HostGator.com, L.L.C.

Review: I am writing from the [redacted] a ** year old non-profit organization. [redacted] has urgent international life saving information on their website, [redacted]. Over a year ago [redacted] contracted with host Gator for their [redacted]. Without our knowledge or consent a month ago they renewed our contract without an invoice since they had our credit card on file. We had no agreement to extend our contract another year.

The main reason of this complaint is concerning some down links in the 'LETTER' area of the website. Those links are very important including government information concerning ignition recall lawsuits and many other national security matters. [redacted] just recently discovered that one of the letters that was needed for the [redacted] and [redacted] was down and was reported yesterday.

hostGator acted very unprofessionally with the matter having two of their technitions hanging up on us until [redacted] tech repaired one of the down links within five minutes time, proving that they have the letters and THEY WORK and doesnt take long to fix the problem.

Since that time we discovered there are at least three more 'bad letter links', hostGator is refusing to cooperate and fix this urgent safety matter. They make the customer wait for almost a half an hour when calling in causing the foundation a loss of work damages phoning and emailing numerous times to get this fixed.

Finally, today their [redacted] blatenly refused to fix the down links once again.

Thank you very much.

[redacted]Desired Settlement: [redacted] would like hostGator to provide a complimentary years worth of service for loss damages due to the calling and emailing so many times to get this matter fixed. [redacted] asks that you will complete this resolution as soon as possible considering it a matter of national security.

Business

Response:

Good Morning,Thank you for reaching out and bringing this situation to our attention. I see that our staff has tried to assist you with the matter, though after my own full audit of your ticket history and support I have a few concerns. I’d like to first touch on the recurring payments that you accepted through our Terms of Service during the signup process and apparently didn’t read or simply overlooked, and then address the direct concerns.I’d like to first and foremost offer our apologies for any confusion or frustration the recurring billing may have caused you. The reality however is that we do acknowledge a credit card will be kept on file and payments made recurring unless otherwise configured. I offer this insight simply in an effort to help protect you and your businesses’ interests in the future as we certainly don’t hide the fact that this will take place. You can reference the specifics in [redacted] but I’ve included the relevant sections below for you.11. Billing and Payment InformationA. Prepayment. ?It is your responsibility to ensure that your payment information is up to date, and that all invoices are paid on time. You agree to pay for the Services in advance of the time period during which such Services are provided. Subject to applicable laws, rules, and regulations, payments received will be first applied to the oldest outstanding invoice in your billing account. 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. I would highly encourage you moving forward to review these documents/agreements fully and ask questions if anything remains unclear, as the frustration was entirely avoidable had you protected yourself, which is the point of us presenting the Terms of Service and you clicking the button to accept during signup.Moving to the problem at hand, though you have alleged our staff has damaged your site through direct contact during support, after a full audit of the support history and server logs I’m not finding any evidence to support your claims, nor that the content existed as you suggest prior to contacting support. We were able to locate server logs which provide evidence to support this position on the matter, however if you can provide any further proof to substantiate your claims I’d be happy to review this.As for why those letters were returning a 404, additional review of your ticket history supports the fact that you didn’t make use of our free migrations services during signup, as we were able to restore the missing content from a backup located in your account. That suggests that when you moved from the prior host, that you likely did the migration yourself and as such missed the files you claim we lost. I’ve also encountered notes in a ticket [redacted] from [redacted] requesting we not touch the account moving forward. Notations were placed both in billing and in the ticket system per your request. In regards to your request to compensate you for your time as you made use of our support to remedy what appears to be a situation you created in the first place, we will not be able to consider a credit towards the matter. Ticket history and server logs support the fact that our staff did not cause these issues and I’m sorry if you disagree, however without further evidence to support your claims this will be our final decision on the matter. In the interest of being as fair as possible however, I will keep [redacted] assigned directly to myself if you have further evidence you can provide to support the claims. I’ll look forward to any details you can provide and if you have other questions or concerns please feel free to reply in the ticket regarding those matters. I’ll be happy to assist you as we work to resolve the confusion that’s taken place.Best Regards,[redacted]

Review: Servers are down more then ** hours now with no ETA. This is NOT part of [redacted] agreement,Desired Settlement: 2 people/staff was sitting idle entire day plus all email lost. We are [redacted] company and survive on the website for our business.I need refund for the entire month - BEING VERY reasonable vs the loss incurred.

Business

Response:

Review: In [redacted] 2014 [redacted] suspended my hosting account for non payment of overdue funds of $10.61. I agree with the charged amount. However since then I have constantly been billed $10.61 per month for every month after [redacted] 2014. My most recent bill was in [redacted] 2014 and with that my total amount owed increased to $106.10. I have contacted HostGator on several occasion in an attempt to have this corrected so that I can pay the amount when my account was suspended in [redacted] 2014.

The major issue I have is a hosting account serves 1 purpose. It allow you to host a website which enable your website to be live and accessible on the internet so that a customer or anyone is able to type in your website address and access your website. My website address is [redacted] this website has not worked since my account was blocked in [redacted] 2014. Ineed your help in resolving this

Communications: [redacted] 18, 2014 at 04:55 PM

Hello,

Your account was suspended for non payment in [redacted]. In order to reactivate your account, you will need to log in and pay the past due invoices for the account. This is not deceptive billing practices. It is written in our terms of service that unless you cancel an account via the required method, it will continue to generate invoices which will need to be paid to reactivate the account.

