Almost two years ago, when I was searching for web hosting, I came across Netfirms. Looking over their website, I really thought it looked like a great place to host my website. Over the last 21 months, I have learned differently.

Not so surprisingly, the first 30 days were fine. They do offer the first 30 days as a type of trial period. If you are unhappy with the service, you can get a refund.

But within six weeks of starting my service, I started experiencing problems. A lot of times, the page would never load. Customers were constantly getting error pages such as my sql errors, etc. I would email support, and be told nothing was wrong. This went on for over a year. I was told that transferring websites is hard to do, so I went ahead and renewed my contract.

Over the last two months, things got really bad. My website was down for DAYS on end. I would email support and receive an email that they were looking into it. A month ago, my website was down 4 days. I sent repeated emails. The only email I got back was that they were looking into it. That's it.

Two weeks ago, my website went down for a week. I sent repeated emails again, and I was told that they were looking into it. After that first email, they never responded again. I finally called Canada, and was told that they didn't know anything. Another department handles that. Enough was enough. Finally, I found a company that was willing to switch my website for $25 and only $5 a month hosting. The owner of the company has done work on my website before, so I knew they were reliable. I'm very pleased with the new hosting company.

My contract with netfirms is not renewable until September. So I lost two months of money with them. They make you pay for the full year up front. But that's ok, because I will never have to deal with their lousy company again.

And the funniest thing of all? After I got my website switched and transferred to a new hosting company, they sent me an email telling me that my website was working fine now. How ironic. They truly are the worst hosting company I HAVE ever seen. If only I had known before I signed up with them. They are a rip off.

Before I transferred, I did a google search to see if anyone was having problems with Netfirms. I found a blog posting here. It was pretty interesting to see how many people experienced lousy service with them.

I really hope this blog post helps someone. It I would have read something like this before I signed up with their company, I never would have got caught in the trap.