Approximately 10 months ago, I wrote up my findings on Frozen Midnight. Some time this month, FMH disappeared into oblivion and I’ve seen quite a few of its remaining customers jump ship. In celebration of what I hope is a victory for the good hosts, I’ve compiled some thoughts on Netrillium (a bad host) and their apparent abominable service.
Netrillium have been around for quite a while; just last week — and quite by coincidence — I found a post in my LiveJournal, from September 2005:
I’ve got a magic method for telling who’s hosted at Netrillium. I don’t have to look them up, look at their domain info pages or anything. It’s more simple than that! If their website isn’t loading, there’s a 95% chance that they’re on a Netrillium server. Handy knowledge, that.
Humour aside, there are some serious problems with Netrillium’s service.
I know that all big hosts have their happy and unhappy customers, like most things in life. I for one love Site5 — I have several personal and professional accounts (through work) with them and find their uptime and support impeccable — others however have had some reoccurring server/database issues. I like Windows, other people hate it; so on and so forth… this is all perfectly normal. What is key, is striking the right balance between “haters” and “lovers”. Too many haters and you lose business, too many lovers and you become complacent. Anyway, this isn’t about building the perfect business model, so I’ll move on, but will say that in no uncertain terms, Netrillium have got to the state whereby their haters are publicly outweighing their lovers.
Googling for information I realised that the whole hater/lover divide is not just about downtime, it’s about a series of failures that involve both time, and most importantly: money.
Case in point: Veronica (Naco). Naco owns the popular comment exchange site, despair.nu, and she runs her blog over at blissful.nu. Blissful.nu was due to expire early this year, so on the 17th March Naco renewed the domain. Despite the Netrillium account details stating that the domain was then registered until 2010, and the fact that the payment had gone through, the domain expired. As if that wasn’t enough, when Naco queried the expiration she was told that she hadn’t paid enough; that the domain should have cost her $54 to renew instead of the $32 she originally paid.
As well as charging her more than the advertised price, Netrillium inconvenienced Naco by forcing her to have extra money put into the account to stop her going overdrawn. On top of this, the checkout procedure — independently tested by a 3rd party — was still quoting $32 for a .nu, for 2 years, the original price Naco paid.
Nothing like a bit of misrepresentation to keep the customers wanting more, no? Keep reading, it gets better from here…
Rachel of bleeding-idol.org — one of my readers, and the reason behind why this post was started — had her Netrillium-hosted domain suspended on April 30th 08, or thereabouts. As soon as she realised, she sent in a support ticket and was assured that it was because of a server move, and that once completed everything would be fine (albeit taking over 24 hours to reply). Soon after, Rachel was advise that her site was working smoothly again, except it wasn’t.
Cutting straight to the chase: Rachel wanted rid of Netrillium and so started the process of moving to Holdfire (owned by Jordan). However, Netrillium refused to release the domain; eNom (the registrar) can’t help without notice from ICANN (the corporation responsible for domain names, basically) and a lawyer; ICANN don’t involve themselves in personal/individual disputes. Jordan, somewhat of an expert at dealing with shitty hosts after the FMH fiasco, supports Rachel by providing questions that Rachel can then pass on to eNom with the hope of securing the domain name.
By this point, Netrillium are being more and more disruptive and have started blaming Rachel’s problems on an insecure script (whatever happened to that server move?):
Remember, you abused our server and caused all of the other customers on that server downtime with your insecure site.
…and have changed the WHOIS information to their own details, effectively stealing the domain from Rachel. Requests for the EPP (auth) code to transfer the domain, which now almost literally belongs to Netrillium, were ignored for the most part, until eventually an invalid EPP was provided.
The domain, still at this point in Netrillium’s control, had been down for a month with the files from Rachel’s account potentially lost or deleted, certainly nowhere to be seen. The premature cancellation of the account directly contravenes their own Terms of Service, which at the time of writing only specifically mentions non-payment as a reason for termination. Netrillium are refusing to assist any further, stating No other replies from us will be coming.
In addition to these two cases — both demonstrating atrocious customer support in their own right — I have a huge catalogue of negative reports with regards to Netrillium:
- (myspacepros.com) Netrillium Sucks.
