HostGator.com, L.L.C.

Hello,We are sorry to hear about the difficulties related to the cancellation of the HostGator account.At this time the cancellation that was requests has been processed and a refund of the most recent payment has been issued. Also feel free to use the ticket that was established as a means of...

direct communication with the customer service management team.

Good Afternoon,We certainly understand customer's concerns on their information but unfortunately there seem to be a few misunderstandings here that we'd be glad to help clarify. First and foremost, during our checkout process, we prompt customers to inform them that if they do not enable domain...

privacy, that the customer's personal contact information will be publicly available. Also, domain privacy is selected by default for domain purchases, so a customer will have to specifically deselect this service for their information to be public. In the complaint there is also mention that the domains were not activated, however once a domain is registered, the associated contact information will be immediately available unless domain privacy is purchased. In regards to the concern that our agent stated there was nothing he could do, our agent did mention to Ms. [redacted] that if the function wasn't working at that time, that there may be a need to wait 30 minutes to try again, rather than stating that there was no way for the service to be enabled. Unfortunately our agent was not aware that our billing administrators can manually add this service if there is any issue from the customer's account, so we've made sure to address this with our agent and his supervisor.While we understand Ms. [redacted] wanted the information to be immediately protected, the reality is that there are databases around the web that cache domain information so even if the privacy protection was immediately enabled at the time of the conversation, it is unlikely that this would have removed all instances of her information from 3rd party sites. Moving on to the request for a refund of $140.00, we have found that the amount paid was actually $112.35. We've now refunded all services except for the two domains ending in .biz and .me which are unfortunately not eligible for refunds. That said, we did go ahead and provide who.is privacy on all four domains free of charge. If we can be of any further assistance with this matter we ask that Ms. [redacted] please contact our management at [email protected] and we'll be glad to help in any way we can.

Revdex.com:
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 4/23/2017 and assigned ID [redacted].
Regards,

Good Morning,We've since had a chance to speak with Mr. [redacted] directly and are happy to report that we have found a resolution to this matter that does not require a change in web builder or additional development work. From speaking with Mr. [redacted] we were sorry to hear that our support for the...

[redacted] builder might have been misrepresented as we do provide support for this service, however when it comes to coding issues, we do ask that these type of issues are referred to a developer regardless of the builder in use. That said, when coding issues do arise in the [redacted] builder and a developer is not an option, the pages can be recreated as a work around for any coding conflicts.In regards to the [redacted] builder no longer being kept up to date, as of a few years ago we did decide to begin offering an alternate builder, however since we did have a number of customers who were still satisfied and using [redacted], we left this option available to ensure that no customer's sites were lost. Having said that, again we have worked with Mr. [redacted] on a solution to the trouble he has had, and have provided additional assistance with another goal he had for the site, so we are hopeful that this will be a workable solution moving forward.At this time we have setup a direct line of communication back to our management so if we can be of any further assistance, we ask that Mr. [redacted] please uses that contact to follow up with us and we'll be glad to help finalize the remaining goal for the site.

Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and have determined that this proposed action would not resolve my complaint. The funds were only part of the issue, I do not believe I received stellar customer service from the rude agent Jennifer. Any customer who has funds taken from their account without authorization or notice is going to be upset. I am sure dealing with upset customers has to be included in the training of hostgator employees. I am very familiar with customer service, I have over 10 years of experience in this field. Jennifer offered to cancel my account without me even asking for my account to be cancelled. She made me feel like Hostgator does not want me as a customer and I am sure offering to cancel customers accounts without their request is something that Hostgator would not approve of. She was not pleasant or attentive to my needs and did not show empathy to my situation. I have no problem paying what I owe to the company. The ethical thing to do business wise, would have been to schedule a payment arrangement for the past due amount and issue me a credit for the unauthorized charges because I did not give hostgator permission to charge my account on the day the funds were taken. If the representative was unable to issue me a credit, then the call should have been escalated to a supervisor immediately like I requested. To become argumentative and try to deter me from speaking to a supervisor is wrong and it is rude to tell a customer that the supervisor is basically going to tell you the same thing. A 40 minute wait for a supervisor is absolutely ridiculous. I hope that the young lady and the rest of the customer service department at hostgator receives the proper training regarding matters like this so that no other customers have to experience such an unpleasant encounter with your Hostgator. 
[Provide details of why you are not satisfied with this resolution.]
Regards,

