enough. In March over the course of 3 days I received a total of 63 automated responce emails from them, following my attempt to contact them once again. I made a complaint to Trading Standards and sent the following email to them:
To: abuse@uk2.net
CC: stopabuse@uk2.net; abuseisp@uk2.net; postmaster@uk2.net; root@uk2.net; sales@uk2.net; support@uk2.net
Subject: I am being spammed from yourselves.
Dear sirs,
Once again I have been added to your apm list despite repeated requests that
I be removed permanently. I was a customer of yours, but have not been for
several years. Every time you send me one of these ’spam’ email I have
complained, and my email address has eventually been removed for a short
time, but it appears you are not honouring these removals.
You are in breach of the ‘Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC
Directive) Regulations 2003′ and i would like to formally request that my
email address be completely removed from your system.
Also as you are a UK company I would like to formally request that you send
details of how I can obtain from yourselves a full copy of all information
you hold about myself on your computers. This is in regard to the Data
Protection Act, and I trust this matter will be dealt with quickly.
Thank you for your time
Rich Pedley
Although no reply was received the emails, and so far the newsletters have ceased.
Hopefully this article will not be continued…
Updated: UK2.net 2 years on on 10/11/2006
Posted: November 14th, 2004 at 10:01 am →
I realy do admire your attidute towards uk2.net, i have been using them for quite some time and have only recently found how what a poor service they provide. Im using a combination of PHP and mySQL on my site and have discovered that as well as some of the security settings being made had to find, once i finaly did get my site working it wont work on my own PC, and you cant find their setings anywhere! When you changes provider what did you do? I take it you dont get any compensations, iv paid recently for a further 2 years, am I stuck?
Posted: November 14th, 2004 at 2:18 pm →
If I remember correctly, I had to *fax* them with details. This I still think is wrong in this so called technicological world. Anyway, I narrowed down my options to 2 hosting companies. The first was netweaver, and the second was UKWSD. I plumped for the second one, and the support has been excellent. The servers are based in the US, but I’ve had no major problems with them, and they are always friendly, and willing to help out if they can.
Having just paid UK2, unless you are prepared to loose the money you paid, stay with them until a few months before you are up for renewal. Though in theory UK2 should refund anything due, double check that they will before before you move. I would actually suggest this for anybody considering moving from one hosting company to another. If you can afford to move then go ahead! Be interesting to see if they have improved anything.
Do you still get the newsletters from them?
Posted: December 10th, 2004 at 2:42 am →
UK2.net are much worse than this. Every time they make a mistake, they charge a hefty admin fee to fix it. For the second time in a month, they’ve dropped our domain out of the DNS without so much as contacting us. Then, they claim that we made a chargeback on the credit card - which is not true. Worse, they won’t let us leave without paying them what we “owe” them.
Fortunately, there is a solution: to escape from UK2.net, just ask Nominet to transfer the tag. This can be done without the consent of UK2.net, and only costs £15. See: https://secure.nic.uk/cgi-bin/changeagent/Transfers.cgi?new=1
You can then transfer your tag to the registrar of your choice. Personally, I’ve been very happy with just-the-name.co.uk
Richard
Posted: March 27th, 2005 at 1:25 pm →
I can understand the minimal support UK2 provide, in particular as they also provide maximum means of self administration. However in extremis they are useless. I have a leased server and purchased the online support. Each time I use support - say once a year - I have to threaten to write to the CEO to ultimately get the support I have paid for. Next step is to make an ASA complaint. I’m now in the process of transferring hosting to servershed, domains I expect I will try just-the-name as above
Posted: March 27th, 2005 at 7:14 pm →
What UK2 don’t seem to realise is that without a decent customer support they are going to lose more and more people.
As mentioned I use: UKWSD with whom I have no complaints
Posted: April 1st, 2005 at 1:58 pm →
Have just started dealing with UK2.net as a client has required me to transfer their domain to my UKReg account. Not as easy as I had hoped. From looking at their support pages, and their no email no phone policy, I have been forced to fill out the ticket support request. Will let you know how long this takes! From what was mentioned above, looks like their response is going to be along the lines of - fax us the details. Not looking forward to the upcoming exchanges of trying to transfer the domain off them! Keep you posted, thanks for the help above.
Richard Smith
http://www.inyoureyes.co.uk
Posted: April 1st, 2005 at 2:29 pm →
Might be interesting to compare with my experiences, please keep me informed.
Good luck with it!
Posted: April 1st, 2005 at 2:46 pm →
Has now ground to a prompt halt. UK2.net wanted to charge an “admin” fee of £12.50 to transfer the domain. What a joke. The client has decided to stay with UK2.net as the cost of the release fee matches the renewal for 2 years. Gotta ask yourself, is it really worth it. At least both myself and the client have learnt a lesson - stay away from UK2.net!
Nice website by the way, glad you escaped the UK2.net grip on the world!
Richard Smith
http://www.inyoureyes.co.uk
Posted: April 1st, 2005 at 3:09 pm →
If they have had their domain for more than 2 years then UK2 are still mis-behaving my making people pay to move the domain.
To be honest I;’d suggest moving it sooner rather than later, just to get it away from them!
Posted: April 11th, 2005 at 4:26 pm →
I have been with UK2 for 3 years and in my experience there technical support appears to be non-existant.
I have been reporting a fault to them for over 1 month now and have received no response. Even sending messages to their “complaints” department results in an auto-email response. UK2.net are providing by far the worst support that I have ever come across.
Can anyone advise, when I switch my domains to someone like UKWSD is there any period of service outage?
Posted: April 11th, 2005 at 6:12 pm →
When switching hosting companies, try and find one that allows you to upload files before the domain is transferred. that way you minimise any service outage. Yes there may be some, but only whilst waiting for DNS caches to clear.
Posted: April 12th, 2005 at 10:38 am →
I’ve just come across UK2.net as one of my customers is having a problem with them. The domain name she bought and paid for is still registered to her but the hosting is having a problem. The souce for the web site she was hosting with them has mysteriously disappeared! UK2.net said they were updating their servers when she asked them what the problem was - funny coincidence? One week later there is still no web site - four days after the supposed server update that was to fix the problem.