Regards, [redacted] 18, 2014 at 09:35 PM

Please escalate my account complaint to the highest executive with the greatest urgency. You suspended my hosting account in [redacted] 2014 for lack of payment which suspended my hosting service and the ability to host my website. You have exercised your right but you have charge my for a suspended account and service that I could not use. Please refund all charges and fees from the date of suspension. I am responsible for the fees outstanding until my account was suspended because I used and enjoyed those services.

[redacted] 30, 2014 at 07:58 PM

You guys need to take a look at my account and correct the overcharges. Â You suspended my account over 10 months ago which prevents me from using and also blocks the website from use. Â Please provide me with an accurate billDesired Settlement: Adjust the billing and fees back to [redacted] 2014 and I will pay that amount. Remove all fees and charges billed after the account was suspended in [redacted] 2014. Those charges are deliberately overstated and incorrect since the account and service were unusable. Close my account and allow me to move my domain to [redacted] where I prefer to do business.

Business

Response:

Good Morning,Thank you for bringing this situation to our attention for review, and our apologies for any frustration your confusion over our billing system has caused. I would like to initially point out as well, that the situation has in fact already been resolved, having been immediately addressed last evening after you requested escalation to an executive and my [redacted] got involved. The lack of patience here on your end is unfortunate as the complaint was essentially resolved before you even got the complaint opened, nor did you really even give us a chance to resolve this and explain the situation. Additionally, the entire situation was entirely avoidable had you actually read the agreement prior to agreeing to during signup, which it appears you likely did not.The agreement itself does outline payments, the fact that a card is kept on file to make recurring payment, as well as the fact that we will continue to bill you even after the account goes delinquent and into suspension. Reviewing your open ticket [redacted], what you’re failing to understand or accept is that while you in reality cannot use the service when it’s suspended, that’s the result of your own negligence and lack of payment, but because we’ve failed to provide you the service as promised. To that end, had you cancelled the account in [redacted] as the Terms of Service outlines you should have to avoid further billing, you would not have continued to receiving invoices. During this time though we did hold your data and are now at a complete loss for that server space the past 6-7 months, which could have easily been leased out to another client.It’s no problem to take on that loss in an effort to remove the multiple invoices and allow you to get this paid and back on track, but moving forward I would like to ask that you ensure you read and fully understand Terms of Service agreements prior to joining a service. Though I realize it’s frustrating to be told that at this juncture, the headaches and frustration could have simply been avoided entirely. Please let me know if you have any further questions via [redacted] which I’ll keep assigned directly to myself for contact as necessary.Best Regards,[redacted]

Review: Extremely deceiving fee structure of their service (web-hosting), and an extremely complicated system for consumer to opt out or cancel their subscription. Plus, lying customer reps. would do everything to disturb or not execute cancellation process. I have been trying to get my refund for over 4 weeks, still been lied to when I called them.Desired Settlement: Refund

Business

Response:

Review: I have tried to contact this company on several occasions to cancel my account. They have a 45 day cancellation policy in which I am asking for my money back. My first attempt to cancel my account was on 11/01/14 at 5:23AM. This was followed by an automated response from the company saying please wait 48-72 hours for confirmation. On 11/04/14 I still had not heard back from them so I contacted them again, explaining they were now outside their 72 hour window and that I would like to cancel my account with a full refund. On 11/05/14 I still had not heard back from them so I have followed up with yet another message asking them to cancel my account and provide a full refund.Desired Settlement: I would like a message from the company explaining that my account has been cancelled and no further charges will be made as well as a complete refund of the money I have given them.

Business

Response:

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]

Business

Response:

Greetings,My apologies for the confusion that took place within our retention department. I'm not sure where the miscommunication was, though after finding your response here I've ensured the full refund was in fact issued. Please let me know if you've still not received that, however looking at the cancellation ticket I see [redacted] did confirm this was corrected for you.Best Regards,[redacted]Director of Customer Service[redacted]

Consumer

Response:

[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.]

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. However; I am not sure why it took another 72 hours for my case to be closed. I will not recommend your service to others and hope that you can use my experience with your company to create a better customer experience for others. Perhaps offer a customer service program where someone can speak to a live agent in under 30 minutes, nobody has that kind of time anymore. My suggestion is that you immediately up your customer service team and remove your ticketing process. It is not an effective means of managing clients.

Review: I noted an unexplained charge on my credit card on 12/**/13 for $42.10 with the notation "HOSTGATOR.COM - [redacted]. A subsequent charge was posted at the end of the same credit card statement on 1/**/2014 for $8.95 with the same notation. I have never heard of hostgator.com and am unaware of anything I would have charged that would be attributable to this company. Upon reviewing my credit card statement I contacted hostgator.com on 2/*/2014 and explained the situation. I provided them with all of the information they requested and they indicated that "It appears I will need to create a ticket so our administrators can investigate this for you." On 2/*/2014 after giving them a week to resolve this issue I contacted them again to learn that the issue is still under investigation and no further information is available. It is completely unacceptable to take more than a week to investigate fraud. There have been no other unusual charges to my credit card, so I do not believe the card number has been compromised. I have, however, now reported these two unexplained hostgator.com charges to my credit card company as fraud. Had they just responded in a timely manner none of this would be necessary. I would appreciate the Revdex.com's assistance to make this company resolve this issue. Thank you.Desired Settlement: I would like these charges refunded absent an explanation as to why I am somehow paying for services from a company that I have never heard of before.

