HostGator.com, L.L.C.

We were sorry to hear about the concern that Ms. Anderson had with the Sitelock Service.With the purchase of Sitelock an email is sent to the email address that is associated with the account providing direction on the steps to setup the service that was purchased as outlined in the following...

link:http://support.hostgator.com/articles/welcome-to-sitelock-an-introduction-t...⇄ stated in the Terms of Service that is agreed to at the time that hosting is purchased addon services are not eligible for a refund.  However Mr. Anderson has been a valued client with Hostgator and to resolve this amicably a credit was provided.At this time we have not received any follow up questions or concerns from Ms. Anderson.  If any should arise that we can assist with we ask that Ms. Anderson please respond back to the recent e-mail communication or contacts our management team at [redacted] and we will be happy to continue to offer assistance.

Good Afternoon,We always appreciate a chance to review our customers experiencing and in this case, unfortunately we did find that the agent [redacted] spoke with did not accurately explain our policies or how renewals work. We've since had a chance to forward this finding to our agent's supervisor...

so we can spend time working with this employee to ensure they are aware of how to properly explain or renewal procedures. To help clarify the situation, it will help to know that [redacted] has two products with us. One of the two services was a domain name registration. As one would expect, once the auto-renew feature has been disabled on the domain name registration, we will not invoice a customer's account meaning any cards on file will not be charged.That said, we assume [redacted] contacted us because she received notice that an invoice had been generated for renewal. The reason for this notice was that the 2nd product purchased from us was for hosting services. Our hosting packages do not feature an option to click to disable auto-renewal. Instead, if a hosting package is no longer needed, we ask that our customers request cancellation using our form located here [redacted]While our agent did not make it clear that auto-renewal only applies to the domain registrations, our agent did correctly inform [redacted] that in order to cancel the hosting package, that the form mentioned above will need to be submitted. Unfortunately there also seems to be an impression that we report unpaid invoices to credit agencies however this is not the case. Also, the complaint mentions that [redacted] has requested cancellation previously. We have no record of this request so we've attempted to discuss this situation further with [redacted] but our calls and e-mails have not been answered. At this time we will need [redacted]'s confirmation on the cancellation request via phone or in response to our e-mails to ensure that the Revdex.com complainant is the actual account owner. Alternatively the cancellation form can be submitted as well. If [redacted] did not receive our call or e-mails, we ask that she please contact our management at [email protected] and we'll be glad to finalize the request with her.

Good Afternoon,Thanks for the chance to address these concerns.We've since had an opportunity to investigate this complaint and first and foremost would like to confirm that the migration has been completed. We've also followed up with [redacted] to ensure that all has gone well following the...

migration but have not heard back on either of our e-mails.In regards to the concerns raised, we have not found that the request had been open for three weeks as claimed, but rather that the request was submitted on the 8th of April, 2015. That said, please note that our migrations services are offered as a courtesy to our customers and are not guaranteed. We also do not promise a time frame on when these courtesy migrations will be completed. Additionally, we do not require a customer to use our courtesy migration services as they are more than welcome to perform this work themselves, or hire an outside developer. While the response time here was not ideal, we are confident our rates are considerably lower than the rate the majority of independent developers would charge for this type of work, which hopefully makes the trade off worthwhile. We do offer qualifying new orders a free courtesy migration, however these migrations must be requested within the first month of purchasing the hosting package, which in this case was nearly 3 months prior. Regardless of that requirement, as a courtesy for the delay in providing an update on the request, we've waived our typical fee for migrations requested outside of the initial 30 days.We have not yet heard back from [redacted] on our e-mails so we are hopeful the request is considered resolved, however if not, we ask that he please follows up on either recent ticket or contacts our management at [redacted] for escalated attention.

Hello,We have reviewed the information that [redacted] has provided in regards to getting access to a billing account as well as the information provided to our billing team in regards to the account.  Unfortunately the documentation provided does not meet the requirements to verify...

ownership of the account in question.To clarify the security pin would be created by the owner of the account at the time of signing up for the account and at any time can be reset from inside the billing account.  It would not be something that is created or sent by Hostgator.The security of our clients personal information as well as the data that is stored on the hosting packages associated with the billing account is very important to us and our clients.  We do require verification of ownership of any account prior to being able to provide access or make any changes to any products or services associated with the account including any domains that were registered through the account.At this time we have spoken with [redacted] and worked to clarify what can be provided to verify account ownership.  If [redacted] has any additional questions we ask that [redacted] respond back to the recent email communication or contacts our management team at [email protected] and we will be happy to continue our conversation.