We use supanames to host most of our customer sites and although you don’t get to talk with their support guys the emails do get responded to quickly and efficiently. They don’t chrge you anything to move away from them either and at under £14 a year for a basic hosting which includes cgi and a mysql database it’s not a bad deal.
I will let you know how we get on with UK2.net and whether they admit they are at fault and have lost the source code for the web site.
Posted: April 13th, 2005 at 12:56 pm →
UK2.net - !$&*!~’s Over the years I have had so much fun and games with them trying to get clients domains moved away. There used to be a page on thier site where you could pay the extortiante £19 demanded for admin to allow a transfer away. But I found then that it was released at Joker.com (thier registrar)and you had to go there and fill in a load of forms - and most of it was in German. This month I have two more domains to transfer away from UK2.net and I had a look at teh Joker site and its much better - a whole revamp and its now also in English. However I now find that UK2.net now use Twocows instead…
Does anyone have the UK2.net url of the page where they ask for the fax that Rich mentions? Or any other way of forcing a transfer (The Nominet link that Richard mentioned is good for .co.uk domains only).
Posted: April 13th, 2005 at 4:36 pm →
I actually got a reply from UK2.net! This is the page to go to to get your domain moved http://amail.co.uk/moveaway.htm
Posted: April 14th, 2005 at 11:20 pm →
I am utterley pissed off with UK2. Have been emailing them for a week now, and no response.
Website is still not working….. Im at the stage now where I just want the site to work don’t really care about money…….
I would advise no one to sign up with them teck support is Useless… I doubt they will be a company for much longer with such sh**e support for paying customers.
Posted: April 25th, 2005 at 8:24 pm →
I had loads of problems with UK2 - my domain stopped working, even though I had paid for renewal. I got so frustrated trying to contact them, in the end I went to OpenSRS (Tucows) and had my domain transferred to another host. UK2.net have still not responded to my requests for assistance. I am telling everyone I can about how sh*te they are - and I was a (relatively) happy customer for 4 years! You can read my full story of woe here: http://wp.rossbrown.net/2005/04/14/why-you-should-not-buy-domains-from-uk2net
Posted: May 3rd, 2005 at 11:50 am →
Yes, same happening here… their network status report suggests ‘Apache - webserver unavailable’ - which is really not good.
I’ve sent them a message every day trying to convince them to contact me as my business relies on http://www.SpecialPlates.com domain - without it I can’t pay the mortgage!!
Anyone have any knowledge of a phone number?!?! I really need to get this sorted, as you guys do, ASAP!!
Joe
Posted: May 6th, 2005 at 1:46 pm →
Hi
I have been trying to get away from uk2.net and joker.com
I tried: http://amail.co.uk/moveaway.htm
but the form times out! and my new ISP Verio have never heard of joker.com!
and uk2 dont do support or telephone!
If you buy a domain through them you arent actually buying it.. they are buying it and renting it to you.
bastards. its a cheap trick and should not be allowed.
Someone should shut these ******* down!
Rob
Posted: May 7th, 2005 at 8:25 pm →
I find the whole UK2.net set-up to be a joke. I’ve been with them for a number of years but keep experiencing outages on my email forwarding (the latest being just a couple of days ago). I’m now at the point where I definitely want to move away, but trying to find the page on their website to make this possible takes FOREVER to find. In the future I’ll be buying all my domains through telivo.
Posted: May 9th, 2005 at 11:29 pm →
Hi there
I am going thru my 2nd year of hell with UK2, and now I am trying to move my domain to GoDaddy.com but boy are UK2 playing hard to get!
Strangely Joker now does seem easier to use to re-assign values away form UK2, but how do you do similar for TUCOWS. How can I get into them to correct the ‘Administrative Contact” etc…
Any help with this would be greatly appreciated
Guy
Posted: May 10th, 2005 at 3:02 pm →
Well, at last all my domains are back up and running using UK2.net - it appears that they are SO low-budget that they have decided now to make the customer transfer the domain DNS info blah blah themselves!!!!
Apparently this was mentioned in a newletter, but if this isn’t subscribed to you are not to know about the change!! I found out after pulling my hair out for a week with my business site offline.
Many unanswered messages via their ‘help’ system. Wouldn’t it be simple and courteous to just write a quick email to explain the change?!
Happy now things are back up and running… but good grief, what a hassle.
Joe
Posted: May 17th, 2005 at 8:43 pm →
have recently transfered away from UK2.net after our web site went down for 3 days over a bank holiday weekend, and even their own submission forms failed as we did not get any autoresponse to the messages we sent. Our site did not come back on-line again until about 40 minutes after I hand delivered a very strongly worded letter to their offices in London. They then told us we could not have a refund on remaining services that we had already purchased but soon changed their minds after they were informed that they either paid up within 14 days or we were taking them to small claims court. Even with that they only managed a partial refund, the saga continues. It is not actually as difficult to maove away as you may imagine, however if you submit a form on their site and tell them you want the link to the move away site etc they basically have no choice but to send it. Ironically the problems began the day after a letter arrived telling me what they had done to improve their service:-)))
Posted: May 17th, 2005 at 9:03 pm →
To contact uk2.net
The office admin tel no is 0207 9870517 (they don’t advertise this so please spread it far and wide. If they change it let me know and I’ll find out the new one)
Fax: 0207 987 0424
Their managing director is Eric Anderson - I’m sure he would be delighted to hear from you all. BTW, they don’t answer the phone “UK2.net, can I help” they just pick it up and say “hello” so don’t be put off. Ask for Paul in technical support. Be specific, apparently there are 3 Pauls on staff:-))
Posted: May 18th, 2005 at 12:12 pm →
I’ve also had a lack of service problem with my website for a few days now, God knows how many of those email forms I filled in.
I found the email address of an employee and mailed him about the criminal way the support was run…..
I got an email back in 10mins saying they had ‘reset my nameservers’
Don’t they mean reset THEIR nameservers!
I’d try: eanderson@uk2.net
It’s an educated guess at the CEO’s email!
