Yola: Worst Web Hosting Experience

[Snot]

Since I made this post I spoke with Yola and realized how in the wrong I was for making it. My original message is below. See post #5 for more info.

http://www.dynamicdrive.com/forums/showpost.php?p=249060&postcount=5

Sup,

I just tried Yola and they owned me. I went with the $100 silver plan and then found out that its just a knock off of my space. The only way to edit your site is by copying and pasting code into boxes. They don't give you ftp, php, mysql, or anything a real hosting provider would. It would be nice if they let you know that somewhere on the order screen.

Anyways now i'm fighting with them over my refund. They say the have a 30 day refund period but they keep saying I can't have a refund because I used a coupon and got it cheaper.

Yea I'm pissed at yola they really suck.

[traq]

I dunno, their Features and Pricing pages make it pretty clear what to expect, and that's without even reading their terms of service.

I'm not saying you "got what you paid for." and no, they're not a "real hosting service." if you knew you wanted ftp or php, for example, you should look for a provider that advertises that they offer it - nothing I saw on that site suggested they offered anything more than customizable, hosted templates.

If you want a good host, try 1&1, mediaTemple, or the like - places like hostmonster are fine, too, if you're looking for a cheap alternative.

[Snot]

Thanks for the info. Yea i'm really kicking myself for not researching them before buying. I normally would have but I guess it was the timing. My current hosting package was about to expire and I was low on funds... Then this coupon shows up...

Owned.

[MarijeP]

Hello Snot,

My name is Marije and I just signed up to this forum specifically in order to respond to your post. I am terribly sorry to hear that you had a bad experience with our service. Just to clarify, Yola is a WYSIWIG sitebuilder with a drag and drop interface, designed for people who do not have the time or the inclination to learn how to code. Our sitebuilder allows you to build your site using site templates, widgets and a resource manager for uploaded files. We try to make this as clear as possible on our website, but I am of course deeply sorry if any of this was not apparent to you when you made your purchase.

We do, however, offer a 100% money back satisfaction guarantee. Unfortunately I have no way of connecting you with your Yola account based on this post, but if you drop us an email at support@yola.com and mark it "attention Marije", I will gladly assist in resolving this matter to your full satisfaction.

Yola is a well respected SaaS sitebuilder and host and we have no intention of misleading people, so if you are willing to work with us we are committed to setting things straight for you!

Best,
Marije
Customer Support Manger for Yola Inc

[Snot]

I think I’ve jumped the gun with Yola. I was upset about my own failure to research something I before I bought it and took it out on Yola. Last night I spent some time using Yola’s site builder and its actually really cool. On the Yola silver plan that I got for $25.00 there are tons of cool themes for your site to choose from. I was worried about not being able to have a community forum or a shopping cart since all the ones I’ve used in the past required a MySql database and a lot of tweeking to get the cart software to match the look of your site.

I was really surprised to find out how easy it was to setup a community forum and a shopping cart using Yola. You really just drag and drop it into place and fill in a few details and your up and running. In about 2 hours last night I had a nice looking website completed with finished forums, shopping cart, YouTube, videos, embedded Google map, and tons of games.

So after I gave Yola a chance its actually really cool. I think anyone that needs a business or personal site would do good with Yola. A lot of the issues that I had with the features that they don’t offer were solved once I started using the Yola site builder. They have many many ways to get around those little details already built into the site builder.
As for my refund issue I spoke with a very nice lady today and she explained to me that the coupon code I used was from Groupon and that I had actually paid Groupon for my Yola service and the reason the previous reps were telling me they couldn’t refund me was because I didn’t even purchase it from Yola. She went on to say


However, details such as who you paid, the fine print, terms of service etc matter far less to us than how you regard Yola as a company. Also we are not in the habit of shifting responsibility and if a user of our service is unhappy, we like to resolve the matter even if it ends up costing us money

She said she’s going to give me the refund anyways if they could send it with paypal or mail a check since they don’t have any transactions from me.
That’s amazing. I haven’t had the pleasure of doing business with many companies that are willing to go this far out of their way to make sure a customer has a good experience. (Even a jerk like me)

If your looking for a an easy way to build a website with hosting included check out www.yola.com Just to your research first to make sure it’s what you want.