Good Morning,Thank you for your response and the additional clarification you were able to offer.  I’m sorry you’ve had to deal with this on a continuing basis, though we do stand behind our word and will ensure you receive the $100 commission as has been promised since the start.  My apologies as well for the delay back with you as I tried to verify these facts, however it did take some time to piece together your version and hers.  Regardless it’s clear this could have been handled much more smoothly and I hope the credits I offered previously show our interest in righting the matter.I’ve also reached out to our Marketing Director this morning and asked that he override the affiliate payout system and just get the money Paypal’d to you so we can put an end to the frustration you’ve been experiencing.  It appears we do already have your Paypal email address, so if that’s alright we’ll simply send the commission there and just skip our accounting team and their current troubles to get these commissions verified and paid out.  I will follow up with you directly via email once I respond here to to confirm the Paypal address and ensure you receive your payout as soon as possible.We’ll look forward to resolving this with you once and for all, and again our apologies for all the trouble you’ve experienced!Best Regards,Joshua M[redacted]Director of Customer Engagement[redacted]

Good Afternoon,We always appreciate a chance to address our customer's concerns and would like to start by apologizing for the delay in our security department's update on this matter. Although we do not guarantee a response time on security issues and do handle the inquiries in the order they are...

received, we would like to see response times lowered much further and have dedicated serious resources into bringing more security admins on board to help with our queues.In regards to the concern that [redacted] purchase did not prevent this situation, while [redacted] is a great tool for helping secure a customer's site, it cannot prevent blacklisting as blacklists are controlled by 3rd party companies, so we make no claims that [redacted] will prevent blacklisting. While this is not something [redacted] could have prevented, we do have many security precautions and mail limits in place to help prevent the underlying causes of blacklisting. That said, it is nearly impossible to prevent blacklisting on shared servers as we cannot police each e-mail originating from the server and cannot know whether or not the receiving party will ultimately flag the message as spam. Moving on to the concern that e-mail communication was risky in this case, we have found that currently the e-mail address we have on file is an e-mail address hosted on the account. This is actually against our terms of service to prevent the possibility of missed communication during an e-mail issue. We do not take any action in these cases but to have the address updated as soon as possible, we've reached out to Mr. [redacted] directly in order to provide assistance with setting a 3rd party address.From the complaint we also understand there is an impression that there have been ongoing issues with e-mail since the account opened. From review of the tickets under the account, we have only been able to locate 2 other reports of e-mail trouble. One report was from 11 months prior which was also relating to blacklisting, as well as one report on an issue relating to how the e-mail accounts were transferred. We of course would prefer that customers see no issues at all, however, while the low price point of shared hosting is desirable, the downside is that the resources (including mail) are shared with all other customers on the server. As such, while we do all we can to prevent these situations, blacklisting unfortunately can occur from time to time. We've provided Mr. [redacted] a direct line of communication to help escalate these reports in the future and have also offered a discount if Mr. [redacted] would like to discuss upgrading to a dedicated server where any blacklisting issues would be caused solely by the owner. Finally in regards to the request for a full refund, please consider that although there was a blacklisting report almost one year ago, a new blacklisting does not mean that the initial issue was never resolved, but rather that an entirely separate incident caused a new blacklisting to occur. Considering we've addressed both issues as they were reported, this situation would not qualify for a full refund. Although blacklistings do not qualify for compensation under our 99.9% uptime guarantee, as a courtesy for the delay in addressing the matter, we've provided a two month extension on the current hosting package free of charge. We hope this fully addresses the concerns raised and ask that Mr. [redacted] please use our direct line of communication for any future urgent matters or to please contact our management at [redacted] for escalated assistance.

Good Afternoon,Thank you for bringing the matter to our attention.  I’d like to first and foremost offer our apologies with the trouble and confusion that occurred as you attempted to have this corrected and your refund issued, but it’s good to see that it was ultimately resolved in...

