Blacknight Solutions- Avoid!!

Mr. Incognito

I rarely single out companies for complaint

I would have built sites on Wordpress but a developer friend recommended Blacknight.

I signed up for a free trial and paid a developer to start working on the site. I was emailed 4 times stating that my autrenewal was on and I would be billed once the trial free period was up.

When the trial expired it appears that this was not the case. After 5 days all the data was deleted.

Their customer care team attempted to deflect the blame on me stating that I knew that the free trial would expire and the onus was on me to renew it, despite their emails stating that it would autorenew.

I asked that the matter be escalated. The VP I was speaking to admitted that the free trial was new and that the template emails that were being generated were for the paying annual subscriptions which were set up to autorenew but the free trial had not been adopted to autorenew.

I outlined that they might email their customers and let them aware of this.

In any event, he was most patient. I explained I had to pay someone to develop the site and that I would now have to eat the cost of them doing the work afresh. He said he would look into it and get back to me.

The next day I was offered credit of €24. The site was back up on Friday which was me delighted- I said I did not want the credit all I wanted was the site back. I stated in any event an offer of €24 credit was insulting considering I had lost a few hundred as a result of their flawed system and I would not accept it as I felt it would be accepting it as a adequete offer of compensation, which it was not.

I was at a wedding Saturday and arrived today to an email that said the third party Baskit were able to find the datat and map it back to the domain but there is no backward compatibility built in to assign that content to a new Baskeit Subscription.

The data is now gone again. No-one had the good sense to even take a screen shot before they deleted it for the second time.

Horrific company. Avoid.

I am in two minds for a small claims court claim tbh.

The Ayatolla

I personally think they're great.

Mr. Incognito

The Ayatolla wrote: »

I personally think they're great.

I am sure that people have had excellent dealings with them. In fact they were recommended to me by a developer.

All I can speak from is my own experiences.

1. They have a technical flaw in their procedures.

2. They are aware of said flaw and admitted same, and fair play for that.

All I want is my data back, which it can be obtained from BaseKit and to go on my way to another provider.

I would not trust them when their systems have dropped all my data and it's tough cookie. Whoops, sorry about that.

Not good enough.

dudara

@Mr. Incognito - are you looking for particular consumer advice here? Otherwise, I will move this to the Best/Worst Customer service thread.

dudaara

hdowney

there is certainly some poor customer service and some poor workmanship (for want of a better word) there.

They are not a new company. Yes, the whole free trial procedure thing is new, but the company itself is not. They should have thoroughly tested out every aspect of the free trial BEFORE letting it go live, to know that everything was in place, including auto-renewal and back-up of data.

To offer you a paltry €24, after originally trying to blame you for their mistake was just wrong. And then the mishandling of your data a second time is just ridiculous.

wmpdd3

Just to add, you dont have thee option of a small claims court case as you can only be refunded what you paid for the service. Other losses suffered cant be claimed.

Mr. Incognito

dudara wrote: »

@Mr. Incognito - are you looking for particular consumer advice here? Otherwise, I will move this to the Best/Worst Customer service thread.

dudaara

Hi,

I believe the forum is for discussing consumer issues. I am not sure if it is for consumer queires to be answered expressly, although sadly that is what most specialised forums site wide have decended into.

I would guess the discussion would be

1. Is it acceptible for a company to knowingly have a flaw in their basic product and not notify customers

2. Is a €24 credit note adequate compensation or an insult really.

3. Do other users have other experiences of this company that they would like to share, good bad or indifferent.

dudara

This forum is for the discussion of consumer issues. But a specific request needs to be made, so that specific advice can be offered.

General discussion is generally not allowed as it causes the thread to get muddied and diverts from giving advice specific to the issue.

One more question, if you don't mind. Were you engaged with Blacknight as a private consumer, doing this website for private purposes? Or was there any business context to this?

homer911

You engaged a developer, who developed on the production hosting platform and failed to implement version control and off-line backups?

Sounds like the developers problem..

Mr. Incognito

dudara wrote: »

This forum is for the discussion of consumer issues. But a specific request needs to be made, so that specific advice can be offered.

