Advanced Internet Technologies

I have been awaiting this day for quite some time with eager anticipation. Today marks exactly six months since I left employment at what I consider to be the worst web hosting company in the world. It marks the end of my joke of a contract, which had a number of stipulations extending six months after the end of my employment. Now that it is no longer in effect, I am completely out from under AIT’s thumb and free to speak out about them as I have wanted to for so long.

AIT stands for Advanced Internet Technologies, Inc., and is a web hosting company based in Fayetteville, NC. I had the misfortune of working there for approximately nine months in 2005. I consider it ironic now that I was thrilled at the prospect of working there when I started. Even in retrospect, I acknowledge that a lousy employment opportunity was better than none at all, and that my experience with them allowed me to springboard to a much better job. Still, the more I think it over, the more I feel sickened at AIT’s business practices.

The majority of my time at AIT I spent as a web developer, creating and updating websites for customers. As someone who loves web design, I truly enjoyed the technical aspects of the job. Management, however, was another matter altogether. I answered to no less than five bosses, a nightmare not unlike the movie Office Space. Thankfully, my immediate supervisor, who managed most of my day-to-day activities, was a great guy who I still miss working with.

The rest, unfortunately, I found to be incompetent, overbearing, and reckless. Few, in my opinion, had enough technical savvy to speak intelligently about web design, making me wonder why they were allowed to head up my department. My father always said that, “To be in management, you have to know nothing.” They took it upon themselves to boss us around, set unreasonable timetables, and generally make our lives a living hell. Many of us were chastised for not working late every night, despite the fact that we didn’t earn overtime.

This is to say nothing of the fact that I was underpaid. I was hired at a grossly insufficient salary, never receiving bonuses or raises during my tenure. In fact, I earned less than half of normal web developer salaries according to every source I’ve come across, even on the state- and metro-specific level. Their “benefits” (I use the term loosely) didn’t do anything to make up for this, either. On the contrary, I paid more than 30% of my pay every month for family healthcare through AIT’s group coverage, which is probably more than if I had gotten it independently. While I was working there, I didn’t even earn enough for my family and I to live on our own.

Still, I put up with it. I even swallowed my morals when I became AIT’s search engine optimization specialist. Granted, this was a position for which I volunteered. I knew nothing about the practice and jumped at the chance to learn something new. Unfortunately, I was in for hell when I realized that they expected immediate results and were willing to use any means necessary to obtain them. Can anyone say black hat?

In fact, it was my displeasure to head up AIT’s blog spamming initiative. Unfortunately, many of the sites that resulted from this practice are still polluting the blogosphere (e.g. Internet Shopping, Business on the Internet, and Make’n Money, just to name a few). Hopefully the blogging community at large can forgive me for playing my part in the whole mess. My only defense is that I was doing my job and had no choice but to go along with it.

Given my experiences on the inside, it comes as no surprise to me that AIT has a bad name among its customers. One quick search on the web revealed many outspoken AIT customer testimonials, complaints about AIT’s services, negative AIT customer reviews, and countless horror stories of AIT’s business conduct. Customers frequently complain about overpricing, poor customer support, and rampant billing errors. Many cite AIT as harrassing their customers with lawsuits and threats of credit agency reporting in the event that their obfuscated cancellation procedures aren’t followed to the letter. To hear some of them, one can’t help but imagine a tick holding on tenaciously as it drains the life out of you.

Perhaps the most compelling evidence, however, is the AIT Sucks (link removed; site is no longer in operation) website. This is a website created by one of AIT’s former resellers and dedicated to showing people the truth of AIT’s business practices. Just imagine how bad you have to be to make people preach against you this zealously.

I, for one, look forward to the day that I hear AIT has gone out of business. I think it’s inevitable, given the way I’ve seen them treat their employees and their customers. I look back on my time there as a bad experience that is best forgotten. If you’re involved with AIT to any extent, be it as an employee, customer, or business partner, my advice is to sever ties with them. Otherwise, you may end up feeling as violated as I do for ever having known them.

I just read a very creative lyrical poem about AIT. Consider that someone actually took the time and effort to compose this and you’ll have an inkling of how much loathing AIT engenders in its employees and customers.

Well, the AIT Sucks website has apparently been taken down. I contacted the webmaster and he has his own good reasons. I can’t help but be a little disappointed, though, since I liked to drop in every few weeks to hear the news on AIT’s steady decline. Then again, it had been pretty quiet for the past few months anyway. Whatever the case, I can only hope that it comes back into operation to fight the good fight in the future. Either that or, preferably, that the good fight never needs to be fought again. Of course, I know enough about AIT to doubt that will ever be the case.

Ah, there’s just no escaping AIT in the press these days. In predictable form, they’ve recently released a whole slew of “new features,” like pay-by-phone, IP camera hosting, free domain name registration, and a revamped gaming center, that seem too good to be true.

My guess is that they are. I imagine business must be critically low for them to fire up the propaganda engine as much as they have been. As always, I advise not doing business with them at all. If you choose to, don’t be fooled by the sensationalism. They have a big focus on “upselling,” which is a nice way of saying “milking them for all they’re worth.”

I wonder what they’ll do next when the same old tactics still aren’t working. My guess is they’ll change the company name to ditch all of their bad PR.

[…] Goodbye to Freedom 2 Operate | Home | Family | Web Design | Gaming | Entertainment | Thoughts | Boredom | | Web Development | Search Engine Optimization | Website Promotion | October 17, 2006I’ve had my fair share of trouble with web hosts in the past. Having worked for a bad web hosting company, I know how shady and negligent they can be on the back end. The poor consumer is often left with little to do but file a support ticket and hope someone pays attention to it. […]

Attention: If you believe you have received comments or emails from me concerning AIT, please read this post.

These guys called me up today, said they found my resume on hotjobs. I did a search in the big G for [”advanced internet technologies” employment] and you were the first to pop up. Small world, eh?

I got called by AIT for a phone interview and ran across your site while doing my due diligence. If you’d like to open my eyes any further, please email me back. Thanks.

I’m glad you found my post useful, Brandon and John. No need for an email; the last paragraph of the main post says it all. I advise not doing business with them to any extent, be it as an employee, customer, or business partner. Except as a springboard to a better job, I found my time there to be completely without merit.