SiteGround.com, Inc.

Hello ***,We have reviewed your case in detail and understand that the fact that users can purchase hosting account for multiple years, but domain names are registered only for one year at a time must been misleadingWe do appreciate your feedback and will make the necessary adjustments on our
website and invoice to explain the billing periods betterWe are also willing to provide you with a $for the domain redemption feeCould you please reply to ticket *** in your HelpDesk and confirm that you want us to proceed with getting back the domain? As soon as we have your confirmation in the SiteGround HelpDesk, our team will be able to help you further.Best Regards,Marina Y***www.SiteGround.com

Hi ***,We have reviewed the records for your charge and refund directly with our payment processor, just in case there is some discrepancy between their records and our billing system.The charge is listed there with a time stamp of 4/19/3:05:31The refund is listed with a time stamp of 4/19/11:38:30The dates you see on your bank account records are provided by your bankThey are best suited to explain why the refund record appears first and the charge secondWe could only guess that this is due to the way card payments workWhile for us charges and refunds are recorded at the time we attempt the transaction, the money does not leave (or go back to) your account until approximately two days later (settlement date)This is how much it takes for banks to officially post the charge to your bank statementBanks initially authorize each individual transaction at the time it happens, but process settlement in bulk during a single point in time and depending on how their system is set, they post the transactions to your statementMy guess is that’s the reason you see the refund first and the charge second - your bank simply displays refunds settled for the date first and then chargesThis is the best explanation we can offer and it’s really up to your bank to give you a more detailed explanation.Your auto-renewal setting has been turned off after you posted cancellation request.Regards,Marina Y***SiteGround Team

Upon sign up each customer is provided with the options to register a
new domain name for their hosting account or to use an already existing domain
nameIn case a new domain name is chosen, we offer free domain registrationAs
per our Terms of Service, the domain will be provisioned free of charge only if
it’s claimed upon sign up and is primary for the hosting accountClient can later
change that domain at any moment, but if they want a new domain, the domain registration becomes a paid service
The customer signed up on 2013-08-and requested a refund on
2014-04-We could not issue a full refund as he requested, because the customer has used the service for months and more importantly because, the credit card companies allow refunds within months from payment dateTechnically a refund is not possibleWe do understand though that good customer service requires flexibility and consideration of specific needs, and we apologize that our customer service representatives have followed the letter of the law so blindlyAs we cannot physically offer any form of refund to the client due to the card restrictions, we would like to offer a free domain registration as an exceptionWe will try to contact the client over the phone to offer the domain registration, but we also invite him to contact us over the live chat or phone and we will complete the registration

Complaint: ***
I am rejecting this response because:I checked with the bank and while they did confirm that there were only transactions on their end of the statement records, there is more supporting evidence to show when the transactions took placeAccording to Transaction Proofs 6, 7, & 8, the transactions took place milliseconds from each other at 20:00:with the refund (the credit memo) coming first and the withdrawal coming out after at the same time in less than secondThe transactions canceled each other out at the same timeCan you explain this Siteground and why you didn't turn the auto-renewal off when I called to cancel my renewal?
Regards,
*** ***

Dear Revdex.com;
I did received a call from SiteGround this Monday, 20th, and company had activated domain, instead of refund.
I wish company also extend and make compensation of the lost time, from I made contact to Revdex.com, 4/27/2014, but Revdex.com showing from 4/28/to 5/20/about 22days of lost time as extended.
Sincerely,
*** ***
[To assist us in bringing this matter to a close, you must give us a reason why you are rejecting the responseIf no reason is received your complaint will be closed Administratively Resolved]
Complaint: ***
I am rejecting this response because:
Regards,
*** ***

