Powersoft Hosting Have Vanished…along with my site.
Hello.
Due to the obvious demise of Powersoft Hosting and indeed the many many others having to pick up the mess left behind after powersoft, I have re-titled this post for folk to find easier.
I’ve had many an email from a guy called John who has been seriously hacked off…enough to do some serious investigating in to this mess and has turned up the following information:
Richard Searley (registrar for powersoft solutions.co.uk – see below) supplied these details from 2008 -Lee Pedley
Powersoft Solutions
115 High Street
Uckfield
TN22 1RN
0871 52 00 126 fax 0871 52 00 127I’ve been to www.192.com and found a Lee K Pedley on the Electoral Roll but I have to pay to get an address. There are also some other Lee Pedleys in the area.A business search for Powersoft Solutions Ltd in Uckfield yields the same address as above, and 01825 766 124 01825 766 124 But guess what? BT say the number is not recognised.Several neighbour businesses are listed – Cranfield Surveys (at 218 High St) are opposite but can’t help further. Estate Agents Tailor Tofts (at 109 High St) do not answer on 01825 767 607 01825 767 607I’m just going to write off my payment to Powersoft and start elsewhere
So it seems like are all up the creek without anything like a paddle….
Original Post:
Just to let you know the host and thus webserver of my website is playing up A G A I N.
They assured me this was just a blip due to some virus thingy, so sorry there are no images as of yet. They will re-appear when my webserver get’s re-ignited.
Anytime soon I hope.
G
Any news on your website? are this company still going?
Monday, March 22, 2010 at 14:03
Yeah Martin,
They are back up and running. It’s the first time it’s happened in a long time so hopefully it was just a blip.
All the best,
Gordon
Monday, March 22, 2010 at 14:05
I am here because I googled powersofthosting …. yet again, for me, they’re down … again. I use three hosts, luckily for me the site I have with powersofthosting isn’t one I make money from. Well, it would be, except they’re often down and I installed WordPress on there and have never been able to upgrade it, so it got out of sync with my other sites.
But, they are the host of all my email addresses, which is now officially more than a nuisance, since I can’t bite the bullet and move hosts easily because of all that email that comes through. It’d take a lot of planning to move my emails to another domain.
It’s really really annoying.
When the site’s down, powersofthosting’s site’s down as well – and I sit here wondering if they’ve gone bust or what’s going on. It’s certainly a hobby webhost, not a host to rely on.
Wednesday, May 26, 2010 at 11:18
And they’re down … again! What a dismal service – I have clients’ sites with them, as well as my personal email addresses. They don’t even have the decency to send an email apologising for their outages. Powersofthosting used to be highly reliable and customer-friendly around 2007, but they seem to have gone to the dogs now. Pity.
Tuesday, June 1, 2010 at 17:39
Not only are they down they have locked my domain name so I am struggling to go elsewhere. The down time has been steadily growing giving them plenty of time to plan a fix rather than wait for a total crash. I have been down 3 days so far and still no word.
Wednesday, June 2, 2010 at 08:14
Does anyone have a phone number for these clowns? Goodbye Powersoft. You are a shite and have caused me no end of problems.
Wednesday, June 2, 2010 at 09:47
Hi all,
Yeah its totally frustrating.
A guy called John emailed me because his website went down as well. He’s investigated it and it seems like Powersoft Hosting haven’t renewed their domain name:
Relevant dates:
Registered on: 08-Mar-2002
Renewal date: 08-Mar-2010
Last updated: 10-Feb-2008
Registration status: Renewal required. *** This registration has been SUSPENDED. ***
Name servers:
ns1.powersofthosting.com
ns2.powersofthosting.com
WHOIS lookup made at 20:42:33 01-Jun-2010
I’ve decided to assume that my website is lost, along with my URL http://www.gordon-fraser.com, which was linked to this website for all the images etc (youll notice the stuff at the right is all X.
I have now bought a new hosting package with Pixel Internet and will have to now sift through 220 posts and re-link all my photographs and forum posts. Oh the joys.
The real annoyance is that I just renewed both the domain name and hosting package (£50) at the start of May….don’t think I’ll be seeing that again.
Anyone else out there suffering at the hands of Power Soft?