Posted: May 18th, 2005 at 12:45 pm →
My website is also down and I have had the ‘reset my nameservers’ message too - after threatening legal action for lost earnings. Apparently they seem to respond to that kind of thing, as suddenly i got replies to all my emails. Website not back up, though.
Thanks for the phone number - that is useful to know indeed.
Posted: May 20th, 2005 at 9:33 am →
I’ve been using UK2 for about 5 years, and have been really pleased until THIS WEEK - paid for web space on two existing domains, FTP’d the files… and nothing! Completely inactive web sites. I sent in email complaints and got the “resetting nameservers” excuse as well, as well as one with some other info that did not seem to make much sense. Worrying though, on Status, when you log in, it says “Webserver unavailable”! which is not very promising at all! It seems as if something has gone wrong, perhaps just recently, with this company. Problem is I have so many domains with them, .coms and .co.uk switching would be a nightmare. Any advice on bulk switching procedures?
Posted: May 20th, 2005 at 10:10 am →
One additional thing: the reason I have liked using UK2 over the years, is that they give you total DNS control. For me, as a web developer with my own setup, this means you can make lots of subdomains and other things and point the web, ftp, mail, subdomains to any IP address you like at the drop of a hat - brilliant for testing, switching from development to live server, testing mailservers etc. Now, if I could find a better hosting company that could also offer this I would be beating a path to their door - does anyone know of another host which offers UK2-type total DNS control via web interface?
Posted: May 20th, 2005 at 10:31 am →
All I can say is Michael O’Sullivan, what a legend! We host over 600 domains with UK2 and spend over 10K a year with them and I have been trying to get hold of them through their useless website for months! Just phoned them, they did answer the phone as UK2, and a relatively friendly girl took details of my problems and said someone will get back to me, but I will reserve too much praise until someone does! My problems don’t seem as serious as most on here but I am finding quite of our domains where the email diversion does not work at all and I cannot redirect the streams of junk mail coming in to our company daily. Purchased their Spam Filter Upgrade on one domain for £10 and it did nothing, will attempt a refund on this. Also want to transfer a domain to them and couldn’t get a reply, I’m trying to give them business here!!! I’m spending way too much with these guys to put up with the non-existent service so far, would happily move all of our domains if it was free and easy.
Posted: May 23rd, 2005 at 9:24 am →
Michael, they are not answering that number this morning, perhaps they have got wise? Are you able to find another for them at all please as my problems remain unresolved? Cheers
Posted: May 23rd, 2005 at 6:05 pm →
Alex,
If I was them I’d be monitoring this page - will look into it and get back ASAP…
Posted: May 24th, 2005 at 2:08 pm →
Hi Michael,
Thanks for that. I had actually hoped speaking to someone there would get something sorted, clearly not. I cannot believe how bad the service is, I keep finding pages and pages of people on the internet just completely and utterly let down by them.
I’m not sure if they have featured before but I am going to contact the BBC Watchdog programme tonight and try and get them to do a story on them because this is beyond a joke now. I’m this angry and I’m not even spending my own money. If I hosted a private or small business domain with them I would be livid.
I hope they are monitoring this page and I hope they soon get what they deserve.
Posted: May 25th, 2005 at 9:12 pm →
meanwhile Fax your complaint to them at: 0207 987 0424 and keep a copy. They have indeed stopped answering the phone - however they also refunded all of the money that I had outstanding with them. I had intended to challenge them in small claims on the basis that an unfair contract cannot be enforced under English law, looks like they didn’t want this tested… I am no longer at odds with them as my own problems with them have now been resolved, and good riddence. Need support with the BBC? Put them in touch by all means - I’ll see what my source says about their telephone as soon as I get a chance to speak to them…
Posted: May 30th, 2005 at 7:53 pm →
I use UK2 to redirect to my blueyonder site. The site’s admittedly not very good and traffic is pitifully low. I’ve been meaning to overhaul it for quite a while but not got round to it. However, I must say I haven’t, until now, had any reason to complain; I’ve been able to use use the self-help to fulfill all my needs. I was very interested to find your blog as a result of my Google search on “uk2.net problem”. My problem is that there’s a mass mailer somewhere that’s started using greentambourine.com email addresses. Of course, I have anything@greentambourine.com redirected to my blueyonder email account. It just started on Saturday night and I have been inundated with “undeliverable mail” responses. I’m not sure in what way UK2 might be expected to help but , after combing my own PC in vain to find out if a mass mailing worm had somehow got past my router , firewall and anti-virus software, I have tried to log in at UK2.NET only to be told the system is down for maintenance. I must say I feel rather suspicious of this as I would not expect an ISP to go offline at any time unless it was in serious trouble.
Do you know anything about this?
Any advice on what I can do about the mass mailer would be a bonus.
Posted: June 3rd, 2005 at 8:44 am →
UK2 are appalling. One of my domains has been down for two weeks, they keep saying that my nic fee arn’t paid, even though they are. tech support tickets take about 2-3 days to respond. I am so sorry I ever used this company.
They rely on automation far too much and just make assumptions.
Tried the phone number, no reply.
Posted: June 3rd, 2005 at 12:02 pm →
I wonder if it’s a co-incidence that Regus are tenants at the same address as UK2? Regus are a very reputable company who among other services provide ‘virtual offices’. This link is interesting:
http://offices.regus.com/locations/GB/London/LondonCanaryWharf.htm
I can recommend Regus if anyone needs these kinds of services; they are very good and highly professional. Is it possible that UK2 are/were using these services? That would certainly clarify things wouldn’t it? Personally I wouldn’t care less if someone was running their business from a cow shed if they delivered what they promised…
Posted: June 10th, 2005 at 1:41 pm →
Dear fellow sufferers.
I wish that I had encountered this page which you have so usefully been building up over the past 6 months or so. I have been leasing a Dedicated Server from Netcetera (inetc.net) for the past 3 or 4 years, with no complaints at all, other than finding them quite expensive, certainly compared to UK2.
So I was tempted to go for the UK2 dedicated Server, and plunged in feet first, opting for the 3 year lease (how foolish was that?).
OK, so everything started off well, within 12 hours I had been notified by email that the wheels were in motion, then by a further email telling me that the the process was finished, and I would be hearing from them again within the next 24 hours letting me use my server. That was the last I heard from them, and that was almost 2 weeks ago.
