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
I totally agree with the comments made here. Although i haven’t needed much support from UK2NET since i bought the webspace and domain from them, i now find that formail has simply ceased to work! I complain and i get totally incompetant answer. Then someone else answers and tells me the first person didn’t know what they were talking about. So i reply to him and then he doesn’t answer! USELESS! Would not recommend. Have email the MD now – we’ll see what happens.
I am absolutely appalled by the lack of support and communication I’m getting from UK2.net . I administer my partner’s website for her – I’ve been trying to renew her services and it’s become a total nightmare. In the past, webdiversion was a relatively simple thing to orchestrate, but everytime I’ve logged on recently I have been presented with messages that UK2 don’t host this address and I should “move back” to UK2. As a relative novice I’ve followed their instructions several times and now I’ve paid for webdiversion twice, spam filtering twice, domain name hosting THREE times and I’ve spent over £130 and our site still isn’t appearing. I have received no reply from UK2, and my customer service ‘ticket’ is still languishing in their queuing system. By charging me several times for the same service and providing me with nothing at all in return they are clearly operating an illegal system. Is there some sort of regulatory body I can approach with this matter…?
I take it back. Although UK2net are having problems if you email the person posting above they WILL help. Apparently their introducing newer emailing systems which will improve formail.
Thanks to the person above
I also have had problems with UK2: email diversions intermittently don’t work and formail seems to have packed in altogether. I am set up as the recipient of forms submitted from our website and I haven’t received anything for 3 months. I also have submitted ‘tickets’ which don’t they don’t respond to.
Haven’t reallly had any problems with the website side of this things, but I haven’t been able to log into my email for 4 days now becuase of authentication errors. I certainly haven’t changed my password. Is their server down at the moment or are they having some technical problems at the moment?
I know this is a bit late but I wondered if anyone got a reply from Ditlev or a solution.
As a last resort here are the names and addresses of other directors listed at Companies House
Erik Andersen,5th floor, Sovereign House, 227 Marsh Wall, Docklands, London E14 9SD
Pradip Shah, 10 Bouverie Gqrdens, Kenton, Harrow, Middlesex HA3 ORQ
OMG! if only iv had read this thread earlier.
Iv just (sunday) ordered a dedicated server (3 month lease + 6IPs + ‘Supreme Support’) £300.08 inc VAT.
They told me it would be up in 24 hours. Its now 48hours and all i get is canned responses from their ‘Supreme Support’ deparment. “Sorry for the delay” “It will be online soon” blah blah..
The ‘Supreme Support’ claims 5 minute response… but what they dont tell u is, is that the response is worthless. And i paid £87 pounds for that!
This company is a complete joke and needs taking down.
I will be asking for a refund and will report back here with my result. I paid by credit card (HSBC) and wonder if they will help if i dont get a refund.
I thought it was something I’ve been doing wrong. Starting a short while ago, important mail from one or other of my domain addresses hosted by uk2 didn’t reach intended recipients although a test message I sent later did. I now cannot even access my mail on their web mail page, never mind getting it downloaded to Thunderbird. Passwords appear unrecognised and the new web mail page shows some folders but no content in IE6 and is completely blank in Firefox. they say ‘please bear with us’ this morning while they introduce changes but surely an organisation responsible for so many accounts should not behave like this! It’s unbelievably irresponsible not to have warned us first or not to have posted something clear for non-techy people or explanatory for geeks somewhere. Luckily I have alternatives for urgent work but it is so embarrassing, a bit like saying ‘the cheque’s in the post’. None of my clients believes I didn’t just forget to mail them. One of you has said contact someone at uk2 but it isn’t clear who or how. Suggestions appreciated. There must be hundreds of really angry and influential customers out there – wish we could co-ordinate action.
Well i got my refund (only because i had originally ordered the SupremeSupport @ £87 for 3/mo (otherwise id not have got a response to the ticket)
I cant say what their services are like as iv not yet had the pleasure to try them. but i do know that until they improve their customer service system, i will not be ordering anything from them.
Iv read that the email system has been upgraded, so hopefuly people with those problems should be ok now.
