4 Alentus Reviews:

I have been a customer for over 5 years and have two dedicated servers (I pay them over $500 a month). I have had intermittent down time about 15 minutes several times a day for the last 2+ weeks and have been sending trace routes and trouble calls again and again. They say there is nothing wrong. I have asked again and again for a phone call from a REAL tech who can explain to me how this can be happening and yet there is nothing wrong. No calls. I would have left long ago, except moving two servers of data and set up is difficult.

Alentus Email = Terrible. Wish a ZERO star were an option. These guys used to be good and I have been a loyal customer for many years. But in the past year they have gone seriously downhill in the area of everything: email service, technical support, knowledge, up-times, work-ability, billings, and customer service.

This is the first time I have written one of these reviews but since I relied on such reviews to pick a new service (yes, leaving Alentus!) thought I’d give back to the online community with a few thoughts. There are a few good ones out there, it takes time to find them, and this is not one of them. So on Alentus…here goes….

On the technical side we’ve have had constant calls from clients for months now, saying Alentus bounced their email to our company – a terrible thing for a small organization.
To make things worse, for a while they set their spam filter to remove all inter-organization emails such that we could not even email each other within our small company!

Emails vanishing into the ethers-never-to-be found (no, not found in spam folders) is not good for a small business and Alentus has not seemed to take this seriously even after months of issues. First they say it was this server, then it was that server. Recently they told me, twice now, that it was Shaw who’s to blame. Hmmm, our internet service is not on Shaw. Then they said also there was an ‘outside server’ attacking ours ‘but we fixed it today’. Later that day we had another bounce example come in – again the reasons and excuses are not valid. Months of troubleshooting and getting nowhere, so much lost time. It seems they are over their heads and cannot fix ongoing, recurring issues.

If you want exchange email, they can provide it but they go through a third-party (Ceryx) and thus you are not a direct customer and then have no direct control over your exchange mail. And this makes it even harder to troubleshoot.

And Alentus filters themselves with their ‘Quarantine’ filter! Sometimes they don’t even pass email from their own organization to a client …maybe it their convoluted-POP-to-Exchange-plus-quarantine-everything–including-yourselves-process. Or maybe it’s their latest blamee, the rogue server.

The webhosting side is good if that’s all you need – we’re not aware of much downtime on that side. But don’t host your email with Alentus – that side has been broken – they are not delivering.

I’ve checked Alentus site and customer base before I signed up as an individual customer. Looks like they have reputable customers and their website seemed very convenient to use. This is my first time to deal with a web host and because I phoned their Edmonton office, I felt comfortable with them as they are in Canada. The sales guy talked more about their services rather than asking if I have a domain, etc. I’ve dealt with their support – phone, email, chat – and found them responsive. However, because they are a Reseller to Wild West Domains LLC (which was not revealed on Alentus site) and Domains By Proxy, my domain cancellation was not a positive experience – emails back and forth, the long wait time, then their WHOIS search of your domain shows it’s Available for Sale. Would not recommend this company for first-time individual customers. So beware of web hosters who are Resellers to Domain Registrars, etc.

Was with Areti from 2000 – since taken over by alentus technical support is non-existent

Had problems with renewing a website name in December 2011 and have been trying to get a response from them since then.

I am now trying to change my hosting and they don’t respond to either ph calls or emails other than an automated ticket generated email

The 24 hours “technical help” is always “busy” and does not return calls or messages

I could not recommmend their “services” to anyone