Business

Response:

Good Morning,

Thank you for bringing this situation to our attention and I apologize for the delay with the investigation. These fraudulent signups while a major inconvenience for the victim which we're sympathetic towards also unfortunately takes a little bit of time to track down and reverse which we apologize for. That's not intentional, though we have a fairly limited staff for these investigations and the queue does just get backed up occasionally. Anyway, not to make excuses, but I did pull the ticket [redacted] and am having this refunded for you immediately. The refund will typically take a few days between the payment processor and your card, though I can assure you a refund will be sent out promptly at this point. We definitely don't intend to hinder you any longer then necessary. If I can answer any other questions or concerns about the refund in the meantime please let me know at [email protected].

Best Regards,

Director of Customer Service

Hostgator.com

Consumer

Response:

[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.]

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 will wait until for the business to perform this action and, if it does, will consider this complaint resolved.

Regards,

Review: Hostgator opened two separate and distinct accounts for one single server and domain name (completely their error, as admitted to me by two separate customer service reps.) and proceeded to bill me monthly and yearly for each account. Not being familiar with their billing procedures, I did not realize it until approx. Feb 2015. When I contacted them, they corrected their error, and promised a full refund. Two weeks later, no refund was issued, and after I contacted them, they refused to provide any refund, or one in the amount I requested (which was approximately 90$). Moreover, the amount was billed automatically to my credit card, which was NOT on file on the second account created; thus, they were aware of the duplicate account and pulled my credit card information improperly. Further, they became highly uncooperative and, had the amount exceeded a reasonable level, I would not have hesitated filing a lawsuit against them. I have full documentation of all above-listed occurrences.Desired Settlement: I want them to fully refund, at minimum, the year subscription, which I never ordered, yet was charged erroneously. A credit for my account is unacceptable, as I will no longer use their services in the future.

Business

Response:

Good Afternoon,We always appreciate a chance to address our customers concerns and we were sorry to hear about the unnecessary duplicate purchase. We've now had time to investigate this report and from our investigation, we did not find clear evidence of an error in our system which would have caused the duplicate purchase. In these cases refund requests are a bit tricky as we did not find any errors in our system during the sign-up, and we did provide a service that was seemingly requested. Please note that customers do often purchase multiple packages with the same information to use one as a testing environment with the other being used for the live production site. As such, our system will not automatically alert our staff or the customer if two packages with the same domain are purchased. Regardless, we have confirmed that the 2nd package was unused so while we did spend resources keeping the package available, we'll be glad to work with [redacted] on providing a refund. That said, there is a bit of misinformation here as the two packages were purchased under the same billing account, so when the card was placed on file for one package, it automatically paid off the duplicate package as well. Also, this process is entirely automated so there was no choice or action by HostGator to knowingly charge for an unneeded package. We always cancel unneeded packages as requested, however in this case we did not receive a cancellation request until recently.At this point we've attempted to reach [redacted] on three occasions in order to receive information on the conversations had with our support agents, but unfortunately we have not yet heard back. We'd definitely like to review those communications to honor any guarantees made so we'll look forward to hearing back from [redacted] soon. We have a direct line of communication setup via e-mail but if that has not been located, we ask that [redacted] please contact our management at [redacted] for further follow up.

Review: Hostgator Ticket numbers: [redacted] and [redacted]We bought a domain from hostgator years ago. At that time Hostgator's domains were with Registry Rocket and were registered with [redacted]. But from our side, we went to Hostgator.com and clicked on buy a domain. It came up for renewal in [redacted] this year. There is no way to pay for this domain on [redacted]. We can "manage" some basic stuff there but not pay for its renewal, so we are forced to rely on what turns out to be a clunky manual system of communication between Hostgator and [redacted], where they do not even appear to know when something has been paid even when it has been done on their own online billing pages.On [redacted] Hostgator sent an email saying that the domain was up for renewal to my husband. It said that if he wants to renew it, he should respond to the email and he did. Hostgator then sent an email to him saying that once he's paid it he should respond to tell them. On [redacted] they emailed me (as the billing contact) a link to the invoice, and said to pay it at [redacted] and stated "Once paid no further action is needed and your account will remain active". I am the one in the family who is responsible for paying it (which is why I set myself up as the billing contact) and so I went online and paid it on [redacted] and thought it was taken care of.However, we discovered today that Hostgator never renewed the domain. They say that despite the email that said "Once paid no further action is needed and your account will remain active" (which was the only communication that I received from them about it as the billing contact), we should have notified them that we had paid it. Hostgator says that we should have ignored that email as it was "generated automatically".They say now that the domain can be redeemed for $90. In our latest communication a Billing Supervisor suggests that they can pay $45 and we can pay $45. However we still find this unacceptable because it is wrong that we should have to pay it.Desired Settlement: Redeem the domain that we paid for without us having to pay a redemption fee.