I think they have the potential to be a good and value for maney company but need to work on the support system A LOT!
Thanks for reading 🙂
HI, has anyone had any problems with web space sharing with UK2.net? I paid for web space so that I could use web space sharing for my other 9 doamain names (hosted by UK2.net)… setting this up seemed to be straight forward and worked for a while… then bang! all of my sites went down now they default to UK2.net’s home page.
This has had a huge effect on my business as everyone using these domain names now think they are owmed by UK2.net! I have sent ticket after ticket to their support to try and sort this out but never get a response. My last ticket was to request info on how to move my domains away from them but as usual noone replies. I have also tried using their online “live” support… but.. no one is ever there..
My advice to anyone thinking of using this company is DON’T unless you want to have a load of hastle and trouble.. The only solution I can think of is to have a mass exit by domain owners from this company to bring it down.
Hi again… has anyone any idea how I can move my domains away from UK2.net? I have tried to find info on their site but nothing is there… I have also sent a ticket to them for info but guess what.. no response.
Thanks, Allan
Hi again… Has anyone had a renewal notice from Uk2.net recently? I have just had one and worryingly it stated the fees due will now be automatically deducted from my credit card!!! Any idea how to stop them doing this? If you decide to move your domain away from them can they still take money from the account?
Allan
After hours of trying without success to get responses from Supanames via email, I managed to dig out their telephone number from a third party. So, anyone having similar troubles can contact Supanames on 01527 558175. I believe Dominic is the MD.
ive been trying to move my .info account from them for 2 years without any sucess ! no response to e-mails or anything!
I am trying to move my domain name form UK2.net and surprise surprise I cannot get anyone to respond to my request in changing the ISP tag. Does anyone out there know a way round this without me having to pay Nominet a fee?
Also I tried e-mailing a complaint to the MD on the e-mail address shown but it has been returned as undeliverable!!! any one able to help with this too??
Currently it is quite cheap to use Nominet, I believe the cost is £10. So that option may be worth taking to avoid further hassle.
I was impressed to see a CEO of such a beleagured company put his email address up on this forum and so decided to give them a serious chance regardless of all negative comments… I was wrong.
Make your own mind up whether you believe it worth your time and money hosting with them:
Here’s the history:
Mail 1 sent after reading this forum:
Dear Ditlev
I am a “prospective purchaser” attracted yesterday by a banner advert on dnsstuff.com.
Currently I run 6 dedicated servers 3 of which are with 1and1.
The important things to me (and anyone who has a serious need for a dedicated server) are quick support and quick communication…
I am/was quite attracted by your offer and especially the “Large” server offer but I needed to know whether a server with you is going to be slower/as fast/ffaster than with 1and1 so I decided to ask that question last night using your “live chat” window which showed green light for both support and sales…
After several attempts telling me that no one was available last night I gave up and left a ticket with my question instead assuming that sales probably were not really there even though it showed a “green light” suggesting they were there… I expected a reply this morning.
At 9:20 am I looked to see if I had a reply – nothing there… – so I tried again several times to raise someone through the live chat – nobody there either :((
I then left a message on a server support ticket to at 9:31 am to see what delay would be in response time… My request explained I was testing response time and I got a reply at 10:08 am from support – not brilliant as it took 37 minutes but on the border of “livable”…
Still having no reply from sales (tried live chat several times more) I then replied to support on the ticket system at 10:38 am asking them if there was any reason why sales had not replied… at 11:33 am I was still awaiting a reply from either of them :((
I am interested in changing from 1and1 due to slow response by them and do not want to jump out of the frying pan into the fire…
Because of the lack of reply I then searched for a phone number and found the thread that you posted on http://cms.elfden.co.uk where I saw your posts and discovered that several people are lambasting UK2’s support and response time… .
I have now finally had a reply from sales at 12:04.
To be honest I am put off greatly by the time it has taken to get a response to a simple question (which really didn’t answer the question).