We were sorry to hear about Mr. [redacted]'s concern with his hosting service.In reviewing Mr. [redacted]'s hosting service we found that the content for the site had been removed from the hosting account by Mr. [redacted] limiting our ability to review the site or content.We were able to find that Mr. [redacted]'s Website...

was showing in [redacted]'s listings when searching for his domain, unfortunately with the content having been removed the site could no longer be viewed.The SEO team has also provided us with copies of the communications with Mr. [redacted] on the work that was being performed and the link that was provided that allowed Mr. [redacted] to monitor the progress of his SEO campaign.We have attempted to contact Mr. [redacted] by phone and e-mail and have not received any follow up communication.  At this time we request that Mr. [redacted] please respond back to our recent e-mail communication or email our management team at [email protected] and we would be happy to assist and work to come to an amicable resolution.

Good Afternoon,We would like to apologize that [redacted] had been provided incorrect information by the agent and clarify that the client can obtain a transcript at any time in the chat, however the agent had provided the client with our previous procedure, which provided the client the...

opportunity to request the transcript at the end of the [redacted]  The agent has been notified of their error and provided the correct procedure for our clients to ensure that they do not make the same error.  We have also provided this information to the client to ensure they have the steps to obtain the chat transcript in future interactions with our live support team and have also provided the client with how they can request that any time in the future if they find that they need the information for a future [redacted]  The initial transcript request had been submitted to a team that does not handle those request which caused a delay in the clients request being handled as quickly as possible.At this time we have also provided [redacted] with how she can reach us directly to assist with any future requests or concerns by responding back to the recent email communication or contacts our management at [redacted] and we'll be more than happy to assist.

Good Evening,We've now had a chance to review these concerns but unfortunately there is some incomplete information that we must address. In regards to the order of events, we see that [redacted] informed us of the trouble logging into the account, at which point we made sure a password reset was being...

attempted. Once we were informed that this was not working for [redacted], we resent the original welcome e-mail that includes the billing password. After this password was also reported not to work, we updated the e-mail address on file to make sure it was all lower-case to check if this was somehow conflicting with the password reset option. After asking [redacted] if they could please try the reset again after this change, we did not hear back from [redacted] on whether or not the issue had continued until 10 days ago. In regards to the notices on suspension, we sent notices informing that the account would be suspended for non-payment three times. The first notice was sent on the due date of the invoice. The next notice was sent 5 days after the due date, then one final notice was sent 9 days after the due date stating we would be suspending the account the following day. If these were not received we are sorry to hear that, however we have determined they were sent from our end.Moving on to the concern that charges on the account continued, as stated in our terms of service, we will continue to invoice an account until cancellation is requested. We informed [redacted] of this information a week prior to this Revdex.com complaint but have still not received a cancellation request submitted through this form : https://hostgator.com/cancelOnce we have a cancellation request, we will remove all unpaid invoices and cancel the service. We must also point out that we do not report to creditors so there is no need for concern on the unpaid invoices. If there is any trouble submitting the form, [redacted] is welcome to contact our management at [email protected] and we will be glad to assist once we have the cancellation request directly in writing from the e-mail address associated with the account.

Good Morning,Thank you for bringing this situation to our attention.  I’m sorry to see the frustration that’s resulted through our cancellation process, however I’ll be happy to ensure this gets addressed.  Looking over the billing and only recent ticket for the account(QJK-32698758...

created on 1/30/2015 when you contacted us), I see that we did assist you with a cancellation and offered a full refund($39.96 and $41.96, the $10 you mention was invoiced, but not billed) for your first two months of payments on 1/31/2015.Going back through our call logs I see that you did call on 12/29/2014 at 11:03pm, however only remained waiting for a few moments on hold before disconnecting the call.  If you’re able to provide reference to the call you made in December where you claim to have cancelled the account I’d be happy to review that, however we actually do not allow account cancellations over the phone which our Terms of Service outlines.  There also isn’t a ticket of any sort referencing that contact previously.  We require that all accounts be cancelled by the cancellation form on our site or via ticket, which again there is no record of after a review of your account.  I’d like to also make it clear that our Terms of Service does indeed outline the fact that payments are made recurring month to month via the credit card saved to the account.While it’s unfortunate that I’m not able to account for exactly what you’ve claimed has happened, it seems perhaps that the account was never cancelled previously.  I realize too that you’re frustrated, however I want to make it clear that your tone towards our staff over the phone is unacceptable.  Additionally, after reviewing your numerous calls to us on the 31st, I’d like to make it clear to the Revdex.com that at no time did our staff hang up on you.  You repeatedly called in and were uncooperative as our staff asked for ticket #’s, additional information, etc to try and assist you.  They were met however with anger and a general lack of cooperation, and having listened tot he calls I think handled you pretty professionally.  Moving forward I would recommend that you educate yourself as a consumer when doing business with new companies and make a point of better understanding the Terms or contracts involved.  Most of what you claim we did to slight you here, was put in writing which you agreed to during signup.  I’m also not sure why you necessarily feel it appropriate to misconstrue the details in this situation, but given you’ve been provided a full refund at this time, we’ll consider the matter closed.  Please feel free to reach out to me directly via your cancellation ticket QJK-32698758 if you have any additional questions or concerns.  I’ll keep that assigned to myself, so please feel free to reach out if there’s anything at all I can assist with.  I’m sorry again for the trouble and whatever you feel we did to cause such dissatisfaction here.Best Regards,[redacted]Director of Customer ServiceHostgator.com

