LCN Review 2024 – Does It Meet Our Standards?

I was a customer of LCN for many years. At one stage they hosted four of my websites. The service was reliable, the cost reasonable and the technical support really good. Staff were helpful, knowledgeable and pleasant; all communication from everyone in the company was first class. If reviewing them a couple of years ago I would have given them 10/10. But…oh dear…my experience of them now is that they are utterly woeful. I wouldn’t even give them 1/10. This seems to coincide with them being taken over by another company- but that is speculation, because I wasn’t told this. I have had no communication from the new owners to say that LCN was now part of their group. My most recent experience is when a long-standing customer of mine phoned and told me an email they had sent me had bounced back. Long story short- my mailboxes had reached capacity. I was not aware. I had no communication from LCN (or Namesco, or whoever they are now) to warn me. I have no idea how many other emails never got to me- not good when you rely on email as a freelancer for work. I immediately contacted LCN technical support on the phone- getting through eventually. I would be best off upgrading my hosting package, they told me, because I was on an old package. News to me. It would be more cost effective than buying more email storage. Foolishly (based on previous positive experience of LCN) I believed them and paid nearly £200 for a new package for two years. I was assured that this would work within a few hours and that the “missing” emails might even still get through. I felt reassured. However, emails I was later expecting still did not arrive- even a few days later. I sent myself emails from other accounts- they bounced back. I phoned again. I also raised a formal complaint. I was told that, yes, I had acted promptly but the problem was their “system failure”. They apologised and offered me two months extension on my hosting. I declined. I cannot afford to put my work in the hands of a company who twice seriously let me down. Reliability and effective communication are crucial with a hosting company- LCN failed. If a customer of mine had not had the decency to contact me I still might be in the dark. I asked for a substantial portion of my nearly £200 to be refunded as I would be ending my contract with them. No reply. Their complaints policy to escalate is to contact the Customer Support Manager- but no contact details are given. When complaints receive a reply, it is from a “no reply” address of theirs. I am moving my sites to another host- and having to write-off that payment of nearly £200. If you are thinking of using LCN, let my experience be a lesson- and avoid them. There are plenty of other good hosts out there. In the meantime, I am still waiting for the Customer Support Manager to acknowledge my email. I shall not be holding my breath…. especially as it is now 5 days since I emailed and their policy is to acknowledge within 2 days. Appalling. And any reply they make to this review needs to be treated with a huge amount of scepticism; honesty is not a virtue I have seen from them recently.

Simon Wheeler, Great Britain
March 26, 2022

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LCN seem to have been bought out by another company. I had years of nothing negative to say about them...they were excellent. Recently they have been awful. Communications poor, tech support poor...I am moving my websites to another host.

Simon Wheeler, Great Britain
March 14, 2022

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I asked this company to turn off auto billing which they assured me had been done. I didn't know how to do it myself at the time.They lied. Now they steal £99 from my bank account and refuse to refund it. Why do companies like this feel it ok to rip customers off. I'll never use them again

Colin Taylor, Philippines
February 14, 2022

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Really unimpressed by this company's approach to its customers these days, such as fining them £17 if their email account goes over its limit - what a way to treat customers! They are no longer run by the nice crowd in Stevenage who cared for their customers and now are just money driven and uninterested in pleasing people. I don't recommend this company any more.

Brian, Great Britain
November 26, 2021

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