Being unable to contact them in any other way, I diligently filled in a support ticket asking for a status update, then I waited. having heard nothing after 48 hours, I filled in another ticket, and waited … and another … and another … and …….. well, you get the idea. Not a peep.
I notice that they charged my credit card promptly enough. It was charged on the day of my order.
My sympathies go to all of you, and judging from the messages above, my predicament is not unusual, and it looks like I haven’t waited nearly long enough compared to your experiences.
Today, I have issued them with an ultimatum, but I can see the wry smiles growing on your faces as I tell you this. I expect this to be given the same treatment as my tickets. However I was interested to see the phone number listed above, and I shall give that a try (I’ll let you know how I get on).
My experience so far, needless to say, if that I think the service is beyond a joke. I honestly don’t know how they hold on to any customers.
Good luck to all.
Posted: June 13th, 2005 at 10:30 am →
Allrite guys, this isnt anything to do w hosting sites, but is their “free” dialup as “free” as they say it is?, email me @ mikespike502002@hotmail.com if u know for definate that it costs…tnx
Posted: June 13th, 2005 at 11:38 am →
Last time I used that it was an 0845 number, so you would have to pay for the calls.
Posted: June 16th, 2005 at 10:08 am →
Andrew,
you may considering writing to your credit card company and demanding a refund on the basis that the service you purchased was not provided - they are equally responsible
Posted: June 16th, 2005 at 2:09 pm →
We signed up to the 3 year deal too…4 and a half years later we have just got too frustrated with the daily interruptions to service, a server that goes down at the slightest mention of ‘wow we’ve been up for 6 hours’!!! and the complete lack of support.
We are glad to be walking away from a supplier that, in our humble opinion, should be disallowed from trading.
We realise that they are a low cost solution however that is no excuse for not answering the telephone, not replying to snail mail, not replying to online support request submissions and not replying to emails to the address they say to email to!!!
Admittedly we were happy with them (because we had few problems and those that we did we sorted them ourselves) until about 6 months ago but they have gone downhill, fast, from there.
The one slightly good thing is that they have honoured every refund request we have made to them against their service level agreement. They will be getting another refund request today - we have been inaccessible since earlier this morning with, yet again, no responses.
Oh, and by the way…I took this from their site, thought it was fantastic…
“We do not offer telephone support. Many online companies like UK2.NET, Ebay, Yahoo, Altavista cannot be contacted by telephone, email, fax. This is part of the new economy and is necessary to cut down costs, so users can get very affordable services.”
The important part for me was “cannot be contacted by telephone, email, fax”…they’d be as well changing this to “cannot be contacted by any means”
Sorry for the rant…..although you could act like UK2 and pay no attention!
Posted: June 16th, 2005 at 8:00 pm →
Yahoo in the UK at least show there details on the site:
Contact Yahoo
Ebay do show their address, and have a contact from on the site, but I couldn’t find telephone, email or fax details.
Altavista.com also show there details:
About Altavista
Looks like UK2 didn’t do their research properly!
Posted: June 28th, 2005 at 1:16 pm →
Hi, I wonder if anyone else is having mail forwarding problems with uk2net. Having read the above, maybe I shouldn’t be surprised that I can’t get any response from them about - but I seem to lose about 20% of the mail forwarded by them!
Many thanks for any pointers
Peter
Posted: June 30th, 2005 at 8:09 pm →
I am having a hell of a time trying to get the services I have paid for from UK2. Over 2 months ago my debit card was charged with the required amount to register and host a ltd.uk domain name and purchase web space, however this name has not been registered as yet. I have had some corespondance with UK2 via thier web form but it seems the person I am in touch with beleieves that I have registerded the domian elsewhere and that I need to provide the details needed to allow it to be moved. My invoice from UK2clearly shows the charge for registratiom with nominet so how can this be a problem?… oh well back to the contact form.
Posted: July 8th, 2005 at 10:19 am →
We were experiencing email problems also (and everything else above) - They just weren’t forwarding email on - and problems persist with the DNS management. We are now moving to positive-internet.com.
Not one support message has been answered. NOT ONE!
If anyone knows the new contact numbers (both fax and telephone), can you please post them!
Someone should shut these guys down!
Posted: July 13th, 2005 at 11:34 am →
Hi
Just fell across your site whilst browsing. This is just an observation, I think I am right in saying that if you as a person or a company suffer financial loss through anothers poor service and you cannot get through to them to forward a charge or seek some other route to solve the issues due to thier disregard for your efforts to contact them, You can approach Comapnies house and set in motion an application to have thier company wound up, I would imagine the reaction would be swift. I believe this costs few pounds.
Posted: July 15th, 2005 at 1:05 pm →
Hello All,
This is a follow-up to my posting of June 10th above. My continued pursuite of UK2 failed on all fronts; following more than a dozen postings (unresponded), and numerous emails (unreplied), and various phonecalls (unanswered), I resorted to trading standards, and my credit card company, passing all history and information on to them for them to pursue.
I’ll give you one guess as to how successful both of them were in reaching UK2 ……… yes, that’s right, ZIP!
Now at least to my satistfaction the matter is closed. My credit card company has re-credited my account, and I can try to put the whole sordid affair behind me.
I’d just like to convey my best wishes to all who are still experiencing the pain, and I hope that your problems are soon rectified.
Good luck to all
Posted: July 15th, 2005 at 4:57 pm →
I understand the company known as uk2.net has changed names twice - UK2Net Ltd to UK2 Ltd to, now UK-2 Ltd.
It is wholly owned by one man, Erik Andersen, who pays very large dividends to himself each year. UK-2 Ltd is wholly owned by a company in Gibraltar called UK2 GroupLtd. And its bankers are based in Luxembourg.
Every single one of these is a big warning sign.
Posted: July 16th, 2005 at 1:30 pm →
I had a look at the last set of UK2 accounts with companies house. It ain’t peanuts as the man said. A follow up visit to their registered address produced blank looks from the staff on reception. All of our own hosting etc now managed by http://ellicottcitygraphicarts.com - they are everything that UK2 are not, the package they offer is very impressive… have had enough of the big companies, it seems that once they have your money they quickly lose interest.
