There are 34 hosting user reviews for
Darkstar Communications
Average Jury Ratings & Reviews of
Darkstar Communications
3.7/5
3.3/5
3.0/5
2.9/5
Reliability
Support
Pricing
Overall
Below are some verdicts that users of our site have
given to
Darkstar Communications . If you would like to submit your verdict about
Darkstar Communications please use our submit page to review
Darkstar Communications.
Are
you an administrator or staff member of
Darkstar Communications ?
If so click here
Date Submitted :
June 23rd, 2009
Length of time hosted by this company :
1 - 3 years
Overall Rating :
1 out of 5
Reliability :
1 out of 5
Support :
1 out of 5
Pricing :
1 out of 5
Verdict :
STAY AWAY. These people will take your money and then be near impossible to reach. There is hardly anyway to contact them. I have run into ONE nice person there and they worked with me on an issue that I had. The rest of the staff is out to see how much money they can keep from you.
They say they send you an invoice and then suddenly you get a bill. You try to get that bill reversed, and they refuse to work with you. Someone else already said this and its true "you have to PAY to cancel".
These guys seem to be running a scam along with the servers. Everything seems to be set up to prevent you from stopping service and to bill you whether you want serivce or not.
Use anyone else or you will regret it in my opinion.
I bought this service at 6pm, the vent server wasn't available until 11pm. 12 hours after purchasing I have yet to be able to configure my vent server from the website, my ticket was open for 8 hours before it was responded to. My second ticket as yet to be responded to.
Why is this annoying? Because they advertise Immediate Vent Availabily following purchase and 10-15 minutes on ticket wait times.
This place is a fraud. Now I have to get a new credit card so that they don't try to charge me again, and hope they respond so they can refund my money.
No, I don't work for Darkstar, but I have 4 Team fortress 2 game servers through them and a web site. Although it's down right now as I type this, it's normally up and their customer service has been great. I went to cancel a server once and they were not rude at all. You have to pay attention and cancel the subscription through PayPal!
I ended up canceling my cancellation request, as the game server became more popular.
I had a ventrilo account hosted there. I had prepaid for one year of service. Eventually we stoped using it and forgot about it. Well 6 months later I start getting e-mails saying my credit card is not accepting their bill (fortunatly the card is closed). So I contact darkstar about cancelling my account. They refuse. They tell me I have to pay for the upcomming year first, to bring my account into good standing, then I can cancel. They also charge a 5%/month fee until you do so.
The day the account expired, it automatically became suspended. They just want payment for another year to allow me to get out of the contract.
First of all. You just can't please a greek and a trojan at once. Most of these people who are writing bad things must be half greek half trojan.
Second. People who don't have trouble don't write reviews. That's why I am making some time to write this one. I wanted to be fair to Darkstar ppl.
I am a recent customer of them and I must say I am very pleased with their service, and very impressed with the attention they pay to their clients. I wasn't even a client of them and was already in contact with all the staff and even one of the owners came talk to me to explain some questions and some of these bad reviews. I opened a thread at their forum, and you guys can't check it out how nicely and fast they answered me at http://universe.darkstarllc.com/showthread.php?t=388
Also I stated a thread at World of Warcraft forum, and mosto of the people who cared about answering my questing said good things about them. You can see it yourslef at http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=13129959912&sid=1
This also prove I don't work for them, and that I am saying these things because I think they deserve.
Ok. So I ordered the server and I am so far very pleased with their service and even more satisfied with the support and the staff they have over there!
/cheer darkstar!
Keep up with the good work!!
I'm sure if all of their satisfied clients would do the same as I am doing right now, these bad reviews would be very hard to find among all the good ones!!
STAY AWAY!! I started this service a year ago when a few friends and I were going to be playing a game that looked like we needed it. We never got around to using it. Life got in the way. Now, a year later, after paying them twice for the unused service they want me to pay another fee just to turn my account back on for the right to cancel.
In effect THEY CHARGE YOU TO BE ABLE TO CANCEL YOUR ACCOUNT.
Rather than paid they should be sued but sure enough, it\'s right there in their service agreement. PAY ATTENTION AND DON\'T DO BUSINESS WITH THESE THIEVES.
I would not recommend darkstar I used there service just for 1 month and having nothing but amounts owing. After 1 month has expired (paid for) they renew another month and lock you out of your service until you pay a month of service you did not use and will repeat it every month as they watch your debt grow and say again I would not recommend darkstar to anyone looking for professional service providers.