I paid to renew [the domain] ON the 16th, and my site was back up minutes later. Then the next day, my site goes back down, and there’s ads on it, like placeholder ads. Then today, there is PORN all over my beautiful site.
- (breathe.eternise.org) Netrillium Sucks
Whatever you do, do not sign up with Netrillium. [..] I wanted to transfer my domain, so I filled out their form and paid up. No news received even though they said they will get back to me within 24 hours. [..] Got really sick of them and asked them for a refund. They pretended that I never asked for a refund and asked me for my EPP code again and said I didn’t provide them with it. I got mad pissed and asked them to look at their own bloody form which totally wouldn’t let me proceed and pay for the service if I had not provided the fuqn EPP code. No news from them again.
- (board.thefanlistings.org) Looking for a new host
I am being very, very picky about what I buy because of all the problems I’ve had with my current host (Netrillium). In a nut shell, I lost 13 months worth of data after some downtime they had. Everything I’ve done fanlisting-wise over the past year–GONE. All updates, all members, all updated member info, all new fanlisting tables, everything.
- (board.thefanlistings.org) Surpass and some other things
I am currently being hosted by Netrillium, and I hate them. [..] i REALLY want away from Netrillium. The customer service is horrible IMO and it always has been for as long as I have been with them. [..] I started to cancel my account with them on October 3 I believe. That was when I sent in my support ticket requesting the account to be canceled. The next day I received a reply with them wanting more info to prove it was me and my account. Then it was a week later that I finally got a final response telling me my account was canceled. That was not till I posted again a “hello???” reply because it was taking so damn long.
- (board.thefanlistings.org) Netrillium + PayPal + no domain
I purchased a domain and hosting account with Netrillium last Friday, submitted my payment with PayPal and was very excited about getting back into the internet scene. Then Saturday rolled around…and mid Sunday. That’s when I sent an email to them, I just figured that it hadn’t cleared yet since my bank never showed the charge itself yet (just the lose in available balance). No reply 24hrs later, sent another…then yesterday, another, and just now, 2 more to email addresses I’ve found. [..] I’ve already paid $11.95 to them but got nothing in return and my emails seem to go unheard. I wanted to call them up and just talk to a regular person to get my money back but the two “contact numbers” are +1 800 and that’s all…it’s like the company no longer exists or something.
…and I’d keep quoting, if I didn’t think I’d fry my database trying to get it all in. There’s no reason why you guys should stop here though. Have a read through the many sources that I collected, with a little help from a few Snarkers:
I’ve sent in at least 4 help tickets over the past two months and have never gotten a reply…
I recently renewed a .nu domain with them and they took ages to respond…
- Netrillium banned mail()
- Disabled BellaBook install for no reason (bastards)
- Take it from me, and don’t buy hosting or domain names through [Netrillium]
- Failed to renew domain despite payment received
- Double-billed; customer support took 21 days to respond
I can not login to their “client area” as my email address was not found in their databse, but I still get their “promotional emails” on the same email address
they wouldn’t respond to any emails or anything, I couldn’t renew my domain with them and lost it
stay far away from Netrillium. Their Customer Service is horrible
I’m pretty sure you get the point…
29 May at 8:05 pm
After being hosted by Netrillium for 5 years, I am quite happy to be rid of them and will never go back or recommend them to anyone. Their customer service dwindled in quality and response time and servers would go down for hours and/or days. I barely knew what was going on because they never made announcements or notified me of anything.
I’m glad I didn’t host my domain name with them, because it seems like that is a popular problem. Whew. Hopefully everyone who is dealing with that will have those issues resolved soon. :(
Some of the things I truly hate about Netrillium in the form of their usability/efficiency are: lame client area with rare to no updates on outages/etc, no community forums or any kind of useful FAQ (the current one sucks), their website is obnoxiously designed with that annoying flash header and poor content organization…and, as I mentioned before, their customer service has degraded to almost nothing.
After reading the stuff in the links…just goes to strengthen my bad opinion of them. :P
29 May at 8:07 pm
Netrillium’s antics don’t shock me anymore, I used to be hosted with them years ago with my first domain after my friend got rid of her hosting company and sold her clients to them. At first everything went smoothly but after a month or so there was always downtime and they’d never reply to emails or tickets. I also remember for several months I wasn’t receiving the invoices for my hosting account with them and they bitched at ME for it, how is it my fault your system is flawed when I emailed you repeatedly about not receiving the invoices? After them being biatches I left and got a new domain months later with e-starr.com (they actually responded to my emails *shocked* and were always so nice) and after that was hosted with friends for a while and now I have my own reseller with holdfire.net – and I love it.
