HostGator.com, L.L.C.

Hello,We are sorry that Mr. [redacted] has experienced some difficulties with the affiliate program.  Unfortunately the issue with the [redacted] documents are not something that Hostgator has a way to resolve for Mr. [redacted].  However we were able to confirm that the issue was part of the checks and balances of the in house affiliate portal and would not hold up future payments from Hostgator since those payments are now issued by [redacted] directly through the new affiliate portal.With the new affiliate system portal there were a small group of affiliates that the payments were not confirmed through [redacted] and this did cause a short delay for those affiliates.  However the payment delays that Mr. [redacted] experienced were prior to that system being in place for the affiliate earnings in question.  We also see that the most recent payment was made on July 12th through the affiliate portal and from the recent response we were glad to hear Mr. [redacted] confirm that payment has been received.We do understand Mr. [redacted]'s concerns with communication with the affiliate team however did not see any concerns that have not been addressed at this time.  Reviewing the tickets we did see that there were duplicate requests which had been responded to in one ticket rather than addressing the same information in more than one ticket.  We would request that Mr. [redacted] only open one ticket rather than requesting updates in multiple tickets.  A ticket will remain open until it has been addressed unless there is already a current open ticket for the same concern or request. In the case of requests such as update requests the ticket will remain open in queue until there is an update available to provide.Our live chat portal connects our hosting clients to our hosting support team.  This team does not have access to the affiliate system or those accounts.  If Mr. [redacted] was using this avenue to try to reach our affiliate team, they would not be able to assist with any affiliate issues or concerns and would only be able to refer Mr. [redacted] to the affiliate team through the ticket system.At this time the concerns with Mr. [redacted]'s affiliate payments has been addressed and we have not received any follow up communications from Mr. [redacted] with any additional concerns.  If any should arise that we can assist with we ask that Mr. [redacted] please respond back to the recent email communication or contacts our management team at [email protected] and we will be happy to continue our conversation.

Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and have determined that this proposed action would not resolve my complaint.  
There is no refund on my credit card for the additional amount indicated and no pending transaction. Additionally the amount refunded is less than I am owed as stated in my original complaint.
Regards,Michelle P[redacted]

Good Afternoon,Thank you for bringing this situation to our attention via the Revdex.com.  I appreciate the opportunity to review the matter, and apologize for the frustration you’ve been through, however after reviewing your extremely combative call with our staff, I wanted to take a little closer...

look into what was really going on which I have and will now detail here.First and foremost to be clear, I realize that you were billed three times for the domain registration, which is extremely unfortunate given the system had provided you an error, prompting the additional attempts.  I’ll absolutely be following up on this through the ticket you have open already with my Customer Service Manager, [redacted] though I believe he’s been in contact with our development team already at this point.Moving to my own concerns, it actually took me a minute to locate your current billing email address with us, as the email you provided was associated with a past due account, owing more then $600 because you seem to have never cancelled that prior account.  Though it’s no problem to take care of this(which I have, the account is cancelled as of this time) and just waive the invoices, please also understand that by not canceling the account, we’ve held your data for quite some time at a loss to our company.  That said, I’m not an unreasonable person and wouldn’t expect you to clear this debt at this point given you currently have an active account signed up as of Sept of this year which is in good standing, but at the same point I’d like to ask that you treat our staff with a little more respect should issues ever arise in the future.  I realize you’re frustrated and just wanted this resolved quickly as you were overcharged, but going back through the billing history you linked me to through the complaint I feel we’ve been pretty reasonable with you seeing how my customer service team handled the resolution this week.Finally in regards to the charges, I see that [redacted] spent some time with you over the phone earlier this week and refunded those charges, all in full via the ticket [redacted]  It seems he also provided you with the domain registration for the next year free of charge, as requested.  Going forward I’ll keep the ticket you communicated through for the refund assigned directly to myself.  If you have any additional concerns please feel free to respond directly there and I’ll be happy to work personally with you.Best Regards,[redacted]Director of Customer Service[redacted]

Good Afternoon,We certainly appreciate the chance to address these concerns and have since had time to investigate these reports for a better understanding of the situation. After review, we did find that a dedicated server was recommended and purchased by [redacted], however after that server was...