Business

Response:

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 we do certainly appreciate the opportunity to look into this and ensure we're making right on the situation. I'd like to apologize as well for the delay in response, however you may have noticed your domain was already pulled from redemption and is functioning again as of this time.

Looking into your tickets and the issue at hand as well, I’ve actually made recommendations to our Billing Director to improve the renewal process previously due to your domain being under [redacted]’s control as opposed to our [redacted] registrar. We’re currently awaiting our development teams completion of the work in our billing system, though look forward to a streamlined renewal process very soon, which should void any future confusion that resulted here.

Moving forward if you have any further questions or concerns with the redemption/renewal please let me know. I’m always happy to get personally involved should you run into trouble with either the service or support itself. I can be reached directly at [redacted]

Consumer

Response:

I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and find that this resolution is satisfactory to me. Hostgator's Customer Service Director has resolved the issue.

Thank you very much!

Regards,

Review: On August 24, 2014 I signed up for a month of website hosting service with hostgator. A few weeks in on September 17, 2014 I decided I no longer wanted to have this company continue to host my website. I waited on hold for several hours and the line just went dead so I searched and found their "cancellation form" which is apparently the only way you can cancel your service anyways. I filled out the form, and when I submitted it, the automatic response that the cancellation would occur within 72 hours. Also, I removed my "saved payment information" from my account in the billing system also, that way even if it took them a while to cancel my account, they would have no record of my payment information and thus would not be able to charge me. Now keep in mind that this is a monthly subscription, for $12.96 and I submitted this form 7 days before my first month of service had expired. A few hours later I went to check on the status of my cancellation in my account on their billing system and found that the cancellation ticket had completely disappeared. The next morning I was going over my personal finances (I do this daily) and found that hostgator had just charged me for another month of service, even though it was still a week prior to when I was supposed to be charged again. Now if this isn't completely shady and reeks of "scam" I don't know what does. So I immediately filled out their cancellation form again, put some choice words into their "customer experience comments" box and submitted it. This ticket never even showed up in my account. Finally on September 20th at about 6 am my time I filed ANOTHER cancellation request. This time the cancellation did appear in my account ticket system. However, over 100 hours after I had submitted the ticket to cancel my service they still have not replied to me, despite promising to have the account closed within 72 hours at the top end of their range. It is impossible to get a hold of anyone from this company and I have since cancelled my card with my bank and ordered a new one. Not only does this company store personal credit card information somewhere else that the customer has no control over (evidenced by the fact that I still got charged even after removing my payment information), but they also make it nearly impossible to cancel your account and charge you for the next month immediately after you attempt to. No doubt they will say the charge was a "preauthorization" or some such nonsense.Desired Settlement: I would like a refund of the $12.96 that was charged to me a week before it was supposed to be charged and after I had filed a cancellation request. I would also like a confirmation from this company that all of my services with them have been cancelled, effective September 17, 2014, the date when I originally filed my cancellation request - as well as some sort of confirmation that no other money will be attempted to be charged. Thank you

Business

Response:

Good Afternoon,

Thank you for bringing this situation to our attention so it can be addressed. I'd like to first apologize for any frustration that the cancellation process may have caused, and though this did admittedly take a little longer then we'd normally hope, due simply to volumes and available staffing, I'll absolutely ensure you're refunded fully for what you'd paid the first two months. I'd like to also confirm that the hosting account has been cancelled as of the end of the current renewal cycle, which would be 10/22, but this simply gives you time to remove data if necessary. You will absolutely not be billed again going forward though to be entirely clear.

Finally, I wanted to mention that while the cancellation form may have come as a surprise, that's actually addressed initially during signup within our Terms of Service that you acknowledge was understood. I realize there's often a lot of legalese in those documents and that its easy just to skim over it and click, but I would encourage you to really take a closer look in the future as the surprise was avoidable. Either way, we're sorry it happened, and I offer that simply for your own awareness going forward so you can be better protected as a consumer.

If you have any other questions or concerns please feel free to let me know directly within the cancel ticket you'd submitted, which I'll keep assigned directly to myself.

Best Regards,

Director of Customer Service

Hostgator.com

Review: I recently was researching how to add SSL to my website (securing my website information). I was researching this webpage : [redacted]/how-do-i-purchase-a-private-ssl-from-you-and-what-type-is-itI saw that it cost $34.99 for the Baby plan (which I have). When I clicked on more information, this link was provided:https://plugins.hostgator.com/ssl/It lead me to believe that I was getting the $34.99 price waived if I purchased today. Nowhere on the page does it clarify that the price is only for business sites. Once I clicked on the info I clicked purchase - thinking it was free. I was charged 64.99 total. That is not the price claimed on either pages. I have spoken three times with Billing, and they both claim that I was charged 24 dollars for an IP for a year. That is not disclosed. This is very tricky.Desired Settlement: I believe that the advertisement was not accurately disclosed and that I was fooled with a hidden charge. I would like for them to honor the free charge, because they poorly advertised and withheld information about this product.