Normally I would just have moved on and bought through Fasthosts or a.n. other BUT I am encouraged by your willingness to put your personal address in the thread and so I find myself willing to take the time in writing to you for two reasons:
1) To make you aware that your system appears to be still letting you down
2) To allow you an opportnuity to change my mind and convince me that it is actually worth my time, effort and money hosting with UK2
Where 1and1 do win is that they at least have a telephone number to call even if it takes a while after the call to get anything done and, frankly, the tickket system is fine if one gets a quick response but un acceptably frustrating when it doesn’t and there is no other recourse for the client but to wait…
I look forward to your kind reply?
UK2 CEO reply to Mail 1:
Thanks for your mail – and for giving me the chance to win you over 🙂
I do not have an SLA in place for replies for billing and sales, so yes, you will find that it can take up to 24 hours before you will get an answer from those departments. Its not ideal, but my focus is on support of current clients rather than sales and billing. Also, its quite rare that a sales ticket is “critical” in the same way as support tickets can be.
Last month our tech tickets were replied within 1 hour and 18 minutes on avg. Sales tickets were above 18 hours.
Our dedicated servers come unmanaged, meaning that you would have to setup your own sites, and deal with what ever software issues you may find. Naturally we take care of any hardware and network issues.
If you are looking for premium services I suggest that you consider upgrading to our Supreme Support package (www.supremesupport.com) which is a new service we have launched a few months back. It comes with 5 mins support SLA on all critical tickets – and EVERYTHING is included. My team at Supreme Support will basically help you out with everything from scripts to setup of accounts, firewalls, security etc. 24/7…
Let me know if you have any specific questions that I can answer.
Best regards,
Ditlev Bredahl
MD, UK2 ltd.
I decided to take the risk and ordered a dedicated server roughly £120 per month… A week after ordering it – only a receipt for the order but no server delivery and no response from UK2 to requests for info :((
Mail 2:
Dear Ditlev
I decided to risk trying your servers after all and ordered a Large server on the 21st November.
We got an email back asking for proof of identity which was done…
Then on the 23rd we got an invoice confirmation (attached) but no log in details or IP etc…
On the 24th I left a ticket on your system asking for these details and now, on the 27th, I am still awaiting a reply to this…
I have to say that, especially after our recent correspondence, I am very disappointed in the lack of communication, the lack of delivery of the server and the apparent total lack of interest being shown by UK2!
It only re-enforces what all the people are saying in the forums.
Please tell me if they are going to actually ever give me the log in details as I am now at the point of canceling our order as I do not want to waste our resources setting up our websites only to find that the minute there is a problem the same silence and non-communication will prevail… It is not a serious way to run a business and the worst part is that there is NO telephone number to call to determine even whether anyone actually knows that we are waiting for a response… Does it require the CEOs involvement every time you get an order/problem/ticket/email/whatever to get things done at UK2?
Imagine if UK2 had to rely on this kind of situation with your upstream providers…
Here’s a hypothetical situation: You have all your customers sites down because there is a problem upstream and you have all your customers screaming for a solution yet the only thing you UK2 can do is wait for some unknown person to answer a ticket in your upstream providers help system which appears to not be going to happen after 3 days to a week of waiting AND you can’t even call them to see that something is being done…
Could YOU run your business like that?
Would YOU take the risk that your upstream provider will change there well-documented bad ways?
My advice to you, for what it is worth, is get those apparently lazy, unprofessional idiots in sales to confirm customers log in details pronto! and add a phone number for support – even if it is a premium rate one as without the ability to communicate when absolutely necessary your customers are going to, without a shadow of a doubt, start voting with their feet and all your efforts and marketing will be totally wasted…
I await your reply with interest.
The Reply:
My Sales/billing team is not working weekends, and if you were submitting a ticket Friday, you could end up waiting until Monday. This will be the case with most companies selling servers at our prices.
I am sorry, but I will not accept you calling any member of my team “lazy, unprofessional idiots” and while you may question the our level of communication, this is way below the level that I will accept from anyone – paying clients or not.
I doubt our cooperation will be a fruitful one, and I suggest that you send me your ordernumber and I will issue you a refund for any payment that might have been done.