purchased, we only received a request to move one hosting package out of the active 11 on her account. Our transfer request form does allow a customer to request transfer of multiple packages at the same time, however we only received a request for 1 package.We did get in touch with [redacted] in December of 2014 and informed her of this information as well as again in February, at which points we also requested that she please reply back to us to confirm which packages she wanted migrated to the server. Unfortunately the delays in communication coming from the customer side has meant that we do not hear back but once every month or longer and I have not found that the list was ever sent. That said, at this time we see that the dedicated server has never been in use and it will be more cost effective in the long run to stay on her current packages, so I've attempted to call and e-mail [redacted] to offer a full refund or credit of the amount paid, totalling $1,314.00. Regrettably I have not heard back but I will be watching for her response to my e-mail on her preference in order to finalize the refund or credit.In regards to the domain name issues, after review we have found that domains renewal costs were not paid for "[redacted]" and "[redacted]", while "[redacted]" was paid for after the expiration had already occurred. Unfortunately we will be unable to assist with any legal action as these domains were released due to no or late payment, and also due to the fact that we were not contacted for assistance before the domains were released. The good news in addition to the full refund is that one of the three domains "[redacted]" was not picked up by any 3rd parties, so we offered to re-register this on March 17th, 2015. We have not heard back since then but to be safe, I've gone ahead and re-registered this in [redacted]'s name and have confirmed it is online once again.Finally in regards to the trouble with our new billing system, unfortunately I have not found that we've received any specific reports on what is not functioning in the panel but once we have more information, we'll be more than happy to help with any issues [redacted] is facing.I hope this fully addresses all of the concerns raised and I'll be keeping an eye out for any response back to my e-mail on how to proceed with the refund or credit.

Good Afternoon,We always appreciate a chance to address our customer's concerns and after review of the complaint and related calls, we can of course understand how it would be frustrating not to have been provided an ETA when staff is waiting on standby, so we'd like to offer our apologies for the...

frustrating experience there. Although we understand how helpful ETAs can be in some situations, from our perspective we do try to avoid providing ETAs as it is very difficult for us to look at our current queues, then make an accurate estimate on when the ticket might be reviewed. The reason behind this is that every ticket we receive is different and can require a large variety of time frames depending on the situation, so even current average response time is not always a great indicator since any one ticket can take much longer or shorter than the average. Additionally, in our experience we have found that when an ETA is provided, although the key is an "estimated" time frame, many customers see this as a promise and can get quite upset if the ETA is not met, feeling as though a promise has been broken. In the complaint we saw that our agent had provided the address "[redacted]" to [redacted] which unfortunately was not used. While we understand that feedback type addresses are not always well handled at some companies, here at HostGator we are responsive to every e-mail we receive to this address and happily prioritize urgent issues for our customers. We've since reached out to [redacted] to clarify this information and also to make sure he has a direct line of communication to our management if he ever happens to have any future urgent situations like this moving forward. If we can be of any further assistance with the original issue or the account in general, we ask that he please contacts us through the method provided or reach our management at [redacted] and we'll be more than happy to help.

Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and have determined that this proposed action would not resolve my complaint.  
Sent: Sunday, April 12, 2015 3:44 PM To: drteam Subject: Re: You have a New Message from Revdex.com Regarding Complaint #[redacted] Hi, My reply regarding the company's response is below. Please forward and record this as appropriate. Thank you. -- I appreciate the company's response. The information given regarding server spikes is not a shock to me, given that our client's sites were continually affected adversely throughout the month of March and we felt this downtime firsthand during the launch of one site and the continual hosting of several others. I appreciate the company keeping an eye on things since and am pleased that the issue has not occurred again since escalation of this issue. The company's response indicates that [redacted] was not the best outlet to use. Due to the lack of support, I was driven to take whatever outlet I could to resolve the issue. I feel strongly that, based on the lack of quality and infrequency of support responses, the company did not take this issue seriously until over 2 weeks of recurrence after the initial report. I also feel strongly that the company needs to hire and train additional support staff and be proactive about reported issues like this. This is something the company has alluded to themselves. That is, this is not the first time that I have received the standard "We are currently experiencing a high volume of customer requests" response from a support agent. This does not suffice as a valid excuse for losses accrued due to failures in a paid service. When staffing is a continual issue that directly affects client's paid service, remediation must take place, to say the least. I appreciate the 4 additional months of hosting that have . Unfortunately, however, this credit does not resolve the issue for my business in any way. My business has been negatively affected in the amount of $200 as a direct result of this issue and the lack of attention or resolution. A credit of four months does my business no benefit. I must therefore follow through with the stipulation for reimbursement of funds lost. Thank you, [redacted]Owner and President[redacted]
Regards,

Good Morning,At this time we have gone back and forth with Mr. [redacted] multiple times and still have received no clarification on any remaining issues with his account. At this time his request for a refund will continue to be denied until he is willing to fully disclose any unresolved technical issues with his account. If he would prefer to cancel his account to avoid further charges, this request may be submitted here : https://hostgator.com/cancel