Gordon
Wednesday, June 2, 2010 at 10:02
I’m suffering too! Just trawling through trying to find a telephone number and stumbled here, so thought i’d offer my sympathies to those suffering as well.
As soon as its up and running I am off, I’ve been with them 6+ years, thankfully I moved my business stuff over last year, so its only my personal stuff and email that is down, but still annoying!!
If I find a number I will post it here.
Good Luck!
Wednesday, June 2, 2010 at 15:40
OK I found these details
Powersoft Solutions
http://www.powersofthosting.co.uk
PO Box 176
Uckfield, East Sussex TN22 1WE
01273 371 016
But BT claim there is a fault with the line.
Wednesday, June 2, 2010 at 16:09
Such a shame as they used to be excellent. It all started to go wrong when the amalgamated the two separate entities.. If they haven’t renewed their domain then they must be in some trouble.
Wednesday, June 2, 2010 at 19:13
Has anyone had any contact whatsoever from Powersoft? My website has been offline for a week and I can’t wait any longer without hearing from them. Can anyone recommend another company with a similar hosting deal but with better customer service?
Cheers,
Tom
Wednesday, June 2, 2010 at 20:32
Hi Tom,
I have just moved over to falcoda.co.uk as web hosting, have been with them for 3 years for my domain name, fantastic service, you can actually speak to a human being (his name is Rob) 02081236532 and he is really helpful, good price too. He moved me overnight. Well impressed.
Regards, Cheryl
Thursday, June 3, 2010 at 21:58
I’ve decided to just assume it’s gone and start a new hosting package, I don’t expect any refunds soon…
I’ve went with Pixel Internet, a UK based place, cheaper and far better geared towards the current web, not 6 years ago web.
WordPress installed in 10 seconds for me, no faffing with tech support like at PSH.
Brilliant customer support, emailed them at 11pm last night, got an email back at 11:30pm.
Hopefully someone will have some form of contact with PSH and if they do, can they find out if refunds are an option?
YY
Wednesday, June 2, 2010 at 20:42
Well, if it is true that they have a BT fault as Mark said then I can understand why everybody is offline.
I have to agree that the problems have been steadily growing. I have been using Pingdom to monitor downtime. They only achieved 93% uptime in April and 80% in May.
My site has been down since 7pm on 30th May.
I’ve been with them for a good few years now, so I’m disappointed to say the least.
I’ll have a look at Pixel Internet to see how they stack up against Hosting24 which is my hot favourite right now albeit that they are US based
Thursday, June 3, 2010 at 04:14
Hello all,
I also stumbled upon this site when I was searching for answers as to why Powersoft have gone AWOL.
I have two sites I maintain hosted by Powersoft and fortunately I don’t let Powersoft manage my domain name so after 3 days of downtime I’m moving everything across.
The main problem is the emails.
I’m just in the process of shifting the sites over to the very stable Media Temple Grid server (based in the USA). Fantastic tech support, stable and really simple to use. I’ve been using Media Temple since 2005. The sites I run there have NEVER been down amazingly.
Best of luck all
Steven
Thursday, June 3, 2010 at 08:55
I have done a lot of checking, Powersoft Hosting has been disolved and directors and secretaries have been listed as terminated at Companies House.
I think they are no longer there??
I have contacted Tuscows who are the registrar that Powersoft used (for me anyway, check whois) and they have a form that you can complete to get access.
http://tucowsdomains.com/domains/domaindisputes/compliance-providerunavailable/
I’ll keep you all posted
M
Thursday, June 3, 2010 at 13:54
I’ve just got a domain hosted with Justhost.. sign up, change your mind before the final stages and they’ll offer you a big discount. It’s cost me about £80 and a bit for 5 years. The downside is that there are some extras such as spam assasin that costs extra, but you can probably wangle some of them for free too if you wrangle a bit. I miss boxtrapper though. That was very handy. Justhost has some good deals right now though.
Thursday, June 3, 2010 at 20:17
I have now been with Powersoft for over 6 years – over the past 6 months I have noticed significant failures appearing to become commonplace. These outages coupled with the lack of information both during an after each outage along with only ‘web based’ Customer Services are incredibly frustrating
I would like someone from Powersoft to actually post here, or make some type of announcement, if anyone finds anything out can they post?