Michael
Posted: July 16th, 2005 at 2:05 pm →
Everything bad about this company is covered above, but i’ve got to vent my anger somewhere.
Been trying to get some domains off them for ages - thay are a waste of time and a joke company. I work so hard at my design company to give customers an excellent level of service, so when I see a company such as UK2, they really pi** me off - what’s worse is Eric is probably driving round in an expensive motor and lives in a big house!
I’m going to complaint to trading standards about this company and may even ring up that program - think it’s watchdog!!
Posted: July 20th, 2005 at 4:03 pm →
Guess what?!!?!?
I got a response from a support request from them…shame it is actually over 4 months old!!!
In the end all they are telling me is that they will have to reinstall my server box. It will only be around 1 hours downtime…fair enough I think…until they tell me that I will have set up every single little thing again…myself…no assistance to get all my virtual site settings back, etc….and there are a _lot_ of them.
They have pointed me in the direction of a specialist company that does this kind of thing though….for some reason I suspect that it is UK2 in disguise…just to get even more money out of me.
I would normally be concerned and mighty peeved off but I’m actually smiling…they don’t know that I have made alternative provisions and have already moved every one of my clients away from them.
Wonder if they will be contacting me to come back to them when they try to bill me and find the credit card details changed…..ha!
Anyway…I agree with the comments above…..they really should be shut down and steps taken to keep them down.
Posted: July 20th, 2005 at 6:30 pm →
Hi Craig,
what is the name of that specialist company, if I find time I’ll do some investigating.
Posted: July 28th, 2005 at 3:56 pm →
I have vowed never to use uk2.net again after many various problems with them and their attitude towards supporting their customers, which has been made plentifully clear to be something along the lines of “once we have your cash we have absolutely as little as we can to do with you, as we find customer support in general to be a waste of our time. If we have to have contact with you, we do it on *our* terms, and take as long as we like about it, and if you don’t like it you can go post web forms until you’re blue in the face”.
For those that support uk2.net’s so-called “DIY ethos” (read as ‘low staff, high profit ethos’), wait until you wish to achieve something that requires uk2.net’s co-operation…
Posted: August 11th, 2005 at 10:12 am →
Found this site trying to remember the extremely well hidden “how to move your page away from uk2.net” URL.
I’m currently moving everything over to 1and1.co.uk as each domain expires. I’m sure there are some horror stories about them too, but so far they PEE on UK2. Not least, I have a single web hosting account (web space, PHP etc), and finally proper virtual roots for each domain - so mydomain1.co.uk => /dom1, mydomain2 => /dom2, and meanwhile I run my business on the _real_ root of the web space => /. Compare this to the UK2 model of “each site needs to buy its own web space, add on PHP, add on mysql etc… nightmare).
DNS is web controlled as well, at least as far as subdomains etc - I’ve not tried anything more complex than that to be honest.
Anyway, so far I’m pretty pleased with the customer service (actual telephones!) and the the technical service. Call me at renewal time and see if I’m smiling still
Posted: August 25th, 2005 at 9:22 am →
Has anyone actually got any experience of using the http://amail.co.uk/moveaway.htm page to move a .uk domain? They seem to insist on changing the name server entries days (if not weeks) before the retagging is performed. I imagine that this means you will lose your website/email unless you can get someone to host your DNS entries.
I cannot believe how appalling their website is in terms of both navigation and design. I had to contact their support department to get the above URL.
Posted: August 30th, 2005 at 3:20 pm →
The move away page: in theory you don’t experience more than a few hours loss of site or email when transferring across to a new ISP, in practice we lost our site for 4 days, with knock on problems such as loss of contact with customers who thought we’d done a flit with their money when they started to get email not deliverable messages. If ever we have to do it again we will be emailing all our contacts in advance to advise them that this may happen. In this case, and to be fair to UK2, the problem may have been caused by the ISP that we transfered one of our domains to. That was never resolved. We now do everything via http://ellicottcitygraphicarts.com/ and have not had a single problem with the 10 domains that they host for us,
Michael
Posted: September 15th, 2005 at 3:18 pm →
I am struggling with the UK2.net transfer form. Can anyway tell me please what is a joker handle? I am nearly in tears…Girl in distress
Posted: September 24th, 2005 at 2:52 pm →
well… i just gotta say - i’ve been with uk2 for years, at least 5 years, maybe 7 or so. and so far, i’m perfectly happy with them (touch wood) - am hoping posting this doesn’t put a jinx on that, but so far, it seems fine. i had a problem last year renewing my webspace - somehow the dates had gotten misaligned or something - i sent them a message about it, it was resolved quickly and the sites run smoothly ever since
just thought i should add a mention - not everyone’s experience with them is horrific - although, to be honest, i’ve yet to try and move a domain from them to somewhere else, if that time ever comes, i’ll be sure to update you all on how it goes
Posted: October 14th, 2005 at 8:40 am →
Has anyone got an up-to-date phone or fax number for UK2? The ones above have been disconnected. Our MySQL server has been down for 21 hours and they have not answered any one of the 20 support requests we have sent them. We are at our wits end, any contact details appreciated.
Posted: October 16th, 2005 at 9:46 am →
We too are at our wits end. All our sites are still hosted on a raq3 machine with UK2 and all their raq3’s went down around 1am on 15th. Despite repeated requests, nobody has bothered to tell us what’s happening. Anyone have any ideas what we can do?
Posted: October 18th, 2005 at 7:48 pm →
Threaten them with Data Protection Act and ask them to disclose all information they hold on you…
Actually no that won’t really help. If their forums are still active you could try posting on there and see if you get a responce.
Posted: October 31st, 2005 at 2:08 pm →
I am soo glad I found this page I was just about to sort out hosting our 3 domains with them.
We have 5 domains in total and 2 hosting packages I belive.
I can personally reccomend 123-reg.co.uk for domain reg and admin, they don’t charge a penny more for many of the services that uk2 charge for.
I can also personally reccomend i-websolutions.co.uk for hosting, again they charge for the space, provide tonnes of features and their tech support is both knowledgable and very fast. (I have the owner on msn messenger and he responds to even the simplest question.