Hello,We were sorry to hear about the concern Mr. [redacted] had in regards to his billing.In reviewing Mr. [redacted]'s tickets and account we did not find that we had received a request to cancel the hosting service in question as clarified in the Terms Of Service which can be reviewed at...

https://www.hostgator.com/tos and must be accepted before services are provided.  In addition on the order page when signing up for service the following statement is provided:Qualified packages include instant activation and 24 hour support. Introductory prices apply to the first term. Money-back guarantee applies to hosting and domain privacy. All plans and products automatically renew for the same term length at regular rates, which will be available in your control panel. Unless you request a change or cancellation, the payment method provided today will be used for renewals.Mr. [redacted] is a valued client and in reviewing the hosting package in question we found that the use of the package had dropped off recently.  To resolve this amicable we have provided Mr. [redacted] a credit to his account for the time that the hosting package was not being utilized as agreed by Mr. [redacted].At this time the Credit has been applied to Mr. [redacted]'s account and we have not received any follow up questions or concerns.  If any should arise we ask that Mr. [redacted] please respond to our recent e-mail communication or e-mail our management team at [email protected] and we will be happy to offer assistance.

Good Afternoon,
We'd like to begin by offering our apologies for the troubling start to
Mr. [redacted]'s account with us. We certainly always want to see our
customers getting off on the right foot with us so we were sorry to see that  was not the case here. In regards to the issues reported,...

shortly
after receiving this complaint I was able to reach Mr. [redacted] over the
phone at which point him and I were quickly able to resolve all issues
mentioned in the initial complaint, and I was also able to get a much
better understanding of Mr. [redacted]'s experiences thus far.
After review of his calls and e-mails, regrettably we did find that he
had not received the level of support and customer service we expect
from our agents and have now had a time to address these opportunities
for improvement directly with our employees. Mr. [redacted]'s feedback has
also related to the ease of getting started with our services in general
so I wanted to confirm we also have a plan previously in place (but not
launched quite yet) that will be updating our initial communication via
e-mail to include much more detailed information on how to seamlessly get
started on transitioning from one host to us.
Another aspect of the complaint related to the trouble with domain
transfers not completing successfully. To help compensate for the
troubling start I have provided Mr. [redacted]'s account with an extension on
his hosting package with us as well as an offer to to provide the next
two domain transfers free of charge to ensure that the process is now
going more smoothly. I've gone over this offer with Mr. [redacted] via phone
at which point I did receive a satisfactory response. Mr. [redacted] and I
also now have a direct line of communication which I am confident will
help prevent any further concerns from reaching this point.
I hope this fully addresses the initial complaint and look forward to
working with Mr. [redacted] again under better circumstances.

Revdex.com:   I just find that going back and forth for a month with hostgator providing paperwork and getting advised to give the wrong paperwork now they expect me to get a court order to take control of my brothers account is asking a bit much. I have already stated there is no court or [redacted]yer involved in my brothers will. I feel the documentation I have provided should be enough already to put my brothers account into my name.
I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and have determined that this proposed action would not resolve my complaint.  
[Provide details of why you are not satisfied with this resolution.]
Regards,
[redacted]

Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and have determined that this proposed action would not resolve my complaint.  
[Provide details of why you are not satisfied with this resolution.]
I asked for a refund of the hosting AND the domain transfer. I have yet to receive the domain transfer refund. 
Regards,

Good Afternoon,We've since had a chance to review these concerns and have contacted Ms. [redacted] directly to go over the situation. After review we were sorry to see that the three calls to our staff were not handled with the level of customer service we expect from our agents. Ms. [redacted] did end up...

working with two of our newest employees (one agent spoke with her on two separate calls) so it is clear we will need to spend additional time working directly with these individuals. We also found that unfortunately the cancellation ticket was responded to a number of times which unintentionally moved her place in queue backwards. This is not the intended functionality of our system and we have our developers working to correct this as quickly as possible. At this time we have refunded all payments made back to Ms. [redacted] and in appreciation for her letting us know about the poor experiences, have offered to allow her to keep the domain registration free of charge (registered for 1 year) and also have offered free hosting if she should ever decide to work with us again. I hope this fully addresses the concerns but I have also setup a direct line of communication between Ms. [redacted] and I in case of any issues with the refunds or if she should decide to take me up on either of my offers.