Clearly, I will be moving my hosting service to another provider and cancelling all future world pay agreements with Powersoft.
Very, very poor – they don’t deserve any clients, and if I treated my clients in this way, I wouldn’t have any either.
Thursday, June 3, 2010 at 23:14
My site’s still down, I went to http://www.who.is and put my domain name in there and it says that 123-reg.co.uk is the domain registrar. Email services@123-reg.co.uk – so I’ve emailed them with my problem and asking if they can transfer my domain over to 1and1.
Hope that helps somebody get to the next stage!
It’s my email accounts I’m missing … the domain name was never developed much by me. But those emails!!!
Dammit.
Thursday, June 3, 2010 at 23:34
OK, Tucows came back to me and said I needed to get in touch with 123reg.co.uk. I have spoken to them and its nice and easy to sort out.
Basically, open up a free account with them. once you have an account with them, send them a fax with proof of ID (Bank statement/Utility bill) that you are the “owner” of the domain and they will transfer it to your newly created account, where you can do as you wish with it.
Good point on the Worldpay Agreement Paul, I’ll make sure I put a stop to that too.
123 Reg contact details
services@123-reg.co.uk
08712309525
08709126612 (fax)
Friday, June 4, 2010 at 13:19
Oh and I just wanted to say Thank-you to Gordon (Yam Yam Biker) for originally griping about Powersoft (or Powershite as its now dubbed here) and establishing a place for us all to share our issues and hopefully resolve them.
M
Friday, June 4, 2010 at 13:23
Hi all
Latest from my side of the mess,
Worldpay wont let me login to cancel the agreement so I’ve emailed them to see if I can get a refund as well, seeing as I only recently renewed the annual charge of £40 (The 3rd May 2010).
I’ve also had a response from 123 reg:
“Dear Gordon,
Thank you for contacting 123-reg on the 02nd June 2010.
Send us through fax your ID like a passport or a driving license and also your bank statement. Also fax us a covering letter explaining the situation of your domain. As legally we consider this domain registered by the company powerhouse but it is registered under your name we will ask the legal team to take the decision on this.”
So much hassle really.
Friday, June 4, 2010 at 16:45
I am now visible again. 123 have transfered my domain to the free account I set up with them. I then went to pipistrelle.net and took free webspace. I set the nameserver at 123 to my pipistrelle site as per their welcome email. It said it might take up to 72 hours but I only waited overnight and then setup my email addresses and in came a shedload of missing mail. Obviously I don’t know how many emails I have lost but I am up and running and spent not one penny.
Friday, June 4, 2010 at 22:12
OK. So I registered a new account and have gone through and asked them what to do.
I don’t have a driving licence or valid passport. I only have one bill (not a homeowner). Hope they’ll accept an out of date passport and a mobile phone bill!
However, where the heck to find a fax…. that’s going to be a pain in the bum. I have commitments tomorrow morning, by which time most local businesses that might have a fax service would be closed no doubt (rural area).
Pain the butt all round.
Thanks to you guys above for your information/updates. I had contacted 123-reg direct by email yesterday but hadn’t received a response… maybe having the free account set up now will help winkle one out of them.
Friday, June 4, 2010 at 22:54
Hi Angela I did not use a fax I attached the scan to an email via their support system
Friday, June 4, 2010 at 22:59
I signed up with JustHost (thanks Mack – have a look for the secret link on their site for discount – not so secret really!).
Emails are back online – hurray. In the process of uploading my site. Just as well I took backups of the database recently!
Powersoft Hosting Ltd. is terminated according to Companies House, but Powersoft Solutions Ltd. is still listed as active albeit that the accounts are overdue.
I think that it is fair to say that this is the end and that anybody waiting to transfer in the hope that service will resume is probably in for a long wait.
The thing that annoys me is that they could have been courteous and told us all that they were going to close up shop. It wouldn’t have been difficult now would it?
