Webhost4life - make it never

I put considerable time looking for a Windows host that wasn't too expensive and provided me with ASP.net and MSSQL. I decided on M6.com, but their buggy in-house control panel and my inability to access much needed IIS properties caused me to look elsewhere. Webhost4life was recommended by several people in different forums, so I decided to go with them.

Webhost4life started out great. Their control panel was superb and gave me options to automatically install some of the most popular (and up-to-date) ASP.net applications out there; however, they didn't have a blog application. My first choice for a blog was .Text, so I downloaded it and tried to set it up. After a half-hearted attempt to make it work, I tried to get support to help me through it. They offered to install it - for $20. It was then I should have known something was up. You see, in exchange for an ok price for hosting ($9.95 per month, but only with 300 mb of space and a few other restrictions), WH4L nickel and dimes their customers for any little service they want done. Want to add a domain to a subfolder? $15. Add a redirection? $5, and so on.

I chose the add redirection for my other domain. Since there was no link to pay for it, I figured it came out of my pre-paid amount. A couple of weeks later, I logged into the control panel and was faced with an annoying red box , telling me that my account would be suspended in a few days if I didn't pay them the grimy $5 NOW. I dutifully paid the $5 and figured that it was done with. The next day I get the same box, with the same message. To make a long story short, after 5 support tickets and a threat of legal action if my account was suspended in any way, WH4L finally acknowledged that they received my payment - 5 days later.

I'm going to keep this host for the next year since I pre-paid for the entire year; however, I'll certainly be looking for another, better one next year. I promised them that I would not add any more additional services since I didn't want to cause any more problems. I feel that if a hosting company is going to charge small sums for every automated little action that a majority of hosts provide for free, they should at least acknowledge that you indeed did pay for it. WH4L's sorry habit of intimidating people with threats of suspension to pay for these services right away is one of the most unprofessional things I've ever witnessed for a web host. Do you want to be a professional host or a fly-by-night operation? You can't have it both ways.