[redacted].  Reviewing the open tickets it appears that a cancellation request was likely never processed after the server was setup, which we apologize for.We’ll certainly be going back to review the communications you had with our staff in an effort to correct any errors made on our part, but I’m happy to see our loyalty team did eventually work through the details and get you refunded.  Due to the trouble and delay with the refund I’ve also credited your account for an additional month’s service when the time comes to renew the server next year.  We do certainly care for our customers, so it’s the least we can do given the headaches you’ve experienced just trying to get your money back.  If you have any further questions or concerns please feel free to let us know directly via [email protected] and we’ll be more then happy to assist you!Best Regards,Joshua [redacted]Director of Customer EngagementHostgator.com

Good Afternoon,We appreciate the chance to address this complaint and while we are sorry to hear payment was made for an account that was no longer in use, we did not invoice the account in error as we had not received any request to cancel services. Our accounts are all set up to automatically...

invoice for renewals unless we receive a request to cancel the service. While we do understand Mr. [redacted]'s developer decided to start using a new provider, we did not receive any request to cancel the services until this month so the invoice was valid. Although our terms of service state that we do not provide refunds on checks, in this case we'd be glad to make an exception and have attempted to reach Mr. [redacted] over the phone but reached voicemail. We then followed up via e-mail with two options for either renewing the domain name still registered with us, or to receive a refund back, however we have not yet heard back. If Mr. [redacted] could please follow up with us via e-mail with his preference on how to resolve this matter, we will be glad to proceed. In case our e-mail was not received, our management can be contacted via [email protected] and we ask that if Mr. [redacted] chooses this option, that he please reference ticket [redacted]

Good Morning,Thank you for reaching out via the Revdex.com to bring this situation to our attention for additional review and resolution.  I’m sorry to see the troubles you’ve experienced with our affiliate program, however after reviewing the complaint and your recent communications with our...

Affiliate manager, I did find some alarming concerns with what you’ve presented here.  Hopefully the misinformation provided within the complaint is simply en error, however I would like to get clarification on a few points as my timeline of the audit on the matter simply doesn’t line up.You mention you have been trying to call us for two months, emailing and not gotten a single response from us.  I’ve reviewed your phone calls myself and now realize that the first time you actually called referencing the matter was 5/18.  Each call prior to that in which we have a recording/log of was in regards to unrelated support matters.  We’ve also absolutely taken your calls each and every time you’ve called in the past two months, and even beyond.The first actual ticket to affiliates@[redacted] was opened on 5/22 at 2pm.  I also understand after speaking with the affiliate manager that you inquired about the commissions with her initially 12 days ago now at this point, however we were apparently waiting on a tax form from you so the payment could be made.  Given it took some time to receive that which is ultimately outside our control given you needed to submit the form from your end, I think it’s unreasonable for you to file a complaint immediately like this.  You also mention during a call that you typically immediately file complaints, which is unfortunate as we’ve been in communication trying to resolve this with you.  As an affiliate, the entire point of your partnership is to promote the company and not slander us like this when we’re actively trying to resolve the matter.Additionally, it’s unfortunate to see a complaint filed immediately after your ticket to affiliates was opened given [redacted] has indeed explained that we’re currently working through an account system change.  Had we not been up front about that delay, and the fact that this entire matter was going to be resolved it would be a different story.  I want to also make it clear to you that your often insulting tone towards our staff directly and indirectly while on hold is not going to be tolerated.  This affiliate partnership exists to benefit you via the commissions while we promote our company.  Your distasteful comments make it clear that maybe that won’t be possible in the future should other issues ever arrive, but please do realize that we’re able to terminate the affiliate agreement for any reason.  I hope that’s not necessary and that we’re perhaps just off to a bad start, but we do need to make that clear.Moving forward having reviewed your calls to us, I realize your account is also suspended currently as a result of your frustration and not wanting to pay us till you get your payment.  That’s understandable and given the delay I do want to be as fair as possible even though we aren’t off to a great start with your complaint and the lack of detail it provided us as we attempt to assist.  As of this time I’ve credited the account to bring it current, as well as for the next month of service.  I’d like to also get a better idea today from our accounting team when the payment issue will be resolve, so please look for a response later today or tomorrow as I have the information in your open ticket [redacted].  I’ll keep that assigned directly to myself too if you’d prefer to just reply there moving forward.  I hope with that direct communication between us that we can get this handled with as little haste as possible.Best Regards,Joshua M[redacted]Director of Customer Engagement[redacted]

Good Afternoon,We're sorry to hear Ms. [redacted] has had trouble resolving this situation and would be glad to address the concerns noted in the complaint. To provide more background information, we did find that there was malicious content hosted on this account which required a temporary suspension...

