If you want to keep your clients, stay away from Zoti Media Group! On the 28th of May 2019, I paid for a Premium Alpha Reseller plan on MisterHost.net (AKA TightHost.com and Host4Half.com under Zoti Media Group.
My first issue started just after sign up when the PHP selector in cPanel was not working. I opened a ticket regarding the issue and received the following response:
“We are testing testing the litespeed so it may take 2-3 days until we are enabling.”
Please note that the servers were advertised as already running LiteSpeed. (Sidenote, when I got my own servers, I had LiteSpeed Web Server installed, configured and tested in under an hour).
The second issue was reported on the 2nd of June 2019. I found that the server PTR records were configured incorrectly. I brought this to their attention and they just blamed it on my CDN.
On the 10th of June 2019, the real problems started; a recurring issue with my client IP’s being blocked. Their mail clients were unable to connect to the server in order to send and receive mails.
The connection time limit (CT_LIMIT) in ConfigServer was set way too strict and automatically blocked IP’s that tried to connect to the server too often within the set time limit. This can happen quite frequently when people regularly refresh their mailbox and/or have an intermittent internet connection (common in my country).
I had to contact support a myriad of times over several months in order to unblock client IP’s.
Please take note that before making use of Zoti Media Group’s services, I made use of reseller services with HostGator (3 years) and InMotion Hosting (2 years) for the exact same client accounts that I migrated to MisterHost.net. I never had any serious problems (or an IP block ever) with these providers.
On the 27th of June 2019, I opened a support ticket because none of the sites were loading; most of them timed out. The sever information section in cPanel also showed that the server CPU was overloaded and the disk space was almost exhausted.
To this ticket, they responded with:
“Sir, everything is ok. Sundays we always run the server scannere so it overloads from time to time on sunday. Disk that shows its only one partition si there is enough disk on the server.”
Strangely enough, this did not only happen on Sundays. Around 20% of all visits to sites at random times would time out.
On the 2nd of July 2019, they automatically billed me $29.98 for a service I had already paid for. This seems to happen quite often based on the reviews I have read lately. I managed to get a refund for this amount.
On the 5th of July 2019, I received an email with the following information:
“As you might have already heard from other providers or in the news that cPanel is changing the way they sell their license, and increasing the price significantly. We will like to inform you that Misterhost.NET will keep the corrent pricing and NO change or additional costs will be added on our plans.”
Please take note of this as it will be important for what comes a bit later on.
On the 4th of September 2019, I received an email with the following information:
“We are facing an issue on the server whm.ns7.co and we are wirking since this morning to fix it. Pleasd hold on until we are done.”
I also opened a ticket that day before reading the issue in regard to several sites going down due to database connection issues.
I received the following response in regard to that ticket:
“Sorry our database server wont start, we are working the whole day on it. Please hold on.”
I then followed up on the 6th of September 2019 (2 days later) as the issue had still not been resolved. I received the following response:
“Sir the issue have been fixed. May I know the accounts that are affected to take a closer look.”
I proceeded to respond with a list of all the affected sites. MisterHost.net only got back to me on the 11th of September 2019 (Over a week after the incident occurred) with a proposed solution (Changing the localhost IP in php config files.).
The solution did not work for all sites. I notified them of this.
I then only received a response on the 14th of September 2019 (10 days later) with the following:
“Hello ****, now should be ok.”
I tested the previously affected sites and they appeared to load correctly (when they didn’t time out).
On the 17th of October 2019, my client sites all started getting suspended (same day) for apparent resource abuse. Please note that these were the same sites that ran perfectly on HostGator and InMotion hosting and based on my chat with a Misterhost.net agent before signing up, the account allocated resource quotas were supposed to be significantly higher than on my previous reseller plans.
I decided to perform a reverse IP lookup on the server and found that they are hosting 899 domains (minimum) on a 4c/8t processor OVH server.
It was at this point that I decided it was too much. My clients were fed up, my business reputation was being negatively affected by all of the aforementioned issues. It was time to get my own servers.