Best regards,
Ditlev
My final reply:
Dear Ditlev
I am not calling them that I am saying that they appear to the client to be like that hence the word “apparently”.
Regardless of the weekend factor it cannot surely be your preferred policy to have a client order on the 21st and still not have any access to a server a whole week later and not be kept informed – even automatically of what is happenning regarding the delivery of a server costing over £1,000 a year?
I am trying to achieve 2 things here – 1) Get access to a server we ordered over a week ago and 2) help you understand the frustrations your clients experience so you have a chance to improve it before it is too late…
I was trying to actually help you as you originally seemed to actually care what was happening in UK2 and showed a willingness to change it for the better but it seems that you do not want to be informed of what really goes on at the sharp end of your business – i.e. the client end where the money that keeps your business in operation and hopefully in profit?
If I treated my clients like this then we wouldn’t last past the end of the year and deservedly so…
If I order from 1and1 I get a server online within 24 hours and I get notice along the way plus a telephone nuumber to call if it goes pear shaped.
if I order from Fasthosts I get a similar level of courtesy, information and access to a real person…
UK2 are unknown to me except for the hundreds of negative comments in forums stating that UK2 don’t care, don’t respond and are difficult to work with etc… I decided to give you a chance anyway but it seems quite clear now that you are not interested in your clients and the fact that you have not even fully read my request for your help just confirms that. If you had read it you would see that my order info is attached and would not have to request the details of the server ordered…
Please do as you suggest and issue a full refund together with a confirmation that you have cancelled our order as you are quite right this does appear to, regretfully, be another unsatisfied UK2 customer (one of many as you know) situation despite my spending time and energy to achieve otherwise…
Thank goodness I discovered this before spending time, effort and money building our web business in partnership with a company who really seems to not care one iota for their clients preferring to protect a sales team who seem to have great trouble replying to potential customers (remember it is now the third time I have had to point out the non response of your sales team and not just a weekend issue) even when they are willing to spent their money despite the evidence showing that they should not…
May I wish you the best of luck transforming UK2 although I really don’t expect to see it around for long if your clients are not “king”.
I await your kind confirmation of our refund and the full cancellation of our order.
Fred, sounds like communication is not their strong point.
I am surprised by the reply you received, though you were fairly strong in your original email(mostly justifiable!). One of the problems is that UK2 think they are a big company, and that negativity won’t harm them. Turning away business as quickly as this makes me think that some of the problems they have run deep.
The Internet is available 24/7 big companies such as UK2 should realise this and not treat it as a standard 9-5 company.
Hi Rich
It cost me time and effort to discover the truth behind UK2 but better to know before they control your business online…
Well the story has a happy ending I found a good supplier who replies quickly and positively so if anyone out there doesn’t want to waste their time and is looking for a good deal then try this one:
http://register1.net/servers.php
Dedicated Xeon 3GHz starting at £59 per month…And a phone number if you need to use it :))
Best of luck!
Fred
Oh no, now I’m even more worried having read this site but glad I did as its made my mind up to start the nightmare of moving to a new host. Been with UK2 for 6 years, bought a few domains, host 2 sites. When we have been honoured to get a response from them it always starts with “its nothing to do with us” or they ignore us for a few days, fix the problem and reply with “we have checked your site and cant find any problems”. Our index pages were deleted 4 times a few weeks ago and today, our sites are unavailable, sent 5 tickets, tried the online help for 5 hours until some idiot replied saying “it has nothing to do with us so stop sending us tickets, we dont know what the problem is, it has something to do with your ISP”, which is complete rubbish, they automatically assume we are idiots and must be sitting there laughing their heads off. UK2’s website states they provide 24/7 Express Support 365 days a year and minimum 99.9% uptime. No doubt there is some get out clause on their site for this but isnt there a law against making false claims like the trade descriptions act ?
