I used to be happy with my little servage account for a while. But after they changed owners it has become insanely bad.

It has now officially ruined two of my websites. And caused my a lot of pain.

I wont go into how bad the support and uptime is, because thats a chapter for itself, but I will tell you another story.

It all started about a moth ago when I got an email from them saying:

in accordance with our recent newsletter we have updated your FTP account password.

I never got that newsletter, so I had no idea why they did that. But I just let it go, and didn't think about that anymore.

A couple of days later I got a call from my credit card company, telling me that they had to block my account because one of the websites ive been using it on had been "hacked". They didn't know which site though. So I didn't really think much about that either. Even though I've only used it on very few sites. Only Paypal and servage as I can think of now, anyway.

And a few days ago I got an email from google saying that they were removing one of my sites (which gets 95% of its traffic from google, and is my main source of adsense revenue site) for its index because it contained spam and so on.

So I started looking though my sites and in the source i found about 1000 hidden spam links at the very bottom of the index file. I found exactly the same stuff in the index file on my other website. (I guess that explains why my adsense cpc had tripled the last few days)

Anyways, I would probably have blamed my code if this only happened to one of my sites, but not both.

Also, just after all this happened, servage also added a captcha system to their control panel.

So I think its pretty obvious what has happened here.
I would go over to a dedicated host, but now that all my website revenue is gone, I'll have to wait till I get everything back on tracks again.. which could take months.

So at least dont use a cradit card to pay for your servage hosting...

Cheers

That seems pretty serious. Have you talked to the host itself about it? Maybe they have something to say for themselves.

I'm sorry for the occurrences . Have you set your site back up yet?

I contacted them about 12 hours ago ( a bit longer than their advertised 30 minute response time ) and they still haven't answered. I've seen other people that experienced about the same thing and servage just seems to deny that its their fault.

My sites is still online, I've managed to remove all the spam (I think) but it'll take ages for them to get indexed in google again I guess..

Update:
After about 20 hours after asking them if they got hacked, and pointing out all the stuff I wrote about in this thread, all I got back was:

Hello *****,

Sorry for the trouble caused to you.

Regarding your issue, may I request you please delete all the contents or the effected contents of your domain and then change the password of your control panel as well as the FTP account. Also, please restrict the FTP account for your user, if more than your main FTP account.

Hope this helps you!

Thanks for your understanding!

Kind Regards
Adam, Support
Servage Hosting

So yeah... About the same response everyone else with the same problem got. Except they didn't really deny that it was their fault this time.

email Google explaining what happened. Remain persistent.

Does servage have a live help feature? Also are you still hosting with them, or have you switched hosts?

similar thing happened to Adam

http://www.walkonmypath.com/no-i-do-...rk-for-google/

I was hosted with the some company, till bout 6 months back. What happened to me was they sent me an email claiming that I had been fraudulent with them using paypal and had not paid a cent, when in reality I paid every cent with receipts to prove it, if I could afford the cost I would pursue this matter but for now I am getting back on a reseller package with www.bldhosting.net

Try it as an off topic thing, reselling is a great and easy opportunity.

similar thing happened to Adam

But he wasn't hosted by Servage, and apparently it wasn't his host's fault for the hackers breaking in.

Google is to be commended for their approach. Not the same can be said about Servage.

Originally Posted by andrei155

email Google explaining what happened. Remain persistent.

Does servage have a live help feature? Also are you still hosting with them, or have you switched hosts?

They don't have a live help feature, only a ticket system with "people" that often just respond without even reading your question. But that's a whole other story :P
And yes, I'm still hosting with them, but I wont be renewing my subscription. I'll just try to find a new honest host.
Anyways, I guess getting this straightened out with google wont be that much of a problem. It'll just take some time.

Originally Posted by chrishirst

similar thing happened to Adam

http://www.walkonmypath.com/no-i-do-...rk-for-google/

Yeah, that's exactly the same email I got from google. Which could have been avoided if servage would actually tell me that someone had gained access to my account. Because they knew, that's for sure.
If they had, I would also be able to tell the members at my site that their account information might have been stolen before it's too late.

Anyways, I think I have enough horror stories about servage to start blogging about it :P

It would be great if Servage admin can drop in here to explain this who;e mess to their customers. It's always fair to give them a chance to explain in public.

Are you saying the Servage admin added all those spam links?

this is incredible

Originally Posted by TyR

My sites is still online, I've managed to remove all the spam (I think) but it'll take ages for them to get indexed in google again I guess.

Andrei has a great suggestion... Try sending an email to Google explaining what happened and ask for your site to be reincluded. If you haven't switched to to a new server yet, I would definitely reconsider.

Originally Posted by WiredNode

Are you saying the Servage admin added all those spam links?

No, I'm saying that Servage knew someone had gained access to my account (and added spam links + could have drained my credit card etc), but rather than informing me about this, they just changed all my passwords, and added a captcha at the control panel login.

Originally Posted by TyR

No, I'm saying that Servage knew someone had gained access to my account (and added spam links + could have drained my credit card etc), but rather than informing me about this, they just changed all my passwords, and added a captcha at the control panel login.

I don't have a dog in this race, but do ya think the email they sent out (eg. the newsletter you never got) may have mentioned that someone had gained access to their backend?

I used servage for one client. I couldn't stand their ticket support system where every ticket I received the same response. Basically they didn't know a thing.

Originally Posted by Major Tom

I don't have a dog in this race, but do ya think the email they sent out (eg. the newsletter you never got) may have mentioned that someone had gained access to their backend?

Well, I sure hope it did. But anyways, they never sent me that newsletter (if any).
And I'm sure the email didn't just get "lost" on my end. Cause I always get the other servage newsletters + support ticket notifications.

Had a terrible experience with them. Constant downtime, inaccurate bandwith measurement (Saying I used over 60GB of bandwith in one day) and took forever to get anything resolved.

Had a terrible experience with them. Constant downtime, inaccurate bandwith measurement (Saying I used over 60GB of bandwith in one day) and took forever to get anything resolved.

Looks like you registered to post that post.

I can only concur completely and add that servage is worthless, dishonest, incompetent, lazy crooks and thieves.
Servage = sorry lazy apathetic incompetent jerks! servage does not give a flip about their customers.

whatever started going downhill began at the end of 2007 and beginning of the 2008 year for me. Is that when they sold it ? I don't know but today is at least the 6th time my sites have been hacked.

and it is the final time because I am moving all my sites and i hope they go down in flames those sorry blanking A-holes. THEY are pure crapola.

DO NOT USE SERVAGE.NET unless you want to be hacked every month and treated like dirt.

Now: who can recommend a good host, especially considering to go with a resellers package (preferably a non-US one for those who prefer some privacy)?
thanks.

Final warning: AVOID SERVAGE!

PS. until you get all your sites moved you might want to use changedetection.com to monitor your index pages for changes. there are other monitoring programs for html but changedetection somehow caught a change injected by the latest hack on mine -- a javascript injection into at least one of my sites; now I am going thru one at a time and checking the source code in the headers and footers of every index file (these hackers inject both using php and javascript apparently the most recent looks like encoded as hex? -- i personally think it is occurring through the servage newsletter / email sign up forms -- if only one person hosting on servage uses it , then every site can get hacked -- but that's merely my conjecture at this point)

ONE FACT I KNOW FOR SURE: servage has done nothing to secure or fix their pathetic open-hole server exploits and vulnerabilities except make excuses and blame it on each customer. i can't wait to hear about their pathetic useless facilities bursting into flames one of these days they would surely deserve it.

How exactly are they still in business? lol