It baffles me what went wrong with them, they used to be at least some good but now everyone warns new site owners to stay away. Their support team is usually so rude and condescending, I just don’t get it.
Also to elaborate on my situation with them recently, they did the same thing with Despair.nu so when November 08 rolls around I’ll have to go through the same crap (they only charged me for one year), but of course I plan on contacting them about that much sooner. If it didn’t cost $64 per domain name (for .nus) to be transfered I would do that, I am hoping to save up money to do that as well!
29 May at 8:10 pm
So this is what all the research hub-bub was about….
Well, I had two domains with them and a third one currently there for other reasons, but it’s not a service I’d recommend to others.
29 May at 8:13 pm
I’ve been wanting to transfer my domain away from Netrillium for awhile, but I’m too scared to… I had the same problem as one of the people you linked in that my email address wasn’t in their database so I couldn’t even log in and pay for a renewal. It took them several days to get back to me about that problem. I can’t believe they were so slow to solve a problem that was going to earn them money…
:-/ They were good at first, but I’ve been with them for 4 years and I can certainly attest to the fact that they are crap now.
29 May at 8:15 pm
Luckily, I was informed of Netrillium when I first started out.
But, I’m have the same domain name issues with Yahoo. Admittedly, I did something stupid and deleted the account on which I had bought my domain name from. When I realized my error, I recreated the account, but no matter what I’ve done or sent to support, they’ve continued to ignore my requests. I have my domain registered through 2010 and Yahoo is telling me that I have to pay more money to get it reinstated in my name.
It seems just like the Netrillium fiasco.
29 May at 8:19 pm
I remember when Ashley’s site (dirty-martini.net) changed to a porn site. I remember her saying she was hosted by Netrillium, so when I got my hosting I stayed away from them. I have heard nothing but bad about them so I knew before hand to stay away. Maybe your post will help others to know to not use them too. :)
29 May at 8:45 pm
I think I just got really lucky. I made a whole list of hosting services to check out when I came to buy a new hosting package and Netrillium was the next one after Holdfire. I’m so glad I bought my space and domain with Holdfire instead of moving on. Especially after the problems I had with Hostii.net – the package they offered really was too good to be true: wasted money and the domain still doesnt work despite over a month of asking them what was going on. So I’d avoid them too.
29 May at 8:51 pm
This scares me. I’m not hosted on netrillium, but my domain is registered there. I have no idea how to move it away. The more and more I read the more scared I get, I love my domain and don’t want to lose it but what can I do? I had the domain registered by someone else (my parents didn’t accept that I wanted one so I went and won one…) and am totally noobish to this whole domain thing! *laughs*
To be honest, I’ve not had issues with them (so far). Atleast none that has been reported to me/ I’ve seen. Wehn I registered my domain in january that also went fine.
I’m scared now that my domain will suddenly disappear…
29 May at 9:15 pm
I love having a personal server…
29 May at 9:24 pm
Scary… I knew that Netrillium had turned into a terrible host, but I never knew that it’d become this bad.
I was hosted by Netrillium in ’02 (when it was decent) and luckily jumped ship before things went to pieces.
29 May at 9:25 pm
they’re still in business? bloody hell. I remember Netrillium being crap and having a bad reputation about four years ago, and in internet terms that’s a looooong time.
29 May at 9:50 pm
I honestly wonder how they lasted as long as they did. Thankfully I’ve never experienced a ‘bad’ host, so I’m glad there is one less out there for me to find.
I hope everyone gets a happy resolution in the end.
29 May at 10:08 pm
Not to ruin netrilliums reputation at being a crap hosting company but I had a similar experience to Rachel – in that they locked down my domain and refused to let me transfer it! This was with webhost2 btw
note to all: register domains SEPARATELY to your hosting!!
acehost also decided to blame an ‘insecure script’ (wordpress) for the 1000 or so emails I was supposedly sending out causing them to charge me a $50 fine
I’m so paranoid about hosts now as I’ve had so much shit from them over the years! When my hosting went down for (what I now know as 5 minutes) the other day I was shitting myself!