I found this site yesterday while I was being frustrated in my attempts to get uk2 to tell me what the problem was with their system. Staggeringly, only last week I had recommended to a new client that he switches his web hosting to uk2. The switch took place on the evening of 23.11 and owing to problems undiagnosed at uk2 the new site took until the afternoon of 27.11 before it was running. OK fine I thought, at least it’s running now. Then yesterday morning (29.11) at about 11.30am their entire system went down for about 10 hours. The responses I received when trying to get some sort of explanation via their ticketing were as follows:
“The current problem viewing websites is not a problem on our servers, all systems are currently working properly. However it appears that a major network hub between our systems and your ISP is down. You would have better luck resolving this by contacting your ISP. Although as mentioned the problem is between our networks and therefore not with them either, they will most likely have more weight behind them when it comes to getting problems such as this resolved.
I would once again like to stress that this is not a problem at our end, please do not send multiple emails to us regarding this problem as there is nothing we ourselves can do (given that its off our network).”
Mmmm… Thanks guys that’s really helpful – their customer service policy seems to be of the go forth and multiply variety. This incidentally was exactly the same responce as was given to others that I know that use uk2, curious to note they have different ISPs.
They stressed their lack of culpability to me somewhat later in the day with this response to another ticket submission:
“The current problem viewing websites, using FTP and using mail is not a problem on our servers, all systems are currently working properly. However it appears that a major network hub between our systems and your ISP is down. Please note that the problem is between our network and your ISP but not actually with them either. For those that have tried running trace routes, please note that they do not reach gw12k-hex-g0-0-100.uk2net.com, this is our main router which i can confirm is definately up and running (or we would currently not be able to connect outside our office and send this message). The fact that it has not reached our main gateway shows the problem is not on our network.
I would once again like to stress that this is not a problem at our end, please do not send multiple support requests in to us regarding this problem as there is nothing we ourselves can do and it will only slow up response times for other customers. Our technicians are aware of the problem and are doing their utmost to get those responsible to fix it as soon as possible.”
Basically, to paraphrase, “be off with you and fornicate someplace else (but this time harder).”
Later after the problem was resolved (at least partially – it still took two hours for the email back log to find its way to me) I received this:
“I am writing in response to your email about the downtime experienced this afternoon.
First of all may I apologise for this inconvenience and re-assure that the UK2 team have been working extremely hard to identify and rectify this problem. I would like to inform you that we expect all services to be fully operational and back to normal within the next hour.
I would like to share with you what has happened this afternoon. The UK2 ISP identity was “hijacked” by an Indonesian ISP. Although it took a short while we successfully contacted the uplink provider of this ISP who immediately fixed the situation by implementing a filter. We will be taking immediate steps to prevent this form ever happening again.
I would like to re-iterate that everything is now under control and we expect all services to be fully operational and back to normal within the next hour.”
Oh good, it was uk2’s problem all along, how very secure their systems must be, now I’m really worried. No attempt to make up for the fact that they dropped below their promise of 99.9% uptime for whole year in just one day. Thanks for that I really needed to get it off my chest. Bob.
I recently signed up with the UK2.net for the new all singing all dancing ecommerce package, attracted by the low 99p for 2 months then £9.95 per month. But when I tried to get the site published I have not had a satisfactory reply to a simple question.
I have just faxed the MD my concerns re his firms customer support and wait for a reply, but having read the subjects here don’t expect a reply.
I will be cancelling this package and going elsewhere.
Hence I got this today from his lordship.
Dear UK2 Customer,
You may have experienced some network accessibility issues yesterday, if so I would like to take this opportunity to explain what happened.
UK2 were the victim of an incident called “IP Hijacking” which means that another organisation (an Indonesian ISP in fact) stole a part of the IP address space which belonged to UK2. This is a very rare occurrence and is due to the unrestricted nature and varying levels of security in some parts of the internet (read more at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_hijacking). The impact was that some customers traffic was routed incorrectly, causing sporadic network downtime, delays and in a minority of cases the loss of data.
May I apologise for this inconvenience and re-assure that you that the UK2 team worked extremely hard to identify and rectify this problem, and all services were fully operational and back to normal last night. We also took immediate action to reinforce our network even further.
I would like to re-iterate that everything is now under control and that all services are fully operational and back to normal.
