HostGator.com, L.L.C.

[A default letter is provided here which indicates your acceptance of the business's response.  If you wish, you may update it before sending it.]
Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and find that this resolution would be satisfactory to me.  Thank you for your quick resolution to this matter.

Good Afternoon,Unfortunately there still seems to be an
impression that an unauthorized charge was made on this account. As
indicated in our last response, this is not the case as our customers
are informed during checkout that the initial payment method will be
used unless requested otherwise, which is also agreed to in our terms of
service : [redacted]11. Billing and Payment Information B. Autorenewal.Unless
otherwise provided, you agree that until and unless you notify
HostGator of your desire to cancel the Services, you will be billed on
an automatically recurring basis to prevent any disruption to your
Services, using your credit card or other billing information on file
with us. Although we did also address the concerns on
customer service in our last response as well as in our direct
communication with [redacted], due to the rejection we've taken
another listen to the call and have to disagree that our agent was rude.
As explained previously, if an authorized charge is requested to be
refunded, the available option is to cancel the service in question. As
such, it was appropriate for our agent to inquire as to whether or not
the account was still needed as an authorized charge was in dispute.
We've now made an exception to this policy and refunded the payment to
allow for repayment when convenient however our call logs indicate our
agent was not unpleasant to [redacted] during the call even as his
anger was directed towards her. Moving back to the complaint
that the call was not immediately transferred to a supervisor, we do not
have an equal amount of supervisors as we do agents so if a supervisor
is demanded, there is a chance that the available supervisors will be
previously assisting other callers, meaning their availability will
depend on the amount of time needed to resolve the previous calls. Moving
forward if there are any concerns on the support received, or with the
account in general, we ask that our management please be contacted at
[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.  The discount I received was a sale price available to any member of the public.  Hostgator is saying that because I received a discount they will do nothing.  However Hostagator fails to realize that the other customers who received the same discount did not get defrauded by Hostagator sales representatives.
Regards,

Good Afternoon,First and foremost, here at HostGator we certainly appreciate the long term use of services and we were sorry to hear of the troubles over the last year. That said, after review of the situation, we see that Mr. [redacted] originally had purchased a service for use of [redacted] on a...

[redacted] server. Unfortunately [redacted] reached end of life support several years ago and was no longer being maintained, so we did need to move our customers off of this platform and onto one that could be maintained in the long run.At this point we contacted Mr. [redacted] and let him know that if he no longer needed [redacted], then we could keep him on a [redacted] server and prevent moving him to a new (Windows) platform. We received no response at that time so we continued with the migration in order to keep his sites online. Following our migration we sent information and steps on testing out all content to make sure that it was working but again, we received no word back indicating any issues.Over the next two months we received sporadic reports of minor issues, which are not uncommon when moving across platforms. After our assistance with those reports, we provided two months of service free of charge to help with the transition. Following the credit on the account, we did receive report of unrelated issues from time to time, however these were multiple months apart and the last report was over 4 months ago. As such, we have not found any evidence that would indicate a refund of 14 months of service would be owed for the occasional issue resulting in a platform change which could have been avoided had we been informed that the move was not needed.In regards to the time frame for our migrations, our migrations are a courtesy service and we are upfront on both our transfer request form as well as in our terms of service that we make no guarantees on the time frame needed to complete these requests. We are sorry to see that this has caused Mr. [redacted] to cancel all services with us but we do appreciate his years of patronage and wish him the best of luck with his new host.

Hello,We were sorry to hear about the concerns Mrs. [redacted] had with your hosting account.The information provided in this communication did not match a billing account, however we were able to identify the account that we believe Mrs. [redacted] was referencing.  In reviewing the account we did see...

that the account has been set to cancel and the invoice that Mrs. [redacted] was likely referencing was fully refunded and that information was provided in the communication in response to the cancellation request.There also seemed to be some confusion on the actual cost of hosting services.  The $15 that was reference is the normal cost for registering or renewing a domain name for a full year.  It would not cover the cost of the hosting services which in reviewing the dollar amount that was being referenced is liketly the cost of the hosting services for a three year billing cycle renewal.In reviewing the other charges for the account we did see that those were renewals for the additional products that had been signed up for at the time of the account sign up.  We also did not find any previous requests for cancellation of those services.We did try to contact Mrs. [redacted] by phone and through e-mail to confirm the account and the information and have not received any additional reply or questions to our communication.  If Mrs. [redacted] any should arise that we can assist with we ask that Mrs. [redacted] please respond to the recent e-mail communication or contacts our management team at [email protected] and we will be happy to continue to offer assistance.

