Ruth – writeaholics.net
Dataflame was the first hosting company I ever used. At first I thought my issues were common with website owners, but as it turned out it was just Dataflame's bad, almost non-existent, custom service and downtime.
I also don't like the deceitful way they pretend that they are in the US as well. I had accounts with both dataflame.co.uk and dataflame.com. One was advertised as being in the UK and the other in the US. But whenever I contacted either, I was always speaking to someone in the UK.
They brag about their 24/7 customer service which is what I need because I'm in a different time zone. But whenever I contacted their online chat window, all the staff told me to do was come back when their offices were open. I did complain once that their customer service was supposed to be available all day every day, but they replied by saying that unless their offices were open, there was no staff available to deal with my issues.
And my websites suffered a lot of down time. I lost a lot of money because my websites and email addresses weren't available. Sometimes the downtime would happen day after day after day. And the staff didn't seem concerned at all or in any rush to get my sites back up and running.
They were also difficult to deal with whenever I wanted to move my domain name to another hosting company. They charged me 15GBP to move each of the domain names. They had to provide me with the EEP key for each domain. Instead of providing it straight away when I'd paid the 15GBP hostage fee, they would take up to a week to email it to me. The hosting company I'm with now say they don't charge people for the EEP key.
Dataflame also stole money from me.
I joined their affiliate program (at first, for a couple of years before I knew better). I was told I'd receive 35 GBP for any referrals who bought a hosting package. In just a few weeks I'd earned 105GBP. Their payout amount was 140GBP so I only needed to sell one more hosting package to collect my money. But the next package I sold, they only gave me 10 GBP. I emailed and asked why.
They said they'd changed their affiliate commissions to a percentage and I'd only sold a small package so had only earned a small commission. I argued several times that their website stated that affiliates could earn 30GBP (they must have lowered it from 35). They wouldn't answer my emails. My affiliate account didn't receive any more commissions for over a year, even though I know for definite that someone I knew had clicked on my affiliate link and bought a hosting package. We did it just to see how honest Dataflame really was. It turned out they weren't honest at all.
To this day, my affiliate account with them is still sitting there with 115GBP in it and they won't release the money to me. I've asked them several times over the years to pay me my money but they always reply and say that until it reaches the payout amount, I can't have it. The money has been sitting there for 6 years now. I helped them get business and they cheated me out of my commissions. Very sly, very sneaky, very underhand, and it's just plain stealing.
I absolutely hate Dataflame and wouldn't recommend them to anyone, not even my worst enemy (well...maybe them).
They not only cost me money with so much downtime for my websites, they stole money by cheating me out of my affiliate commissions.
The only good thing I have to say about them is that they helped to teach me a valuable lesson. I learned not to trust Dataflame.
I've used Dataflame for a very long time now. I've had very little in the way of issues and I've always had excellent support when I've needed it. I would and have recommended them to others as well