General discussion is generally not allowed as it causes the thread to get muddied and diverts from giving advice specific to the issue.

One more question, if you don't mind. Were you engaged with Blacknight as a private consumer, doing this website for private purposes? Or was there any business context to this?

I incorporated a company who owns the IP so it is a B2B transaction.

I didn't realise that specific requests can be made. That's very useful.

Is it normal for a developer to back up offline work? Would this include the coding?

What is the liability of a hosting company if the data they host is lost as a result of their own inadequete practices? EDIT - Looks like thei T &Cs say Tough

Data stored on our servers is not guaranteed to be backed up. It is recommended that you keep an independent backup of all data stored on your virtual server or shared hosting account. Blacknight Internet Solutions Ltd. accept no responsibility for any loss of data, however incurred.

dudara

Because this is a B2B transaction, it doesn't fall under the Consumer Rights and the Consumer Issues forum. I'll move it to the Business & Entrepreneurial forum

dudara

smash

The only issue I've ever had with Blacknight is that their web-mail service has a bug which drops attachments from outgoing email. It's embarrassing when a client replies to tell you there was no attachment, but they've assured me that they're working on it.

Apart from that I find them great.

NotCominBack

You had a production website up and running with a web host, on a free trial, and no backup?

dudara

OP - I can move this thread to the Talk to Blacknight forum, which will give the reps there a chance to assist you. Please let me know.

dudara

mneylon

I believe our support manager has addressed this issue with you

If you need anything further please let us know

Michele

Atomico

I have no affiliation with Blacknight other than as a happy customer of over 5 years. I don't like the idea that someone would not become a customer with them on account of one random thread, so thought I'd post here.

It sounds like the offering mentioned in this thread could have been presented better by them, but over the years I've only found them to be really responsive, fast, and helpful in terms of customer service in particular.

And always backup your data! I don't trust any company to do this for me, it's just common sense. You wouldn't write up and save an important report or essay without backing it up somewhere (or at least I hope not), and the same applies to online and with any sort of website.

Atomic Pineapple

Mr. Incognito wrote: »

Is it normal for a developer to back up offline work? Would this include the coding?

Yes, the developer should have been backing up the code periodically.

Daily offline backups at least of your data should have been implemented if it was required.

Tippex

Mr. Incognito wrote: »

I incorporated a company who owns the IP so it is a B2B transaction.

I didn't realise that specific requests can be made. That's very useful.

Is it normal for a developer to back up offline work? Would this include the coding?

What is the liability of a hosting company if the data they host is lost as a result of their own inadequete practices? EDIT - Looks like thei T &Cs say Tough

Any Developer worth working with will have a backup of the work they have done and certainly will not be coding directly onto the webhost.

Graham

Tippex wrote: »

Any Developer worth working with will have a backup of the work they have done and certainly will not be coding directly onto the webhost.

That really depends where you found your developer and what you've paid.

There's huge savings to be made if you off-shore projects to low-cost developers but the downside is you can't expect all the niceties that go with a relatively expensive full-service development house.

The worst combination is inexperienced project owners with cheap and/or inexperienced developers. All sorts of horrible things can happen.

Ctrl Alt Delete

Found them to be a great company to be honest in the 10 years I've been using them for over 30 websites and very few problems which were sorted out quickly.

To be perfectly honest you used a free trial, built a website with third part software using a "developer" who failed to back up anything (which is development day 1 stuff)

Seems to me your issue is with the developer and not Blacknight.

RedXIV

Another thumbs up for Blacknight, no issues with them over the last 6 years and they even had tech support help me when one of my sites got hacked, completely my own fault but I had the guts of two hours of support from one of their guys and got everything resolved.

I'd definitely recommend them.

Mr. Incognito, I'd definitely question any developer that did their coding directly on the box without a backup. I'm not a web developer, but I help maintain a few sites for a friend of mine and I have versions of each stored on my local machine and cloud storage.....I should really start using git or something though...

The Corinthian

Mr. Incognito wrote: »

When the trial expired it appears that this was not the case. After 5 days all the data was deleted.