One day i’ll host myself!
29 May at 10:51 pm
I never even heard of this host, but thankfully, I heard of it (now, actually XP) and I’ll not go there. I wonder if Netrillium will find this blog post…
29 May at 11:01 pm
I used to be hosted by Netrillium back in the days when literally every fanlisting owner went there *lol* … 4-5 years ago or something?
I used to love the “personal” service and friendly emails they used to exchange with customers… After a while they became less and less reliable though so I switched. First to UnitedHosting (brilliant, never had a problem with them, they were just a tad bit too pricey for me), then to Dreamhost (never.again!! Downtime Galore and very unprofessional support) and have now finally arrived at Site5 thanks to recommendations on here. Got the occasional downtime for a few minutes (which I only notice because I monitor my server by a third party service) but nothing major. Not planning to leave any time soon!
29 May at 11:22 pm
Wow. I can’t even remember now what prompted me to abandon them, but I’m sure glad I did.
29 May at 11:47 pm
I am amazed by the fact that Netrillium is still running on business after all these years. I mean, they’ve been around ever since I started using the internet and through all those crappy years of their so-called service, they still manage to squeeze money out of customers. Tsk, tsk.
30 May at 12:38 am
Why, thank you! I appreciate your kindness. :)
In regards to your post, I’m shocked to see how low these webhosting companies are willing to go to make a quick buck. I, like several other commenters, am one of the lucky ones, although it could easily have been switched other way around.
I think the thing that saved me was that I visited webhostingjury.com and looked up all the reviews before selecting a hosting provider. Now that I think of it, you should probably advise that others do the same as well (that is, if that’s what you’d recommend. i don’t see why you wouldn’t, though).
All in all though, great article. I’ll be sure to steer clear of Netrillium in the future!
30 May at 2:08 am
Netrillium was the first host I used, all the way back in 2003. I used to belong to the HTML/webdesign community (heh, webdesign? Me? I know.) who believed that Netrillium was the bestest host EVAR, to the point that one of the forum mods would even modify any posts with the host name to “the big N” in fear of them getting too popular. I think I left after a year or so because of the customer service. I’m glad I did.
30 May at 4:33 am
Wow I never used them, but I’m sure glad I didn’t now. That’s aweful!
30 May at 4:39 am
Thank you, Jem, for bringing light to this situation…and on my birthday, none the less!!
Anyway, the fact that they stated non-payment amuses the hell out of me as I have a $15 credit with them…and yet this is never brought up. Hm, interesting.
I don’t know if anything will ever come of this, but I plan to abuse the hell out of the privilage of having had you blog about the entire situation. I thank you and Jordan both for helping me through all of this…
The thing that kills me the most is I’m not looking for money. I’m not demanding lawyer fees, the fact that I wasted money renewing the account, the month I PRE-PAID for their service, or anything. I wanted my domain and my files. All of this could have so easily been avoided if they had just transfered my domain in the first place. :(
Anyway…thank you, again!, Jem. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate bringing light to the situation and how horrible Netrillium is.
30 May at 4:41 am
[…] more or less the whole story, please visit this entry at Jem’s […]
30 May at 6:04 am
I have a domain (that I don’t use much) registered with them, and fortunately I haven’t had any problems with them, yet. I’m not going to renew said domain with them when the time comes, I might as well let it expire – thanks for the enlightening post!
30 May at 7:38 am
One major reason why you never keep your domain and hosting with the same company as it’s rare you’ll want to leave both at the same time, and one won’t have control over the other.
30 May at 7:42 am
I had never heard of them, and I’m glad I didn’t. But thanks for posting this, if I ever were going to look for another host, I would definitely avoid them!
30 May at 8:33 am
As someone who is currently shopping around for a host, thank you very much for making this post!
30 May at 11:50 am
I’ve only been to one site that was owned by someone who liked Netrillium. I’ve seriously only heard bad things about them. Thankfully, I was never hosted by them. I did, however, have a pretty terrible experience with a host called CyberPixels. At first, they were very helpful. However, a month before my domain expired, they deleted all my files. Just deleted them. And when I tried to switch servers, they also refused to release it. Then they tried to take money out of my account with automatic payments — something I wasn’t even signed up for. I actually had to cancel that credit card…and get a new domain.