Hello,We were sorry to hear about the concern that Mr. [redacted] had with the addon service.In reviewing the support interaction Mr. [redacted] did acknowledge the addon service and a follow up email had also been sent with confirmation of the service and information on how to use the service as well as how to...

cancel it at any time.For clarification as stated in the Terms Of Service which can be reviewed at https://www.hostgator.com/tos  addon services would not normally qualify for a refund.Mr. [redacted] has been a valued client since 2009 and we appreciate his patronage.   To resolve this amicably we have submitted a refund request for the last four invoices for the service in question.At this time the refund has been submitted and we have not received any follow up questions or concerns from Mr. [redacted].  If any should arise we ask that Mr. [redacted] please respond back to our recent e-mail communication or contact our management team at [email protected] and we will be happy to offer assistance.

Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and have determined that this proposed action would not resolve my complaint.  
HostGator has an ideal system: to cancel, you have to do so via their forms, which are absolutely not traceable by any means.  When you go back and request transcripts of chats or proof of any action, they're mysteriously not there.  It's a perfect storm of abuse for the customer.  Their customer service is absolutely 100% inaccurate and deceptive when it claims there's misinformation in my complaint.  They are 100% at fault for having charged me for an account that was properly cancelled over 2 years ago.  Had they not refunded my money (an obvious admission of guilt) after the many hours I've spent trying to get this mess un-done, I would have sued.This is shady business practice at it's finest.  HostGator should be ashamed of themselves for these actions.  Finally, the Revdex.com should absolutely be aware that rating a business as poorly run as HostGator as an A+ operation is beyond wrong.  Just google "HostGator Sucks" or something similar.  There are literally THOUSANDS of unhappy customers. 
Regards,
Ben [redacted]

Good Afternoon,We'd like to start by offering our apologies for any inconvenience caused by this recent temporary suspension, and while we do agree that more warning would be ideal, unfortunately we cannot provide advanced warning as once we are aware that there is malware hosted on our network, we...

must take immediate action otherwise we are knowingly hosting malware which can cause repercussions against our business and our customers.Not only does malware on accounts pose a threat to visitors to these websites, it also negatively effects our business and our customers in that malware will spoil the reputation of IP addresses used on our network. As such, we cannot allow the malware to remain online as this constitutes a threat to both our business and customers, as well as any potential customers visiting Mr. [redacted]'s web pages. Although it is unfortunate that the webpages suffered downtime while the malware was removed, we hope it is understandable that this result is preferred to potential damages caused to customers or visitors of these web pages.In regards to the initial report received, we do see that the compromised content we referred to was a bit technical, so we'll be evaluating our process to determine how we can make more technical details understandable for all levels of experience. Having said that, as our customers agree to take responsibility for the security of their account, there would be no refund due for this situation, however we have made sure that Mr. [redacted] has a contact with our management department in case we can ever assist with providing escalated attention to any concerns on the account.

Good Morning,Thank you for bringing this situation to our attention.  I'd like to first and foremost offer our sincerest apologies for any frustration or inconvenience this situation has caused you, however I do see that we issued you a full refund for the account on 12/12/2014.  Looking...

over recent processing times for our cancellations queue it does appear it’s been taking quite a bit longer then the noted 72 hours on the cancellation form, though we’re working to allocate additional staff to these queues in an effort to get times back down where they should be.Either way, we do certainly apologize for any alarm the delay caused.  I’ll keep the processed cancellation ticket assigned to myself should you have any further questions, otherwise you should have your refund back as noted in the ticket in between 5-10 business days.Best Regards,[redacted]

Good Afternoon,As was emailed to you earlier, while this situation is the result of your own negligence regardless of your dispute of the situation, given the time you've spent trying to resolve the matter at this point it's no issue to just offer the refund and move on, which has been processed as...

discussed in ticket #[redacted].  Having provided that refund I would like to again re-iterate the point that you violated the Domain Registration Agreement and also neglected to contact us once it was clear the domain expired, till it was in redemption 30 days after the fact which is not something we can affect or avoid.  What we can offer though and did last year when this first happened is an [redacted] retail account in which you can process the renewal yourself.  That was offered to you at a a cost to our company after you pushed the entire blame off on us, and while this year's incident is a repeat of what you've already been though, I think it goes without saying that you need to take responsibility for your domains and ensure they get renewed in the future, exactly as is outlined in our Domain agreement as your responsibliity.  While I understand it's easy to point fingers and place blame on our staff or "the confusion" you stated resulted through our process, we handle hundreds of thousands of domain renewals a year and can say with full confidence that the system works properly when the client assumes responsibility and handles their business as we've outlined.  I want to also make it clear that this will be the last and final time we assist you with the situation as well, given we're not at fault for the oversight on your part and while we're happy to right this for a second time given the confusion you've noted for a second year in a row, this will not be the case should this come up a third time, when I know very well that you know better.  While I can't imagine this will likely be repeated, we were also of that opinion last year and will act appropriately should the matter surface again.  We cannot and will not continue in this fashion if you're not willing to meet us have way and assume some sort of responsibility which you accepted during signup when the agreements were acknowledged.  As promised your refund for $90 has already been processed this afternoon and can be expected within 5-7 business days depending on the time it takes your card issuer to process the payment reversal.  If you have any additional questions or concerns please let me know via ticket # [redacted].Best Regards,Joshua [redacted]Director of Customer ServiceHostgator.com