You hired a developer who didn't know the basic standard practice of backing up your work and/or data, let alone that you don't develop on a live server. They were probably pretty cheap.

Penny wise, pound foolish comes to mind.

pedronomix

OP gone very quiet!!

NeutralHandle

I've always found them good.

Ctrl Alt Delete

pedronomix wrote: »

OP gone very quiet!!

Don't think thread went the way he thought it would

Magnate

My biggest complaint with them is that they pretty much act as domain squatters, charging several hundred for so called "premium domains" eg. firstname.irish which can be registered for 30 euro with their competitors.

Graham

Magnate wrote: »

My biggest complaint with them is that they pretty much act as domain squatters, charging several hundred for so called "premium domains" eg. firstname.irish which can be registered for 30 euro with their competitors.

Aren't they just a registrar, isn't it the registry that sets the pricing for premium domains?

uck51js9zml2yt

homer911 wrote: »

You engaged a developer, who developed on the production hosting platform and failed to implement version control and off-line backups?

Sounds like the developers problem..

Have to agree with you.
Any half decent developer would be doing regular local backups.

jmcc

Graham wrote: »

Aren't they just a registrar, isn't it the registry that sets the pricing for premium domains?

This has been a feature of most of the new gTLDs that have launched in the last year or so. The registries know that some domain names are more valuable than others due to their generic nature and they reserve them for auction or put a premium price on their registrations. Some of the new gTLD registries have set up separate companies to register large numbers of what would be premium generic domain names in .COM or other more mature TLDs.

Regards...jmcc

goz83

Graham wrote: »

That really depends where you found your developer and what you've paid.

There's huge savings to be made if you off-shore projects to low-cost developers but the downside is you can't expect all the niceties that go with a relatively expensive full-service development house.

The worst combination is inexperienced project owners with cheap and/or inexperienced developers. All sorts of horrible things can happen.

Being inexperienced is not the worst thing. Add no forward planning to it and then you've a nightmare coming. I build websites and have had no training. I use third party software and my coding skills are nearly nil, but I think I do a good job and I am slowly building a website company, adding about two websites a week now.

My set up is that I build the website and store it locally on my machine, on the main drive. I then have it backed up to a separate drive and have it backed up online. I plan to have another backup on an external drive and on the cloud too. I even plan to back up each website to disk, just for good measure, so there is always a core copy if needed. For this, I charge a monthly maintenance to host, maintain and store the website. Peace of mind.

Graham wrote: »

Aren't they just a registrar, isn't it the registry that sets the pricing for premium domains?

I see this was already answered. To add to it, i have had several requests over a period of 7 years to buy a "premium" .com domain matching my business name. I first went with a .net and then trumpted their premium garbage with a local .ie domain. The .ie costs me €30 a year. The .com would be half that, but with a premium of just over $1000 :eek:

NeutralHandle

jmcc wrote: »

This has been a feature of most of the new gTLDs that have launched in the last year or so. The registries know that some domain names are more valuable than others due to their generic nature and they reserve them for auction or put a premium price on their registrations. Some of the new gTLD registries have set up separate companies to register large numbers of what would be premium generic domain names in .COM or other more mature TLDs.

Regards...jmcc

Institutionalised domain squatting. Interesting. Hadn't been aware of that.

Magnate

jmcc wrote: »

This has been a feature of most of the new gTLDs that have launched in the last year or so. The registries know that some domain names are more valuable than others due to their generic nature and they reserve them for auction or put a premium price on their registrations. Some of the new gTLD registries have set up separate companies to register large numbers of what would be premium generic domain names in .COM or other more mature TLDs.

Regards...jmcc

The registries can't be setting the prices if it's possible to register premium domains with other registrars for a fraction of the cost.

I was looking at some premium .irish domains and they were anywhere from 600-1000 euro! I registered the same domain with Letshost instead for around 30 euro.

Graham

goz83 wrote: »

To add to it, i have had several requests over a period of 7 years to buy a "premium" .com domain matching my business name. I first went with a .net and then trumpted their premium garbage with a local .ie domain. The .ie costs me €30 a year. The .com would be half that, but with a premium of just over $1000 :eek:

There are 2 main types of 'premium' domains:

Unregistered domains offered by the new GTLDs via their registrars.
Registered domains offered from one of the domain auction sites via partner registrars.