Hello ***,Your account was renewed because we did not receive a confirmation for your cancellation requestOur records show that on October 5th you have discussed the cancellation process with our team via our HelpDesk - they have provided you with step by
step instructions on how to cancel your accountPlease note that this can be done from your Customer area and not via ticketFrom the billing section you are able to select the date for closing the account, if you want to keep your domain name or not, and how the refund should be handledOur HelpDesk on the other hand is used for technical support requests.We cannot close an account without explicit confirmation, since it can lead to website downtime and loss of business for the customer by mistakeThus the additional step for confirmation is required.Preventing website downtime due to expiration is also the reason why we renew the accounts of our customers automaticallyPlease note that we have our renewal policy explained in detail in the TOS, and in addition to that we send out several reminders per email before the actual billing dateSince the account was not closed at the expiration date, it was auto-renewed.We can see that on November 11th, our Support representative explained our renewal policy and again pointed out how to cancel the account in order to receive a refundThere is no further response from you in the ticket, so he could not forward your request to our BillingDuring your latest communication with our team in December via chat, you had already filed a chargeback request to your bank, which prevented us from issuing a refundWhile the bank decides about the validity of the transaction, the amount in question is frozen.We will check again with the bank what is the status of the charge back and if there is no decision yet, we will let them know that we won't dispute the charge backRefund for the initial payment has been issued yesterday and the money should appear in your bank statement in 7-business daysRegards!

Hi ***,Hi ***,We were sorry to hear you have not been satisfied with our servicesWe have reviewed your case and we would like to add some clarifications.On June 11, our monitoring system has detected vulnerabilities on a web application hosted on your accountIn our notice we have
provided you with a list of suspicious files that had to be cleaned up from your accountWe have explained that the reason for temporarily disabling access to this web application is to prevent any security threats that can exploit the vulnerabilities detected from our system to spread to other users hosted on the same serverPlease note that at all times your hosting account has been active and we have not set any blocks to prevent you from accessing your web storageWe have only restricted access to the web application that was posing a security risk.When you requested a new scan to validate that there are no more vulnerability threats on your account we have found some remaining files that needed to be removed as well and given you a list with them via the HelpDesk system.As you have informed us that you have deleted all files on your hosting account now there is no longer vulnerability risk coming from your accountWe confirm your account is with an active status and there are no restrictions in terms of access for youOur team has only reminded you that it is a good security practice to update your cPanel password to be sure it was not compromised while there have been vulnerabilities on your account.Regarding your request to get account credit for the time you have not used our service, please note that we have added months of hosting to your accountThe new expiration date for your account has been changed from April 3, to October 2018, respectivelyYou can check that by logging into your client area and going to the tab My Accounts.Regards,SiteGround team

Hi ***,Thank you for the response regarding your caseWe were sorry to hear you feel this way about using our servicesPlease note we are willing to work with you on finding a solution as demonstrated in our previous responseTo be able to assist you better we would like to get clarifications on your demands and desired resolution outcome.In your initial filing from December you have requested specifically the following settlement:"I demand the immediate removal of the offending .*** file that is currently locking our website storage space and account credit for the entire time that our website has been offline"We have honored your request for account credit and added months-worth of hosting to your accountYou have not informed us in any way so far you would like a refundYou can do that via your client area and request it for the remaining time till account expiration.Regarding .*** file restrictions, we would like to explain there have never been any set for your accountAs previously noted we only blocked access to the to the web application containing the suspicious files, while your account was active at all timesAt the moment we confirm you have full access to your client area and cPanel, and your account is not lockedIf you are still not able to get access to something on your account we will be happy to check on the issue and help with that At the moment loading the domain of your website gives an error, but this is resulting from a lack of index pageYou have deleted all the files of your website and that is causing the error screenWhen you add a new website and files your account will work normally.With regard to your request for refund for past period, please note we have clearly communicated to you several times how we can restore access to the web application after we confirm it is no longer posing threat to other users on the same serverAs per our terms of service you are not eligible for a refund on the past period as you have not taken the actions we outlined to remove the files on your account that can create security risks for other users on the same server in a timely mannerWe are willing to re-consider our refund policies for your particular case and cooperate with you on sorting out the situation as per your demandsBefore we proceed we need a confirmation from you that you would like to get a refund for the time period when you have not used actively your account as a final outcomePlease note that upon receiving a confirmation from you we will also cancel your account and suspend it our servers.You can send your confirmation directly to us at [email protected] and we will make the necessary arrangements to assist you with this matterRegards,SiteGround Team