Hello,We were sorry to hear that the hosting service did not meet Ms. [redacted]s hosting needs.Hostgator offers a 45 day money back guarantee for all shared hosting packages and provided a full refund for the hosting package that was purchased.  From our understanding Ms. [redacted] used a prepaid...

card and requested that we cancel the refund request and issue the refund instead through another means.  Unfortunately once the refund has been processed those funds are no longer in our control and we are not able to cancel or reverse the refund.Hostgator is not a bank or financial institution and like any other merchant uses a payment processor to handle the payments that are made by credit card and do not have access to the full card number of any credit card that is used to purchase services through the payment portal.Although not all requested information was available to be provided, the information that was accessible has been provided to Ms. [redacted] including the transaction reference number.From our understanding other clients have been able to contact the financial institution that provided the card with the information provided and been able to receive the refund minus any transaction fees the card provider may administer. If Ms. [redacted] has any additional questions we ask that Ms. [redacted] please respond to the recent e-mail communication or contact our management team at [email protected] and we will be happy to assist.

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.  
I'm here to file a report about hostgator staff who are unreasonable, rude and unprofessional, not to ask for help.As demonstrated in the last couple of messages, the business continues to make false claims about me, personally, and puts blame on the customers. They dodged my question once confronted. They are in defensive and of course you can't engage and help your customers if you think of them as the enemy. They have failed to specify the store credit they offered, and failed to take any steps to improve the support team and quality of the user experience.As for the rest of my questions, as I already explained, the potential customer that raised the questions was lost due to inadequate support from hostgator.
Regards,

Hello,We were sorry to hear about the issue that [redacted] had experienced with his hosting package and did reach out to offer assistance.Although we were not able to reach [redacted] directly we were able to resolve the issue that [redacted] had been experiencing with his...

hosting account and his Website is currently showing on the internet.There had been an issue in the billing system when it had suspended the secondary hosting package which was affecting his active hosting package.  We also were able to connect to [redacted]'s hosting package using [redacted] successfully.At this time we have not received any follow up questions or concerns from [redacted] and his account has been credited for three months of service.  If any should arise that we can assist with we ask that [redacted] please respond back to the recent e-mail communication or contacts or management team at [email protected] and we will be happy to continue to offer assistance.

Good Afternoon,We've since had a chance to investigate this report and contrary to the complaint, HostGator has taken no action against this server as the server was not actually offline. We have reviewed the logs of the server and have found that content was removed by the [redacted] that [redacted]...

[redacted] has used to contact us from. We have these logs available and have provided them to [redacted] however we are not able to restore this content unless we can be provided with a backup of the content that was deleted. Additionally, all customers with dedicated servers do agree to keep full backups in the event of emergencies such as this : https://hostgator.com/tos
==========================
18. Dedicated Servers
HostGator reserves the right to reset the password on a dedicated server
if the password on file is not current so that we may do security
audits as required by our datacenter. It is your responsibility to
ensure that there is a valid email address and current root password on
file for your dedicated server to prevent downtime from forced [redacted] HostGator reserves the right to audit servers as needed and to
perform administrative actions at the request of our datacenter.
Dedicated servers are NOT backed up by [redacted] It is your responsibility to
maintain [redacted] Dedicated servers that have invoices outstanding for
more than ten (10) days may be subject to deletion which will result in
the loss of all data on the server. HostGator will not be liable for any
loss of data resulting from such deletion.
==========================In regards to the live [redacted] we have also reviewed all of the recent live [redacted] conversations and have not found any instance where the [redacted] took 3 hours as reported. We do apologize if the deletion of content was accidental, however
our logs are conclusive that this was not a HostGator staff member and
was performed by an [redacted] out of [redacted] which [redacted] had used to contact us previously. We have contacted [redacted] to go over this information so if she does have any backups available, we would be glad to work on restoring those [redacted] If any backups are found, we ask that she please uses our recent e-mail conversation to alert us and we'll be glad to help in any way we can.

