Microworld is a bad, bad host

I got an e-mail today saying someone had tried to go to the RBC website, and had gotten this message:

URGENT CONTACT REQUIRED

If you are the owner of the web site: rbctoday.com
Please fill out the form below and continue to the next page.

At first I thought that someone had hijacked the site, so I logged into the FTP server, and sure enough the site was gone.  We have been using Microworld’s free web host service for quite a few years now, and have appreciated having it.  They’ve been terrible with regards to any kind of support, but for a price of $0.00, I didn’t expect much.  So, I filled out the little contact form and was taken to the a Microworld page offering to give me the site back for a mere $99/year: “so sorry… we can’t offer free hosting anymore. We didn’t tell you in advance because we’re big jerks, and we think that you’ll sign up with us because we’re not going to let you download the latest version of your site to install on someone else’s server if you don’t.”  (okay, I added that second sentence).  Now, fortunately, I have the whole site (with most of the recent changes) on my computer, of course.  And, it’s no big deal because my wonderful web host (1and1.com – see banner in sidebar to sign up!) is only $26/year and they’re even having a sale right now.

Anyway, the whole point of me writing this is to let anyone know who happens to find this post to avoid Microworld.com.  They aren’t even remotely the cheapest host and I’m pretty sure their customer service is terrible.