Our investigation shows that the website in question was hosted by us for years - since May until May Based on our records, *** *** was the account owner and a credit card on her name was charged multiple times manually during that period, meaning she (or person she
authorized to access the account) initiated the transactions personallyHer credit card was set as the primary card on file for the account at the time.In August 2014, three months after the account was closed, the new webmaster of the site, named *** *** purchased month of hosting from the same account area using a new credit card in her nameOur records show that *** *** was removed as the owner of this account, but her credit card remained active and primary for the account.After the one month of hosting was over - on September 1st, as the customer did not renew manually, nor cancelled the account, the main credit card on file (the card of *** ***) was chargedPlease note that all our plans are set to auto-renew in order to prevent downtime for the customer's website and damages to their businessHowever, to make sure that the renewal is desired by the customer, we send out multiple email reminders before the renewal itself, so the users are able to deactivate the account if they don't need the website any moreAll of this is explicitly stated in our TOS and on the sign up pageAs no cancellation of the service happened despite our reminders, the account was autorenewed.When the customer (*** ***) contacted us, she initially stated that the wrong credit card was chargedWe offered a full refund as soon as the renewal payment was made using the correct credit cardAfter that the user pointed out that she actually did not intend to renew and initiated a cancellation of the account through her User areaAs per our procedure, a refund was issued, but the amount of $was withheld which is our late cancellation fee applicable in such situationsThe amount of $was refunded on Sept 8th and will be reflected in her bank statement in up to business days.We will now refunded the $late cancellation fee as well.Unfortunately, as we already explained the client during the phone calls, the $charge is not withheld by us but by the bank as an international transaction fee, and thus we are not able to refund it ourselves

I have been dealing with a lot of web hostings and clearly SiteGround has the best customer/technical services! Guys you are awesome!

Being the inexperienced web owner that I am, I totally messed up all the settings to my website I talked to three different techs during the course of the day, and they were all fabulous to work withThey helped me through my issues and hung in there until everything worked as it should I am back up and running

On September 5th we informed the customer that we had to limit the
account usage, since the customer was using our basic hosting plan
but in reality consumed a very high percentage of the server
resources and affected the performance of the whole shared server
Due to the
misuse of resources all other accounts on the server
were jeopardized to stop responding and become inaccessible
What is more according to our Acceptable Use Policy commercial
audio streaming as the one hosted by the customer is not allowed
on our shared servers
Since the account with the usage at that time has become not
suitable for a shared hosting server, we offered possible
solutions:
1) Remove the MPfiles offered for streamingThis way the
account's resource usage would drop significantly and hosting it
on the shared hosting server should not be a problem
2) Upgrade the account to a more powerful hosting solution where
streaming would be allowed
The customer responded on September 24th letting us know that he
moved files to another hostWe could remove the limitation of the
account and it was ready to be used for other projects within the
limitations of the shared hosting plan
The customer did not make use of the account and on Oct 8th
contacted us with the wish to cancel the account completely and
asked for reimbursement for the time not used until December 6th
Since the suspension of the account was not our fault but caused
by the customer using more resources than allocated to the account
and thus more than the customer had actually paid for, and in
addition to that the situation was affecting negatively all other
customers on the same shared server, we informed the customer that
as per our Fair use policy no reimbursement is due
Our Customer Care Representative over the
phone made several attempts to explain the situationDespite
being informed about the reason why the customer was not
eligible for a refund, the customer still demanded to speak to a
manager, who was not present at the momentThis particular
representative is a regular Customer Service person and not
authorized to provide prorated refunds in cases of TOS
violationHe suggested to the customer multiple times to
contact our manager via email or call again at a later point
Eventually our representative was forced to end the call,
apologizing that he won't be able to help further
We are sorry that the customer did not contact our Managers as
suggested over the phone, since we make sure to resolve such
cases to the satisfaction of the customer and provide them with
refund for the hosting service they were not able to useWe
have now inserted a refund for the desired amount and the
customer should receive it in up to business days

We have already made an exception for the customer by registering the domain against our standard procedures and terms of serviceWe do not see any ground for such a claim or compensations due

Hello ***, we always send out several early reminders regarding
upcoming renewalsSince we haven't received from you a cancellation
request for the service, it has been renewed days before expiration in order to ensure the
uninterrupted uptime of your website and prevent losing your
domain name
(a standard practice in the entire web hosting industry)
The paid renewal fee is higher than the amount paid last year, since
during the initial sign up you took advantage of a special discount
Please note that after the initial billing term is over, web hosting
accounts are charged at our regular prices
Although renewal payments are non-refundable we have now issued a refund
for you - the amount of $should appear on your bank statement in
7-business daysPlease note, that we after the refund for the
renewal payment has been processed, we will close your hosting account
and will have to cancel the domain name ellistune.com
If you have further questions or requests, please contact us per phone or chat, where we are available 24/Regards!