Some research required for uk2 methinks.
cheers guys
mark
Posted: November 1st, 2005 at 2:50 pm →
Just to say that today i used there online support facility where you type/talk to them and they responded immediately and resolved an issue for me. The thing I dislike the most is there ad banner on web diversion which they charge to remove. Very annoying and inappropriate.
Posted: November 14th, 2005 at 8:58 pm →
I have been trying to transfer a .com from uk2 to Force9 for 8 months, both myself and Force9’s hostmasters have beening sending emails and logging calls including paying additional fees for someone to try and take action, but all to no eval, even hostmaster to hostmaster between ISP’s they do not respond, UK2 support that is. There service is beyond understanding. We have not had any productive emails from UK2 letting us now what is required to acheive the transfer. Does anybody now who is the governing body which can take up disputes with like this. It feels like I am being held to ransom, but I will not pay another penny to UK2, I had to just to keep the domain which was only 3 months ago, well after the time the domain should have been transfered. They are the most unprofessional and negative customer facing company I have ever come across.
Posted: December 11th, 2005 at 1:00 pm →
I have had my site up for 3 months now (hosted by UK2.net) and it does not appear in any search engines in ant respect. We have promoted the site through software applications and online submissions on a regular basis. Would anyone have any idea why websites hosted by UK2 not appear in search engines?
Posted: December 12th, 2005 at 1:24 pm →
So far as I know they do! But these days it can take several months for sites to appear. 3 months may seem a long time, but I have come across sites that have taken nearly 6 months to appear.
Posted: January 5th, 2006 at 11:32 pm →
Hi
I am trying to transfer my main business domain away from UK2 to 123. They changed the nameservers immediately(!) -
“We normally change tags within 7-14 days, but
the nameservers will be changed now”
but the domain is locked!
I’m scared. What should I do???
Posted: January 6th, 2006 at 11:30 am →
Get in touch with 123 and see what they suggest, they may(wor even should) be able to help.
Posted: January 7th, 2006 at 11:28 am →
should uk2 have changed my nameservers even though the domain was locked?
Posted: January 16th, 2006 at 11:20 pm →
Hey, guys, thanks for all this useful info… yes, I’m having UK2 problems as well.
I raised a support call to (try to) move one of my domains out to Simply 2 weeks ago….no reply of course. The domain name just expired, so the only real thing I could do is to pay more £ to the thieving B*st*rds at UK2.
I’m probably gonna try the “move out” page to move my 5 domains…. thanks for whoever it was that provided the URL!!
The other possibility is to go to Nominet, pay 30 quid, and they will change the domain tags to point to your new provider (and it will, I suspect, be £30 well spent!).
I’ve been using Simply (now part of NamesCo) for several work domain names, and they seem to provide good support (and someone you can PHONE!)… ok, they made one screw up a few weeks ago, but they sorted out the problem to my satisfaction almost instantly.
Paul
Posted: January 23rd, 2006 at 2:26 am →
Don’t touch UK2 for hosting.
I had a Windows 2003 box with them with email support. Once I had a problem and got no response from emails - I upgraded to telephone support (even that took two weeks to get a response).
Once I had telephone support - it made NO difference. There is never an answer to the phone - you always leave a message. No calls ever were returned and the response was always just as bad as the email support - i.e. several days and sometimes weeks for an answer.
The issues we had were critical and related to problems outside our control i.e. like upline DNS and we were really scr*wed without there help.
I totally beleive that these guys are conmen and crooks and you should not risk anything with them.
I you have a domain name or good forbid a box with them - move it before you have a problem. Since you WILL regret it at some stage.
Posted: January 24th, 2006 at 6:53 pm →
I managed to move my 5 *.uk domains away from UK2 with very little pain:
1) I did NOT let UK2 do it! At £12.95 per domain, it’s not cheap!
2) go to http://www.nominet.org.uk and they can do it… it costs £15 per domain, maximum £30 (plus VAT) to move them. You fill in your details & pay online, print off a .pdf which you sign & fax (or mail) back to them along with a copy of drivers licence or a bill…. the domains were moved within a couple of days!
3) I’m now with NamesCo: they have a phone number you can ring, and are far more professional.
Hooray!!
Paul
Posted: January 25th, 2006 at 12:57 pm →
To be honest I have purchased lots of URL’s from UK2.net and have a few web sites running with no problem. UNTIL NOW. I have been using one of their free e-commerce web sites (www.frampton.info) for several years. I now find that although the site is up and running I am unable to make any additions, delections or changes to the shop. They clearly state that they do not support the e-commerce shops but the problem is at their end, not mine, and they are ignoring all my requests to fix it. I am losing a lot of business and my only option is to start a new e-commerce site with someone else which will take a lot of time, effort and money. To make matters worse I have only recently bought more web space from UK2 to start another e-commerce shop.
Posted: January 26th, 2006 at 10:56 am →
I wrote to you yesterday regarding my problems with UK2.net. After numerous emails I have to say that they have now sorted out the problem for me. It now restored my faith in UK2.net
Posted: March 2nd, 2006 at 11:39 am →
I have had problems with UK2.net and Joker but managed to resolve it. The reason for my post is just to say that when changing the domain owner details on Joker (UK2 had set it up) there was a contact number
+44 20 7987 1200 might be worth seeing if its UK2’s???
Hope this helps anyone who is having problems contacting UK2.
Posted: March 10th, 2006 at 1:20 pm →
If I ever feel the need to hang myself at work, please remind me how extremely difficult to complete a simple task with UK2.
Posted: March 20th, 2006 at 11:53 pm →
Loadsa people with problems with UK2! Must admit, i’ve never tried to move a domain away from the company, but then again - i’ve never needed to! Yeah, you may not be able to speak to them live, but, for me anyway, the ticket system has worked, and worked well anytime i’ve needed to use it. I’ve had them host 40+ domains for more than 7 years now - and 6 websites for the same length of time - along with all my e-mail requirements. Sure - sometimes there is an e-mail outage, but sooner or later it is sorted, most often within 24 hours. Mebbe some folks get ants in their pants about internet technology, I don’t know! Slow down peeps! You get what you pay for!