Saturday, June 5, 2010 at 13:01
Hi I think they are gone although they did have a blip like this a few years when they re-appeared after about 2 weeks. I thought powersoft hosting was long gone as a company and they had only been using powersoft solutions for some time, maybe a couple of years. Whilst they were registered with tucows my domain was registered via them with 123-reg. 123-reg were great, it only took about a day to get access but I have always had my domain name in my name so maybe that made it easier. Having been this way before I ran a whois immediately after buying the domain and insisted that I should be the registered owner of something if I had paid for it. It seems a very shady practice to take your money and only lend the product to you.
As I am not a professional http://www.pipistrelle.net is good enough for me and it’s free so it is my only option at the moment.
Saturday, June 5, 2010 at 20:55
Gone as well. Several domain names with it. I find this appalling, as I had just persuaded some government websites in Australia to link to mine. I also run webpages for charities that depend on me to keep information flowing.
They could have emailed us. I used to deal with ‘Maria’, and she was excellent, but all that fizzled out a while back. I am devastated, actually, as I am 72 this year and not well, a lot of time spent with my laptop, immobilised. I am now afraid to commit my stuff (thankfully I backed up last autumn) to another outfit. Mail, well, I use gmail and yahoo, but incoming junk stuff, box trapper was excellent. I liked CPanelX as well for editing online.
I also have several important pages that are used by universities and mental health organisations. So my name will be mud in future. No one will trust me any more. I don’t make any money out of my activities, but my good name is important to me.
Sunday, June 6, 2010 at 09:28
Do you all think that possible legal action is a course worth pursuing?
We are all evidently losing a lot of business or reputation which as Gwyneth said, took a long time to establish.
I am certain I have lost a lot of potential customers due to my website being down, costing me several hundred pounds.
Compensation may be hard to get from a company who have disappeared off the face of the earth, but surely somewhere someone is reachable?
What’s that programme again……….Rogue Traders. Lets get that motorcycle duo on the case (how apt). Or that new one, Don’t Get Done, Get Dom which is on in the morning (I’ve only seen it this week because I’m on holiday).
We are obviously not alone in this mess so we should try our best to unite everyone affected and get a solution we are all happy with.
Wont be easy but it could be worth it, if not for piece of mind alone.
Gordon
Sunday, June 6, 2010 at 10:52
Gwyneth, if you ARE able to get the domain names released I would be happy to give you temporary hosting space free of charge until you find something more permanent.
Tuesday, June 8, 2010 at 15:53
I would have though reporting them to the Sussex Trading Standards might flush them out along with the information we need, and any money owing. I too had registered a couple of my sites with Lee as owner. To my way of thinking that’s tantamount to , er, can’t say it for fear of libel charges. Met this years ago and got TSO on to another outfit and got the money back for my sister.
Let’s go to them. PSH must have kept some paperwork.
East Sussex County Council Trading Standards Department
St Mary’s House
52 St Leonards Road
Eastbourne
East Sussex
BN21 3UU
Tel: 01323 418200
Fax: 01323 418227
Email: consumer.advice@eastsussexcc.gov.uk
Website: http://www.eastsussexcc.gov.uk
Monday, June 7, 2010 at 17:31
I have now emailed them. They might ago a bit faster is someone rings them up and if lots of us email them.
Gwyneth
Monday, June 7, 2010 at 17:37
There is, of course, another possibility. To report them to Sussex Police fraud squad as they have got our money and should be paying us back.
Monday, June 7, 2010 at 17:38
Looking for a good sane perspective. This rings bells for me: http://aishad.com/web-host.htm
and it leads to this, see below.
http://www.thetop10bestwebhosting.com/compare-hosts
Tuesday, June 8, 2010 at 07:24
I have also been screwed over by Powersoft. I have been a customer for 5 years, determined to stick with them as they are local (ish) to me and I wanted to support a local business. At one stage I had about 6 accounts with them until I finally realised that it would be worth my while to get reseller space somewhere. Their service had started slipping badly so I decided to take my business elsewhere.
I moved everything over except for my company website (like an idiot) as I had several complicated database-driven websites set up that I hadn’t got round to moving when my hosting came up for renewal. Luckily I moved all the domain names over so I have been able to re-establish my most of my sites (although I have lost my database driven sites)
My father has not been so lucky. He not only had hosting with these guys, but also had registered 3 domain names with them, and as lee@powersofthosting isn’t contactable he’s hoping 123-reg will be co-operative. I have all this hosting space that he can use but can’t get the domain names released to me! Grrrr…..