Just because you see an offer for a premium domain on a registrars website, it does not mean the registrar currently owns the domain.

Magnate wrote: »

I was looking at some premium .irish domains and they were anywhere from 600-1000 euro! I registered the same domain with LH instead for around 30 euro.

Are those domains actually registered or are they 'pending'? Login to your LH control panel and check the status.

I just registered a desirable .irish domain with LH for €30. Payment has been taken and the control panel shows the domain as pending. When I check with the registry at http://nic.irish the domain is still showing as available.

Magnate

Graham wrote: »

I just registered a desirable .irish domain with LH for €30. Payment has been taken and the control panel shows the domain as pending. When I check with the registry at http://nic.irish the domain is still showing as available.

Good point, I only registered it yesterday so I'll let you know. It can take up to a few days anyway as far as I know, but yeah I could see this bouncing back.

Graham

Magnate wrote: »

It can take up to a few days anyway as far as I know, but yeah I could see this bouncing back.

Usually registrations are pretty much realtime.

I've seen it a couple of times where a registrar has implemented a new registry but missed/ignored/cocked-up the integration for premium domains.

Are your new bargain premium domains listed as 'pending' in your LH control panel? If they are, have you checked their status on http://nic.irish

Magnate

Graham wrote: »

Usually registrations are pretty much realtime.

I've seen it a couple of times where a registrar has implemented a new registry but missed/ignored/cocked-up the integration for premium domains.

Are your new bargain premium domains listed as 'pending' in your LH control panel? If they are, have you checked their status on http://nic.irish

With the likes of .com sure, but my .ie took a few days as they had to deal with the IEDR, although I might have registered it at the weekend. Their website says it takes 3 hours Monday - Friday. Perhaps it's similar with Dot-Irish. Although I'm starting to think it's more than likely a cock-up on LH's part like you've suggested.

Graham

Magnate wrote: »

With the likes of .com sure, but my .ie took a few days as they had to deal with the IEDR, although I might have registered it at the weekend. Their website says it takes 3 hours Monday - Friday. Perhaps it's similar with Dot-Irish. Although I'm starting to think it's more than likely a cock-up on LH's part like you've suggested.

I think there's a manual check for entitlement in the .ie registration process which causes the delay. I'd expect the .irish to be instant.

I hope I'm wrong

mneylon

Magnate wrote: »

My biggest complaint with them is that they pretty much act as domain squatters, charging several hundred for so called "premium domains" eg. firstname.irish which can be registered for 30 euro with their competitors.

Sorry, but that's factually incorrect.

Any premium domain name we sell, be that in .irish or .club, is priced correctly based on the prices we get from the registries directly.

We are directly accredited with the registry and offer instant registration for those domain names. There shouldn't be any delay for a .club or .irish premium name we offer.

We are not "squatting" on anything - please get your facts straight before making those kind of baseless accusations

While there are differences in prices between registrars, no ICANN accredited registrar is going to knowingly offer a domain name for sales at 10% of its wholesale price.

We are aware of some domain resellers who have been offering .irish premium names at standard prices, but they won't be able to sell you a domain name with a wholesale price to a registrar of EUR300 for EUR30.

mneylon

Graham wrote: »

I think there's a manual check for entitlement in the .ie registration process which causes the delay. I'd expect the .irish to be instant.

I hope I'm wrong

.irish registrations are instant.

Magnate

Blacknight wrote: »

Sorry, but that's factually incorrect.

Any premium domain name we sell, be that in .irish or .club, is priced correctly based on the prices we get from the registries directly.

We are directly accredited with the registry and offer instant registration for those domain names. There shouldn't be any delay for a .club or .irish premium name we offer.

We are not "squatting" on anything - please get your facts straight before making those kind of baseless accusations

While there are differences in prices between registrars, no ICANN accredited registrar is going to knowingly offer a domain name for sales at 10% of its wholesale price.

We are aware of some domain resellers who have been offering .irish premium names at standard prices, but they won't be able to sell you a domain name with a wholesale price to a registrar of EUR300 for EUR30.