[A default letter is provided here which indicates your acceptance of the business's response.  If you wish, you may update it before sending it.]
Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and find that this resolution would be satisfactory to me.

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.  
Once again their own advertisements on their site that I have taken to the time to screenshot in my last correspondence show what they advertise. This previous response also admits the monitoring relationship with the blacklists... which contradicts the last post Host Gator made saying it has nothing to do with email... Again no consistency with their word. Regardless of what host Gator says now, what we were told and suggested to purchase before ever signing up, and why, is not what the experience has been. We still have emails that won't go through. And when their own system and [redacted] service shows that we are not listed on any blacklists (and have for the last month) yet they themselves have said (while it was still showing that we weren't listed) that we were at that time... shows the false record of their security and the tools designed to give you a feeling of apparently false security. The appearance they are trying to hold with their customers verses the sad truth. Our complaints with our email service as well as other issues have gone back almost bimonthly with Host Gator for the 12 months we have been there. We have has more than numerous phone chats and live chats. The referenced "tickets" this customer service rep seems to be talking about are the 4-5 that were recorded. Since many times when you call in or deal with someone in live chat, if the issue is deemed "solved" no follow up ticket is made. Again one of my complaints at the beginning of this filing was the lack of follow through on behalf of Tach Support or Customer Service. Being told something is fixed, or that they would follow up and never did. This has been an ongoing problem up and including this issue. So its no wonder to me that records on behalf of Host Gator only reflect the tickets I manually create myself to make sure it was finally being documented.Bottom line, Host Gator has not fix the problems. We still can't email many if not all of our [redacted] and [redacted] customers. I am not spending any more time than I already have doing their jobs for them and providing research that they should #1 already have #2 can pro-cure themselves. It is just yet another excuse for not addressing the issues as they should be. I guess they figure if they drag it out long enough a customer will give up pursuit. They are mistaken. This report will not fade away until the ticket is addressed and the problem is resolved or we discontinue our service with them. Either way it is not "RESOLVED" until the problem is fixed or made right. Neither of which have been done, and its disgusting to think Host Gator is still ducking blame for the customer service and problems we still face. Their correspondence with me in person have been the same. Pitching more expensive services to resolve the problem. With out without trial periods, if you can't even honor the services and products we already have why would anyone even consider opting for more services at a more expensive rate. The issue here is about service, but is also more importantly about the integrity and word of Host Gator not being fulfilled, and the customer service falling short of their responsibilities. No person in their right mind would offer a company with this record more money and time knowing what they have already done with the time and money they have already been given. Its clear Host Gator is more interested in money, then in customer service, their word, and the product they offer. I am already in the process of closing all 12 of my other accounts with Host Gator, and this one will soon follow since clearly the problem is nowhere close to a resolution. Its more likely Host Gators intention to rebuff complaints than solve them. So as far as I am concerned this complaint can sit here and be a referendum to all potential future customers on what they should be made aware of prior to taking them at their word and what they should expect with the services they purchase. If my complaint does nothing else then to help inform future customers of what they can expect it will be worth it.
Regards,

Good Afternoon,We've since had a chance to review this situation and have found that after originally purchasing a VPS package with our company, that [redacted] requested to have cPanel installed onto the VPS. The best way to accomplish this is to order a new VPS with cPanel included, so once the new...

VPS was added to the account, we followed up to confirm that the work was done and also asked that he please request cancellation of the first VPS package once he had confirmed there was no sensitive data that would be lost.Unfortunately we never heard back on that e-mail and have since attempted to call [redacted] twice and also reached out via e-mail but have not heard back. At this time we have gone ahead and credited the account for the payment in question in order to have this apply to his remaining active package and have setup a direct line of communication back to our management if a refund would be preferred over the credit. We hope this fully resolves the situation but if our e-mails were missed for any reason, our management can be contacted via [redacted] where we'll be more than happy to assist.

