A little story about Golden Telecom
It will be about the Ukrainian division of the company Golden Telecom.
1.5 years ago we decided to host a server for one project. They had the parities we needed and the placement there seemed like a good idea. Bottom line: more than $ 1000 gone nowhere, a lot of time spent communicating with managers and collection calls due to mistaken billing a year later, after the end of cooperation. A ray of hatred towards this office, the full story of how interaction took place (it is difficult to call it cooperation) with them and what came out of it under the cut:
The server has become no problem. I had to wait a week before installation, but overall not bad. Before signing the contract with the manager, we clarified 2 important points for us:
- gigabit port for the server (100Mbps was obviously not enough)
- shutdown of world traffic for the server (it was necessary to leave only the parity providers and those who worked through the ua-ix traffic exchange point). so that no excess of traffic does not affect the monthly fee (in fact, they should not be at all).
')
The manager called those. specialist, clarified, there is no problems with the provision of such services. Those. the specialist asked me if we were going to plug the channel into the regiment, I said no, 200-300 Mbit will be busy, the server will not pull out anymore. They said that without problems. The manager confirmed that everything would be done, the documents were signed and the server was soon installed.
We immediately closed the access to the server from the "world" and started the server to work. The first mistake was not to prescribe in the contract these services and not to clarify in this contract that extra. money is not taken for them (the manager promised that they would do everything for free).
A week later, the server began to get lost ping. Found that the server ran into 100Mbps. It turned out that the server was not transferred to gigabit. We call, find out what's the matter ...
Separately, I want to talk about calls to GT. If you call to support, then everything is fine. But they do not solve any issues, except for restarting the server, taking out / bringing in the equipment and providing ip-kvm. All other questions need to be clarified with the manager. Call the manager through the general incoming number 490-00-00. The average call looks like this:
- Hello, you are greeted by Golden Telecom. Stay on the line. 3 minutes MUSIC, then it says that all managers are busy and please stay on the line. After 5-10 minutes, usually the handset rushes and an attempt is made to call later.
- since the 3rd on average it is possible to break through to the operator. Clarifies the question, somewhere forward. a minute of music, on the other end they take the phone, listen, they say that they should not be addressed to them, they will forward somewhere else or again at the reception.
- after 10 minutes of redirects, it is usually possible to reach the necessary manager.
This is not always the case, but in most cases. It takes an average of half an hour to make one call (from the first dialing to the end of the call), of which you have 20 minutes to hang on the line. There is a “personal manager” service, but it comes bundled with tariffs which may be several times higher than average ones for this same service. In any case, we did not offer this.
Wonderful manager reports that in order to activate gigabit, you need to write a statement. Astonishment as to why not do it right away and why not warned is ignored, okay, a statement like that statement. I wrote it and personally delivered it to the central office, handing it over to the manager. Type taken into development.
After 2 weeks there is still no gigabit. A couple of hours of telephone conversations and it turns out that my manager is on vacation, and the application is lost.
It’s easier to spit than argue, they wrote another one, delivered it again, transferred it to another manager, who said that he would personally check it so as not to get lost this time.
Another 2 weeks, again nothing. Calling our manager, has already returned from vacation. The application was not lost this time, but for some reason it was rejected. Why, found out another week. As a result, they sent the answer:
"The cost of a gigabit connection is $ 200 per month, if you want, come, re-sign the contract, we will connect".
(not a quote, I write from memory, the text of the letter has not been preserved)
The server fee was $ 100 per month, by the way. Again calls, redirects, expectations, finally contacted the manager, told in a few words how this is called, but, as expected, nothing has changed. Forces to figure out something, something was already gone, and so everything became clear, we decided to think about how to reduce the load on the server, where to transfer the channel-clogging connections, etc.
Here comes the account for the server for the last month. (second in a row). $ 400 with a penny. With a subscription of $ 100 a bit too much, we call, we find out, we wait, we still call, nothing really is solved. The manager promises to find out, meanwhile, the last day to pay the bill is coming (10th number, in my opinion). We decide while to pay, then find out what and how.
Somewhere around the 15th, we were informed that more than $ 300 in excess of the subscription was accrued for exceeding global traffic. Again calls, correspondence with support and managers revealed the following:
- the global traffic for the server was not disabled.
- some kind of ddos ​​attack or something else went and despite the fact that everything was closed on the server itself, on one connection attempt (which the server ignored, but they were going through the gateway), the above amount came up. Moreover, this attack continues to the current moment (the 25th number). The world was not disconnected to us, the application was rejected (it was transmitted along with the application for gigabit) due to the fact that the company does not provide such services, it’s not interesting for them.
