A customer contacted us back in March in order to do some updates to his site. Originally, his site was on iPage but he was having major problems with iPage as a web hosting provider. Therefore, one of his notes indicated that while the changes would be made, he would be looking for another web hosting provider.
We provided him the details and information about our website hosting but he opted to choose another provider that was slitly less expensive – LayerOnline.
During the course of our work with LayerOnline, we still ran into problems using FTP and sometimes getting into the cPanel account. These were short lived luckily.
However, other issues existed – one of which is a major red flag to us. This is why we opted to write a review about LayerOnline website hosting. On the website for LayerOnline, they note front and center on their website that they have 24/7 toll free tech support. But wait – there is absolutely no phone number at all – anywhere – on their website! Try to go to Contact Us or choose one of the other options, and it directs you to a contact form.
This was problematic for us when we needed support fairly quickly. We had no direct contact with anyone – other than to submit a ticket that might take 24 to 48 hours to get a reply from. So, they said we have 24/7 toll-free tech support and the search began to find their number.
Well, we found their number by doing a WHOIS query on their domain name. What we found was a phone number of 877-665-2937. It took us a good 30 minutes of searching online to find this phone number!
So I picked up the phone to try and call LayerOnline so we could get some issues resolved quickly – at least that was the idea. I called the number and was greeted by the “Welcome to LayerOnline” message with an IVR of options. I pressed the option for Tech Support – and then a voice came on asking me to say my name followed by the pound key.
That voice tipped me off about the IVR system. They use a FreePBX IVR system – which is the same one that we use as well. No problems there, just figured they would have a more enterprise-grade phone system since they are a MUCH larger company than us.
Before I could even say my name or hit the pound key, it immediately started playing some hold music. About ten seconds later, the call dropped.
I called in again. Chose the option for tech support, voice prompted me again, went to hold music. Again, about ten seconds later, the call dropped again.
What does this tell me? That tells me that they simply have the 877 number to say they provide a 24/7 toll-free number (which I guess is true), but you certainly are NOT going to get any support over the phone.
Hopefully this LayerOnline review of web hosting services is beneficial to those looking for a new provider. BsnTech Networks also provides web hosting services and we have a fully functioning 888 phone number (although you may have to leave a message for us to return your call).