Was working on my third year with them hoasting a ts server when it all went downhill. I paid once a year, but dont make that mistake as they will not refund any money no matter what happens. Fact is, my ts server has not been alive for at least 2 months since they said they were gonna switch it to a new ip. Sent them a support ticket on it, they said they restarted my server but it didnt work and has never worked again. Unfourtunatly since im paid up till July 08 i have no leverage to get them to fix it. Stay away from these sheisters. Any review written that says there ok is a liar and probably works for them.
Always up(dallas), always informed, always low price, always fast response time to my tickets and EXCELLENT pricing. Never any problems with these guys and thats why I've been with them over 3 years. You guys are the best I dont care what the other people think. Thank you for continued fantastic service!
Darkstar has excllent service and FAST customer support, and Alowed me to do more with the server with better results. and the price is awsome no other Host could beat their price. I would reccomend this company to anyone and everyone that was looking for a 5 star host.
I have had excellent service with Darkstar. One outage, but I don't think it was their fault because a few other sites weren't working for me as well. I've unrecommended them to a couple friends, who haven't had any problems either. My guild will be hosted here for a while.
I should note that I have the free web hosting service that comes with the 50 slot ventrilo...so I'm reviewing that, not the paid hosting. I haven't had the paid hosting, but I would guess its the same.
I'm not entirely sure why there have been so many negative comments about my voice provider -- but I have had nothing but great experiences with this company ever since signing up back in 2005.
The only reason why I'm canceling is because my guild is disbanding -- but I have literally had nothing but 100% uptime since day #1 in their Los Angeles ventrilo server location. The next time I need Ventrilo, I definitely will be returning here.
I recently 'purchased' a Ventrilo Server and Website package from Darkstar LLC on May 31st in which they charged me 15.00 for a website and 19.99 for a Ventrilo package. Their terms, as they have clearly stated to me multiple times in support tickets, are turnaround within 24-48 hours after set up. The website was not set up for ten days; obviously far beyond the 24-48 hours posted. Not only that, but they also tote right on their front page a '30 day money back guarantee.'
Not only was I not helped within their terms, but after eight days of being told, '24-48 hours' and 'wait longer' and 'it should be up now', I had decided to go to someone else. At that point, I requested a cancel plus refund from Darkstar, since I had not received the services they told me they would provide. They were extremely rude and unprofessional.
Three days after I asked for my money back and a cancellation plus refund, they set up my website, and told me the reason they would not give me the refund is that I received the services I requested.
I did not receive the services that I asked for and have since gone to another company. The other company had my webpage up and running within 10 minutes, as opposed to the ten days Darkstar forced me to wait. I have already reported them to the BBB and are now working on getting a refund from my credit merchant.
Ok first off I was a customer of darkstar for over a year. I have a 50 slot Teamspeak server at first which I had switched to a 50 slot Ventrilo server in 12/06. I was rent a quarterly rate a 1 time payment every 3 months. I never had a problem with up time or any other service until I contacted them about my billing date seemed to date. Because I had a problem with ID theft when I shop online I use a bank account that I only have active on the 1st thru 5th of every month so when they started changing my billing date back from the 5th to the 29th my service was down. I payed them the first time and asked them to change my billing date back. Then the very next payment they tried the same crap. So I emailed them and they said I never asked to change my billing date so I back and asked to cancel. They email me saying to my account is past due when I'm prepaying for the next 3 months. Then they threatened me with collections and bad credit report.
So I have to ask that you stay away for this one. They have a very bad billing dept. even thuogh everything else was good.
Looking at some of the more positive responses on this sit sound like people that work at DARKSTAR (email proof of thier abuse). Thier cusomter service is below a 1 even. This company thinks its in the crediting business and can send your account through collections they threaten that after they try to bill you for a second round that you did not agree upon that they will place you in collecitons. to which this threat in my oppinion ranks as (consumer terroism). actually about a year ago when i ordered service i send email stating that they are only allowed to take a one time payment for 1 year of service and upon removing the payment that they agree to this. so they billed me agreeing to the terms set forth, they were also advised that they will no longer be able to take payment from account after agreeing to this one time transfer of funds. well a year goes by i do not up my service and they go to charge a card that was clearly stated they only had one time authorization to charge on it and threaten me to send me to collections (consumer terrorism) and proceeded through email to call me "How about, you get a life and go fuck yourself. This matter is now closed I am not gonna sit here and listen to your bullshit about terrorism I too am an American you son of a bitch." and than another email statign i am scum of the earth and and idiot, from thier suppervisor "Thank You
Bill McGee
IRCD Supervisor
Customer Service
Dispute Resolution" well with a comapnay that thinks its cusomters are scum of the earth and fucken idiots i do not want to be a part of. as far as the good reviews well the imbilcile is the one who works here at dark star. they are scum of the earth for treating even one cusotmer like this and they should be shut down by the fcc. they are a viscious company from the top down. please anyone do yourself a favor do not give into companies that treat thier bread and butter like dirt.
