HostGator.com, L.L.C.

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

Good Morning,Our sincerest apologies for the delay in response over the past week’s holiday I’ve spent a great deal of time with our development team and billing director and believe I understand why these issues have arisen and repeated, however looking through our logs I’m only seeing that privacy was disabled twice If you can provide me a detailed account of when you believe the third issue occurred I’d be happy to review that as well, though your ticket history also seems to elude to the fact that this only actually occurred twice The actual problem resulted after we initially had problems activating privacy with our registry service which you were made aware of in the initial ticket It appears a package afor domain privacy was added incorrectly directly to our billing system and your hosting packages, when that was a legacy feature of our billing/registry system and not handled appropriatelyIt was handled this way however after a failure by the new functionality to initially configure this for you, which was explained as I noted Later on in October I see an audit was run through the billing system and the system removed the privacy add ons as they should not exist in the way they did The unfortunate reality though is that this was an automated audit and human intervention never occurred to appropriately re-add the add ons to the domains themselves That was corrected previously and should not continue to be an issue for you, though I understand the situation and that privacy being removed can be quite serious for some customers depending on their own history, which obviously I’m not aware of, nor is a great concern given we expect your domain to remain private Given the nature of the problems, though I’m quite sure they will not repeat having been corrected finally earlier this year, I have gone ahead and provided a month credit towards your hosting renewal I realize that may not undo the frustration or get your time back as you tried to resolve this with us previously this year, though hopefully it gestures our interest in righting the situation and hopefully moving our business relations forward Please let me know if you have further questions or comments Best Regards,Joshua [redacted] Director of Customer ServiceHostgator.com

Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID ***, and have determined that this proposed action would not resolve my complaint
This is the second time I have had a major issue with Host Gator's inadequate customer service In *** ***, I was about to contact the Revdex.com and file a complaint against "Billing Administrator" *** ***, discontinue my services with Host Gator, and stop referring them to all my clients.When asked for help on how to create a *** subscription for my IP address fee, *** gave me vague answers at least twice and did not address my issue at all After contacting live chat agent, ***(who was actually really helpful), I was notified that the reason I was having a difficult time paying the invoice was that it was not created in the first place and it was prepaying my hosting invoice instead.My last email to *** was asking for step by step instructions on how to pay. She did not answer my email at all and my account was simply suspended I found this highly unprofessional because I made it very clear that I wanted to pay the invoice and simply could not because of an error on Host Gator's part of not creating the correct invoice in the first place The only reason I did not file a complaint then was because *** *was so helpful So I gave Host Gator another chanceI do not appreciate the lack of responsibility Host Gator is implying regarding my extensive communication efforts and the lack of communication on their part.The statement, "it doesn’t appear you ever contacted *** so we could assist you with resolving this prior to filing a Revdex.com complaint. The Revdex.com complaint process asks that you do this, and while unfortunate this didn’t occur, which likely would have led to a more prompt resolution" is very misleading I made more than adequate successful effort in calling, live chatting (and waiting!), and emailing customer service (with my specific ticket number attached instead of the generic *** address) My last email dated *** * (with ticket number attached for clear communication) stated that I would be contacting the Revdex.com if I received no response And I DID NOT receive a response by *** ** Furthermore, there WAS NO email received on ***/** regarding their security team completing their scan of the accounts (I found it strange that the email was also not attached as *** said it would be) and I DID NOT receive an explanation regarding the matter Revdex.com respondent for Host Gator, *** ***, implies confusion regarding why I responded days later asking why the matter wasn’t resolved However, this is because I was told by live chat agent that the matter would be resolved in days Host Gator Director of Customer Service *** *** implies a redirection blame for their "outdated and vulnerable" servers."The sites were compromised as a result of you not keeping *** installations current and up-to-date. This is a huge security concern, and something that you really need to pay close attention to, as I can assure you this can and will be repeated if and when the server is outdated and vulnerable again in the future." Again, while I am a very reasonable person, the lack of communication from Host Gator prior to the Revdex.com complaint and *** ***'s redirection of responsibility and insinuated blame are highly distasteful...especially when I saw on Host Gator's logs that they are undergoing severe maintenance and was told by another live chat agent that Host Gator has actually been inundated by viruses and malware from *** sites using the Revolution slider plugin I would like a refund not a credit I will be terminating service with Host Gator because of their poor customer service and therefore a credit will not be helpful I would like to terminate service on my own timeline and not be forced by Host Gator to do so
Regards,
*** ***