They wrote a letter about shutting down the server, they were lucky, they processed it by the end of the month (they didn’t have to pay for the next one) and they billed $ 800 for traffic. After staring, explaining what to do and thinking, they decided to pay the bill because the server was a little more expensive and I didn’t want to take out the brain.
We paid the bill, took the server and put it in another middle-sized DC (the others did not have the parities we needed).
There, the parities turned out to be only according to the manager (there was only half), and the story of world traffic also repeated. Fortunately, we thought of just chopping off the server when it went to minus. All the same, the desire to work with these guys was discouraged, besides, in their tight area, as opposed to GT, there was a shed (with usual wall conditions, hangs everywhere with laces and switches hanging on them, packs of desktop sistemnik on the floor, etc.).
Parity was not enough, and then an interesting thing happened: GT introduced unlimited tariffs. The second time we decided on a desperate stupidity and set up a server there again, signing a contract for another name and servicing with another manager. A gigabit (which we got rid of up to $ 100 / month) and a non-tariffable world (with a 1 Mbit shaper) were prescribed in the contract. However, $ 200 + VAT (normal DCs indicate the amount of VAT and in national currency, but GT is not interesting).
At the very least, everything worked for 3 months, until once the server disappeared from the network. It turned out that GT changed the policy and now it was necessary to pay the bill before the 1st, otherwise the server would be turned off without warning. By mail account to the mailbox reached the second. The server was cut down first.
It turned out that at that moment the server shutdown badly damaged many operations (it was just processing several hundred gigabytes of files and then copying them to other servers). They spat, they decided to disconnect already with the ends (at least the bills for 50-60 bass higher than usual for the phone were strained, not to mention the time), we wrote a letter, we were told to pay the debt so that there was no minus in the account. In fact, they paid for the unused month and on the 3rd, they already took the server.
The next month came the bill. A month later he came to a 2-fold greater bill. Considering how everything works there, I was not very surprised that someone just did not understand that we had taken the server a long time ago and threw bills into the trash.
After 3 months, a nervous girl from the X-Point company (collectors) called. I started to ride my ears, that I was an unscrupulous entrepreneur, my attempts to explain that we could only pick up the server after paying off any possible debts, which turned us off for non-payment, immediately paid for everything and took the server, were ignored. I hung up, after 10 minutes the girl called back again, in a more calm tone, found out the reason for the default, started to insist that I was a debtor and therefore I had to write letters and call GT and find out everything. In 2 words I told how the average call to GT happens, said that if she wants to understand the situation, she should know everything through her channels, firstly, she will be answered faster, secondly I’m not going to waste my time because that someone miscalculated somewhere. At this, we said goodbye to the girl and I did not hear about her again, and the bills kept coming, but the amount in them stopped growing. It was summer 2008 ...
In February 2009 they called me again. At this time, extremely politely and correctly asked about the essence of the problem. I was a little surprised at how the caller behaves, especially in contrast with the nervous girl. So the crisis and everyone who does not know how to behave went to smoke mushrooms, on the contrary, the office raised the bar due to the strong growth of the collection market lately (and competition, of course). But in any case, the person not only promised to find out everything, but also found out after 3 weeks.
It turned out that in March last year, we were still prescribed to pay (but not $ 400 as it came in the last bills, but 100 ... even at the current rate already 60). the extra 1500 UAH ($ 300 before the crisis and 180 now) is still a mistake.
How did it happen that they gave me the server if there was a debt, he explained with some snag in the contract, according to which the server, although it is disconnected, but you have to pay for it anyway a month in advance. Here is such an interesting contract =) Tomorrow at work I will re-read it again, but there seems to be nothing like that there (I am inclined to read contracts before signing). I said to the person from x-point that I wouldn’t pay anyway, because I had to pay for everything before I took the server. He said that he understood my position, he will find out further. Let's see what else it turns out in the bowels of the GT. It would be funny if, for $ 60, they would be sued. I’m even ready to overpay if I lose to look at it.
GT is generally a very interesting company. Having prices on the Internet for jur. individuals (as I understand it - the main source of their income) are 2-3 times higher than average ones and worse than the sovok service (scoop + regular cash for money), these handsome men manage to serve quite a lot of clients. It is unlikely that the kickbacks, rather smear the right people to get an exclusive entrance to the building. I have no other explanation why they are still on the market. In any case, I do not advise you to get involved in order not to get a lot of headaches and a decent emptying of the wallet. Now they are under the wing of Beeline, but as far as I understood, judging by the reviews, the situation has not changed.