Good Afternoon,We'd like to start by offering our apologies for the recent trouble with Ms. [redacted]' e-mail services. To provide a bit of background information, from time to time e-mail services can become blacklisted which means receiving e-mail services might bounce back the e-mail as it is...

considered spam. In order for us to address these issues, we do need bounceback messages with full headers to ensure we are addressing the correct issue so customer's e-mails will be successfully delivered.After review of this situation in particular, we have found that there were some initial issues with receiving the e-mail bounces to know exactly which services to request de-listing on, however we have since been able to gather that information and the de-listings have been requested. As briefly mentioned in the complaint, a second hosting package was purchased in order to attempt and rectify the situation. We've since been in touch with Ms. [redacted] to make sure she is aware that unfortunately this is not a great solution since all of our shared and reseller hosting packages will use the same mail gateways. As such, we were more than happy to refund the two months paid towards the additional service.Although blacklisting issues like this are to be expected from time to time on any shared web hosting environment, as a courtesy for Ms. [redacted] long term use of our services, we were happy to refund an additional 2 months on the initial hosting package as we are making serious efforts to both prevent these issues and also ensure they are addressed as quickly as possible.We hope this has fully addressed the complaint but we've also provided a direct line of communication with our management in case any urgent issues require more immediate attention. If for any reason that contact is lost, our management can be reached directly at [redacted]

Good Afternoon,We certainly appreciate a chance to review this report and have since taken time to review the events for a better understanding of the situation. First and foremost we understand that there was an impression that Ms. [redacted] no longer had an account with us, however after reviewing...

all e-mails relating to the account, we have not found any communication relating to a charge back from the credit card company or any indication on our end stating that the account had been closed.We did receive a fax at the end of November 2015 requesting that the account be closed at which point we followed up with Ms. [redacted] requesting that she please submit this request via our cancellation form ( [redacted] ) as outlined in our terms of service. Following this response, Ms. [redacted] replied back under the impression that she did not have an account with us, so could therefore not submit the request. We then replied stating that the account was never canceled and was still active, so if there was an issue accessing the cancellation form, a password reset could be used to retrieve the password. We did not hear back after this response until the Revdex.com complaint was filed last week.As the main intention of the cancellation form is to ensure that we have the request to terminate the data in writing, we have decided to allow the previous communication via e-mail and facsimile as sufficient documentation on the request to cancel. As such, the hosting package has now been fully canceled, and both the unpaid invoices and credit card on file have been removed. We have also followed up directly with Ms. [redacted] on this information so if we can be of further assistance, we ask that she please use that communication to reach back out to our management.

Good Afternoon,Thank you for contacting us through the Revdex.com.  I’m sorry to see the trouble our support delays as of late have caused you, though we are definitely aware of the staffing issue and working to address that as promptly as we can.  Taking a look over your account, I see that your...

tickets have been escalated to my customer service manager, [redacted]Just to summarize for the Revdex.com, it appears the server this account is hosted from has been experiencing some recent performance related issues which is in turn preventing us from meeting our 99.9% uptime guarantee.  While a month’s credit is great when the guarantee isn’t met, as has been noted it is sort of a pain to contact us currently to receive that, and ultimately it’s not a solution which is our goal here.  I’ll keep an eye on ticket [redacted] as [redacted] works to schedule a migration to a different server.  It shouldn’t be an issue to schedule that off-peak and around your clients given the situation, and I’ll also ensure she provides you full account details before hand as it appears you’ve requested today in the ticket.I believe she’s currently waiting on a migrations admin to arrive for their shift today, but once he’s in shortly they’ll get the process underway and scheduled with you.  If there’s anything that I can assist with directly during this work please feel free to request me through that ticket and [redacted] will make sure I’m made aware as promptly as possible.  Look forward to getting this resolved for you!