[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 *** and find that this resolution would be sort of satisfactory to me
If you listen to the recordings, you would understand why I hung up on your *** the way I didIts obvious that hostgator teaches its employees that hostgator can never be wrongJust reading the thousands of complaints online, the language you continue to use in youre responses to my Revdex.com complaint, and in the Revdex.com online complaints, I cannot stay with a company like hostgator, if ever this issue happens again, I wouldnt want to call you guys at allIts scary, but thank you for finally handling the actual issueTake care

Good Afternoon,First and foremost we'd like to offer our apologies for this situation occurring again as we of course never like to see our customer's domain registrations temporarily lapseAlthough our terms of service do indicate that our customers agree to contact us to ensure that domains are properly renewed, we fully understand there was an expectation given that the domain would be automatically invoiced which did not occurAfter investigation we have determined that the Canadian domain ending in .ca was added to the billing account in order to help facilitate automated renewals, however this should not have been done as our system is not setup to handle .ca domains as it does almost all other domain extensions (tlds)We also discovered that the registrant e-mail address associated with the domain was no longer accessible, which could have helped prevent this situation as we send expiration notices to help ensure domains do not reach expirationThis is a requirement of the organization overseeing domain registrations (ICANN) which states that any domain registrant must keep accurate information on file for domains to ensure they are receiving these notices.Regardless, at this time we have refunded all additional costs to retrieve the domain from the redemption status and see that these costs were also refunded last yearWe apologize once more for the inconvenience and if we can be of any further assistance, please let us know

Revdex.com:
This letter is to inform you that HostGator.com, L.L.Chas carried out to my satisfaction the resolution it proposed for my complaint, filed on 1/31/3:45:PM and assigned ID
Regards,My email to *** *.Hello ***,Thank you so much for
fixing
my problemI'm sorry for contacting the Revdex.com over this because
you have kindly shown me that it was a script error, just like one of
the support personnel had told me.It was my fault, for not
using the script correctly and I will let the Revdex.com know thatThe script
worked before for me on your servers and with the error message and
support page for that error, I mistakenly thought that it was on your
endThank you again for your helpAlso, please let the support
personnel that told me it was a script error, that I was wrong and that
I'm sorryI hope you all have a nice dayAlthough I've had
some issues with HostGator over the years, it's been the best hosting
company I've ever had, and I tried many others, before joining
HostGatorI think my continuous eight and a half years with HostGator
is my testament to that.Best Regards,***

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 *** ** ** *** *** ** *** *** *** but I’ve included the relevant sections below for youBilling and Payment InformationAPrepayment?It is your responsibility to ensure that your payment information is up to date, and that all invoices are paid on timeYou agree to pay for the Services in advance of the time period during which such Services are providedSubject to applicable laws, rules, and regulations, payments received will be first applied to the oldest outstanding invoice in your billing accountBAutorenewal?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 usI 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 *** from * *** *** *** 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 *** 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,*** ***
*** ** *** ***
***

