If you are a blogger, podcaster, music, or other user of a media source that requires high-speed, I highly recommend that look the other way if deciding whether or not to use Cincopa.com’s Content Delivery Network (CDN). For those of you that are just getting into any of these means of publishing content, there are other solutions over the one offered by well, quite frankly, the crooked company called Cincopa. Let’s look at the reasons, then point out some better resources.
I started using Cincopa’s media agent over a year ago. I chose it because I started an increasingly popular social bookmarking site, Blog Interact. The site is built around WordPress, but has a lot of customization as well. With the social aspect of the site, I wanted all users to have the opportunity to create albums including photos, videos, and even music. I found Cincopa’s WordPress plug-in and gave it a try. In the beginning, all was well. The interface was pretty straight-forward, so I decided to buy the one year package, paid up-front.
As time went by and I needed customer support, I would say that the response was “fair”. Support tickets are the only way of communicating, which I sort of felt was slight for paid plans. None-the-less, I continued on. Problems increased and so too did the “support center”. The majority of my queries were completely misunderstood (though clearly stated), while the remainder were simply ignored.
By this point, I had so much invested in their services, I felt that my hands were slightly tied. I had almost 1,000 site users, of which maybe 1/3 had content of some sort on my site. I felt responsible. I was responsible. Cincopa was responsible.
Eventually customer service tickets got worse and worse and just before my renewal, I asked for a cancellation of service. This went completely unanswered. I backed-up all media on my own servers, but the delivery source wasn’t available in the same form. It was there, just slightly unavailable. Asking all of the podcasters, “here is your content…upload it elsewhere, give me the source, and I will place it back on the site.” Yeah, right. I know I would laugh in your face. All the videos (some as paid advertising / branded videos)…all down.
The WordPress plug-in was no longer supported and galleries simply did not resolve on updated core WordPress versions. It wasn’t the theme. I have about 25 WordPress sites, using numerous different themes. All the same problems. You could not see drop-down links, button terminology, and in many cases it was far worse than this. As you can imagine, yes, these support tickets went completely unanswered. From this point on….auto-responders only!
This past March 18th, Cincopa not only didn’t terminate my account, but they applied the recurring billing for one full year at $80. This was my own fault. I should have had the foresight to cancel the recurring billing. (This is why I don’t care for recurring billing one year out…you tend to forget from 365 days prior!)
I contacted PayPal and stopped recurring billing. Bare in mind, I did not ask PayPal for a refund. I already know these rules. Services aren’t covered under buyer protection, so I never even asked. I did submit yet another support ticket for a refund. About this time I was certain that I had received a real response. The company owner sent me an email!!! Guess what? Auto-responder – asking me why I discontinued service and what could be done to make Cincopa better. I was sure that this would be a “no-reply” mail, but my response actually went through. I asked that my money be refunded (at this point the money had been taken about five days prior with all galleries stopped…paid in full for one year). I got a response….another auto-responder…from the owner!
Up until the point of writing this blog service review, I have submitted about 20 or so support tickets. No response from any of them except auto-responders.
Alternatives:
While there are many, here are a few to look into if you are in need of a real Content Delivery Network.
Stay away from Cincopa if you want a successful site or business.
Additional side-note: I have zero affiliation, ties, commissions, etc. with the above companies. Only researched and asked around.
I tried one of this company’s WordPress plugins. It didn’t work. I asked the owner to email me instructions on how to get it to work. Several times he emailed me marketing literature, rather than actual instructions. After several weeks I asked for a refund because I couldn’t get his product to work and he wouldn’t provide instructions. He refused a refund. A year later, PayPal made an automatic payment to the company for another year of service (service I never received or used). I had forgotten the previous year that I had set up PayPal for an auto payment annually. When I contacted Cincopa’s owner and asked for a refund of this second payment for service I never received, again, he flat out refused. This guy is scum. He is in Israel, so you can’t touch him. STAY AWAY. He’s an unethical scum bag that will screw you.
The company and its owner are unethical scammers. When I kept asking for information on how to get the plugin I paid for to work, the owner just kept sending me marketing material, selling his product… telling me what he “claimed” it would do, rather than how to actually get it to do what he claimed. After 2 – 3 weeks going back and forth, I asked for a refund. He refused. I forgot to cancel my Paypal, auto-debit to cincopa and a year later Paypal paid cincopa again. I emailed the owner explaining the mistake and asking that he refund this second payment. He refused. He is in israel (says it all), so isn’t easily touched by US law. His justification was that “he gives money to charity.” Stay away from this dirtbag.
I also have had a terrible experience with this company. Absolutely no customer service whatsoever, and complete lack of functionality. Thanks for posting alternatives.
KeyCDN is also a very interesting alternative. There’s no monthly fee and an no commitment needed. The pricing is pay-as-you-go. I use them for my blog and I’m very happy with it. I also like their real-time stats in the dashboard.
Thanks for the info. It’s always better to use trustful companies, for sure. Personally i’d recommend to use Edgecast cdn. It’s one of the leaders of the industry. WordPress and Twitter use them also. But any mid-sized webmaster also can benefit of their services. Though it’s more suitable for them to buy Edgecast’s services from their resellers. There is a number of them. Like Jodihost, for example. Resellers don’t require long-term contracts and offer affordable prices. And any webmaster can be sure that his website performs at it’s best.
Why didn’t you mention the most obvious Vimeo or Sprout?
I tried them too, good product, liked how I can use them for WP Ebay and showed off my pictures well. The problem I had…I have more than one site constantly going over their pricing requirements and wanted more and more money. I had to stop than and there bofore i added more pics on thier servers. If you don’t pay than all your pictures are not shown. I didn’t like that. My customers should see my pics, all the work I uploaded without relying on one company to place my pictures. You know the saying, “never place all your eggs in one basket” and what if they go out of business? You have to do that work all over again. Not for me. too pricy for that risk.