1.5 years ago we decided to host a server for one project. They had the parities we needed and the placement there seemed like a good idea. Bottom line: more than $ 1000 gone nowhere, a lot of time spent communicating with managers and collection calls due to mistaken billing a year later, after the end of cooperation. A ray of hatred towards this office, the full story of how interaction took place (it is difficult to call it cooperation) with them and what came out of it under the cut:
The server has become no problem. I had to wait a week before installation, but overall not bad. Before signing the contract with the manager, we clarified 2 important points for us:
- gigabit port for the server (100Mbps was obviously not enough)
- shutdown of world traffic for the server (it was necessary to leave only the parity providers and those who worked through the ua-ix traffic exchange point). so that no excess of traffic does not affect the monthly fee (in fact, they should not be at all).
')
The manager called those. specialist, clarified, there is no problems with the provision of such services. Those. the specialist asked me if we were going to plug the channel into the regiment, I said no, 200-300 Mbit will be busy, the server will not pull out anymore. They said that without problems. The manager confirmed that everything would be done, the documents were signed and the server was soon installed.
We immediately closed the access to the server from the "world" and started the server to work. The first mistake was not to prescribe in the contract these services and not to clarify in this contract that extra. money is not taken for them (the manager promised that they would do everything for free).
A week later, the server began to get lost ping. Found that the server ran into 100Mbps. It turned out that the server was not transferred to gigabit. We call, find out what's the matter ...
Separately, I want to talk about calls to GT. If you call to support, then everything is fine. But they do not solve any issues, except for restarting the server, taking out / bringing in the equipment and providing ip-kvm. All other questions need to be clarified with the manager. Call the manager through the general incoming number 490-00-00. The average call looks like this:
- Hello, you are greeted by Golden Telecom. Stay on the line. 3 minutes MUSIC, then it says that all managers are busy and please stay on the line. After 5-10 minutes, usually the handset rushes and an attempt is made to call later.
- since the 3rd on average it is possible to break through to the operator. Clarifies the question, somewhere forward. a minute of music, on the other end they take the phone, listen, they say that they should not be addressed to them, they will forward somewhere else or again at the reception.
- after 10 minutes of redirects, it is usually possible to reach the necessary manager.
This is not always the case, but in most cases. It takes an average of half an hour to make one call (from the first dialing to the end of the call), of which you have 20 minutes to hang on the line. There is a “personal manager” service, but it comes bundled with tariffs which may be several times higher than average ones for this same service. In any case, we did not offer this.
Wonderful manager reports that in order to activate gigabit, you need to write a statement. Astonishment as to why not do it right away and why not warned is ignored, okay, a statement like that statement. I wrote it and personally delivered it to the central office, handing it over to the manager. Type taken into development.
After 2 weeks there is still no gigabit. A couple of hours of telephone conversations and it turns out that my manager is on vacation, and the application is lost.
It’s easier to spit than argue, they wrote another one, delivered it again, transferred it to another manager, who said that he would personally check it so as not to get lost this time.
Another 2 weeks, again nothing. Calling our manager, has already returned from vacation. The application was not lost this time, but for some reason it was rejected. Why, found out another week. As a result, they sent the answer:
"The cost of a gigabit connection is $ 200 per month, if you want, come, re-sign the contract, we will connect".
(not a quote, I write from memory, the text of the letter has not been preserved)
The server fee was $ 100 per month, by the way. Again calls, redirects, expectations, finally contacted the manager, told in a few words how this is called, but, as expected, nothing has changed. Forces to figure out something, something was already gone, and so everything became clear, we decided to think about how to reduce the load on the server, where to transfer the channel-clogging connections, etc.
Here comes the account for the server for the last month. (second in a row). $ 400 with a penny. With a subscription of $ 100 a bit too much, we call, we find out, we wait, we still call, nothing really is solved. The manager promises to find out, meanwhile, the last day to pay the bill is coming (10th number, in my opinion). We decide while to pay, then find out what and how.
Somewhere around the 15th, we were informed that more than $ 300 in excess of the subscription was accrued for exceeding global traffic. Again calls, correspondence with support and managers revealed the following:
- the global traffic for the server was not disabled.
- some kind of ddos ​​attack or something else went and despite the fact that everything was closed on the server itself, on one connection attempt (which the server ignored, but they were going through the gateway), the above amount came up. Moreover, this attack continues to the current moment (the 25th number). The world was not disconnected to us, the application was rejected (it was transmitted along with the application for gigabit) due to the fact that the company does not provide such services, it’s not interesting for them.