Tuesday, June 8, 2010 at 15:50
My wife and I had our website hosted by Powersoft and by large we had no problems and customer service was good.
We do all sorts of photography and at this time of year we do a lot of tennis photography. For the site to go down was a bit of a disaster.
We followed the advice in this thread and contacted Just Host and within 48 hours we had a new hosting company and our website up and running again. They were really helpful with all the help and advice that they gave. They even gave us access to their server to be reloading our site whilst we got the domain name transferred.
This was held by 123 Reg and again they couldn’t have been more helpful. In just one day we had a couple of phone calls with them, sent them an e-mail with a copy of a utility bill to prove we were who we said we were and by the end of the day our domain had been transferred to Just Chat.
So well done Just Chat and 123 Reg for good customer service.
I have been reading the various comments on here with interest but some of you need to take a reality check.
It has been painful and disruptive for all of us to see our sites disappear from the web and to see our money go up in smoke (we only re-newed our hosting fees in April) but i’m sure that Lee and Maria didn’t want their business to fail….to let people down…to wonder how they were going to live and pay their own personal bills!
Many businesses have failed, both big and small, in this recession and I’ve no doubt many more will but none of them go under on purpose.
Yes it would have been nice to have had advance warning that they were going to close but imagine yourself in their position.
You would do everything you could to keep the business going and by announcing you had major problems then people would leave in droves and any hope you had, however remote, of saving your business would go right out of the window.
I have never seen or spoken to Lee or Maria so I don’t know what their exact position was in all of this. It may be that the bank or someone made them close as a non viable business.
At the end of the day all of us that have made comments on here have suffered on one way or another but we will all recover…no-one, as far as I know, has lost there lives as a result of this so lets keep a little bit of perspective in this matter.
You never know, God forbid, one of you may go out of business.
Having said all that this thread has been extremely helpful and I wish you all well in your ventures and I hope you all get your sites up and running as soon as possible.
If any of you are having problems getting new sites up and running then post here and I will try to help if I can as I have 12 years of experience in the computer and internet field and may be able to point you in the right direction.
I’ll be away from the 11th to 20th June at tennis tournaments so if I don’t reply I’m not ignoring you….:)
Tuesday, June 8, 2010 at 16:09
John,
Whilst your comment is valid regarding people not losing their lifes over this so get some perspective,
Many people here run businesses with websites hosted by Powersoft Hosting. THEIR livelihood depends on Powersoft/Lee/Maria to keep their business afloat.
So telling these unfortunate people to get a grip, who have probably lost income due to powersoft tanking, seems a bit harsh.
Luckily many of us here are personal users. I used powersoft for a personal website so it wasn’t so crucial for me when it went down (besides potential customers for my artwork hobby) so I was in a way lucky.
Gordon
Tuesday, June 8, 2010 at 16:40
A company going out of business is unfortunate, yes, and all to common these days, but I think what most people are upset about is the lack of professionalism and communication. A holding page or a simple email response to enquiries would have let the ship sink with some dignity.
Tuesday, June 8, 2010 at 17:54
I had been with Powersoft since 2003. Foolishly I allowed Powersoft Hosting to register my domain under their own name – stupid I know, but they were always so helpful. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that 123-reg will be able to release the domain so I can host elsewhere. I had just renewed my hosting plan at the beginning of May – I am trying to reclaim the expense from my CC company.
Tuesday, June 8, 2010 at 18:04
Gordon,
I respect what you are saying but our site that was hosted by Powersoft is our business. It’s how we make our day to day living.
Yes it caused us problems and yes it may have cost us some custom but it is a fact of life that these things happen although we would rather that they didn’t.
For those that paid any fees by credit card they can try to get them to recover the costs of hosting etc. For those that may have lost other expenses they can contact Company’s House to find who the Administrator or Liquidator for Powersoft is and put in a claim to them although I wouldn’t hold out too much hope of getting any money back as I suspect we would be in a queue behind the Banks. Tax Man etc.
I appreciate the way you have opened up your blog Gordon to help people in the unfortunate circumstance that we have all found ourselves recently.