First of all, apologies as I was thinking moreso of domain speculation rather than squatting, I realise the latter has a lot of negative connotations. Secondly, as Graham has pointed out, the 30 euro price is more than likely an oversight on Letshost's part - but we'll see if it goes through.

You can understand where I was coming from though, one registrar was charging €1000, the other was €970 cheaper. I thought the fact that the payment went through meant that it was a sure thing, but it's looking more and more unlikely.

mneylon

Magnate wrote: »

First of all, apologies as I was thinking moreso of domain speculation rather than squatting, I realise the latter has a lot of negative connotations. Secondly, as Graham has pointed out, the 30 euro price is more than likely an oversight on Letshost's part - but we'll see if it goes through.

No problem

Magnate wrote: »

You can understand where I was coming from though, one registrar was charging €1000, the other was €970 cheaper. I thought the fact that the payment went through meant that it was a sure thing, but it's looking more and more unlikely.

We are the only Irish owned ICANN accredited registrar.

Axwell

Lads as you are aware hosting specific talk isnt allowed on here, if you have specific questions for Blacknight or their offerings move it to their Talk to forum.

goz83

Axwell wrote: »

Lads as you are aware hosting specific talk isnt allowed on here, if you have specific questions for Blacknight or their offerings move it to their Talk to forum.

Sorry Ax, I wasn't aware. My bad. Any chance of sending my deleted post back to me by pm?

jmcc

Magnate wrote: »

The registries can't be setting the prices if it's possible to register premium domains with other registrars for a fraction of the cost.

This is not the case, as Blacknight pointed out. Basically, the rules were changed when the new gTLDs were proposed. The registries were allowed to set pricing for "premium" domain names and these differ from the ordinary domain names.

I was looking at some premium .irish domains and they were anywhere from 600-1000 euro! I registered the same domain with Letshost instead for around 30 euro.

Some hosters are not registrars. (There is quite a difference between a registrar and a reseller.) If the domain name is a premium domain name, then there is a chance that the registry can take it back or not register it. There have been cases of people registering premium domain names in the new gTLDs only to see the registry revoke the registrations and take back the domain names. That's also in the rules with the new gTLDs.

Regards...jmcc

jmcc

NeutralHandle wrote: »

Institutionalised domain squatting. Interesting. Hadn't been aware of that.

A lot of things changed in the last few years. Removing registry/registrar split was one of them. The registries in the new gTLDs are now allowed to effectively self-deal with their gTLDs. Some registries have set up their own domain holding companies for what they think are premium domain names. This actually inflates the size of their zone files and makes people think that their gTLDs are much more popular than they are in reality. It is not domain squatting. "Domain squatting" is something completely different and is more properly described as "cybersquatting".

Regards...jmcc

mneylon

To elaborate a bit on premium names and their pricing...

Registries are basically offering three types of registrations:
- standard registration fee. The "normal" registration and renewal fee. Offered by all registrars and their resellers.
- premium registration fee. There are two variants on this. In the case of .club and .irish (as well as some others) you pay more on the first year registration but the renewal rates are standard. So you might pay EUR200+ for year one, but you'd only pay the normal renewal rate. The other variant is that you pay a premium renewal fee forever.
- "super" premium. These are names that the registry has valued way outside the normal spectrum and aren't offered for direct registration. They're the kind of names that might be auctioned off to get some PR or could be registered by negotiating with the registry.


There's also the situation where the registry actually registers the domain names directly or via an affiliated company and then offers the names for sale via the various domain name market places.

jmcc

Just on the .IRISH gTLD, if anyone is considering a registration, it would be a good thing to do it quickly because Godaddy (the largest registrar on the web) does not have the gTLD available yet. When that happens, there might be more registrations and many of the more generic domain names could be among the first to be registered.

Regards...jmcc

mneylon

jmcc wrote: »

Just on the .IRISH gTLD, if anyone is considering a registration, it would be a good thing to do it quickly because Godaddy (the largest registrar on the web) does not have the gTLD available yet. When that happens, there might be more registrations and many of the more generic domain names could be among the first to be registered.