30 May at 2:09 pm
I bought a domain from Netrillium in 2006 – it took over three weeks for the domain to be registered. During this time they ignored all three of my support emails.
Bastards.
30 May at 2:21 pm
Oh wooow… now THAT is really scary. I’m so very glad that my hosting has always been impeccable and my questions have been answered within hours.
30 May at 2:52 pm
Thank you for posting this article Jem! I haven’t used Netrillium before but now I’ll stay far far away from it. =) So far I have used Surpass and Holdfire. Surpass is ok but there were downtimes and support was kind of slow. Holdfire is awesome. Jordan rocks!! XD
30 May at 2:55 pm
the EXACT same thing that happened to rachel, happened to my friend Keisha.
they are starting to get a VERY bad name for themselves.
30 May at 4:03 pm
That’s just ridiculous. Thank you for posting this, though – hopefully potential customers will read it and go elsewhere in search of a decent host!
I’m with site5 and they’ve been decent thus far, though my one and only support ticket was answered about 12 hours after submission – ie, when the database connection error had already been “resolved” – in a rather condescending tone (and using poor English), as in, “well, I don’t see problem, so everything okay.”. Once that error was resolved, my stylesheet appeared to be missing (even though it wasn’t), but I sneaked around the issue by copying it to my root folder and specifying that path for it instead.
30 May at 6:16 pm
[…] Netrillium, have used them, know someone who does etc. you may want to check out Jem’s latest article about […]
30 May at 7:04 pm
Who owns Netrillium? Are they a supposedly sirious bizness?
30 May at 7:33 pm
THIS is why you register your domain at a REGISTRAR where YOU have full control over your own domain and why you have your webhosting with another company.
Ever since Endore I always made sure I had full control of my own shit.
30 May at 8:52 pm
I’m really thankful because I came this close to signing up with Netrillium when I was in need of a new host a couple of years ago.
I’ve experienced very bad service (and uptime) from my past hosts and I thought that was bad enough … until I read this and realized that there are worse out there.
And after reading about their ‘heck care’ attitude and the ‘no other replies from us will be coming’ part … I was fuming mad. (Even though I’m not the victim.) Technical support, my arse!
30 May at 11:06 pm
Yay to research. When looking for a host I came across Netrillium…and posts of problems people had with them. Just awful! The cheeky sods even have the audacity to milk people of their money.
31 May at 4:14 am
Oh, I though netrillium *looked* like a good host… Thanks for the warning ;D
31 May at 9:20 pm
As always Jem, thanks <3
01 Jun at 5:19 am
Sounds like they are just one big scam! I don’t have my own hosting, or domain, since it’s a sub-domain, but I’ve been contemplating on getting my own for over a year..I just don’t know the best people to deal with when it comes to that..but at least I know who NOT to go with, if I ever decide to!
01 Jun at 8:53 pm
previously i had owned a .com version of my old site with netrillium, then i had renwed it. Paid and everything. they would not give me back my site, and instead “helped” to move it to the same site but a .net version. so much headache and i had to edit nearly all of my script and html to fix the links pointing from .com to .net.
i recently ( may 2008 ) registered a new domain with netrillium.
which proves i am a moron. Not only did i not get any initial responses that were helpful ( most were asking me stupid questions, asking to resend invoices, etc ) but they were spaced apart by days or weeks. after about 17 days of getting the run around i obviously was very pissed off and let them know it. they said they would not help me any further due to my “abusive language” and that if i wanted i could attempt a “charge back”.
08 Jun at 6:22 am
Wow. See, I was hosted with Netrillium in 2004 I think with my first domain. I didn’t buy the domain through them, but I got the hosting, and I didn’t have a problem with them. My reason for leaving was that I had multiple sites, and their reseller prices are astronomical for what they’re offering. And with the shit service they’re offering now, it makes it 10 times worse.
It’s kind of sad, because they were pretty decent–one of the better webhosts. And they slacked off on so much. Not a good way to run a business.