Very Very rude support. Submitted a cancelation request and after completing it I get a response...oh we dont use this method anymore you have to open a trouble ticket...
Fill out a ticket, hear nothing, fill out another hear nothing, fill out a 3rd...nothing. Finally logged in to write a 4th and saw the view ticket status. THIS IS NOT VISIBLE UNLESS YOU LOG IN. I had been just hitting the submit button and then logging in, so its not very user friendly.
Anyway, I read the responses to my 3 tickets and the last was very rude and full of CAPS. You would think that after the 3rd ticket it was obvious I was not seeing the responses and maybe they should EMAIL me as I requested anyway.
Service was good but I would never deal with them again base soley on their support and rudeness...plenty of other sources out there that are actually pleasant and helpful to you.
If you are looking for cheap hosting with lots of hassles, then you have found a good place. They make cancellation hard, put restrictions on cancelling, and the best part: they sign you up for a subscrition payment via paypal, but cancelling service through them does not cancel paypal payment. And if you happen to "forget" to cancel the paypal subscrition manually, they take you money and refuse to refund it. Look, this place is a bit shady in general, check out another provider if you want something on the level.
These guys should be investigated for fraud. I paid for a full year of service and my Ventrilo server out of Dallas has never been up for longer than an hour. You can't reach Tech Support. And when i tried to open a ticket, my e-mail address and password were "invalid," even though i have a confirmation e-mail showing the correct info. So, i'm out $119.00 for a year of service i can't use with no way of speaking to anyone to voice my complaint.
HORRIBLE!!! Do not use these people. They are SOO rude. Their Dallas and CA Ventrillio servers are always down. Think you will get any kind of refund, NO WAY. You should see how rude some of their emails sent to me were. HORRRIBLE.
DO NOT use these people. They do not work with you.
I had been on a 3 month billing at the end of that billing cycle they billed me for a full year and WOULD NOT REFUNED any part of it. No warning, no notice.
Their voice system is impoissible to get though to a real person. They dont want to talk to you. They want your money and then want you to leave.
They changed their Port number and IP on my vent server with no notice to me. I had to search on their website to find out what my new IP was, then dig into the control pannel to find they changed my Port number as well.
Their "online" support, is never avaliable. They want everything done in emails.
Well, I had no problems with Darkstar until this week. I thought I got a good price on my TS server...and I am quite happy with it. I prepaid $100.00 for a year for a 50 slot server. This week I e-mailed them saying that I wanted to purchase a COD2 server. I asked them to call me. I got an e-mail back asking me to e-mail them the info. What info? I just want to buy a server. Um...hmm.
Today, I went to buy a Ventrillo server, 50 slot, for another clan. I have been callin all day..the Sales team is a voicemail. I left a message and no word back even though I said I AM READY TO SET IT UP TODAY! So then I tried calling the billing department. Another answering machine. So then I tried the Technical Support 24 hour support team. Another answering maching. Something is fishy here. Do they want my money? Do you? Maybe YOU will call me back.
I would be doing an injustice if I didn't warn people off about Darkstar Communications. Our guild was using a Ventrilo Server hosted by Darkstar and the person paying for the account wanted to transfer the Ventrilo server over into my name. We opened tickets with them for the transfer (only tickets=any kind of action) and they promised they could do it easily. They said it'd only require acknowledgement from both parties and they'd just change the account info and payment sources. Several days later, the result was my friend still owned his 40-slot server (the one our guild was using) and I ended up with a new 10 slot server! NOT what we requested. I opened more tickets with them requesting they correct the problem and comply with what they originally agreed to do and all the responses I got back were "Your server is working fine. We see no problem with it. Please let us know if you have any further questions." WOW... thanks. How could I expect them to correct the problem if they wouldn't even acknowledge it.
My last ticket and email to them was a very descriptive explanation of the problem (again) including all previous ticket IDs and an intent to cancel the account if they didn't correct the problem. I even opened tickets with Jake (their General Manager) and Chris (their founder/owner). Again, another reply illustrating their refusal to acknowledge the problem. So I request to have the account cancelled and all payments refunded in accordance with their 30-day Money-Back Guarantee. After all, I had only had the account about 2 weeks. I can't describe the feelings inside when their reply to my cancellation request was "We can cancel your account, but your not getting a refund. Your don't qualify for a refund."