Business

Response:

Good Morning,

Thank you for your bringing this to our attention and I'd like to first and foremost apologize for the confusion that's resulted. That's certainly troubling to see, however we'll absolutely get that SSL page on our site corrected now that I'm aware. Looking over the matter itself I see that our staff did get you upgraded to the business level plan which includes a free IP and SSL certificate. Though the difference in price between that and the SSL isn't great, it's good to see they were able to sort this out and get you refunded for what was left over from the initial IP/SSL payment. I also went ahead and credited your account for the next three months of service, just as a gesture of good faith given the trouble you experienced. If you have any further questions or concerns please feel free to email me directly at [redacted]

Best Regards,

Director of Customer Service

Hostgator.com

Review: After years with a hostgator reseller account with no problems I was "upgraded" onto a "new" server 6 months ago and had endless problems, huge daily downtime of all mine and my customer sites, the downtimes still occur daily now and since then they kept blocking my account with no warning as the sites were suddenly taking up too much CPU time when they had been fine on the "old" server for years.I have lost 4 customers and had legal proceedings started against me because of hostgators actions of blocking my sites and account without any warning.Their tech support cant help and argue that their servers cant support a basic CMS database, I suggest that the servers they have moved me to are not adequate for the job and judging by many companies on forums and the rapid decline of Hostgator in the "good host" ratings there are many that agree with me.Desired Settlement: I want a refund of my last years hosting with Hostgator as compensation for arbitrarily and regularly blocking my account and my customers sites and causing loss of income and ongoing legal costs against me because of Hostgators actions.

Business

Response:

Greetings,

Thank you for bringing this situation to our attention for additional review. I'd like to first and foremost offer our sincerest apologies for any frustration or inconvenience this situation has caused you, however please also be aware that you did acknowledge and agree to our Terms of Service(TOS) during signup, which has been violated seven times in the past few weeks. Though I do absolutely understand the frustration that can result as you’re accounts are being suspended, please note we do have a responsibility to protect the server environment and prevent the disruptions your accounts may be causing for other users.

While I can certainly also understand the link you’ve made to the recent migration between data centers, please also be aware that we’ve provided you detailed server output in each of the TOS tickets you’ve been provided supporting our claims. I’m sorry if that information wasn’t clear/understood, or that you feel the server isn’t up to the job, however that’s simply not the case. More appropriately there seems to be a lack of traffic management from your end which is resulting in the increased resource utilization.

Reviewing your full ticket history as well, I actually noted this is not the first time you’ve had issues with our Terms of Service, having been suspended previously for Malware and Phishing related concerns. In that regard, though I realize you’ve found yourself facing unwanted legal attention from your customers due to these more recent suspensions, that’s simply not a situation I can assist you with. We’d also be unable to provide you a full refund for the last years service as you’ve requested given these suspensions were preventable and the result of your account activity on the server. At the same point, given it’s clear you’ve begun migrating your sites elsewhere neglecting the issues at hand, I’d be happy to provide you a refund for the past two months of service.

That would refund the payments made after the migration, when you believe the issues began so hopefully that shows our interest in at least making right on the situation. Ultimately we cannot leave these accounts to run amok on the server with resources, though I do want to part ways with you as amicably as possible. Please also be aware that further mention of legal action either against yourself or towards our staff or company will end our supports ability to communicate with you. Given you’ve already made the decision to migrate, that’s likely best, though I’ll send you an email momentarily and once the migration is completed and you’re ready to cancel, I’ll arrange the refund as promised here in my response. Thank you again for bringing this to our attention and I’m sorry that we’ll be unable to work through this, however I do appreciate the chance to at least try and resolve this with you as best we can.

Best Regards,

Hostgator.com

Review: I would like to file a complaint against Hostgator due to the company does not work with people who have had fraudulent activity against them involving this company. A charge was completed through my account and I wanted to know who had purchased services through this company. I contacted the company twice; first time saying with some information I could find out who did this and when I contacted them the second time with the information; I was told they could not release the information. Someone stole from me and I have a right to know.Desired Settlement: I want to know who made a fraudulent charge to this company using my money. Thank you.

Business

Response:

Review: I purchased a domain through Host Gator, and purchased the "privacy protection" to go with it. There was a problem on HostGators end during the registration of the domain. They were able to fix it and get my domain registered, but in the process, they registered it using my personal information instead of the privacy protection that I had already paid for.This resulted in my personal information (home address, phone number, etc) being attached to my registered domain...even though I paid them to ensure privacy.I have been working with Host Gator for quite some time now to fix this by simply giving me a new domain name, and I will do away w/ the old one because some of the WHOIS information is now archived on 3rd party sites that HostGator has no control over.Host Gator supervisors have told me that it's against their policy, that I agreed to this when I paid for my domain, and they are unable to do anything to help me, that if I want a new domain, I must pay for another one and "trust them" that it won't happen again.I've spent too many hours fighting them over such a small thing. They will not get another penny of my money, but I will not stop fighting them to get my very simple request fulfilled. All I have asked for from the very beginning was a very easy, and very cheap, fix. Give me a new domain, free of charge, and remove the one that Host Gator ruined (at their own admission)Desired Settlement: Give me a new domain name of my choosing (provided it's available) and pay for the privacy protection. This is what I paid you for in the beginning, and you failed to protect my privacy via your own contract.