If you have any further questions or issues, please do not hesitate to contact our support team by raising a ticket via http://support.uk2.net.
Kind regards
Ditlev Bredahl
Managing Director, UK2
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OK let me make this simple for anyone think of using UK2. DONT !!, they are rubish we have a problem once a week, never any feed back from them. We should all get together and take out a class action suit against them. With any luck they will go bust, then get some horible diesease then die in agony over a long period of time.
having just read through the various posts about uk2.net i too received an email regarding hi-jacking (see Nigel’s post No 123). I had had no email for 2 days and was relieved when the service got back online. However, my joy was only to be shortlived as last Thursday morning 7th December my incoming emails dried up at around 11am. Since then, nothing, nothing, zilch, nada, you name it, i haven’t received it. So, i spoke to someone on their live help and althogh polite, they said “there is no problem and it’s all working ok”…..
so……. i told them a sequence of trials i had made to try to see where the fault lay. I sent an email from one of my domains to another of my domains (all hosted with uk2) via email diversion with uk2. My ISP is Virgin.net so the email went from domainXYZ@uk2.net to domainABC@uk2.net and arrives on my pc care of Virgin. I tried this on all my domains and guess what, none work. If i just send the email from domainXYZ to ***@virgin.net there is no problem.
After I had advised UK2 that i had done this, and what the outcome was, the person on UK2’s live help said those immortal words “we have a serious problem with your mail settings and you need to take a ticket with our support department”…………..
So, this morning i received an email from UK2 (to my ***@virgin.net address, at least that works) and they have said that the problem is now fixed !! YIPPEE !!!! only problem is that it isn’t, it’s no different to the past 4 days, no email, and losing god knows how many customers !!!!
I now have to email every single customer on my data base (3000+) and give them my *****@virgin.net address and apologise.
So, it’s now 12.03pm on Monday 11th December 2006 and i’m just about to send uk2 another email…………. watch this space…. Ian
Having incurred the costs of setting-up my new business with a name chosen because the .com domain name was available, I registered the .com domain with UK2.net on the same day (stupid decision!). After about four days of no response I recieved an e-mail to say the requested domain name was unavailable!! It appears the .com domain name was registered by some holding outfit in PaloAlto three days after I ‘thought’ I had registered it with UK2 (no doubt the .com domain name will now be offered for sale to my company!). Is this just incompetence on the part of UK2.net and some amazing coincidence, or is it Conspiracy and Theft?! I remain concerned about the whereabouts of my credit card details!
About 3 weeks ago I started having problems sending emails and I have since then been sending messages back and forth via UK2.net’s ticket support thingy. It goes into a 14 page print out now.
They just keep fobbing me off.
Still not working and they haven’t even replied to me in the last 7 days now. Their service is non-existant.
I have been with UK2 for years now but want to move. I’m not vey techy and don’t understand how it all works.
I have about 10 domain names with UK2 and they sort out all the email etc. My broadband provider is Nildram and I need to keep that with them.
Any suggestions.
Daniel, try contacting the Managing Director via the email address on the follow up post: UK2.net 2 years on. Let us know how you get on!
Moving domains away from UK2.
try this:-
http://amail.co.uk/moveaway.htm
It’s the 25/1/07 and UK2 have had a email server problems all day. They maintain it is affecting only a ‘minority’ of people but I have my doubts – perhaps others may be able to confirm this. Every couple of hours their online support have said that the problem would be fixed in 1-2 hours but the last report at about 18:00hrs said it would take about 12 hours!
I have fallen into the complacency trap over the last few years and allowed myself to rely heavily on UK2’s mail servers – that chicken is coming home to roost now!
With 50+ domains I think it might be time to have a look at other hosts – any recommendations?
Kevin
This is site is hosted via UK Web Solutions Direct, and has been quite happily for some years now. I also have a few other domains hosted via them.
I can confirm uk2 mail seems to have been hosed all day for all of my sites. Particularly annoying as I have some important mails that I need to get through.
