Web design & hosting forum: Avoid "Total Internet Solutions"

I filed a complaint to the Better Business Bureau. I couldn't believe that all I requested was to RENEW my DOMAIN for another two (2) years and what I was instructed to do was PAY MORE MONEY of $70 for 2 more years of domain registration + PAY ANOTHER $167.28 for another year of PLATINUM service which I already paid for back on 8/8/2011 and I even had a receipt that was emailed to me that stated it expires on 8/8/2013 when I ordered my domain and web hosting together and not to mention I also paid an extra $47.64. When I requested to release my domain I was told I had to pay a fee of a minimum of $70 to release it. Can you imagine? This was the number that I had to call 310-697-8754.

What turns out to be too good to be true is NOT TRUE AT ALL. Total Internet Solutions is FALSE ADVERTISING that they are 24/7 support when they are not. I called their 800 number and all I got was a recording and they never got back until tonight. BUYERS BEWARE: they will charge you a 2nd year for a web hosting that they promised it was free. They said buy 1 year and the 2nd year is free. IT IS NOT AND THEY ARE LYING TO YOU.

PLEASE CNET.COM -- DO NOT RECOMMEND TOTAL INTERNET SOLUTIONS TO ANYONE AS YOU CAN SEE FROM THIS REVIEWS. I AM SURE THERE ARE PLENTY MORE OUT THERE WHO HAVE BEEN A VICTIM OF THEIR SCAM BUT PROBABLY DECIDED NOT TO WRITE ANYTHING ABOUT IT.

Now I am stuck with no domain and forced to recreate another one all because Total Internet Solutions lied to me. What a horrible experience.

In addition to bumping the offering price by double once they had me registered, they now holding my sites hostage. They offer a free service called email list on their website which they then use to shut down your site and accuse you of spamming. We've been threatened with Huge fines by them for using this service "once" and trying to email our regular customer base of 2000 clients.... WoW!!! The gall of these guys is amazing.

They are now holding our 16 sites hostage even though only one site was involved in the mailing, and telling us we have to pay a $200.00 fine and $167.00 to set up a new account.

WELL, They'll get paid - WHEN HELL FREEZES OVER!!!

This is very clearly a SCAM site and operates under a very FRAUDULENT and UNETHICAL basis. I'm thinking they must be owned by a new form of the Mob.

I am filing a complaint with the FTC, California Department of Consumer Affairs and InterNIC.net .

I'm also looking for a tech savy class action lawyer in CA to pursue these guys on behalf of all clients - does anyone have any suggestions? Hopefully we can get the principals here barred from web business's for life.

Hi
I have the same problem, last year I bought a host from them and up to now we are just discussing about different things that they do not support.
First I had a joomla web site that was working on iPage and SiteGround but not on their service, and finally they did not accept that is their problem. The problem was some permission settings and they did not do it, also their control panel had no file/ folder permission management.

Then I switched to .NET programming and again there were no support for MVC and they refused to install it while it was just a mater copying some files.

After that I had a need for MS SQL Server 2008 Full Text Search, and you can guess! Although they have not said that they do not support it, but they refused my request.

About two months ago I asked them to release their lock on the domain so that I can transfer the domain, and the answer was that: Pay 35$ and the we release the domain!
After this happening I have asked them to terminate the whole contract and also the domain. They accepted it and told me "backup your files and inform us after that, so that we terminate your account". I did it and told them that please terminate the account. AND after a while I received a bill of 202.xx $, 167.xx$ for hsting and 35.00 $ fro domain renewal !!!!!!!
Now its a week that I am trying to convince them to cancel the account and pay me back but no success!
This is while they claim
A: "100% Sanctification Guarantee" and I am not satisfied even 5%
B: "Price never goes up after registration" and it did go up for my case. I am not sure whether they do not know, they think that we do not understand, or they simply lie

Finally, If you are going to do some actions against them, I would happy to cooperate. meanwhile if somebody knows how to get rid of their service, please mention it here or simply send me letter.

Total Internet Solutions is a total scam. I called and inquired about their $3.97 month internet hosting package. I spoke with Robert and he assured me if I signed up and was not happy with the service I could get my money back. This is not internet hosting. No one can see your website. I called back to cancel and Robert told me oh we are a family friendly company. This is for a private website. Who needs a private website. You can just use your desk top. Then Robert stated I needed the Platinum package and now the price jumped to almost $170. I called to get my supposedly FREE domain name and then realized Total Internet Solutions was scamming me. I tried to cancel again. Robert then screamed at me at the top of his lungs "we are here to make money" and hung up on me. He then called back and acted like he was someone else in customer care. The domain name is not free. Total Internet Solutions buys the domain name under their name. YOU DO NOT OWN IT. They do. I called my credit card company and told them to cancel the charges from this scamming company. They would not do it. Instead they opened up a dispute. Of course Total Internet Solutions is keeping my money. I did not even receive any services from them or a domain name. Also there is no such thing as 24 7 365 support. This is a blatant lie. They won't answer their phone. Do not use this company for anything. I think the suggestion of a class action lawsuit is in order. I will gladly participate.