09 Jun at 11:05 pm
My domain expired over the weekend which was originally purchased through netrillium back when I had hosting with them eons ago. I had trouble last year trying to renew my domain name (it ended up being down for nearly a week), and again this year! They sent me an email in January with login information to their client area, yet lo and behold when I try logging in it says my information doesn’t exist. I try contacting customer support… no reply even days later. I’m afraid my domain is gone for good now, and I’ve had it for nearly five years now. The best part of it all is they send me promotional emails but yet they can’t send me an email reminding me that my domain is about to expire AND says that same email doesn’t exist in their database when I try to log in??? It’s ridiculous. And the cherry on the cake, is there is no 1-800 number to call and bitch to them. I’m so done with them!!!!!!!
13 Jun at 4:09 am
I hosted with Netrillium in 2002 after my first company sold to them. At first, they were a dream. Then, about two years after that, I started having some serious troubles. My first hint that things weren’t as they should be was when I paid for an upgrade that took them months to actually put into action. But, since they refunded me some money, I was more than happy to forgive. However, my main problem and my issue for moving, was bandwidth related. I swear, they were over charging me. They said I was using 50GIG of bandwidth in half a month, so my account would go down for the other half. This was ridiculous. My sites in total only use about 10 per month, but they kept insisting and shutting down my site. It was all very annoying and shady, so I left.
14 Jun at 12:28 pm
I am hosted with Netrillium, I’ve been with them with my current domain for 2 years and before that, I think 1-2 years with another domain. They do have a lot of downtime and sometimes my site will disappear for no reason. I’ve asked them about this after it’s been down for about a week or two or more, and they blame it on my coding and their moving servers–no joke. But the absolute WORST thing that has happened to me with them happened last month. My domain expires yearly on May 1, but I had renewed it for another year in March. ALL of my billing was completely in check and on time (I checked all the receipts) yet on May 1, my site completely disappeared and turned into one of those “default” non-existing domain pages, you know with the search bar and the links to these random sites. I emailed them about 3 times and it took them 3 and a half weeks to do something about it–and when they finally put it back up, they responded with a hostile comment saying “You should have told us sooner, we can’t fix something we don’t know about.” Like excuse me??? It took you forever just to get back to me! And worse yet, even though my site was gone for an entire month (got it back about May 28), I still had to pay for the whole month I didn’t even have it. Fuck that.
19 Jun at 5:12 am
I was with Netrillium back in the day. I had the one and only fansite (and official, at that!) for an independent guitarist. They pulled the same crap on me they did Rachel. Two years later, I finally got my hands on the original domain, which is ironically still the second in Google listings for his name despite the downtime. Basically I put a transfer on it from GoDaddy.com and put a watch on it, and as soon as eNom/Netrillium got bored with keeping it and released it, I got it immediately. Shouldn’t have to do that, though. Happily hosted with DreamHost, registered with GoDaddy.com. Just more proof not to put all your eggs in one basket.
24 Jun at 7:02 pm
Netrillium was my first host back in 2003, I think they went by another name then. I decided to leave after my site had been down for almost 2 weeks and any changes I made took 48 hours to take affect. It sucked. I prefer Dreamhost, Host Gator and Go Daddy.
10 Aug at 3:01 am
I would like your help please. I’m a newbie in those kind of stuff and your post scare me pretty much so I would really appreciate if you can help me out. I’m not with Netrillium for a domain but my domain’s name is with them. They just cut me down 2 days ago but it hasn’t expired yet (bought my domain on August 11 2007), still they go me down. I’ve send them a note and try to get in my account but didn’t work. I don’t want to register with them anymore but I don’t know what I should do because I’m afraid they will just withdraw from my credit card for to renew the domain’s name without notice.
I also would like to register to an other place for an other domain’s name. It doesn’t matter to me if they don’t release my actual domain’s name. i just don’t want them to abuse my “stupidity” XD
I would really appreciate if you can give me some advise/help. Thank you.
01 Oct at 9:15 pm
I’ve actually been hosted by Netrillium for the past 5 years and I really want to change hosts… but I don’t know if they’ll pull the same thing and not let me change my domain name. Any advice would be great.
03 Nov at 4:44 am
I would put something in the ‘website’ textbox, but alas, my website has gone poof due to Netrillium. Happened just two weeks ago.
Thanks for notifying more online lurkers about this; more people need to speak out and get together to bring this company down.