Business

Response:

Good Afternoon,

Review: I bought a [redacted] from Hostgator on [redacted] for $19.66. On [redacted], I asked for a cancellation and refund. Two weeks went by without a response, and during that time they billed my credit card for another $8.95. On [redacted], I was issued a refund of $1.79.Clearly, at the very least I did not want to be charged again on [redacted] for $8.95.If HostGator does not want to grant me a refund on my original purchase, I want $8.95 back. If they are kind enough to honor the policy, a total refund of $8.95 x 2 (Nov & Dec) = 17.90.Desired Settlement: Minimum: $8.95 for the [redacted] purchase I tried so hard to avoid (note: I sent in two support tickets and no one replied, made a phone call and was told people are usually quick about these things...) Ideal: $17.90 (two months of being billed for $8.95)

Business

Response:

Good Afternoon,

Thank you for bringing this situation to our attention and I'm sorry for the huge inconvenience it has created. Looking over your cancellation ticket [redacted], I see that you were offered a pro-rated refund of $8.95 + $1.79 (pro-rated). Why this was handled this way I'm not sure as of yet, given it seems quite trivial to not just refund both $8.95 charges since you still have an open account with us, however I'll get to the bottom of that very shortly once I've had an opportunity to speak with our cancellations supervisors and the staff involved.

In the meantime, I apologize for the hassle this has created and went ahead and credited your current open account for a month of service ($24.95). That's a little more then you requested be refunded, however since the refund was processed already you'll receive that amount ($10.74)back to your credit card as well. That brings the refund credit to $35.69 total which I hope you find agreeable. No action is necessary to make use of the credit towards the remaining reseller account, you’ll simply not receive an invoice this coming month. If we can address any additional questions or concerns you may have, please do let us know.

Consumer

Response:

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 will wait until for the business to perform this action and, if it does, will consider this complaint resolved.

Regards,

Review: Total and complete outage of internet sites for more than five days, continuing at the time of this filing. Multiple chats, emails, and phone calls have not resolved the issue.

Outline: received a notice indicating that my web server was utlizing too much CPU. Apparently, the server was spiking due to a requests from external sites (that I do not control or have any affiliation with, I simply has hosted a couple of very small ** files that were linked to). Instead of popping an error message when the files were deleted, it was causing huge issues. But I didn't know this, and they weren't helpful in resolving it. Once I found the issue, I was able to resolve it, but my service was still down.Desired Settlement: I'd like a complete and total refund for all hosting costs, and potentially damages for the time my websites were down (direct losses of $300-$500/day).

Business

Response:

Good Afternoon,Thank you for alerting us to the unfortunate situation with your Terms of Service violations. While they are indeed violations and something that resulted due to your site’s configuration, I definitely understand the frustration you’ve experienced and want to do what we can to make right on the matter. I’d like to outline specifically what was violated, briefly touch on the solution, and then finally what we can do to move this all forward.Though noted in the compliant initially that you’d resolved the matter completely, after reviewing the ticket history I see you continue to receive suspensions even after submitting the complaint, signaling you in fact had not resolve the root of the problem. To clarify what was violated for the Revdex.com, when you signed up for the account you accepted our Terms of Service agreement, which can be referenced here: [redacted] Contained within that agreement is an Acceptable Use Policy which further outlines what is and isn’t considered acceptable resource usage, which is where your account ran into problems. That portion of the TOS can be found here: [redacted] and makes it clear that any account or site utilizing more then 25% of the servers resources at any given moment will be suspended and require optimization. I apologize if this portion of the agreement was overlooked when you accepted it at signup, however we were perfectly up front as to why this happened within the ticket when the issues first started.Having audited several of the tickets relating to these violations, I understand that a senior admin was finally able to pinpoint the actual cause of the issues the morning after your complaint, and corrected a filename which seemed to have the wrong case in relation to the link which was responding with a 404 error. Though we’re happy to spend time and address the matter which does come at a cost for our support, that’s really something that falls to the customer as their responsibility as we simply don’t have time to go through each and every TOS violation in an effort to correct what are problems the customer has introduced into the environment. That said, I’m not interested in placing blame on you either, as these issues are not always obvious or really the type of problem I’d expect most customers to catch just on an initial survey of the scene, but at the same point we do have a duty to monitor the servers and keep them stable given these are shared with other users.Moving forward while I understand that you’d like to be compensated somewhere to the tune of $2500 between losses and the full refund you’ve requested for what was basically 5 days of intermittent downtime, that’s simply not going to be possible as we’re not liable for damages you claim to have occurred through use of the service for any reason. That’s a point that our Terms of Service outlines as well in Section 26. Disclaimer. Though we won’t be able to compensate quite to the degree you feel is reasonable, I would be happy to honor the 99.9% uptime agreement. Though that agreement doesn’t really protect you in instances where you or your account have caused the downtime, I definitely realize the plight the suspensions cause and it’s a very real impact in some cases. At this time, in the interest of being as fair as possible, while the agreement provides a month of credit, I’ve gone ahead and applied a 3 month credit towards the affected account. The credit will apply itself to any future invoices, but if you have any additional questions or concerns please let me know. Otherwise at this time given it appears the TOS tickets have ceased after our admin resolved the filename issue, we’ll consider the matter closed.Best Regards,[redacted]Hostgator.com

