[AVOID] MochaHost

So, I decided to write a review for the VPS hosting website, MochaHost. My advice? Avoid them at all costs. Admittedly I didn't lose much, only $30 and a lot of time, but it's a good thing I didn't have a lot riding on that server.

I signed up for my server, and they told me it would be ready in 24-48 hours. I got pretty excited, and so as I was lighting up a $2 million cigar to celebrate (okay, maybe more like $4 but still) I get an email from MochaHost. Already?! I think to myself. I click open the email, and see a message requesting a photo ID for verification. I go ahead and send that in, since I was enticed by the promise of "unlimited bandwidth" on "whitelisted IP's". Three days later, I get another email. They are having an issue matching my control panel (CPanel) with my operating system (Ubuntu). I did pay extra to get CPanel, but I got downgraded to Plesk Parallels anyways. A few days later, another email, this one stating that they're still having an issue with the control panel, and that they're contacting Plesk headquarters for support. Okay then.

At this point, I'm understandably a bit exasperated. I wait another two and a half weeks; at this point, it's been 28 days since I signed up. Finally, that email saying that my VPS is ready comes in, and I'm beyond excited, even though I now am running CentOS with Plesk instead of Ubuntu with CPanel. I eagerly log into the server, get an SMTP set up, and send a few test emails. Guess where those ended up? Straight to spam. Several tools told me they had a spam score of 0, since they were just testing emails with no real content. And they hit junk on Gmail, AOL, Yahoo, and Hotmail.

But, ladies and germs, it gets even better. Does anyone want to wager on what happened 2 days after that? It had been 30 days since I signed up for MochaHost, and so they thought it would be a good idea to remind me that I had to make my second payment the next day. Yup, $30 for a grand total of two days of owning a shitty server that couldn't hit an inbox to save it's life. I politely declined to continue using MochaHost.

So overall, lesson learned: if it's too good to be true, it probably is.

Not sure why all of a sudden there are lots of hosts out there being useless, but its making me think of getting back into the hosting arena!

The big 'WTF' to me was them trying to install cPanel onto Ubuntu - if they bothered to look at the cPanel supported OS list, Ubuntu isn't on it!

To be honest, although you lost money and a month of time it seems to me you had a lucky escape!

Good luck with your next host!

Thanks, I've since found solace under another, excellent host. If you do get into solid hosting, let me know; I'd gladly support a fellow BH!