They wrote a letter about shutting down the server, they were lucky, they processed it by the end of the month (they didn’t have to pay for the next one) and they billed $ 800 for traffic. After staring, explaining what to do and thinking, they decided to pay the bill because the server was a little more expensive and I didn’t want to take out the brain.
We paid the bill, took the server and put it in another middle-sized DC (the others did not have the parities we needed).
There, the parities turned out to be only according to the manager (there was only half), and the story of world traffic also repeated. Fortunately, we thought of just chopping off the server when it went to minus. All the same, the desire to work with these guys was discouraged, besides, in their tight area, as opposed to GT, there was a shed (with usual wall conditions, hangs everywhere with laces and switches hanging on them, packs of desktop sistemnik on the floor, etc.).
Parity was not enough, and then an interesting thing happened: GT introduced unlimited tariffs. The second time we decided on a desperate stupidity and set up a server there again, signing a contract for another name and servicing with another manager. A gigabit (which we got rid of up to $ 100 / month) and a non-tariffable world (with a 1 Mbit shaper) were prescribed in the contract. However, $ 200 + VAT (normal DCs indicate the amount of VAT and in national currency, but GT is not interesting).
At the very least, everything worked for 3 months, until once the server disappeared from the network. It turned out that GT changed the policy and now it was necessary to pay the bill before the 1st, otherwise the server would be turned off without warning. By mail account to the mailbox reached the second. The server was cut down first.
It turned out that at that moment the server shutdown badly damaged many operations (it was just processing several hundred gigabytes of files and then copying them to other servers). They spat, they decided to disconnect already with the ends (at least the bills for 50-60 bass higher than usual for the phone were strained, not to mention the time), we wrote a letter, we were told to pay the debt so that there was no minus in the account. In fact, they paid for the unused month and on the 3rd, they already took the server.
The next month came the bill. A month later he came to a 2-fold greater bill. Considering how everything works there, I was not very surprised that someone just did not understand that we had taken the server a long time ago and threw bills into the trash.
After 3 months, a nervous girl from the X-Point company (collectors) called. I started to ride my ears, that I was an unscrupulous entrepreneur, my attempts to explain that we could only pick up the server after paying off any possible debts, which turned us off for non-payment, immediately paid for everything and took the server, were ignored. I hung up, after 10 minutes the girl called back again, in a more calm tone, found out the reason for the default, started to insist that I was a debtor and therefore I had to write letters and call GT and find out everything. In 2 words I told how the average call to GT happens, said that if she wants to understand the situation, she should know everything through her channels, firstly, she will be answered faster, secondly I’m not going to waste my time because that someone miscalculated somewhere. At this, we said goodbye to the girl and I did not hear about her again, and the bills kept coming, but the amount in them stopped growing. It was summer 2008 ...
In February 2009 they called me again. At this time, extremely politely and correctly asked about the essence of the problem. I was a little surprised at how the caller behaves, especially in contrast with the nervous girl. So the crisis and everyone who does not know how to behave went to smoke mushrooms, on the contrary, the office raised the bar due to the strong growth of the collection market lately (and competition, of course). But in any case, the person not only promised to find out everything, but also found out after 3 weeks.
It turned out that in March last year, we were still prescribed to pay (but not $ 400 as it came in the last bills, but 100 ... even at the current rate already 60). the extra 1500 UAH ($ 300 before the crisis and 180 now) is still a mistake.
How did it happen that they gave me the server if there was a debt, he explained with some snag in the contract, according to which the server, although it is disconnected, but you have to pay for it anyway a month in advance. Here is such an interesting contract =) Tomorrow at work I will re-read it again, but there seems to be nothing like that there (I am inclined to read contracts before signing). I said to the person from x-point that I wouldn’t pay anyway, because I had to pay for everything before I took the server. He said that he understood my position, he will find out further. Let's see what else it turns out in the bowels of the GT. It would be funny if, for $ 60, they would be sued. I’m even ready to overpay if I lose to look at it.
GT is generally a very interesting company. Having prices on the Internet for jur. individuals (as I understand it - the main source of their income) are 2-3 times higher than average ones and worse than the sovok service (scoop + regular cash for money), these handsome men manage to serve quite a lot of clients. It is unlikely that the kickbacks, rather smear the right people to get an exclusive entrance to the building. I have no other explanation why they are still on the market. In any case, I do not advise you to get involved in order not to get a lot of headaches and a decent emptying of the wallet. Now they are under the wing of Beeline, but as far as I understood, judging by the reviews, the situation has not changed.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/56301/
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