You are a victim of a well-planned "fundraiser". For their pockets, that is. Total Internet Solutions cannot be handled alone. They are NOT members of the BBB (and do NOT have the A+ rating they show) There's little that group can do. They are a civic organization and not prepared to deal with this kind of problem. You should still register a complaint so people can see the extent of the problem, but please also go to http://www.report-totalinternetsolutions.com/ so we can all help each other.

Here was my experience with this company.

I renewed my annual hosting services with Total Internet Solutions on August 4, 2012, along with renewing two domain names and purchasing 4 additional domain names. These are all sole proprietor small business websites. They forced me into purchasing two years per each domain name as that was in the contract. The total cost at the time was $587.28 which include 420.00 for the domain names and 167.28 for a year of hosting.

On January 13, 2013, my website and email addresses went down and I contacted Total Internet Solutions to find out what had gone wrong. They stated that they were doing server hardware changes, but because they never sent out a notification that the hardware changes were taking place, I lost my entire database and the files that I had uploaded to my server. At that time, I requested that they provide me with an authorization code so that I could move my domain names to another provider due to all of the problems that I have had in the past with Total Internet Solution's server stability. They told me at the time that that I had to pay 70.00 per domain name to get the authorization code. At that time, because I had just spent a ton of money a few months prior, I was not able to afford to pay them more money. So I rebuilt my website from scratch again and put the files back on the server.

On April 15, 2013, I notified Total Internet Solutions that my emails and websites stopped working. The final conclusion was that my site was supposedly hacked and inappropriate material was placed on my website. They explained that they were going to file a notice with the IC3. I asked them to provide me with a copy of that notice and they told me it was private information. I asked them again for authorization codes and they said that I was just leasing the domain names from them and they couldn't give that to me or turn over the domain names to any other provider. I asked them to provide me with a backup of the files on my server and they told me that I had to sign up for a brand new account in order to get my files, at a cost of $344.00, and that I had to sign up for two years, as that was in their contract. I asked them how much it would cost to sign up for their DNS Management ONLY service and they told me it would cost me 475.00 per year. I told them that I would pay them to burn my files to disk and sign a waiver releasing them of liability if my content contained any viruses. The gentleman that I spoke to said they didn't have time for that type of thing and then starting trying to strong arm me into purchasing another account.

At no time did I receive a copy of any contract when I signed up with this company. I received an invoice after I paid with my credit card that lists the domain names that I purchased and the cost of the hosting account. That was all that I received. I printed a copy of the User Agreement from their website, and no where does it state that when you buy domain names from them, that you are leasing them. Nowhere does it state that you are required to purchase 2 years for domain name registration or for hosting service.

Total Internet Sol'ns is run by a hostile, exploitive guy who is very iffy on the concept of 'business ethics'. He has no problem being aggressively rude, ripping off customers, then taking revenge when they go elsewhere to get away from his free-floating anger. Great business model, TIS. tucows.com was very helpful in remedying the situation.

Agree, Total Internet Solutions is a very unethical & misleading business. Definite Fraud. I unwisely signed up with them based on CNET's recommendation. I experienced the same Hostile Treatment & Lack of Service as those noted here. Not sure why anyone would sign up with them if they are already reading this page, but Just adding my 2cents that it is all sadly true!!! You could loose thousands with this company. Because when you sign up with them your domains are not yours, Total Internet Solutions registers them in Their name. Then they tell you you must pay an outrageous amount to keep them active & that they are tied to the same promos you signed up to on day one... so you have to pay annuals on them. ex. Second year I agreed to pay $320 just to keep 4 domains registered with them, because they could not be seperated from the rest of my account. Then they called 12 weeks later to tell me that If I did not keep my hosting active for another $318/year that all of the domains I just paid a 2 year renewal fee on, would no longer be active. I asked for one day, yes just 24 hours to sort this out, they said no, & they shut down & locked up my account! Do NOT build a brand w/ them or you will loose everything, or be beholding to them for thousands to keep active! Your Domains are in Their name, not yours! They are not a Registrar. Total Internet Solutions is a Fraudulent Hosting Company.