Posted: April 21st, 2006 at 11:24 pm →
I had a look at the transfer away form a year ago… they indeed wanted £19 admin fee AND a fax (even though I dont have a fax machine) then… today… by chance, I tried the form again, and it said “you have been with us long enough so dont have to pay to move away…”.
That was a relief! I didn’t have to send them a fax! I just filled in the tag 123-REG and… done.
I HATED their DNS control panel. It didn’t let me specify glue records (IP’s) for nameservers WITHIN my domain (like ns1.samspin.co.uk 64.246.42.203). I got an error message “Nameserver does not exist. Please create it first.”. HOW??
And it says in stylish writing at the top of the page “Professional DNS management”.. which adds to the annoyance… (it’s in your face).
Eventually, I worked out that if parked my domain at everydns.net (ns1-ns4.everydns.net), then I specified the IP’s for ns1.samspin.co.uk and ns2.samspin.co.uk at those nameservers, (then waited a few hours for propagation) then UK2 would know what the IP’s were for ns1 and ns2 .samspin.co.uk and THEN would let me set them.
At 123-reg, it gives you the option to specify IP’s for the nameserver records AND allows you to transfer away INSTANTLY! AND FREE DNS! NO HAVING TO SEARCH FAR AND WIDE FOR A HIDDEN TRANSFER AWAY PAGE! It is so much easier now!
S T A Y A W A Y F R O M U K 2 !
G O 1 2 3 - REG !
Posted: April 30th, 2006 at 5:51 am →
Hi guys i have been reading all of your posts whinging about uk2, funny the only reason am i reading this post is because i want to whinge to , when there is a problem like my site going down, and loads of sites hosted with UK2 you cannot geld hold of anyone, not even their site works properly to contact them.
I tried the number above and it worked but goes nowhere…
Posted: May 3rd, 2006 at 2:24 am →
UK2.net are little more than a bunch of crooks.
for a number of years now I have owned a number of domain names registered via UK2.net.
I now wish to transfer away from UK2.net
Unfortunately, UK2.net has listed themselves as the admin and tech contacts for my domain and refuses to change them.
We have made several requests for UK2.net to release this domain via their op-out page located at http://amail.co.uk/moveaway.htm all of which have been ignored. We have also raised numerous online support tickets. The only reply we have had is one saying that they have a policy of not listing customers as either the tech or admin contact.
The bottom line is buy from UK2.net and THEY will have full control over your domain name NOT YOU!!!
Posted: May 10th, 2006 at 10:55 am →
Well i only aim to emphasise what the majority of people are saying here! the customer service UK2 provide is extremely poor. we have mail issues on a regular bassis. im so fed up with them we are renewing all services to another provider. complete asses uk2!!!!!
Posted: May 25th, 2006 at 6:39 pm →
I am SOOO fedup with this company. I cannot transfer domains away atall even though UK2 are the registered agents. I have just purchased uk2uk2.net - watch this space!!!
Posted: June 9th, 2006 at 11:43 am →
Hi Guys,
I am not sure if its wise of me to write on this board - but oh well, I have never been one to run and hide
With 1000’s of servers, 100k’s of clients and more than 1 million domains sold, UK2 has been a major player on the European hosting scene since ’99.
I am aware of the issues UK2 has had throughout the years, especially regarding our level of support.
UK2 has gone through a transition during the last months. New 24/7 support setup, new product line, new website, new employees - and yes, new management (ie. me :))
I have been put in charge of the company to get things back on track and move the company from a pure technocratic focus (Our network has always been rock solid) to a customer-centric company.
I could go on about the process we are going through, and what my goals for UK2 are, but this is not the place for that.
However, if you (or anyone else) would like to hear more about the “new” UK2, then feel free to contact me directly: ditlev[at]uk2.net.
Also, if any of you still are having problems with moving domains away from us, send me a mail, and I will run it through as a priority in our support department.
I wouldnt be visiting this site on a regular basis, so if you have something to tell me, its better to contact me directly.
Thanks
Ditlev Bredahl
Director, UK2
Posted: June 14th, 2006 at 11:27 am →
That was very brave of you to post Ditlev, and thank you for doing so.
I dare say that future comments here will hopefully dwindle if you are indeed correct.
Posted: June 20th, 2006 at 11:59 am →
I have had a week of ongoing problems with UK2.net. All I want to do is have personal nameservers setup for my domain but UK2 seem unable, or unwilling to do so.
Either my support requests are ignored, or they simply repeat the request for more information. I eventually received a response agreeing with the appaling service and promising to sort it out, and then nothing….
I was told I had to pay extra for Professional DNS Management, which I have done but the facility has still not been setup.
I have sent another support request and now that is being ignored.
My website has now been down for a week!
I can only beleive that they are puposely trying to annoy me. They simply can’t be that inefficient can they?
Posted: June 25th, 2006 at 5:07 pm →
I agree with the adverse comments. I, too, had a bad experience a couple of years ago when uk2 refused to let me transfer my domain name away. I lost the domain name. I didn’t realise that uk2 kept the admin and tech contacts themselves. I found lots of adverse comments on the web, too, but too late.
But I was astonished to see in today’s Travel Observer there’s an article by some guy who’s set up a website in France, praising uk2 as the uk’s largest hosting company.
Posted: September 7th, 2006 at 10:39 am →
UK2 do now have a proper ticketing system for service requests. The one that I raised yesterday actually got a reply, which is a massive improvement on dealings that I had with them in 2005
I had to raise a more important query today, it remains to be seen what the response will be.
Posted: September 7th, 2006 at 5:09 pm →
Well my ticket (and a second one I raised later) both had prompt replies. Unfortunately as I needed a reply to a webmail account I used a Hotmail address and neither was actually delivered!
UK2 10/10 Hotmail 0/10
Moral - never use Hotmail as the reply address on an automated ticketing system. I remembered afterwards seeing comments in another service provider’s forum that the Hotmail non delivery issue is widespread.
Posted: September 10th, 2006 at 7:15 pm →
I’ve just contacted Ditlev with a request to transfer all of my domains away from UK2 (after terrible treatment from their much improved ticket system). I will post the results here!