Review: On August 18, 2014, I filled out an online form to transfer some of my domain name registrations to Hostgator. They charged my credit card $23.85 for the transfer of three domain names ([redacted]). However, the transfers were never processed nor did they ever acknowledge that they would transfer the domain names. After waiting a few days for a response, I contacted Hostgator via the Web (I am unable to reach them via telephone), and they replied as follows:

"Hello, Thank you for contacting HostGator. The transfer of your domains has not yet been initiated since we have not received any reply from you in the [redacted]. Please make the sure the following requirements have been met: 1. The domain has been registered for at least 60 days at its current registrar. 2. The domain's WHOIS privacy has been disabled. 3. The domain is not under registrar hold or lock. 4. Make sure that you have access to the Administrative contact of the domain name. If the Administrative email address is no longer correct, you will need to contact your current registrar and update your Administrative email address. 5. Once you are sure that you have access to the Administrative email address for your domain, please get back to us with the EPP code so that we can initiate the transfer. Looking forward to your reply. Warm Regards! [redacted]. HostGator.com Toll-free: [redacted] International: [redacted]"

I was never sent anything in my email in regards to ticket # [redacted]. I had also checked my spam folder and there was nothing there from Hostgator, either. I have since registered the domain names with a different company. I would like to receive a full refund of the $23.85 charge.

Thank you.Desired Settlement: I want a full refund of the $23.85 charged for services that were never provided.

Business

Response:

Good Afternoon,Thanks so much for a chance to review this experience.We were sorry to hear that the domain transfer process did not go smoothly for [redacted] and have spent time to review the related history for a better understanding of what has occurred. We would have loved to receive these domains, however after review of the situation, we see that the domains were never unlocked at his original registrar. If domains are not unlocked, this means we can not actually initiate the transfers. We informed [redacted] of this situation on the 22nd of August but regrettably received no word back. We understand there was a report that our message was not received, however our communications were recorded through our ticket system so the communications were always available for review through [redacted]Although we are sorry we could not complete the transfers, considering a request was made to move domains that were locked, in cases where domain transfers do not complete, we are always more than happy to return any funds paid. Additionally, we saw that the Revdex.com complaint was filed less than 24 hours after the refund was requested which meant our billing staff did not yet have a chance to speak with [redacted] to let him know a refund would be provided.Regardless, we see that a refund for the total paid was provided on the 17th of this month and wish [redacted] the best of luck with his fallback choice of registrar services.

Review: I purchased a domain/website through Hostgator.com and after 20 minutes of trying to figure out how to create a website, I decided to contact them to cancel my account and issue me a refund because it was much too difficult for me to create my site. I tried calling them for over an hour but no one ever answered. Then I tried their LiveChat service which also took me an hur to get a hold of someone. After two hours of waiting, the LiveChat person simply told me to fill out a cancellation form. After doing that they issued me a ticket to fix my problem (cancel account and issue refund). I filled out two cancellation forms but they were still issuing me several tickets to get it fixed even though I filled out the cancellation forms. They then stated it would take 24-72 hours to cancel my account. It has been 6 days and I still have not received my refund and am still not able to contact a real, live person to discuss my issue with. I paid over $90 to them for a service I only used all of 20 minutes. I am disgusted at the lack of customer service because I have yet to have a phone call answered. I desperately need my refund back and each time I request the refund an automated email is sent to me saying they issued another ticket to resolve my problem. I need to talk a person! This is the worst experience I have ever had. I just want my refund and I do not want them to bill me every month (since I ordered a package for the next 6 months I believe). Please help me.Desired Settlement: I would like a full refund and assurance that I will not be billed the following months.

Business

Response:

Greetings,

We certainly appreciate the chance to review any of our customer's experiences but we were sorry to see the cancellation process proved to be difficult. We've now had time to review the situation and see that we did receive a number of phone calls on the day the account was purchased, but unfortunately we were experiencing high volumes at that time, meaning the wait was longer than usual. That said, from our logs we see that although many calls were made, the majority only lasted for roughly 3 minutes with one 9 minute call, and that all calls were terminated before our agents had a chance to answer.

Regardless, we were glad to see that better luck was had with live chat and that our agent correctly provided the steps on how to cancel. We received the cancellation request on the 8th of this month then replied back on the 10th requesting confirmation of the request to terminate the account. Unfortunately we did not receive that confirmation till the 16th of August. We handle these requests in the order they were received and had a chance to provide a full refund on the 18th, just a few hours before receiving this complaint.

A full refund was provided totaling $90.89 back to the PayPal account used. If there have been any problems with that refund, please let us know and we'll be glad to take another look.

Review: I purchased hosting at Host Gator for 3 years. Their website promised 45 day money back guarantee. I did not like their hosting product and cancelled it per the instructions on their website. I asked for a refund and received an email back offering to resolve any issues. I asked for a refund again. My money has not been refunded.

I tweeted to @hostgator on [redacted].com The person on that account was able to get the issue escalated and I received an email saying my account would be refunded. So far, all I have is an email. No money has been refunded to my debit account.Desired Settlement: I just want a refund of all money paid to Host Gator. I do not use their services and I find them to be a dishonest company.