They refused to correspond via email (so I could have an epaper trail). Verbally they said I didn't owe anything. Three months later they said I did. I had a copy of an invoice for $0 and the customer service agent insisted that if I could prove I paid then they would honor that. I said, "Hey, an invoice of $0 means I don't owe anything!" We kept going around and around. Finally I paid to keep my web site up.

Today their site is down.

Joe is right - avoid these nefarious people.

We order a hosting service from Total Internet Solutions online for 95.28. Total Internet Solutions called asking me if I was sure that what we had signed up for was what we wanted. The representative also explained that the package we purchased was private would not allow our website to be listed on search engines. He said that this meant that people could not "Google" or search our website, that they would have to type the full site in directly into the address bar. He suggested that we might want to upgrade to the next package, going from the Gold package to the Platinum package so that we would be searchable, and public. I asked what the difference would be, the representative stated several amounts and discounts, (trying to confuse me, I believe now).I asked for the bottom line, how much more would be charged to the credit card, the representative said that basically it would be $40 making it $150.00. They ended up charging 334.80.They were hostile and threatening, stating that if we disputed the higher charged they would lock our domains and not provide a service to us. Total Internet Solutions never provided any service and we are out $335. Our credit card company will not refund the charge unless we can provide proof that this company has not provided us service.

My experience with TIS today was unbelievable! I paid for a 2 yr agreement web hosting and domain name on 7/16/11 with the second year free. I created a simple website for my dad's landscaping business that was mostly contact info and photo galleries. It was cheap enough and worked for what we needed especially since I have no experience building a website myself. The 2nd year was free and they didn't try to charge more than agreed. I overlooked the email on 5/16/13 that I needed to renew the domain, but caught it with the 6/16/13 reminder email. I called on 6/17/13 to pay to renew the domain and as always had to leave a message. I received a call back 6/18/13 around 1:30 pm...forgot the man's name, probable due to "anger" after the conversation. I told him I needed to pay to renew the domain because unlike the email instructions, I could NOT renew and pay online. He said I had to renew the web hosting and domain or I would lose both. I told him I wanted to renew the domain today and would call back next week to renew the web hosting because I needed to verify if my dad wanted to renew. He informed me that I had to renew both and since I did not renew 30 days in advance of the expiration date I had to pay him right now or the domain and website would be inactivated tonight. My email for renewal only said to renew before the expiration date of 7/16/13. I explained that I was at work and could not leave to put cash in my checking account...I have NO credit cards...only a debit card and didn't have enough in the account to pay it I could go to the bank tomorrow. He said I was on an auto pmt and the card was probably already charged...but, said to hold on and he would call billing and find out. He put me on hold and came back a couple of minutes later and said they had not charged it yet and he changed the auto pmt to disabled. I told him to absolutely NOT charge my card and make sure I was not on the auto renewal. He then asked what my dad's name was...I replied without thinking (stupid of me), of course his name is in the website name. He said to hold on he would see what he could do...however, he made a mistake and did not mute the line. I heard him repeatedly dialing phone numbers...three numbers to be exact. On the third try he said "Is D** available?" and I heard a woman say no he isn't and he hung up". Then he came back to me and said, I just spoke with billing and there's nothing we can do, if you don't pay now you will lose your site and domain. I told him he left the call unmuted and I heard every word. He said no, it was a coworker beside of him. What a liar! I called my mom and she said that she just had a call from him asking for my dad and he hung up on her. Can you believe this....this guy went to my website and got my dad's business phone numbers and tried calling him directly with me on hold to see if he would pay!!!!!! And, hold on, I immediately called my bank and while he had me on hold the first time...he wasn't checking with billing, he tried to run the charges on my bank account. I had to cancel my debit card just in case he tried again! I asked if I had the right to pay for the domain renewal and move my services to another webhost and he said no. I told him I would pay to renew it and wait whatever time period necessary as long as I could keep the domain...he said no. He said TIS was not a registrar and they didn't have to let me keep it without paying for webhosting. And for the BIG finish...by 2:30 my online account was inactivated and by 5 pm the website inactivated. Now, I paid for 2 full yrs and it doesn't expire until 7/16/13, so how can they take down the site just because I'm not renewing beyond 7/16/13? And, it's obvious only 1 or 2 people run the place. They never ever answer the phone and do NOT have 24/7 service. He even said he would only be there for 30 more minutes because he works "graveyard" and had to leave for work. Well, if it's 2 pm in TN and he's in CA, they have the oddest graveyard shift I've ever seen. He also lied and said he was in the same Eastern time zone when I asked if he would be there if I called back by 5pm! Crooks, out right crooks, that is all they are.