The development and management of the site was outsourced to an external developer, who came with good credentials, and was not cheap. They selected an unsuitable hosting solution and implemented the site on it. We are no longer working with them, and moving the site.
I hope you didn't pay with bitcoinsZing!
To be fair, it's possible the site was under attack. Haters abound.
But always separate content creators from hosting providers. Webmonkeys don't know jack about the other six layers.