Namesco

I used to have a broadband connection with Namesco but their amazing (lack of) customer service put an end to that. They managed to break it twice within six months. The nice man on the telephone assured me that they would “As a goodwill gesture…” not charge me for correcting their cock ups. I hung up.

This site is hosted by them. I have just renewed, after seriously contemplating moving it elsewhere, the hosting package. Yesterday things stopped working. There was no warning. There was no notification of what was going on. Having been a customer for some time I have become use to their somewhat cavalier attitude to customer service. So I rummaged around on their website and found this…

14 Jan 09

13:54:22

FTP Password updates

As one of the UK’s leading web services providers, we pride ourselves on offering the highest levels of security and protection.

As you may be aware, the number of attempted security attacks in the UK has recently been on the rise, and yesterday we detected a higher than usual number of attempts to break into websites hosted on our network. Our systems remained unaffected as we invest heavily in the security of our infrastructure.

However, as a precautionary measure we immediately disabled a segment of our customers’ FTP passwords. Furthermore, we have changed one of the rules for password length from being 6 characters to 8 characters. To reactivate your FTP access you will need to login to your Online Control Panel and create a new FTP password.

“Our systems remained unaffected”… but we are going to disable your [W:FTP] service and delete your password but not bother to tell you what we are doing.

Thanks!

Amazingly their billing department can send out reminders that they want you to give them your money months before the actual due date, and they will keep on sending them until you pay up. They even have warnings appear on their Control Panel when you log in…

…but they are unable to find any means to notify you when they disable your account.

Fortunately they do have a Tell The Boss page. Fortunately there are other hosting companies….