Tuesday, June 8, 2010 at 19:28
Amanda,
I agree with what you are saying but I suspect that probably one of Powersoft’s creditors were the company that housed all the servers they used and the likelihood is they just pulled the plug on Powersoft when the bills weren’t paid.
Therefore they might not have had time to notify anyone.
I guess all of us should have had alarm bells ringing when the site was down more and more and there were no replies to e-mails.
It may be that BT pulled the plug as well over unpaid phone bills. I guess we will never know the answer to any of the questions that we are posing.
Tuesday, June 8, 2010 at 19:33
I notice from the records on the Companies House website that Powersoft Hosting was dissolved on the 30 March 2010. Yet in May they were still accepting payments for hosting plan renewal – surely that is beyond unethical?
Tuesday, June 8, 2010 at 19:34
I suspect that the reason payments were being taken was because, if like us, we had a recurring payment set up with World Pay and the only way that these can be stopped is by the likes of us or unless the company concerned stops the recurring invoices….which obviously didn’t happen in this case.
We have since stopped any recurring payments through World Pay (which is part of RBS) but their terms and conditions state that they are not responsible for any returns and that you need to contact the seller or if they are not around then to contact your card company or Citizens Advice Bureau.
Was there anything on Company’s House website about who wound them up?
That might give a starting point for claiming money back.
I’m not sure where any money we paid for hosting fees has gone. Probably floating around in hyperspace somewhere as I doubt there was a receiving bank for these payments.
Tuesday, June 8, 2010 at 19:49
So It seems to me that payments made after 31 March 2010 (which ours was not) should be protected under credit card rules. When Speed Ferries went down we stood to lose £250 Barclaycard refunded that to us So maybe that is the way forward for some of you.
Tuesday, June 8, 2010 at 21:48
And in line with my normal ability to
1. make myself unpopular
2. see the wood for the trees
and
3. State the obvious
I have had ongoing problems some minor some less so with Powersofthosting since they moved from reselling to running their own hosting, and every time I have considered going elsewhere it has proved to be an expensive change. So I have decided to put up with the problems because of the price.
So maybe the reason they are no longer their to serve us is a joint effort. All products have a base price under which the product/supplyer ceases to be viable.
Cheepest is not always best maybe we should learn from this.
Tuesday, June 8, 2010 at 22:08
Now their are two ways to close a business – The honest way such as a shop putting a closing down notice in the door or in this case sending a warning email to all of us punters warning us of the immediate problem and another to 123-reg telling them if any Powersoft customers come you way permission is granted to transfer them.
In this case Powersoft chose the dishonest way and just took what was left in the till and scarpered.
As Amanda has mentioned above I had 3 names registered through through Powersoft and hosted by them.
I always knew this was not the cheapest way to register a domain but it was convenient at the time. Powersoft put a heavy markup on registering so all this talk of how cheap they were is wrong really. I used them because I try to use local businesses whenever possible as a matter of principle.
I have to say 123-reg have been most helpful and from my phone call yesterday fully understand the problem. As of today all three domains are sitting in my new account with them ready to be hosted via Amanda.
I cannot help but wonder if “Lee” is reading this blog and would dare to add his version of events!!!
Finally thank to Gordon for enabling us all to share our problem
Wednesday, June 9, 2010 at 11:01
A lot of you have said 123-Reg have been ace getting the domain name transferred.
However I am still awaiting confirmation of the release of http://www.gordon-fraser.com. I’ve emailed them a copy of the Tucows and my drivers licence etc and they said that they will have to speak to their lawyers as they dont know who the legal owner of the domain name is.
Seems a bit of a faff when a lot of you are saying that it took just a few days or indeed hours.
Wednesday, June 9, 2010 at 11:31
I too have problems getting a response from 123-reg. I emailed them at their service email address as directed by Tucows – twice – but never got a reply. I then created an account with them and filled in the online support form, but my query remains unresolved.
Wednesday, June 9, 2010 at 11:39
I finally got a response from 123-Reg: ‘The only way of us being able to do this is if the owner “lee pedley” transfer the domain name to your account and you accept then you can take ownership unfortunately we cannot remove the domain from him without him transferring it you sir.’ Sounds very final to me.