John

Unless GD market it heavily I don't see how that would have that much impact.

If you look across the numbers for various TLDs GD's dominance is in the aggregate, but not so much on a lot of the individual strings.

A lot of the more "generic" terms are premium domains anyway

Michele

jmcc

Blacknight wrote: »

John

Unless GD market it heavily I don't see how that would have that much impact.

The pricing is the key issue, Michele,
The .IRISH isn't competitive against either .COM or .IE in the Irish market. At the moment, GD is not marketing it and it is not apparently available via Godaddy. Without GD marketing a gTLD, or at least making it available, a gTLD will struggle for acceptance in the US market and perhaps globally. The figures on .IRISH are still on the low side but like many of the new gTLDs, .IRISH's main market will be the US one. (The .TEL gTLD would have been the classic example from the past of a gTLD that wasn't on Godaddy's list and as a result, apart from it solving a problem that nobody had, it is currently around 123K domains.)

If you look across the numbers for various TLDs GD's dominance is in the aggregate, but not so much on a lot of the individual strings.

GD can pick and choose which ones it will market. That's a very powerful position. Some, like .XYZ have become too registrar focused. That freebie deal is hitting it hard and it is now well below the high point of one million domains. The problem with some of the new gTLDs is that the registries are active in the zones and this skews the figures on individual zones.

A lot of the more "generic" terms are premium domains anyway

True. But there is always the chance of some low hanging fruit that others have missed. And it could be a good way to market to the Diaspora if .IRISH actually gets some traction. But on the latest figures, that might be a few years away yet.

Regards...jmcc

mneylon

jmcc wrote: »

The pricing is the key issue, Michele,
The .IRISH isn't competitive against either .COM or .IE in the Irish market. At the moment, GD is not marketing it. Without GD marketing a gTLD, or at least making it available, a gTLD will struggle for acceptance in the US market and perhaps globally. The figures on .IRISH are still on the low side but like many of the new gTLDs, .IRISH's main market will be the US one. (The .TEL gTLD would have been the classic example from the past of a gTLD that wasn't on Godaddy's list and as a result, apart from it solving a problem that nobody had, it is currently around 123K domains.)

The only way that GD or any other registrar is going to drop their retail price on a domain extension is if the registry either offers a promotion / discount OR if they get co-marketing funds
And they'll only market extensions where there's an incentive to do so
So far the .irish registry hasn't offered either - if they did we'd embrace it

.Tel is a good example - there was very little upsell available to registrars and the "special" nature of the domain meant that people registered them thinking they could build a normal website etc., no wonder GD didn't bother carrying it.

jmcc

Blacknight wrote: »

The only way that GD or any other registrar is going to drop their retail price on a domain extension is if the registry either offers a promotion / discount OR if they get co-marketing funds
And they'll only market extensions where there's an incentive to do so
So far the .irish registry hasn't offered either - if they did we'd embrace it

The serious problem for .IRISH in the US market is that it is not available yet on GD. The Irish market is more complex in that it is no longer a .COM dominant market. Some of the new gTLD registries have gone with higher pricing on their domain names. In theory, higher priced domain names may have a slightly better possibility of being renewed than a domain name priced at .COM levels. In a new TLD with momentum, that can work out. But if the new TLD does not have momentum, then it can act as a deterrent to registration. And if the new TLD doesn't get the registrars on-side with discounts or decent marketing promotions, then it is going to have a very flat growth curve. This is almost exactly what is happening with .IRISH at the moment but it is still a very new TLD and it still has the best part of a year to run before the intial registrations come up for renewal.

.Tel is a good example - there was very little upsell available to registrars and the "special" nature of the domain meant that people registered them thinking they could build a normal website etc., no wonder GD didn't bother carrying it.

It was also a victim of ICANN politics, to some extent. It took a while for the application to be approved and then more time for the gTLD to be launched. The market that existed at launch was completely different to the market that existed at the time of application. The problem for some of the new gTLDs is that individually, they may be trying to sell 2008 solutions to a 2015 market. Hopefully .IRISH will do well.

Regards...jmcc