Good Afternoon,Thank you for bringing this situation to our attention. I’ll be happy to assist you with the situation, and would like to apologize for any frustration our security team’s turn around may have caused, however at the same point after a review of your contacts and ticket history,
it doesn’t appear you ever contacted *** so we could assist you with resolving this prior to filing a Revdex.com complaint. The Revdex.com complaint process asks that you do this, and while unfortunate this didn’t occur, which likely would have led to a more prompt resolution, I’m happy to review and address this with you.Looking over the security ticket I see that you reported compromises on the morning of ***, then a second site compromised the following day on ***. Finally around midnight of that night, certainly before 1am on *** our security team completed their scan of the accounts and provided you an explanation regarding the matter. I’m not sure if their response wasn’t received by you given you then responded days later asking why it wasn’t resolved, however I’m happy to include their email at the end of my response as reference.As you’ll note from their email to you, the sites were compromised as a result of you not keeping *** installations current and up-to-date. This is a huge security concern, and something that you really need to pay close attention to, as I can assure you this can and will be repeated if and when the server is outdated and vulnerable again in the future. Though this may not be something you realized you needed to be lending attention towards, hopefully through our communications we can ensure your responsibilities are clear and not overlooked in the future. Should further compromises occur, as noted in the ticket response we may indeed need to charge you an admin fee to clean the accounts, given the situation is entirely avoidable.Moving forward please just keep an eye on your software and this shouldn’t repeat itself, but in regards to the compensation you’ve requested I want to make it clear it’s not our responsibility to compensate you towards losses experienced when your customers refuse to pay you through something that resulted due to your own lack of action. This was entirely avoidable with regular site maintenance, and is your responsibility given it’s software you placed on the server. Having said that, I do want to be as fair as possible with you and have gone ahead and credited your account for a month of service. We unfortunately did not refund while compensating for troubles, but the credit is available and will automatically apply itself when next month’s invoice drafts in the system.As for your ticket and request to scan the other hosted accounts within, I did also ensure that a security supervisor is aware and working to escalate that for you through a senior admin. I don’t believe the previous admin on *** noticed that request which I apologize for, but it should be in good hands now and receive a response very shortly. Should you have any other questions or concerns regarding this please let me know.Best Regards,*** ***Director of Customer ServiceHostgator.com

Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID ***, and have determined that this proposed action would not resolve my complaint
*** ***,You are a highly intelligent man and I greatly appreciate the fact that you helped escalate my request and that one website was scanned and cleared I, however, am extremely good at interpreting tone and meaning behind communication I do not appreciate the tone of your messages Please do not do that again The reason for not accepting this response is because the rest of the websites on my account have not been scanned and cleared as promised Thank you for offering to create backups of all my accounts This is very much appreciated
Regards,
*** ***

Greetings,Given the complete lack of responsibility it seems you're willing to accept for your client's sites, and the fact that you left them out-dated in an exploitable state, perhaps it's best that you do look for another host at this timeHonestly we’d prefer not to host such resellers as this does open our network to obvious issues over the long term, while your sites site exploitable open to further attack. I'm sorry to see this happen, and while we did certainly overlook your initial request to scan your other accounts, the ticket was escalated earlier today once we were made aware. To be clear we do certainly sympathize with the inconvenience experienced during this situation, and want to make it understood that our tough stance isn't simply to shrug off responsibility on this end, but hopefully better educate you as a consumer/reseller so you can avoid future compromise and hacking attempts which are obviously costly now that you're clients have refused to pay you this past month. The good news is that it's totally avoidable with a little pro-active effort.I'm also sorry to see this come up so late after the fact, as I can assure you this would have been addressed sooner. Without any report of concerns though for almost a month, there's little more we can do at this time, other then ensure the work is completed and a credit offered, which occurred yesterday as a courtesy given the troubles you’ve experienced recently. I think that's pretty fair given you could have avoided the hacking all together by keeping the software up-to-date, but clearly you disagree and wish to argue that we’re responsible for the damage your negligence has resulted in.In regards to the scan that was completed yesterday evening after we were aware and had the ticket escalated, I'd like to point out that once more your software was found to be out of date. Due to this discovery, while I’m sure that likely won’t change your stance on this either, I do really want to encourage you to keep your software up to date. I'd like to again make it clear as well, that I'm offering this recommendation with you and your client's own well being in mind. Not to throw salt in a wound as you've stated is my interest.. Let's please focus on the matter hand and keep personal feelings aside, as again I'm offering this advice simply to help you avoid future problems, not fatigue communications further.Having touched on those few points once more, I'm really not interested in wasting more of your time arguing over these points and would be happy to offer you a refund as requested once you're ready to cancel the account in your own time. Please just email me at *** when you're ready, and if you require time beyond the current credited period, please let me know and I’d be happy to extend this for you. I’d also be happy to create backups of your accounts should that help move this along with less haste, please just let me know.Best Regards,*** ***Director of Customer ServiceHostgator.com

