GearHost Inc.

Our policy per our terms of service is payment is only made by credit card. We made an exception to accept checks from this customer on a single one time event, not continually. As stated in our terms of service we charge your credit card for services used. We have full authorization to do this and...

make you aware of the charges within your control panel. Customer did not follow the proper cancellation procedures which are very simple. Our number is clearly posted as our hours. Again it's ###-###-####. Here is the transcript of the complaint, all times are in MDT/MST:[redacted] Jan 05 02:36 pm - Customer requested cancellation[redacted] Jan 05 02:48 pm -  Request awknowledged, informed cusotmer to authorize deletion of content, files, etc.[redacted] Jan 05 03:45 pm - Reply recieved with no data[redacted] Jan 05 03:50 pm - Asked customer if they wish to still cancel, no reply[redacted] Feb 05 01:02 am - Asked cusotmer again if they wish to still cancel[redacted] Feb 05 02:57 pm - Replied and authorized[redacted] Feb 06 07:30 pm - Cancellation request fully recieved and verifiedRefunded March paymentRefunded Apirl paymentSince cancellation was not fully recieved until Feb 06 07:30 pm which is after Feb 01 there is no refund for Feb.

Initial Business Response /* (1000, 9, 2015/11/05) */
As Mr. [redacted] eluded to there was a migration that was start on the account. We gave notification of the migration however before it could be completed the previous account was removed. We cannot see if this was done by GearHost or the...

customer but regardless we were not able to restore the data. GearHost has no responsibility for customer data per our terms and conditions that Mr. [redacted] agreed to and can be found at https://www.gearhost.com/legal/terms. We do however keep backups for customers as an added bonus of our services but this is not public information nor should be relied on, it is simply something we do internally for recovery purposes. We maintain backups for a rolling 5 days however this issue went over a weekend then was not caught in time to resolve using our backups even though we provide the ability for our customers to backup their own data quickly and easily Mr. [redacted] never used this feature. As such his site was lost for his failure to keep a backup. While GearHost is not liable in any way we do understand that trust is placed with our company to provide hosting that is reliable, fast, secure and always-on which we did for Mr. [redacted] for many years and continue to do so and as such are willing to provide Mr. [redacted] free hosting for the next 2 years free of charge in an effort to keep excellent customer service.
Initial Consumer Rebuttal /* (3000, 11, 2015/11/12) */
(The consumer indicated he/she DID NOT accept the response from the business.)
As I mentioned in my initial complaint, Gearhost migrated my website from one server to another and lost my website. They absolve themselves of any responsibility to re-create the website saying that it is written in the contract that I should keep a backup. They also mention in their response
"there was a migration that was started on the account. We gave notification of the migration however before it could be completed the previous account was removed. We cannot see if this was done by GearHost or the customer (they know very well that I was not in error as they go on to say that I never backed up information on my account - that's because I didn't know how to do it - then why would I go into my account during the migration process and erase it?)
They go on to say that they absolve themselves of any responsibility - even thought they clearly lost the website information during the migration or shortly thereafter. They go on to say:
"but regardless we were not able to restore the data. GearHost has no responsibility for customer data per our terms and conditions that Mr. [redacted] agreed to and can be found at https://www.gearhost.com/legal/terms."
This might be technically so according to their lengthy and wordy legalize agoreement - although significantly unfair to the usual customer as we generally are not sure about backups and how to do it, when we click the "agree" button to a long, and wordy agreement. Even so, I do not think that this wordy agreement applies to our (Gearhost and me) verbal agreement that the responsibility for migration would be taken by Gearhost and that I would be under their protection during the migration process. I was assured an up and running website! Gearhost goes on to say:
"We maintain backups for a rolling 5 days however this issue went over a weekend then was not caught in time to resolve using our backups even though we provide the ability for our customers to backup their own data quickly and easily Mr. zzzz never used this feature. As such his site was lost for his failure to keep a backup."
I continue to contend that the lost website was their fault and they should take some responsibility for a new construction of that website which I valued at about $2000. The value is most probably more as it took a professional website designer and programmer two years to accomplish! I estimate that the cost of a new website of that quality would cost $4000 today. Instead, Gearhost offered two years of free website hosting which is valued at about $240. I initially said I would be happy with $2000 (half of the cost of the website) - now even $1000 would be welcome.
I caution anyone considering a relationship with this hosting company to be careful about reading the contract in great detail and knowing that if you run into a significant problem, ready and open communication and clear support is lacking - and there is a real question about safety and reliability. Please compare with all competitors carefully and know that I find that the customer support from this company quite lacking and the rates significantly higher than I found elsewhere. ss
Final Business Response /* (4000, 17, 2015/12/03) */
Mr [redacted] as explained we can neither confirm nor deny that the migration caused your website to be deleted as we see login information that seems to have deleted your site not from GearHost IP ranges. Regardless you are responsible for making sure you keep backups of your website. While we understand this is not convenient we have tried to offer a generous solution to this issue but it has been denied and we apologize for your frustration. We are committed to making our thousands of customers happy and you are no exception however it seems we cannot meet a middle ground. We wish you the best and hope that perhaps we can do business in the future when you need reliable, performance based, cloud hosting for .NET and PHP developers. Thank you.
Final Consumer Response /* (4200, 19, 2015/12/04) */
(The consumer indicated he/she DID NOT accept the response from the business.)
I would like to stop this back-and-forth complaint and denial. Please show to the public that I am a disappointed user of Gearhost because I lost my website after they migrated its data from one server to another. I think that it is important for the public to know about my complaint and the denial of responsibility by Gearhost. Thank you.