Wednesday, June 9, 2010 at 16:15
mcam: Try http://www.123-support.co.uk instead.
Log in using your 123-reg details and select ‘Ask A Question’
My father (Dave, above) has now successfully managed to release and manage his 3 domains and is back up and running with new hosting.
123-reg ARE aware of the Powersoft Hosting issue and are being very co-operative, but I think contacting them through 123-reg is giving ‘standard’ responses. It may help if you provide some sort of scanned ID with your support query.
Good luck!
Wednesday, June 9, 2010 at 17:00
I was one of the first customers of PSH. I took out my first domain via them and questioned them regarding the fact that it was registered to them rather than me. It seems previously that people had ordered domains and then not paid them so doing it this way meant that customers couldn’t just take the domain and run. I then discovered 123… and bought another domain and just let the original one lapse and continued with the new one.
Up until a couple of years ago, outages were very infrequent and usually fixed very quickly. I can’t fault the customer service up to that point.
I can see both sides of the coin here though, I agree to some extent with John. I have spoken to Lee previously when they had the unfortunate event of both sets of hard drives fail and had to get a back up drive from off site. I have always found them to be quick in answering e-mails. I was fortunate that I used the site there for more experimental purposes and my blog. Further, as the pennies started to pinch last year I actually told them that I was going to call it a day for that site and they let me have the site for free but would I recommend people to them. So I can’t complain about their desire to have a viable business. As it turns out, I didn’t actually remommend anyone as I saw things starting to slip..
It’s a fact that some people will find some satisfaction with a company that others have had nothing but trouble with. Just look at various ISPs to see that. So all in all, it’s a shame that anyone has suffered in this, but hopefully domains will get moved ASAP (I’m still looking around for mine at the moment, but it’s not really essential) and sites will be up and running again soon. But as John says, we are in a recession and things are going to be tough for a while to come. I do feel for them though. They have lost their livelihood and will no doubt face a huge amount of turmoil and financial trouble over the ensuing weeks and months.
Thursday, June 10, 2010 at 00:32
I don’t know why but when we decided to have a web site I bought a domain name before we found a hosting company. It took a lot of research to find one that looked ok and before we signed up we contacted three or four people who already used Powersoft through the testimonials on the web site.
On that basis we decided to sign up with them and by large had no problems with very swift responses to any queries.
I’m really pleased however that we own our domain name and weren’t locked into anyone else.
Having said that we could have bought our domain name with .com on the end instead of co.uk
There is a way to add code to a website so that if you type in one address it will correct itself to the right one.
Anyway, I digress. I hope that everyone on here that has obviously had problems gets them sorted and gets their sites up and running again.
As I said in earlier post I was very impressed with Just Host and 123 Reg for the speedy way they helped and within 48 hours of finding out Powersoft had gone we were up and running again.
Then the day after we were live my wife spent 6 hours uploading all our photos again.
We are off to Eastbourne and Wimbledon tomorrow and really needed a working site. We would have looked right mugs giving out business cards only to find out we didn’t have a site.
I’ll check back here on our return (we’re back home for 24 hours on the 20th) to see if there are any further comments.
Good luck people.
Thursday, June 10, 2010 at 19:52
I’ve just found this thread after googling, like most of you, to find out what had happened to my sites and email.
Many thanks for all the info, especially those who have checked out Companies House and are able to say that Powersoft Hosting have definitely folded.
Like many of you I’m a bit narked that they gave us no warning but on the other hand I always found Lee and Maria to be very helpful and prompt when there was a problem, and I sympathise that they’ve lost their liveliehood.
Thanks also for the tips about reclaiming domain names. I only have one registered with them and the other one simply points to their servers so I shouldn’t have too much trouble sorting that out.
I’ve decided to support a local company now too, localish anyway, and I’ve narrowed it down to 2: Saltire hosting and NSDesign, both Scottish companies. Is there anyone else here in Scotland with any experience of either of these businesses?
All the best,
Chik
Sunday, June 13, 2010 at 01:10
Another former Powersoft customer here, with the same experiences as many of you – found the customer service initially excellent, became worried with downtimes over recent months but stayed with them from a combination of loyalty and (mostly) laziness, gradually realised something more serious was wrong and found this thread via Google.