Yes, yet again no service at all, all day and now all evening. I’m getting panicky about the flight and hotel bookings I made…
Once again all the UK2 mail servers seem to be down. This is about the 4th time in as many months. I can see I am not the only one who is fed up with this lot. I have now found a US host who by all accounts seem very reliable (hostgator) and want to transfer everything to them. Although UK2 helpfully suggest ways to transfer TO them (their wonderful service – ha ha) I can find no way to transfer from them…any help would be gratefully received
Terribly fed up. No way of knowing if emails sent have been received. I get huge amounts of junk and in the last few days, it was all sent again and again, so I had the task of having to trawl through all my mail several times, to sift out the junk. Although there is now a live chat box for users, the chatroom hosts seem to know nothing, so are worse than useless. The service offers a glimmer of hope, and then … poof! … zilch. “… the server is down and we have no ETA for going live …” or words to that effect, is all they have to say. Are other servers more reliable? I would be happy to change, but am paralysed by the fear of having to spend hours if not days familiarising myself with another batch of indecipherable gobbledygook, in order to start with a new server. To be honest, UK2 were a fab offer when they first started, but they clearly are not on top of their game.
There is a dedicated UK2 forum. http://www.UK2forum.co.uk.
Perhaps if enough uk2 users join, we’ll have a bit more clout when it gets to having problems like this. Big stick rather than small branch.
I received an email on 23/1/07 to warn that there would be ‘essential network downtime … between 11pm on Wednesday 24th January and 6am on Thursday 25th January’. I was told that services would be unavailable for ‘approximately 1 hour’. For about 48 hours I have been unable to send or receive email, apart from the occasional odd item. I suspect a great many of my emails have been lost for good, which is embarrassing and bad for business. The last time UK2 messed up my email this much I swore I would leave. This time I really will, even if it means short-term pain.
Uk2.net is normally good but has been playing up last few days myself, cannot send any emails at the moment but at least i seemed to have recieved some and the ones i did not get yesterday.
I am going up the wall with the complete crass ineptitude of this UK2.net company. I never received the e-mail warning me of the potential downtime on Wednesday last week, and consequently spent a frustrating few days with no access whatsoever. Enquiries to their support team were met with obvious blanket auto-response e-mails that kept implying the ‘problem’ would be solved ‘shortly’.
We are now at 2.30pm on Monday 29 January 07 and although I can access my accounts, all my folders are empty, save for the odd e-mail that has come through yesterday or today. I now really fear that all my saved e-mails with valuable data and records have been wiped for good and what does this company do about it? Zilch.
I am appalled that this could happen and will never use them again and would certainly never recommend them to anyone else.
I raised a lost termination letter issue with billing and when I got an inaccurate reply I maild Ditlev Bredahl directly. I got a reply fairly quickly, but he thought I was complaining about the hijacking ( which didn’t affect me) and didn’t appear to have read the contents very carefully since he asked for the support ticket no, which I had included. I have had no further communication from support (closed for the day now), but I am rather disheartened and investigating Trading Standards and CAB. I would love to be able to post here again in a few days to say that the problem has been dealt with and I am happy, but we shall see. At one point today, uk2.net had no secondary MX record (still hasn’t at 18:39). oops!
I have stand-up in the defense of UK2.
Used them for 5 years now, 4 dedicated servers, about 200 domains.
I manage the machine, they manage the network.
Their uptime is as good as it gets, prices are cheap.
I only use their tech guys for reboots, that’s all we need above the automated systems.
Saying that, I have emailed The UK2 MD at both his email & his secretary’s email (ditlev at uk2.net & Ditlev.Bredahl at uk2.net) to chase a reboot – 22 hours down and counting – 1 response to tickets, “Do you still need this…” – YES! Reboots usually take less than 60 mins.
They do provide a good service, but they are slow responders. Their automated services do just about everything for you/them.
I have notice the supremesupport.com has been closed!
I have had fun with most TLD registrars about moving domain names, just NEVER go near Tiscali – they really are a law unto themselves.
Finally bear in mind that no-one searches to praise a good host/registrar, we only search/write when we complain!
Private Webmaster – although I am sure your experiences differ from the majority commenting here I note with interest that you choose not to divulge your real name.