Good Afternoon,
We always appreciate a chance to address our customers concerns and
would be glad to discuss the points raised in the initial complaint.
First and foremost I feel it is necessary to point out that this issue
was caused by the use of an insecure script which was installed by...

the
customer which could not have been prevented by our staff. It is our
customer's responsibility to ensure that all scripts are secure before
uploading them to their account with us and if our customer is
unfamiliar with vetting technologies to determine their level of
security, they are encouraged to contract a developer before risking
using technologies that have not been reviewed by a competent developer.
This responsibility was agreed to in our terms of service at the time of
the initial purchase.
In cases where the script was not diligently reviewed before being used,
we do state that we will provide one complimentary scan of the account
per six months, which is not a service offered by all web hosts. Since
this is not always included with web hosting packages, this
complimentary scan is often referred to as a courtesy service.
Regardless of the terminology used, we do not guarantee time frames on
security tickets so if customers wish to take advantage of this service,
they do need to wait for us to work through the requests in the order
they are received. We do not ignore any tickets we receive and did not
ignore Ms. [redacted]'s report, however we simply had not worked through
our other customers at that point. In this case, due to the frustrations
of Ms. [redacted], we were happy to escalate the ticket in front of our all
other customers who have waited patiently for assistance.
I feel it is also necessary to disclose the impact of the security
vulnerability found in Ms. [redacted]'s script. Please see :
[redacted]
As this plugin is unfortunately widely used by theme developers, we've
been heavily inundated with many customers who would like our assistance
cleaning up after the decision to use an insecure plugin. Please also
note that security inquires by default will take much longer than normal
support requests. This is due to the fact that we must first scan the
entire account and this process can take hours depending on the number
of files. We then must make sure all compromised content is removed and
finally provide a detailed response on the cause of the compromise to
help our customers prevent further compromise.
Finally, although we do state we will provide a complimentary cleaning
once per six months, the page Ms. [redacted] is most likely referring to
also states that our customers are more than welcome to contact a 3rd
party for assistance with cleanings. This article is part of the set of
articles linked to in the initial complaint and can be seen here :
http://support.hostgator.com/articles/pre-sales-policies/security-abuse/my-accou...⇄ /> In summary, although we are glad to help with compromises, we do not
guarantee a time frame for resolution and openly state that customers
are welcome to pay a 3rd party if more immediate attention is needed. We
are glad to see that this matter has been investigated and the
compromised content removed by our staff and urge Ms. [redacted] to use
[email protected] if she ever feels an issue could use more
immediate attention.
I hope this helps shed more light on the situation and I've reached
out to Ms. [redacted] directly in case of any concerns that have yet to be
addressed or in case I can ever offer some escalated attention.

Good Morning,Thank you for reaching out to us regarding your recent account cancellation troubles.  We appreciate you bringing this to our attention for quality assurance review and so we can make sure any errors on our part are being correct as fairly as possible.  Having reviewed your...