I’ve got 29 domains with them at the moment (after having to use the Joker method to move the other 30) and I do hope that he helps me out. I haven’t lost all faith yet, but I’m hanging on a string here.
My email was amicable and friendly, so wish me luck (in thought) and we shall see how this unfolds.
Posted: September 10th, 2006 at 9:51 pm →
Ditlev is extremely friendly and absolutely a massive turnaround on the service given in the past. If you’ve got any issues that UK2 support can’t help with, or if you’re getting frustrated, contact him.
He also pointed out that I said that I received “terrible treatment.” Let me put that in context.
The support team were doing their job, and were not rude, nor were they missing my point. The issue that I have is their policy of charging £12.99 for a transfer if your domain isn’t two years old. Technically this is allowed by ICANN (http://www.icann.org/transfers/dnholder-faq-03nov04.htm).
I am not disputing this policy no matter how immoral I believe it is. Though I do feel somewhat cheated, I have not been as it is clearly stated in their Terms and Conditions (http://uk2.net/tandc.html).
What can I say? I naively put my trust in them and foolishly clicked “I accept” as many of us have done in the past, and I’ve learned my lesson, especially for registrars. If I had known of this policy, I wouldn’t have been with them in the first place, so caveat emptor: ALWAYS read the Terms.
The support is vastly improved, and help is at hand if you’ve got a problem that they can’t solve. As for transfers…don’t even think about it. For a world where things change every month online, two years is pushing the limit on a company that prides itself on its modernity.
“Our fee of £12.99 for transfer of domains is levied when these domains are less than two years old. This allows us to continue selling domain name registrations below cost. If you wish to transfer your domain to another registrar, the procedure is to complete the previously advised for at http://amail.co.uk/movewaway.html [sic, it’s actually http://amail.co.uk/moveaway.html where your payment will be arranged. In addition, this form provides authentication, logs various details that you supply, and other features.” - From a support ticket.
With regard to rock bottom prices, I have my own personal doubts as it’s about £24 PER year with UK2. I recently bought a .co.uk for about USD $18 with another registrar for TWO years (NameCheap - I’m not affiliated, just shopping around after six years with UK2 - my website is www+ dot+ bleak + image +dot +com - remove spaces and +’s).
This is going from the prices listed on their front page. Don’t forget the charge for “Full WebDiversion,” i.e. without the UK2 banner ad and pop-up, which is £11.99 per year, or £18.99 for two.
For many other registrars? Log in. Unlock. Go to your new registrar. Initiate transfer. Confirm by email. Done. No charges, no nonsense.
Good luck chaps, I’m going to bail out of UK2 one domain at a time as they become eligible for it without charge.
I hope that I have stated facts here along with personal experience, and not unfairly nor maliciously libeled. Although I’ve had a bad experience, this does not mean that you won’t be happy with UK2, nor might you have the same problems.
If I have any other major developments, I will post here again.
Posted: September 18th, 2006 at 2:01 pm →
I bought a dedicated server from UK.net a a hefty all in on eprice. Was asked to confirm my identity by fax, or email. Did so in both ways because I was getting no responses and four days later have no response of any kind. I have emailed the address the provided again and it is bouncing back with the following message: “hannahmi@gonzo.uk2.net
(ultimately generated from serverconfirmation@uk2.net)
Connection timed out:
retry timeout exceeded”
UK2 is not a professional company and is not to be trusted. I now have to find a way to get my money back
Posted: September 19th, 2006 at 2:00 pm →
I must say, UK2 are the worst, most arrogant company I have ever dealt with. In my experience, they don’t acknowledge mistakes, they insult the customer, and they ignore emails. Customer service seems to be an alien concept. I’ve just cancelled my server lease today. I’ll go into details once I’m sure I’ve got my refund!
Posted: September 24th, 2006 at 9:54 pm →
My rant is simply good old visit counters… I’ve been with UK2 since 2001, and I’d used counters from Bravenet (with all the pop us and ads) plus a few drop outs etc. I stumbled across UK2’s simple counter system about two years ago, and set up a simple basic counter which looked good and straightforward. It had stumbled a few times, and I always received a propmpt and courtious reply, always a “sorry” email, and always a resolution.
19th September this year the counters stopped. A Friday afternoon it meant the weekend would need to be monitored some other way. I had one site with a regular 1,000,000 hits per month coming up to 90,000 visitors, and a much smaller one http://www.goldenboulder.org.uk just coming up to 10,000. Interesting milestones for both sites.
The response from Shaheen in support has been almost robotic and completely void of real detail. Phrases such as “The team who are addressing this issue inform me…” only serve to show they have missed the point entirely.
I have set up a log of the proposals they offered, my actions, and their inability to resolve such a simple situation in what is now over 1 week!
I now have the good old (clunky) Bravenet script in opeation again just to keep track of what’s happening, and “The Team” have obviously got bored with looking at this issue…
http://www.hagstrom.org.uk/temp.htm provides the history.
Has anyone got any ideas how to help “The Team” and my various domins all now in a state of numeric flux! I had up to recently been spared the prblems encountered by so many, but did a search and ended up here. Is there a formal welcome or anything?
Posted: September 25th, 2006 at 6:16 pm →
Well the saga continues with the (I’m sure well meaning) Shaheen, but after 10 days we have come full circle. I’m now being advised what I was already advising them wasn’t working! How much patience do you have to have!
You can see the history here:
http://www.hagstrom.org.uk/temp.htm
You can see the complete UK2 Support (LOL) text here:
http://www.hagstrom.org.uk/Other/support_log_UK2.htm
HHHEEELLLPPP!
Posted: September 28th, 2006 at 9:36 pm →
I wish I had found this site before I set my site up with UK2!!!
How come BT, Yahoo and Hotmail won’t allow forwarded emails from UK2’s servers - straight from Shaheen, got emails to prove it - major problem.
Got Shaheen to agree to refund me for the hosting an mail diversion, only to be told that I must then pay another £15 to transfer my domain away - bloody cheek! Had to pay them, but now going to invoice them for my wasted time £400 an hour seems about right.