Greetings,
We were sorry to hear that our response has been rejected and have
followed up directly with Mr. [redacted] to discuss this further.
Unfortunately we have received no response to our e-mail in a number of
days. To revisit the situation, although we never like to temporarily
suspend sites, we did find that the site was exceeding the agreed to CPU
limit on the account which meant that we had to take immediate action in
order to prevent all other customers on the server from experiencing
downtime and possible data corruption.
When a temporary suspension due to CPU abuse is in place, the downtime
does not qualify for our uptime guarantee (
http://support.hostgator.com/articles/pre-sales-policies/rules-terms-of-service/...⇄
), however as a courtesy for the delay in getting back to Mr. [redacted]
with additional information, we provided 2 months of credit, doubling
the agreed to compensation for downtime.
This credit was rejected since the domain is no longer pointing to the
account with us, and the rejection mentioned $300.00 paid to hire a 3rd
party developer. Considering that we were not given an opportunity to
discuss or negotiate payments with a 3rd party, we would be unable to
compensate for this decision. As we understand the service is no longer
being used here, our most recent response to Mr. [redacted] offered to
change the account credits into refunds and extend an additional month
if full cancellation is requested.
If we can provide any further clarification on this situation please let
us know.

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.  
Deepest apologies.  I have not received the backups or the refunds.  Once these are received, the business response will be accepted.
Regards,[redacted]

Hello,We were sorry to hear about the frustration this has caused [redacted].At this time [redacted] has not been able to verify ownership of the account in question.  He has been kind enough to provide documentation identifying himself as well as what he believed may be the security pin associated with the account that is setup, Unfortunately the documentation and information provided does not match the information associate with the account in question.There does seem to be some confusion on when the account was created and the policies that were in place at the time the account was created by [redacted].  The account in question is not as tenured as suggested by [redacted] nor has the verification policies radically changed since the time that the account in question was opened.The security of our clients personal information as well as the data that is stored on the hosting packages associated with the billing account is very important to us and our clients.  We do require verification of ownership of any account prior to being able to provide access or make any changes to any products or services associated with the account including any domains that were registered through the account.At this time we have spoken with [redacted] and worked to clarify what can be provided to verify account ownership including those options using outside resources.  If [redacted] has any additional questions we ask that [redacted] respond back to the recent email communication or contacts our management team at [email protected] and we will be happy to continue our conversation.

Good Afternoon,We always appreciate hearing back from our customers but we were sorry to hear Mr. [redacted] has had such a rough time receiving assistance with this situation. I've now had a chance to review the calls and e-mails related to this complaint and have found that as reported, we were...

forced to temporarily disable the site due to the strain requests for the site were causing on the server and therefore all other customers on this server. We never like to issue these temporary restrictions but they are necessary from time to time in order to ensure server health and data integrity for not only Mr. [redacted]'s site, but all other customers on the server.That said, during mr review I have found that it is most likely the frustrations caused by this situation were mainly due to the delay in our server monitor's response time to Mr. [redacted]'s ticket/e-mail which could have been prevented with a quicker response from our server monitors. Our management is very aware that the waits on these tickets have not been near what we would like and to combat this, we've been hiring non-stop for a number a months and also have internal plans in place to make more of our administrators available to more immediately resolve spikes in CPU use, similar to what has occurred here.We were also sorry to hear that Mr. [redacted]'s last call was so upsetting and after listening to the call, found that our agent did not offer the level of customer service we expect, and also did not properly communicate our process for when a supervisor is requested. We have a good number of supervisors here at HostGator but even then, if multiple requests come through at the same time, we ask that a ticket is created so we can work through the current requests, then call our customers back so they are not waiting on hold indefinitely. We've forwarded along these findings to our agent's supervisor and will be taking appropriate action to ensure our expectations and policies are met and followed moving forward.At this time I have credited the next two months of service for Mr. [redacted]'s account so we can continue monitoring the situation and make sure all CPU usage issues are resolved. I have also contacted him via e-mail so he has a direct line of communication to me in case any issues need a bit of escalated attention.I hope this fully addresses the concerns raised in the initial complaint but if we can be of any further assistance, please let us know.