Good Morning,Thank you for bringing this to our attention. I apologize for any inconvenience the refund process has caused as well. While we don't typically provide refunds towards credit that we offer as a result of compensation, I did locate that amount in the billing notes and have
had our cancellations team issue a second refund for $23.46, what was left of the credit. You'll receive a response regarding the refund shortly in your cancellation ticket, though please let us know if there's anything further we can assist with.Best Regards,Joshua M***Director of Customer ServiceHostgator.com

Greetings,
Thank you for contacting Hostgator regarding the frustration you experienced last week. I'd like to first and foremost offer our sincerest apologies for any frustration or inconvenience this situation has caused you, though we’ll also be honoring our 99.9% uptime guarantee
in this case, as that was clearly not met last month as a result of the outage affecting your server
First though I’d like to address the support delays, which we realize made it extremely difficult to communicate through. At the same time, please also understand that we were not intentionally ignoring customers’ requests, but working as quickly as possible to address customers’ concerns, which were coming through in an extreme fashion. The reality in this case is that volumes were not only high during the outage just due to our resellers contacting us, but that compounded further with all the resellers’ resold customers also reaching out to us. Though our Terms of Service makes it clear resellers should be managing those clients, we realize in this case that people just wanted information and can’t fault them for reaching out
The other concern you mentioned was in regards to migrating your account off the server to another working server. Due to the OS upgrade not going smoothly, and the resulting MySQL issues that occurred, we lamentably had to run file system checks on each affected server which takes time, ultimately tying up the server as we try and bring it online. This means that we were unable to move single accounts as you’d requested, so please note that while we realize you were trying to pay more to achieve this, it just wasn’t feasible technically at that time. I can assure you had this been an option, we would have utilized the strategy immediately
Prior to jumping to the uptime guarantee, I also wanted to mention that we are not *** compliant. It’s concerning that you mention medical patient information, which would typically fall into that category. Perhaps you’re simply processing billing requests through the account, but I’ve included a link to more information on HIPAA compliance below for your reference:
***
Finally, I did also just apply a month credit towards your hosting for the troubles experienced. Our 99.9% uptime guarantee promises just a month of hosting per the guarantee, but we realize this outage had a large impact on some customers and want to offer beyond what’s promised as a gesture of good faith. We realize there are alot of competitors out there in the market, so beyond the credit, please let us know if you have additional questions or concerns. We’re happy to discuss this all further as we try and restore your faith with us
Best Regards,
*** ***
Director of Customer Service
hostgator.com