until the content was removed. As hosting malicious content can damage the reputation of not only the web host's IP addresses, but also the customer's site, we do need to take immediate action and issue temporary suspensions when malicious content is being hosted.Although we do temporarily suspend access to the site from visitors, our customers do still have access to remove the content through their hosting control panel which can be accessed through our customer's billing accounts. In this case it seems Ms. [redacted] was most likely attempting to access the site through the [redacted] dashboard which would not have worked as access was only granted via the control panel , FTP and SSH connections. When sites are found to be hosting malicious content, we do recommend our partner [redacted], however customers are not required to use our partner and can hire any 3rd party or individual that meets their needs in terms of pricing or otherwise. While we understand Ms. [redacted]' concern that she should not have to pay for a suspended service, please note that our billing system will automatically invoice accounts until cancellation has been processed and also, as we continue to provide space to host the files our services will not be free of charge simply because there is malicious content being hosted. Regardless, as we understood there was trouble using the available options to download a copy of the site, we have generated a full backup for Ms. [redacted] and have also provided a refund of the last payment made. We are sorry to see our long term working relationship end in this way with Ms. [redacted], but we wish her the best of luck with her business at a new host.

Revdex.com:
 I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and have determined that this proposed action would not resolve my complaint.  
HostGator's response confirms that their advertising is misleading.
from the top [redacted] definition of guarantee:
"1.  guarantee:  a formal promise or assurance (typically in writing) that certain conditions will be fulfilled, especially that a product will be repaired or replaced if not of a specified quality and durability."
HostGator support repeatedly (for over 48 hours, well longer than 45minute downtime in the guarantee) stated "I have no information", "We have no ETA on a fix", and in addition also refused to move our accounts to a functioning server, claiming that the uptime was a money-back guarantee only (by refusing to move our sites/clients, [redacted] has rejected the force of the guarantee involving repair or replacement of the defective (ie: >45 min downtime) product).
HostGator requires that users read 15 sections into the terms to find out that they are using a non-standard definition of guarantee.
This complaint would be resolved if any of the following were done:
    - change the uptime phrase to "99.9% uptime moneyback guarantee" (or similar) to make it clear this guarantee applies not to uptime but to the refund
    - create a plan to enforce the guarantee (such as a defined set of steps that HostGator takes when uptime degrades to 99.8%, 99.5%, 99.0%, 97.0%, etc) - this would show that HostGator actually considers it a guarantee, instead of the "we can't do anything at this time" responses that support consistently provided during this outage)
    - any other option that clearly clarifies how HostGator is using the word "guarantee" or that shows HostGator is serious about taking action to meet the guarantee (then the wording would not have to change)
Regards,
[redacted]

[A default letter is provided here which indicates your acceptance of the business's response.  If you wish, you may update it before sending it.]
Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and find that this resolution would be satisfactory to me.  The refund was completed as of June 9, 2015. Matter has been resolved.

Good Afternoon,We were sorry to hear that a service was active that was not needed however after review of the matter, we have found no evidence that cancellation was ever requested. We have found that there was an original hosting package active from December 2013 till January 2014. Next, in...

February of 2014 a new package was purchased. We require all cancellation requests to be submitted via our form located at https://hostgator.com/cancel and do not see any such requests until last week at which point the account was canceled and the most recent payment refunded. If any evidence of a request to cancel can be provided, we will gladly take a look at that information and investigate further as needed.

Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and have determined that this proposed action would not resolve my complaint.  
This letter responds to HostGator's 12-6-15 reply submitted by Jonathan H.Customer, [redacted], provides brief timeline of events regarding HostGator account to contend that continuing webhosting services has been sought and was sought before and during filing of customer service complaint with Revdex.com. The timeline is as follows:On September 28, 2015, HostGator sends billing invoice (for month of October, 2015) to same e-mail address on file with HostGator since sign up of shared Baby plan account on July 4, 2012.On October 29, 2015, HostGator sends billing invoive (for month of November, 2015) to same e-mail address on file with HostGator since sign up of shared Baby plan account on July 4, 2012.On October 31, 2015, I tried to login to customer portal via "created, old" password used for login attempts in November, 2014. I required password reset feature to be activated and established new password that worked on first attempt on October 31, 2015. After login to customer's account via new password, I noticed billing charges on account that were unknown to meand submit billing inquiry ticket [redacted] that was created on October 31, 2015 @ ~1:22 am.Under HostGator's TOS, customer has ninety (90) days to question invoice or billing charge(s). Whether one considers September 28, 2015 or October 29, 2015 billing invoice, customer submitted timely invoice dispute to HostGator via [redacted].On November 10, 2015, Hayley F. as billing administrator follows up on ticket [redacted] stating customer may cancel account by submitting written request to HostGator. I am not sure if Hayley F. and Jonathan H. work at the same location or department for HostGator, but I did inform HostGator of invoicing and webhosting issues.On November 12, 2015, I submitted reply (sent via [email protected]) informing HostGator that "full webhosting fees shall be paid for online (or public access or WWW) feature of website, but not for periods of being offline." Customer has been willing to pay monthly fees for complete webhosting services.On November 17, 2015, I submitted Revdex.com complaint regarding billing/customer service issues that will not be reiterated herein.On November 28, 2015, HostGator submits billing invoice (for month of December, 2015) during pendency of Revdex.com proceedings.The above sequence of events indicate or imply that HostGator has sent billing invoices to me for monthly fees to continue webhosting services under shared Baby plan. I am sure HostGator would have been content if billing charges were cleared by me without any objections or questions. Moreover, as I stated before, I have never requested cancellation of my account or webhosting services at any time since opening of account on July 4, 2012 including months of November, 2014, September, 2015, October, 2015, and November, 2015 that would requires (per TOS) confirmation by two-step process on part of both customer and HostGator.Hence, by the conduct of HostGator and customer, there is and would be continuing agreement for monthly webhosting services for customer's website.
Sincerely,
[redacted] A.