Greetings,Thanks for the chance to address this concern.We're always sorry to hear when services have been renewed that were not required, however after review, we have found that the three domain names in question were set to automatically renew. The automatic renewal setting can be toggled by our...

customers through the domain management panel ( http://support.hostgator.com/articles/hosting-guide/lets-get-started/domain-name...⇄ ) and we are upfront about these services charging ahead of time if a card has been saved on file : http://support.hostgator.com/articles/pre-sales-policies/billing-account-changes...⇄ note that this information is also available in our terms of service which were agreed to when the account was purchased : http://www.hostgator.com/tos
11. Billing and Payment InformationB. 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.
At this time we have removed the card saved on file and have refunded the three payments made for domain renewal. If we can be of any further assistance we ask that Mr. [redacted] please reply back to our recent e-mail communication or contact our management at [email protected].

Hello,We were sorry to hear about the charge that Ms. [redacted] had brought to our attention.Hostgator absolutely refutes the suggestion that Hostgator is involved in any fraudulent activity of any kind.Unfortunately the information provided did not identify the transaction that Ms. [redacted] is referring...

to.  We have attempted to contact Ms. [redacted] to request additional information to assist with identifying the transaction in question.At this time we have not received any response to our communications and would request that Ms. [redacted] respond back with the requested information to our recent e-mail or contacts our management team at [email protected] and we will be happy to continue to offer assistance.

Hostgator's billing system works directly with the payment processor and all information that is available from the payment processor was provided directly to Ms. [redacted] in the direct e-mail communication.  For security the payment processor uses a transaction ID which identifies the transaction and does not store the full credit card number. In trying to assist Ms. [redacted] the transaction ID was included in the e-mail communication.Ms. [redacted] is fully verified for the account in question and all information that is available in regards to the credit card transaction has been provided including all time stamps for the transaction in question.  Unfortunately the full credit card number that was used in the transaction in question is not available.

We were sorry to hear about Mr. Wilmas experience with the new hosting package and that it did not meet his or his clients needs.  We were also disappointed to hear about the interaction with live support and have forwarded that information to have the call reviewed.The hosting package in...

question has been canceled and as provided in the 45 day money back guarantee a full refund was issued.  At this time we have not received any follow up concerns or questions from Mr. Wilmas.  If any should arise we ask that Mr. Wilmas 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.

Good Morning,
Thank you for reaching out to us regarding the 99.9% uptime guarantee and your troubles last week.  Though it’s certainly true a planned OS update to reseller servers caused service disruptions for many reseller customers, the notion that we’re not honoring our...

guarantee is simply not correct.  We do in fact maintain such uptime on most all of our shared/reseller servers month after month, and though I believe you may be assuming 99.9% uptime guaranteed means our servers have a redundant backup/failover, that’s simply not the case, nor is that how we advertise the guarantee.
For clarification sake I’ve included Section 15. Uptime Guarantee from our Terms of Service [redacted]
“15.Uptime Guarantee. ?If your shared or reseller server has a physical downtime that falls short of the 99.9% uptime guarantee, you may receive one (1) month of credit on your account. This uptime guarantee does not apply to planned maintenance. Approval of any credit is at the sole discretion of HostGator and may be dependent upon the justification provided. Third party monitoring service reports may not be used for justification due to a variety of factors including the monitor's network capacity/transit availability. The uptime of the server is defined as the reported uptime from the operating system and the Apache Web Server which may differ from the uptime reported by other individual services. To request a credit, please visit [redacted] to create a support ticket to our Billing department with justification. Uptime guarantees only apply to shared and reseller solutions. Dedicated servers are covered by a network guarantee in which the credit is prorated for the amount of time the server is down which is not related to our uptime guarantee.”
As promised by this agreement, I see our staff provided the credit to you in ticket #[redacted].  Due to these we may simply need to agree to disagree on the fact that we do stand behind the agreement, nor that it’s in any way fraudulent.  Had we neglected to provide the guaranteed credit that would be an entirely different situation, though we have and always will stand behind our service in this fashion.  With that all clarified, I do also understand that the outage likely put your business on hold last week and want to do what we can to hopefully gesture our interest in righting the relations.
At this time I’ve applied an additional two months of credit toward your hosting account.  If you have any further questions or concerns with the credit itself, please let us know via your previously opened customer service ticket #[redacted].  We do absolutely appreciate your business and want to make right on this as we move forward, so while we may not agree on the guarantee or it’s use itself, please let us know if we can be of any further assistance.
Best Regards,
[redacted]
Director of Customer Service
[redacted]

Good Afternoon,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.  We’re happy to look into the matter and ensure this gets addressed appropriately. ...