Good Morning,Our apologies for the delay in response. We appreciate the opportunity to look into this matter, and would be happy to offer you a refund. I've responded to your ticket DDS-*** and will work with you there to refund the request for a full refund of the $you've
paid. To summarize the situation briefly for the Revdex.com's reference, after looking into the situation, it appear our support staff did unfortunately make a mistake while testing an FTP account.During the process of creating a test account and confirming FTP was working for the customer, an error was caused leading to the loss of a file directory within the account. While we unfortunately were unable to restore the account, we do take responsibility for the error and want to be as fair as possible with the customer. With that said however, I would like to also point out that it was the customer's responsibility to retain a local backup of their data, which apparently did not occur. I apologize if that was overlooked when he agreed to our Terms of Service, however this really isn't a situation the customer should have ever been in had they been keeping data backed up. This is referenced directly in Section Backup and Data Loss of our TOS located here: ***Backups and Data Loss
Your use of the Services is at your sole riskHostGator’s
backup service runs once a week and overwrites any of our previous
backupsOnly one week of backups are kept at a timeThis service is
provided only to shared and reseller accounts as a courtesy and may be
modified or terminated at any time at HostGator’s sole discretion
HostGator does not maintain backups of dedicated accountsHostGator is
not responsible for files and/or data residing on your accountYou
agree to take full responsibility for all files and data transferred and
to maintain all appropriate backup of files and data stored on
HostGator’s servers
Any shared account using more than gigs of disk space will
be removed from our off site weekly backup with the exception of
databases continuing to be backed upAll data will continue to be
mirrored to a secondary drive to help protect against data loss in the
event of a drive failure
I believe it's also worth noting the section prior to 27, which is a disclaimer waiving responsibility for damages the customer may claim were experiencedDisclaimer
HostGator shall not be responsible for any damages your
business may sufferHostGator makes no warranties of any kind,
expressed or implied for the ServicesHostGator disclaims any warranty
of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose, including loss
of data resulting from delays, delivery failures, wrong deliveries, and
any and all service interruptions caused by HostGator or our employees
With those points made, though the situation is certainly unfortunate, had the customer done their due diligence they current wouldn't be in this situation and we could have easily restored their backups likely within a matter of minutes, possibly hours. I'll continue to follow up in the ticket I mentioned above, to ensure the refund is issued and the matter closed to the customer's satisfaction.Best Regards,*** *** ** *** ***

Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID ***, and have determined that this proposed action would not resolve my complaint
I do not have any issue speaking with you, however the issue is that I was fully aware of the account which the hosting package was underAll of our ftp connections are configured with itThat is how we managed our siteTherein lies the issue1)Somehow the domain reverted to another account 2)The dedicated IP address was changed 3)We were asked to make changes that exacerbated the underlying issuesNone of these issues support your explanationThey actually support mineAgain This is an issue similar to one experienced during the initial actions made about a year and a half ago when we specifically requested notation be made regarding this accountWe experienced prolonged downtime at that time as wellWe were never compensated and resolution exposed the error on the part of the hostgator staff performing the activityI cannot express strongly enough the degree of concern I have regarding the impact to our business
Regards,Andre BarnettCEO & President*** ***

Greetings,
Thank you for bringing this matter 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 are certainly honoring our 99.9% uptime agreement, which was obviously not met this
past week during the outage affecting many reseller servers. Looking over your billing account I see that we did already apply a credit towards the guarantee, and though I realize we may not be able to compensate you to the degree you're hoping given you may have in fact incurred losses through ecommerce sites, I'd like to go one further then just the month credit the guarantee offers
Keeping compensation totals in mind as we are a business too, while I can't directly compensate towards the losses you have communicated were experienced, I have applied an additional two month credit to your billing account. This brings the total credit to months, and I hope gestures our interest in moving the situation forward. If you have any concerns or questions regarding the outage itself, please feel free to follow up with us directly in your previously opened Customer Service ticket *** We’ll look forward to moving beyond this and hopefully regaining your trust!
Best Regards,
*** ***
Director of Customer Service
Hostgator.com

Revdex.com:
The company was finally able to restore services to full operationI have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID ***, and find that this their reply was satisfactory

Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID *** I will be accepting the reparations Host Gator is making in regards to the refund Their customer service is still severely lacking, however, as evidenced by the customer service representative's tone in his business responses I am so very thankful for your organization and all that you do I know that without your help, I definitely would not have received any business response Thank you again for the wonderful service your provide You are amazing.Aloha,*** ***

