WARNING - SimpleCDN Very Poor Customer Service and Support

[Jeff Mottle]

Hi all,

 

Just thought I would warn anyone against using a service called SimpleCDN. (http://www.simplecdn.com) They basically host video files and data so that it can be downloaded quickly over the internet or streamed etc.

 

We had been using them for the last few years to host our videos here on CGA and the 3dawards. Really from day one we had problems with a lot of stuff, but their ultra-cheap price kept us there. But today an incident happened that REALLY takes the cake, but let me provide a bit of background history first.

 

For the past several years they have been really messing around with the pricing of their service. You would buy bandwidth credit on their system only to have the pricing change every few months and the business model turned on its head. You never knew how much you were paying as the costs and how the pricing plans worked constantly changed. Unfortunately getting more expensive each time. Of course they would do this without letting their customers know. At least I never received any notification until I logged into the account and found out it had changed. They also frequently announced future features on their site, but those release dates more often than not came and went and then the feature and notice just disappear. One of my favorites was announcing a partnership with a company called Highwinds. They pushed out a special pricing package with them, only to cancel it a few months later without notice, leaving us high and dry having no way to continue the service without subscribing with Highwinds. Once again no notification of this.

 

A few weeks ago they just announce that the service we were using (Upload and Mirror Buckets) were no longer available as they "ran out", but it would be back Mid-May. Well Mid-May came and went and still no service. We emailed support asking when it would be back and they said probably mid-summer. Of course I could upgrade to their NEW package which, you guessed it, is more expensive. To me it felt a lot more like I was being taken hostage.

 

Against my better judgment I uploaded all of the 3d awards animations to their service over the weekend, but ran into problems with the files not loading and VERY huge latency issues. Something that is theory should never happen with a CDN. I emailed support with a sample file link and reported this issues. I then received a reply back asking me to send them a link as they are not seeing any problems. Ummm, hello...I just sent you one! After letting them know I had already provided a file, 24 hours passed without a single reply. Keep in mind this was marked as a Critical priority ticket.

 

So, today I moved all of the 3d award files over to Amazon S3/Cloudfront, and replied to the open ticket to let them know to just close my tickets and that I would be moving to another service due to their poor support, service, lack of communication and constantly changing pricing without warning. Then without warning (this is becoming a trend), they just deleted my account AND all of our files, some of which are/were still live on parts of the site. To top it all off we had credit in our account still and they stole that too. We can't log into the account so there is no record of our remaining balance.

 

Long story short, I would highly recommend against using their service for anything. Especially if this is how they treat an unhappy customer. Why try to make your customer happy when you can just delete their account, files and take their money and run. Bravo SimpleCDN.

[Jeff Mottle]

Unbelievable. I filed a dispute with PayPal (how we paid for the bandwidth credits) as SimpleCDN had closed our account and taken our money. Then SimpleCDN the audacity to claim that I had a negative balance and this is why they closed my account. Funny how my account balance becomes negative as soon as I complain too much. Yesterday I know for a fact it was definitely positive. Given they have a system that notifies you by email when you have a negative balance (which I have actually received before) and they provide you time to top up your account, I find it puzzling the timing of my account being closed without warning. Fantastic service...

Edited June 1, 2010 by Jeff Mottle

[BVI]

I was going to suggest Amazon S3 for this sort of thing. Jeff, did they close your PP account?

[Jeff Mottle]

I was going to suggest Amazon S3 for this sort of thing. Jeff, did they close your PP account?

 

No they are just lying to PayPal about me not paying my bills and telling them that they don't owe me money so that they don't have to pay the chargeback I initiated against them.

[Jeff Mottle]

Sweet. Karma is a bitch. SimpleCDN's upsteam provider to the internet pulled the rug out from under them and they are almost certainly going to go out of business. Can't say I am the least bit saddened by this news.

[jinsley]

Did you ever figure out the paypal issues? or did you end up taking one for the team?

[Jeff Mottle]

Did you ever figure out the paypal issues? or did you end up taking one for the team?

 

No I "took one for the team". Was only $50 but still pissed me off that they were so corrupt that they would actually steal the money and lie about it to PayPal. Needless to say I hope they die a slow and embarrassing death.