Reviewing the last several phone calls you’ve had to support however I’d like to also point out a few concerns I have with the situation just to hopefully avoid such frustration in the future.What I found most concerning with this situation is that you state our staff told you that you were out of luck, which isn’t the case, however you simply would not allow them to work through this with you prior to losing your cool and hanging up on our [redacted]  I sympathize with the frustration when you thought it was addressed initially, however if you won’t cooperate with our staff it’s difficult to assist you.  To then see you state here that they refused to assist you is unfortunate as that’s not the case which our call logs support.I also noticed that when the request was opened in [redacted] you were provided a list of domain names that were to be cancelled.  Even though I realize the agent mistakenly included the domain he’d assisted you with renewing, you as a point of fact requesting that he cancel all domains that included the word “landscaping” which is exactly what was done for you.  The billing admin unfortunately would not have been aware of the mistake with the one domain of concern, but to that end you were provided in writing the list of domains at which time this could have been corrected.  To be clear as well, I’m not pointing blame at you for this and will absolutely credit the domain cost as you’ve requested, but I point this out to hopefully help you avoid a repeat in the future.  He provided the list of domains for you to double check and that clearly didn’t happen, but all the same please just double check in the future and we’ll be happy to correct any mistakes on the spot.  I realize you assumed it was good to go, but it’s always important to double-check changes with domains, as our domain agreement does outline registrations are non-refundable, which is the root of the problem here regrettably.At any rate, with that all clarified though it’s unfortunate that you’ve presented the situation here as you have leaving out much of what took place, I did credit the account for you as requested.  We do appreciate your business and hope the credit shows this.  If you have any further questions or concerns for me, please feel free to respond to [redacted] and I’ll address those personally.Best Regards,[redacted] Hostgator.com

Good Morning,Thank you for alerting us to the troubles you've encountered with your cancellation and refund request.  Though it's unfortunate that you didn't give us an opportunity to resolve this with you directly through [email protected] as directed on the Revdex.com site prior to sumbitting...

your complaint, I appreciate the opportunity to resolve this for you either way and will ensure your refund is processed promptly today.  I'd like to also discuss why this occurred as well as they delay, just so you're aware and better able to protect yourself in the future as a consumer, as this frustration could have been avoided.As you're aware, this particular request has in fact taken longer then the 72 hours we note on the phone, however we've been somewhat short staffed this fall as our client base continues to grow day after day.  Though we're having a hard time recruiting fast enough, we are certainly increasing staffing through additional recruiting and training efforts, involving contract workers even at this point to try and help bridge the gap in the meantime.  We realize this can be frustrating as you simply await your refund, though I can assure you nothing fraudulent is taking place as you seem to believe.I'd like to also point out that while you did submit the cancellation form properly, our Terms of Service also outlines the fact that we require a request for the refund in writing once the cancellation ticket opens.  This is due simply to the fact that our cancellations do typically end at the end of a renewal cycle, which ensures customers have access to their data through the end of the month typically.  This is not done to slight customers or avoid providing refunds in relation to our 45 day guarantee, which we have and always will stand behind.  I offer this information simply for your own awareness and not to further our dispute, but please realize that this was in fact all outlined in the TOS, had you reviewed that completely you likely would have been aware.With that clarified, I do see that your ticket was already noted for the requested refund given you did email us several times after the original request, but given it's taking some time to get through the refunds queue, I've just asked that a senior member of our retention/billing team process this for you promptly.  Please also around one business week for the payment processor to actually process the funds back into your card's account, though if you have any further questions I can be reached at [email protected].  I'll look forward to ensuring you get receive your refund at the heart of this dispute, though please let me know if I can be of any further assistance at all.  I understand the frustratoin you've experienced and do ultimately want to ensure this is taken care of in a satisfactory fashion.Best Regards,[redacted]Director of Customer ServiceHostgator.com

[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 10885205, and find that this resolution would be satisfactory to me.