Business

Response:

Good Morning,Thank you for bringing this situation to our attention. Though it’s unfortunate to discover we did in fact issue a refund and provided confirmation numbers for the transaction via ticket # [redacted], all the same I understand your frustration and do want to ensure this gets addressed for you.While we did issue the refund on the 8th which is shown below, as well as in our response to you on the 10th in the ticket, I did notice that we never provided you any timeframe for the actual time the refund would take to process. I've redacted a portion of each of the below ID #s, though if you check your email for that ticket you'll see the full numbers.Dec 08 2014 10:26:40 AM Request ID: XXXXXXXXX[redacted]MerchID: RXXXXXXX[redacted] Visa 156.49 USDCredit Card CreditPlease expect the refund to process through the payment processor and bank to your bank/credit account within 5-10 business days. It will typically occur on the shorter end of this window, though at times does take longer unfortunately, though that’s very much outside our control which I apologize for. Given this was processed last Monday on the 8th, you should see the refund any day now if you’ve not already. If you haven’t seen the refund though by weeks end(ten business days) please let me know via the ticket my team has communicated with you through. I’ll keep that assigned directly to myself, so please don’t hesitate to reach out to me even if you just have further questions.Best Regards,Joshua M[redacted]Director of Customer ServiceHostgator.com

Consumer

Response:

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,

Business

Response:

Sent: Monday, December 29, 2014 10:55 AM To: drteam Subject: Re: Please Review - Complaint #[redacted] Here is the original refund issued on 12/08/2014 for the full amount he paid on hosting. Below that is the domain refund, which Zane at no time till he rejected our first full refund in the complaint mentioned. We typically don't refund domain registrations either which our TOS explains and was clarified for him when it came into question. Regardless he was provided refunds for both the hosting and domain as I promised. His timeline and account of our communications is simply inaccurate, which the ticket shows as well, though hopefully the refunds confirm his dishonesty in the complaint. The following is pulled directly from our Credit Card payment processor. If he's still not received these he would need to contact his credit card company as we no longer have his funds. Dec 08 2014 156.49 USD [redacted] Credit Card Credit [redacted] Request was processed successfully [redacted] 7.95 USD [redacted] Dec 16 2014 Credit Card Credit Request was processed successfully I've also included a screenshot below from our billing backend which shows both charges refunded and his payments $0.00'd representing we've returned all his money as he requested. Thank you for reviewing the matter as well, I appreciate it! Best Regards, Joshua M[redacted] Director of Customer Service The Endurance International Group [redacted] Follow us on [redacted] — @Hostgator and @HGsupport

Review: They are an Internet Hosting company for websites and E-mail. Three times in the last few months they have been down for hours and I personally have been unable to contact them when this happens. It seems they were recently purchased by another company and that is when it seems to have started. This is bad, a lot of people are loosing businessDesired Settlement: I want to cancel my subscription with them and get a refund. Thier service is the worst.

Consumer

Response:

I have been contacted by Hostgator and they have actually been very helpful and supportive.

They have offered me a different solution. That should remedy the problem.

I have not been able to fully impliment their counter solution, however that is an issue from

My side not theirs. So I am satisfied with their response and proposed solution.

This letter is to inform you that HostGator.com, L.L.C. has carried out to my satisfaction the resolution it proposed for my complaint, filed on 4/29/2014 6:27:23 PM and assigned ID [redacted]

Regards,

Review: Hostgator fraudulent continues to charge our credit card when we have no service with them. We tried to use their services a year ago but they could not deliver the service. We cancelled with them on several occasions but they continue to fraudulently charge our credit card. I have spent several hours on the phone with them trying to get them to remove us from their list and stop charging our credit card for services we do not have or want.Desired Settlement: I demand that Hostgator refund our money and stop harassing us for business we do not want or use. We have no service with them, we have no business with them, we do not wish to have any business with them. We want them to cease and desist from charging our credit card and to stop acting as if we are a customer of theirs. They are a fraudulent company that once they get any kind of information on a customer they use it to squeeze money out even if there are no services delivered.

Business

Response:

Good Afternoon,

Thank you for reaching out to us regarding the trouble you experienced with your cancellation. Reviewing the situation though it looks as though this wasn’t processed due to the lack of confirmation on your end, which is understandable in some fashion given we don’t want to terminate your data or account till we have consent. I’m sorry for any confusion that occurred through the incorrect assumptions that were made that the account would just be cancelled, however I do encourage all customers to make sure they’re familiar with Terms of Service agreements when they signup as server as this was outlined previously and presented to you.

At any rate, all the same we do want to get you the refund and your account cancelled if that’s your wish, so I’m sorry for the inconvenience, but we’ll certainly correct the situation. I’ve spoken with [redacted] who’s been in contact with you over the weekend and understand the situation has been explained and a refund offered in the amount of $887.11 as was your expectation. If I can assist you any further with the situation, whether in regards to the refund or simply to answer questions please don’t hesitate to reach out to me directly at [redacted]

Best Regards,

Hostgator.com

Endurance International Group

Consumer

Response:

[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.]

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 will wait until for the business to perform this action and, if it does, will consider this complaint resolved.

Regards,