call logs with us however, I did have some concerns in that your account of the matter here doesn’t line up with what you explained to Eric over the phone.  You mention you submitted the cancellation request previously months ago, however then explained over the phone to Eric that your son was supposed to cancel the account. It seems that likely didn’t actually occur as he may have told you previously.  Another interesting point I’d like to present about this first call, is that you can be heard quite clearly while on hold speaking with your son, whom while not entirely audible in the background seems to apologize to you, to which you respond to him, “I’m not upset with you…”  I wish there was more we could do on this end to verify he did submit that request, though once more without the ticket, any record of communication or clarity for that matter we’re left to conclude the cancellation request was never submitted as our Terms of Service outlines it should have  been to prevent the renewal charge.http://www.hostgator.com/tos11. Billing and Payment Information B. Autorenewal. ?Unless otherwise provided, you agree that until and unless you notify HostGator of your desire to cancel the Services, you will be billed on an automatically recurring basis to prevent any disruption to your Services, using your credit card or other billing information on file with us. So it’s clear and available, I want to also provide the Cancellation portion of the above agreement, as we were absolutely in our right to bill your credit card on file without there having been a cancellation submitted previously.13. Cancellations and RefundsE. Cancellation Process.  You may terminate or cancel the Services by giving HostGator written notice via the cancellation form provided. In such event: (i) you shall be obligated to pay all fees and charges accrued prior to the effectiveness of such cancellation and (ii) HostGator may, in our sole discretion, refund all pre-paid fees for basic hosting services for the full months remaining after the effectiveness of such cancellation (i.e. no partial month fees shall be refunded) less any setup fees, applicable taxes and any discount applied for prepayment, provided that you are not in breach of this Agreement. Once we receive your cancellation form and have confirmed all necessary information with you via email, we will inform you in writing (typically email) that your account has been canceled. Your cancellation confirmation will contain a ticket/tracking number in the subject line for your reference and for verification purposes. You should immediately receive an automatic email with a tracking number stating that "Your request has been received...." HostGator will confirm your request and process your cancellation shortly thereafter. If you do not hear back from us, or do not receive the automatic confirmation email within a few minutes after submitting your cancellation form, please contact us immediately via [redacted]phone. We require all cancellations to be done through the online form in order to (a) confirm your identity, (b) confirm in writing that you are prepared for all of your files and emails to be removed, and (c) document the request. This process aims to reduce the likelihood of mistakes, fraudulent/malicious requests, and to ensure that you are aware that your files, emails, and account may be removed immediately and permanently after a cancellation request is processed.Cancellations for shared and reseller accounts will be effective on the account’s renewal date. Cancellations for dedicated and VPS accounts will be effective immediately. Moving along I also noticed that one of my Customer Service Managers followed up with you last week requesting additional clarification, ticket #s or email addresses that may not be associated to the account, but could have been used to submit the cancellation request.  Given my findings during the call audits,  I don’t believe you’ll likely be providing such details nor confirm that it was previously cancelled, but given it’s now been several days without a response I did want to follow up here today and ensure this was addressed as promptly as possible.While I don’t believe we owe you anything further given your dishonesty in regards to the Revdex.com complaint, as well as the fact that the account was technically in use all of May prior to your contacting us finally here in June to cancel it, I do want to be as fair as possible with you.  The $15.11 really isn’t much and I’d hate to see any ill will left with you as a result of this interaction, so I’ve gone ahead and just refunded that for you.  I realize you need the money as soon as possible, but please understand it does take a few business days for our credit card processor and your card issuer to ultimately reverse the charges.  That’s outside of our hands, and I apologize that we can’t speed that refund process, but I can confirm to you that the remaining portion was refunded this morning and should be processed back to your card as soon as your bank or the issuer handles the transaction.  In the future, I would like to also encourage that you review Terms of Service agreements with company's prior to ordering services.  Having agreed to that TOS during signup, it is definitely binding, and I think had it been reviewed fully and better understood, you likely could have avoided the unexpected charges in the first place.If you have any further questions please feel free to respond to ticket [redacted] which we opened with you last week, and we’ll be more then happy to assist you.  Otherwise you should have your full refund back within the next several business days.Best Regards,Joshua M[redacted]Director of Customer EngagementHostgator.com

Greetings,We were sorry to hear about the trouble downgrading to a more affordable service and have since had a chance to investigate further. After review, we have not found evidence that a refund was denied at any point nor have we found that there was any refusal to communicate on the requests...

made.What we did find is that in the related ticket, we contacted [redacted] via e-mail and asked to confirm information on what was to be moved but we did not hear back on that ticket for over one month. At that point we replied back asking for authorization of a migration fee as we do not provide free transfers on downgrades, only on upgrades.At that point we received some conflicting information as [redacted] informed us the migration has been performed in a separate ticket, however when we inquired for more information on that ticket, we were not provided with any details. We also had a member of our management team reach out but again did not receive any responses back.Regardless, at this time we have refunded the last two months paid on the dedicated server. Typically we see that refunds take anywhere from a few days up to a week depending on the bank or financial institution. Once [redacted] has confirmed they no longer need the server, we ask that cancellation is requested through the following form : [redacted]We hope this helps resolve the concerns raised but if we can be of any further assistance, please let us know and we'll be glad to help.