In my 5 years of reselling hosting packages, I had not encountered a fraction of the issues encountered with MisterHost.net in just 5 months.
I proceeded to migrate all of my hosting clients that had active websites to my new server before I requested a partial refund for the 30 paid for unused months from Zoti Media Group citing the aforementioned issues. They flat out refused to partially refund me. There was a bit of back and forth regarding the issue but at the time I was preoccupied with large projects and couldn’t dedicate the time to pursue the matter further.
Noting the aforementioned, I left a total of 5 active client accounts (email only) on their servers as I didn’t think they could be suspended for “alleged” resource abuse.
On the 23rd of November 2019 I received an email with the following information:
“We are facing an issue with server whm.ns7.co at the moment. Our techs are working already on it. We will inform you once we are done.”
An hour and a half later I received an email that the issue was fixed.
On the 17th of July 2020, I had noticed that my one suspended account was deleted. My auto-provisioning system automatically suspends accounts for non-payment after 7 days. It turns out their terms make a provision for this:
“We keep suspended accounts for 5 days on the server. After the day 5 accounts are getting terminated”
Just a handy tip for anyone making use of WHMCS.
Yesterday, the 6th of January 2021, I received calls from 2 clients that they were unable to send or receive emails. In order to troubleshoot the issue, I attempted to log into WHM and it would not accept my credentials.
Visiting their domains also resulted in an “Account Suspended” page. At this point I know the auto-provisioning system did not suspend them as their accounts were up to date.
I logged into Zoti Media Group’s client area only to find that there was an outstanding invoice for $7 and they suspended my account because of it. Please note that I should still have over $150 in credit with them.
Furthermore, upon checking my spam folder, I found 2 emails from the 2nd of January 2021. The first email contained the following information:
“Dear ****,
Due to cPanel price increase back in 2019 we have covered the fees without increasing the cost for our clients. This motivated many clients from other providers to migrate hundert of accounts to us.
Cpanel announced again a price increase of +75% with effect from 1. January 2021.
Unfortunately, the new price increase forced us to reevaluate our pricing in general (reseller, master & alpha plans).
Starting from today, we will increase the price of every reseller level plan by +$7 per month. This will keep your service with unlimited cPanel accounts!
Yearly and higher plans will get an invoice of $7.00 in the next days.
Monthly plans will get a price increase of $7.00 on the next billing.
We are really sorry!”
The second email was an invoice for $7.
It is important to note the following:
1. At the time of ordering (28 May 2019) I paid 3 years in advance for unlimited cPanel accounts (https://web.archive.org/web/20190210053627/https://misterhost.net). I am aware that they have increased their pricing but that should not affect an existing order that has been paid years in advance.
I have my own cPanel Metal licenses and I have also needed to adjust my pricing but it only affects users upon their next renewal and only after 30 days of notifying them.
2. I have essentially not used their service since October 2019 when they refused to refund me. And based on the volume of cPanel accounts on their server, the highest they would pay per account is around $0.25, my clients were actively using 4 accounts. This however is not relevant at all as I initially paid for unlimited accounts (at least until the end of the current billing cycle).
I proceeded to open a ticket requesting them to immediately reinstate my account so that I can transfer my 4 client accounts away from them. I also told them the following:
1. After the accounts have been transferred away (less than 1 day) they can keep the $150+ credit. I just want to be done with them.
2. If they are not willing to accommodate my request, I will report their unethical behavior and poor service.
They proceeded to close down my entire account. I believe that my offer was more than fair given the issues (from their side, and from my clients as a result of their poor service) and reputational damage I have experienced.
I am now sitting with 4 clients that have no way to recover their personal information and emails.
I have found verified reviews of at least 6 other former Zoti Media Group clients that have experienced the same in the last 2 years, most losing their accounts and over $100.
The irony is that they advertise "99.9% Uptime" and "we consider every one of our customers to be a part of our family and we respect them as members and not as numbers.".
Furthermore, the top review from "Laura Gates" on Host Advice was likely made by Zoti Media Group as Host4Half.com is one of their properties.