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 *** *** and have spent time to review the related history for a better understanding of what has occurredWe would have loved to receive
these domains, however after review of the situation, we see that the domains were never unlocked at his original registrarIf domains are not unlocked, this means we can not actually initiate the transfersWe informed *** *** of this situation on the 22nd of August but regrettably received no word backWe 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 *** ** *** ** *** *** *** * ***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 paidAdditionally, we saw that the Revdex.com complaint was filed less than hours after the refund was requested which meant our billing staff did not yet have a chance to speak with *** *** 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 *** *** the best of luck with his fallback choice of registrar services

Greetings,First, we fully understand your frustration with the loss of your data and webfiles and the lack of backup copiesBy way of background, we provide our services pursuant to the terms of a written online contract called our Terms of Service, located
at http://www.hostgator.com/tos (“TOS”). You agreed to these TOS when you signed up for HostGator services As is clearly stated in the TOS, customers “agree to take full responsibility for all files and data transferred and to maintain all appropriate backup of files and data stored on HostGator’s servers.” Unfortunately, in this case, you did not maintain such backups and upon the termination of your account, none were available. As is common industry practice with web hosts, we backup our servers for short periods for redundancy in the event of a server problem or outage; however we do not maintain complete or longer term backups of customer web files and other data. Therefore, we did not have and could not provide you with backup files following termination of your account. While it is extremely unfortunate that you did not maintain backup copies and that they are not otherwise available, it is important to note that under the TOS, it is your responsibility, not HostGator’s, to backup and keep extra copies of your data and webfilesAs is standard practice in our industry, the TOS further provide that upon termination of an account, the account data is removed from our serversIn addition, the TOS prohibit use of our services for HIPAA protected data, for which our services were not designedWhen we were advised by your assistant that you were storing HIPAA protected data on our servers, we notified you to remove such data immediately, and you failed to do so. When we became aware that you needed additional time, we extended the time period for you to comply with the TOS. However, during this time you still did not remove the data or notify us that you did not believe such data was HIPAA protected. We take compliance with law and HIPAA seriously. After substantial notice and opportunity your account was terminated for breach of our TOS, and pursuant to our TOS, your webfiles and other data were removed from our servers following termination of your account. Best Regards, *** ***Director of Customer Service ?Hostgator.com?

Good Afternoon,Thanks for the chance to address these concerns.We've since had a chance to speak with *** *** directly via e-mail and after review have found that the $charge in question was in fact authorizedTo clarify, during purchase of our services, at the bottom of our checkout
pages, before the purchase is accepted, our customers are provided the following disclaimer :"Money-back guarantee applies to shared, VPS and reseller accounts and domain privacyQualified packages include instant activation and hour supportIntroductory prices apply to the first termAll plans and products automatically renew for the same term length at regular rates, which will be available in your control panelUnless you request a change or cancellation, the payment method provided today will be used for renewals."This information is also included in our terms of service which were agreed to prior to the purchaseThat said, unfortunately we never received a request to remove the card on file or set an alternate payment methodAs such, when the account was up for it's monthly renewal, our system did automatically charge the card initially used for the amount of $As a courtesy for the financial situation mentioned, while we cannot provide compensation for the overdraft fees, and although the charge was authorized, we've refunded the payment in full and re-invoiced to allow *** *** to resubmit payment at his convenienceTypically once banks see that the payment has been reversed, the overdraft fees should be waivedIn regards to the concerns on the customer service provided, after review of the call we do agree that the situation could have been better explainedThe main concern mentioned by *** *** was that our agent inquired as to whether or not he wished to cancel the packageWhen an authorized charge is made on an account, our default policy is to only provide a refund if a cancellation request is submitted in conjunction with the refund requestWhile we do not feel our agent was attempting to push *** *** out the door so to speak, we do agree that this could have been explained more clearly by our agent and we'll be working with her on this opportunity for improvementWe'll also make sure she is aware that she can inform customers that they may contact our management at *** to request special consideration outside of policyWe hope this fully addresses the concerns raised however if there are any other issues we can help to review with *** ***, we do have a direct line of communication setup between him and our management and ask that he please let us know if we can be of any further assistance