Just wanted to say thank you to the posters above for sharing information and experiences, and also thank you to the blog owner for kindly hosting this discussion. I found it very helpful in understanding what was happening and what I had to do. I can also add my vote of thanks to 123-reg, who have now effected my domain transfer.
I note that some of you, like me, had Worldpay payments go to Powersoft for hosting in May. I am assuming I will have to write this off, but I’d be very interested to know if any of you have any joy in claiming them back.
Friday, June 18, 2010 at 15:18
We have also been let down by Powersoft and have lost our business website. Thanks for all the information on trying to retrieve domain names.
Has anybody managed to get access to their domain name which had Powersoft as the Registrant? We have tried through 123-reg.co.uk but have been told that ‘ unfortunately we do not have the authority to change the ownership.’
Tucows were also unable to offer any help.
Saturday, June 19, 2010 at 15:56
Hi I Believe I was one of the first to regain my domain from 123. As they at the time were not aware of the problem with Powersoft and even though I had my domain in my name they were asking for proof of identity (utility bill carrying my name) that for historic reasons do not exist . I made suggestions of documents that are normally equally acceptable and was refused. I then requested that if the helpdesk operator I was comunicating with was not able to do this could they please elevate my request to the next support level. I am not sure why but I had an answer that allowed my domain to be moved to my account within minutes. I am suspicious they just find it easier to type pre-scripted answers that to go and ask a senior if they can help in a specific situation.
Saturday, June 19, 2010 at 16:36
After a fortnight of nightmares, threats of legal action, etc. got two of them back, but, as for R Kent, one of my domains: ocpdisorder.com was solely to powersofthosting. I wrote to Tucows. Sarah Scruton wrote back and said 123reg should release it. I have sent them her email umpteen times, but they are doing nothing. I even sent it to their CEO, but although my email wasn’t bounced back, no reply from there either. All that guff about wanting feedback. I also heard from Trading Standards in Sussex. They took it very seriously did a physical check and are still looking for the Pedleys. They said if anyone hears where they went (it would be helpful if they surfaced and helped us get our domain names back), to let them know. My next step is to get in touch with Trading Standards for Uxbridge to have a go at 12reg as Tucows were quite clear – 123reg have a legal obligation. Went to Pixelinternet, and couldn’t have been more delighted with their personal and friendly and very very helpful touch.
Saturday, June 19, 2010 at 18:46
I have contacted Nominet on http://www.nic.uk who hold all the uk domain names and they say they can try and contact powersoft and if there is no response from them they can free up my domain name held by powersoft. Obviously once it is free I register it under my name provided nobody else gets it first.
Unfortunately this process will take 10 week but at least I should get my domain name back.
Hope this helps.
Monday, June 21, 2010 at 10:16
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Hi all.
Just to let you know – I am in the same situation.
I again went with them because I thought they were a good local company.
I am now trying to change my .info domain but its not proving easy.
Speak soon
Martin
Monday, June 21, 2010 at 16:42
I had World pay trying to take a payment this morning, which fortunatley failed, however it did give me Lee’s email addess. So those who wish to share their frustrations:
M
EDIT BY YY:
Mark, whilst we all are upset I don’t think emailing him saying any number of expletives will make his failures as a hoster any less frustrating. My Emma goes by that philosophy (Of making herself feel better by making others feel worse) and I don’t agree with it. If anyone has a genuine reason for emailing him then I’ll give it to you personally…ooo er.
Gordon
Thursday, June 24, 2010 at 08:08
Lees mobile number is 447545054867.
Friday, June 25, 2010 at 10:03
Hello All!
Just had a call from an old client of mine for who I did a website for as a bit of extra cash and that was many moons ago.
I was only informed today that the company Powersoft has had it’s plug pulled and is now on the run from trading standards 9at least that’s the impression i got from reading several of the above comments.
Thanks for making the post easy to spot, I hadn’t realised Powersoft had been going down the tubes, had I known I would have pulled the plug on them sooner and shifted my client sooner.
I hope everyone is getting back on track with their sites and good luck for the future!
Tuesday, October 12, 2010 at 15:52