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

Good Afternoon,We've since had a chance to review the concerns raised in this complaint but unfortunately have found that our products have not been accurately represented. To clarify, while [redacted] does include a security badge to display on the page, this product offers much more including a...

firewall, content delivery network and daily scans of [redacted] to search for any malware. Regardless of this misunderstanding, we did refund the payment for [redacted] prior to this complaint, and the full list of features included with [redacted] can be found here : [redacted]
Next, in regards to the claim that our staff has been purposefully causing damages to a site - we have searched our records for any e-mails, phone calls or live chats where [redacted] has asked to investigate this claim but have found that this was never mentioned in any of our conversations. Additionally, we have no relationship with [redacted] so the reasons behind these suspicions remain unclear.We've attempted to call [redacted] and have also sent multiple e-mails but have received no further information or contact. We must assume this means that there is no evidence of these claims but we will of course remain open to further investigation if [redacted] would like to return our call or respond back to our e-mails.

Greetings,We do regret to hear about the issues related to the domain registration transfer from HostGator to [redacted].After further investigation we see that the payment for the domain renewal on June 6th renewed the domain to June 2017. After that renewal was completed the domain registration...

transfer was completed to your current registrar. To discuss the details about the renewal dates of this domain please reach out to your current registrar.We have also sent a follow up email which can be used as a means of direct communication with the Customer Service Management team.

Good Afternoon,We are always sorry to hear when accounts are suspended for non-pay, however we must clarify that we do actually send out notices when invoices are not paid. In this case we sent notifications to the e-mail address on file when the invoice was 0, 5 and then 9 days past due, with the...

suspension occurring 10 days after the due date. We've attempted to contact Mr. [redacted] to go over this information, but unfortunately did not receive an answer on our phone call or e-mail. To summarize, we'd like to make sure that our e-mail addresses [redacted] and [redacted] are whitelisted within the Gmail account as this should help ensure no notifications are missed.We were also sorry to hear that there was trouble reaching our staff via live chat and we've reached out via e-mail to request more information on Mr. [redacted]'s web browser as the issue reported should not be occurring. Once we have more detail on the browser used, we'll make sure to get those details to our developers for further investigation.In regards to the report that automatic billing was setup on the account, we do not and have never had a credit card associated with this account and do not see that a PayPal subscription was in use. If one of these options are preferred, we ask that Mr. [redacted] please lets us know and we'll be glad to help with setting up either payment option. In summary, we must reject that any disgraceful conduct was committed here as this was simply a case of late payment in which we've also confirmed that the service was automatically activated once the payment was received. As such, no compensation would be due but if there are any further concerns we can address, we ask that Mr. [redacted] please follows up with our e-mail to connect with our management and we'll be glad to assist in any way we can.

Hello,We were sorry to hear about the concern that Mr. Bland had with three domain renewals.As stated in our Terms Of Service which can be reviewed at https://www.hostgator.com/tos once a domain is renewed it would not qualify for a refund.Mr. Bland has been a valued client and we appreciate his...

patronage.  To resolve this amicable as a courtesy we have refunded the renewal invoices for the three domains in question.At this time we have not received any follow up questions or concerns from Mr. Bland.  If any should arise we ask that Mr. Bland please respond back to our recent e-mail communication or contact our management team at [email protected] and we will be happy to offer assistance.