Now, let's talk about their support. Straight from their website - http://www.darkstarllc.com/services/ventrilo-servers/support.php - Darkstar claims to provide 24/7/365 support. They also boast about providing a 1-800 support number, Live Support, and support reps available on IRC. During my experience with Darkstar, I've always had to 'open a ticket' to get a response from them, and that usually took 3 hours or more. I used the 1-800 number several times, it is nothing more than an answering machine. The Live Support? - from their support webpage they have a Live Support Status icon, it has ALWAYS read "OFFLINE". NEVER have I seen it read "Online". Finally, their IRC - directly from the support page linked above - "While we do have Ventrilo Servers support techs idling here, we do not guarantee help through this method." Yup, I've never seen a Darkstar Vent support tech in IRC.
So, here's why I rated them the way I did.
Customer Support: 1/5 No explanation needed, just TERRIBLE. I really wish I had the option of choosing 0/5.
Pricing: 2/5 Comparable to other Ventrilo companies, but since service anywhere else is better, it's a no-brainer.
Reliability: 1/5 Well, I honestly had no problem with the server itself. BUT, if they can't understand a simple transfer request and repeated attempts to explain the situation and obtain a resolution, I can't say they're reliable at all.
Overall rating: Do yourself a favor. Steer clear of Darkstar Communications for ANYTHING. Try TypeFrag or some other hosting company that actually cares about their customers.
This company is quite remarkable, we have been hosting our IRC services through this company for quite some time and within the last 3 months also added our web hosting. We have received superb service from this company and have seen no downtime. This company is not very old they have only been around for a years however they are doing an excellent job with growth and satisfying their customer base.
I recommend this company to all of my friends who are looking for decent hosting and an unpresidented price.
Reading the reviews about Darkstar's service where the "juror" has rendered a negative verdict really makes me wonder how many true imbeciles there are in the world. I know that sounds a bit harsh, but the portrayals of those user’s experiences are at best fantasy, at worst delusional, or just plain stupid to say the very least. I have been with DarkStar over 1 year now, and take advantage of almost ALL of their services, including some “not so highly published” ones. Darkstar’s TOS explains EVERYTHING a user needs to know about their account and cancellation, if people would just take the time to READ it, their experience would be so much better. Darkstar also has some very nicely done features available for their customers that you just don’/won’t find anywhere else. They have a guarantee of 24-hour response time to a support ticket, and I have personally seen responses within 5 mins and resolution within that amount of time as well. I give DarkStar and their staff 2 thumbs up in ALL categories, and I can honestly say that in the entire time I’ve been a customer, there has not been ONE billing or support issue with them. Those who say otherwise are living in some fantasy reality where they either could not, or did not RTFM.
Thanks for the great service Darkstar….
To those who are looking for a host who will actually take care of your needs at a fair price, I suggest Darkstar Communications
This host has treated me very well, I have been hosting with this company for almost a year now. Their service uptime is excellent, their customer service is beyond superb. I would highly recommend this company to anyone looking for ventrilo hosting, our clan has been impressed. Voice communications is key for us to ensure that we are on target.
I've hosted with this company for about 9 months now. While I had to cancel because I didn't need the TeamSpeak server anymore, it was certainly a good service while I used it. Would recommend this host to anyone.
Classic problem with low-dollar provider attempting to be the next Bill Gates. My account expired, I paid for another couple of months and could not find anyone to reactivate it. Used the email and Phone number provided on their site. After a week of hearing nothing back I asked for a refund. For THAT they could bother to contact me back (LOL).Was told the problem was all my fault.>>> "I’m sorry to have to say this so bluntly, but It isn’t our fault that this occurred. Again, if you would have opened a support ticket upon paying the overdue invoice, we would have reactivated your server right away. I have now unsuspended your account and reactivated your server. If you would like to cancel your account at the end of your current billing period".<< Tech Support? I've tried their Tech Support. They have no Tech Support. Do business with these jokers at your own risk.
Excellent service, excellent support, excellent servers. I have been nothing but happy with DarkStar and would recomend them to anyone who is looking for a good host.
Hosted a Ventrillo Server for 1 month. I wanted only 1 month.
They have continued to charge my credit card multiple months in a row despite emailing, calling and asking to stop service. (sign up is automated, but of course there is no way to discontinue service online).
Going through the automated phone directory lists only 1 person, Cole Smith, who hasn't returned calls either.
After shopping around for a teamspeak server host, I choose Dark Star mainly because of their low prices. I have had a couple of minor problems with the server, but their customer service reps had the problems taken care of within minutes!
THe TS control panel is GREAT! Lots of options and features.
I have been hosting my website at Darkstar Communications now for over 1 year. And I gotta say that I'm very pleased. I started hosting my website (http://www.desktop-designz.com) with the basic web hosting package, and now a few months ago I had to upgrade to a custom account, as my website was using over 200 GB of data transfer per month. The upgrade was done without any hazzle, and they even offered me a much better custom plan.