Greetings,Thank you for reaching out to us regarding the delay with your cancellation.  We're unfortunately experiencing higher then normal support volumes the past few weeks due to an outage that occurred with some of our reseller servers on 10/29.  Though we're approaching normal volumes...

again as we work to get caught up, I did locate your cancellation ticket and will be processing that very shortly.  The delay will not affect the 45 day money back guarantee either, as I've ensured our retention staff are clear to make sure that's refunded.   I'll keep an eye on the ticket as well, though if you have any questions or concerns with this as the refund is processed as promised please feel free to request my assistance in the ticket directly.  Best Regards,[redacted]Director of Customer Service[redacted]

[A default letter is provided here which indicates your acceptance of the business's response.  If you wish, you may update it before sending it.]
Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted] and find that this resolution would be satisfactory to me.  
I accept the services to be cancelled and all the data deleted permanently.Please make the check payable to:[redacted]
[redacted]
[redacted] **  [redacted]

Hello,We were sorry to hear about Mr. [redacted] concern with our hosting services.In the shared hosting environment any one cPanel is allowed a maximum of 25% CPU usage which can be exceeded for no more than 90 seconds.  Unfortunately when a site is not able to stay within those limits it is...

suspended to protect the data on the server.  The admin team also provides the information to the client along with recommendations on what steps can be taken to resolve the concern.Although this can be a frustrating experience this usually indicates that the site has continued to grow and successfully increased the traffic and audience that it is reaching.The cancellation ticket was reviewed and a prorated refund has been submitted for the remaining time of the hosting package.At this time we have contacted Mr. [redacted] and have not received any follow up questions or concerns.  If any should arise that we can assist with we ask that Mr. [redacted] please respond to the recent e-mail communication or contacts our management team at [email protected] and we will be happy to continue to offer assistance.

Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID 10227824, and have determined that this proposed action would not resolve my complaint.  
The CS person said she was sending a request and was non-comittal on refunding my money. In that conversation I told her I was filing online with Revdex.com, so my complaint should come as no surprise.
I did try to cancel that account and Hostgators cancellation page is set up to actually prevent people from cancelling. You fill out the document and when you hit submit it cycles right back to a incomplete form and says not transmitted. I did this repeatedly.
Furthermore, nowhere did I agree to auto renew.  I never allow auto renew for this very reason. Sites like Hostgator rely on people to give up from exhaustion trying to cancel or hold on the customer service line, by design to exploit people out of their money! Basically robbing them!
[redacted] need to be refunded to me. [redacted] X3
Regards,
[redacted]

Good Afternoon,We've since had a chance to investigate this report but unfortunately found no accounts under the name "[redacted]", the e-mail address "[redacted]", or under the phone number "[redacted]." While searching with this information we've also found no e-mails from this address...

or phone calls received from this number. Regardless, although we have multiple [redacted].'s employed, we did go through all of their e-mails from the date referenced and have located the account in question. After review, we see that the account had purchased 2 services - domain registration as well as a hosting package. The complaint mentions having received confirmation of the cancellation of web hosting services, however the message quoted is specific to the cancellation of domain registration which is separate from the hosting package and can be seen in the message quoted. We have also found that as of yesterday, cancellation of the hosting package was requested and that our staff replied in under 25 minutes offering a refund of the recent payment, however unfortunately this Revdex.com complaint seems to have been filed prior to our staff having been given a chance to reply to that request confirming the refund. We have now replied to that request to confirm the refund in the disputed amount of $86.40. Please also note that while we did confirm cancellation of the domain registration on the 6th of May last year, we were in contact via e-mail the following week at which point we provided information regarding the remaining active hosting package. As such, we did inform the customer that the service was still active meaning it would have been the account owner's responsibility to inform us of the wish to cancel the remaining service. If we can be of any further assistance with this matter, we ask that [redacted] please reply back to the cancellation request or contact our management at [redacted].