I’ve had on going hassels with UK and feel I *must* share the experience. UK2 was recommended to me since we needed a geographically ‘local’ IP address.
The server was setup (it took longer than they promised, but it worked out in the end). Good thing I had no deadline though.
After a month I realised it was struggling a bit and discovered the IDE driver was giving 2Mb/s as best. Logged a call (mid-Jan) and have been fighting to get support ever since. I was using the OS as installed by them.
At one point a ‘live consultant’ suggested that I pay for support to have them correct the issue! I had chosen standard linux options to install on their hardware. The advertised combination had obviously never been checked.
I had to wait 2 weeks, despite the server now being in production, for them to even acknowledge let alone LOOK at the issue. They have now after begging and nagging provided a new kernel (thanks to the Tech who took the time to do this) but are ignoring requests to be onhand to boot into it (for a week now).
Live chat is useless – the folk in there can’t or won’t help.
I have a backup server with 1and1 (ordered in UK, but located in Germany) that was delivered (also with a slight issue) – their support isn’t brilliant, BUT they provide VERY good recovery tools (booting for a live CD to make changes to a non-booting system for example) making the mediocre support more than acceptable.
I’ve emailled Ditlev about this issue twice, mails have been ignored despite him replying to email about a previous network issue at the same address.
I don’t know what’s wrong there but I do wish someone had given me a heads up. It seems if all goes well UK2 is ok, but if anything complex goes wrong you won’t get any useful help in a reasonable amount of time.
I’m much happer with 1and1 – if you have no need of a uk ip – forget uk2. I’m on the verge of switching to the backup and not renewing the lease on the UK2 server.
If anyone from 1and1 reads this *PLEASE* give us the option to host a server somewhere in London?
Paul
Maybe they are turning the corner?
I had to move one of my domains away from them yesterday as the site needs to be split over a couple of dedicated servers. Based on all of the bad comments (not just from here), I had ruled out UK2.net’s dedicated server offerings, even though they seemed very cheap for the specifications offered.
I logged two technical support questions with them, the first regarding DNS and the second on how to move the domain somewhere else. Both were answered within a couple of hours. I filled the form in and faxed off the request and they changed the tag later that same afternoon. No mess, no fuss.
Meanwhile the new hosting company (Fasthosts), chosen because of their reputation for support, have been pretty useless so far. Slow, not bothering to read emails before answering and very difficult to get hold of. At least I paid the higher price, went on the month to month contract, and can jump ship if they continue like this!
Laurence
UK2 are scum
been with them 5 years
Their support is the WORST
You cannot transfer out without paying £12.95 a domain, an industry first
You cannot ‘push’ domains
You cannot transfer domains, they supply no authcodes
Support is the WORST
All in all, a nightmare, NEVER USE
I haven’t read this page for a long while as I dumped UK2.net a long time ago, and good riddance. I note the comments above from Private Webmaster about tiscali – I have used tiscali for 3 years for hosting some of my web sites and they provide my main broadband service. There have been the odd failure in service, always when upgrading services to expand capacity – however each and every time that this has happened when I phoned the support line (yes, phoned) a message has let me know that they are aware of the problem and are working to fix it. The longest I was without service with tiscali was about 6 hours, the record with UK2.net was about 3 days. I’m wondering why you did not to post your name private webmaster??? On the other hand a friend of mine has been using UK2.net for 5 years and has not had a single problem, lets hope this post hasn’t jinxed that record…
This is an interesting thread about UK2.net:
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=395663
uk2 is shit….they were offering 6 months free e-commerce, after a month I couldnt administrate my cart no more. They havent responded to me, after the numerous amount of times I have written them. I remember one day I was speaking to their online support (who is never helpful)…and instad of how may I help you??…it was “how may I love you??”…lol…sure it was an honest mistake , the person probably fell in love that day, but it goes to show the amount of professionalism that uk2 possesses
UK2 are shit – i was lucky, ive only hosted a couple of domains there and learnt my lesson a long time ago – BEWARE !!!! DO NOT USE THEM