Hi ***,We were sorry to hear were not satisfied with our services and have moved your websites to another providerUnfortunately, excessive resource consumption that continues for a long period of time is not tolerated on shared hosting platforms as it creates resource insufficiency for other
clients hosted on the same serverIn order to avoid such "excessive" usage, our system automatically alerts you when you are close to reaching your allocated resources and using up to 80% of them via email and notification in your client areaIf no action is taken and the high load to the server persists reaching 100% of your resources the account is suspended temporarilyIn your ticket our techs have outlined the causes of the high usage and as the issues were related to the operation of your database it required web developer to resolve them. In any case, as you will not be using the remaining time on your contract, we have issued a refund for it in the amount of USDIt should be returned back to your card within the next to business daysRegards,SiteGround Team

Hi ***,We were sorry to hear you are disappointed with the cancellation process for your hosting account and you initiated a chargeback for the renewal payment of the account.We checked the case and we would like to add some clarifications regarding the communication that followed your dispute
for the payment.To prevent downtime for our clients’ websites in case of a missed payment we have an automatic renewal systemOur clients can manage the settings for service renewal as per their preference via the client area at all times, but we enable the auto-renew option by defaultThe auto-renewal system sends several notifications via email when the account gets close to the expiration date and informs the client that we will process the payment for the serviceIf no action is taken by the client the transaction is completedIn case the client no longer wishes to use the service he has been billed for he can request a cancellation and get a refund for that within days of the payment date.It appears that you have successfully completed the cancellation for an extra scanning service, but for the hosting account the process was not confirmed in our system.We didn’t find any further communication with you regarding the cancellation after January 5, when we explained to you how you can cancel the hosting via your client area. On January 7, we have received a chargeback notification from your bank about the renewal paymentDisputes like this one affect our reputation as payment providers and we try to contact the client to settle the issue directly with them, and avoid the long processing banks apply to such requestsIn the email messages you have received from us after the chargeback we simply asked for your cooperation to resolve the situation.We want to assure you that in no way we mean to disrespect your decision to cancel the serviceOur agent on the phone explained that you are eligible for a refund and we understand you no longer need the hosting account.As you have not replied to our emails the case is now going to be processed by the bank institutionsWe will no longer send emails or attempt to further contact you with regard to the dispute on the renewal payment.We are sorry if any inconvenience was caused by our efforts to resolve the chargeback dispute situation and complete the cancellation of your account.Regards,SiteGround Team

The "web traffic" term defines the amount of data that is transferred between a visitor and a websiteThis traffic includes the entire data of the page that's been loaded - text, images, video and other mediaOn the other hand "script executions" measure the number of times services like PHP have been triggered to handle your code on the server. While we do not limit the web traffic you use, there is a cap on the script executionsIt’s in the essence of the shared hosting service that the resources of a physical server such as RAM, CPU, I/O, etc., which are not infinite, are shared between the accounts located thereIf one of the accounts uses more than the allowed share, other accounts will be affected negativelyAccordingly, we have to apply limitations to make sure that this doesn’t happen and to make sure that all accounts are allocated a fair share of these resourcesIn our case these limitations are stated on our sales page - the full feature list: https://www.siteground.com/shared-hosting-features.htm
Also, please note that you can check your script executions from cPanel at any time, not only when you've reached the set limitUnfortunately, when it comes to shared hosting we cannot modify the basic of how the service is provisioned and we will not be able to fulfill your request to change our TOSHowever, we do understand that the upgrade gap is too high and in case you wish to go to a different provider, we will issue a refund of the remaining time unused

The "web traffic" term defines the amount of data that is transferred between a visitor and a websiteThis traffic includes the entire data of the page that's been loaded - text, images, video and other mediaOn the other hand "script executions" measure the number of times services like PHP have been triggered to handle your code on the server. While we do not limit the web traffic you use, there is a cap on the script executionsIt’s in the essence of the shared hosting service that the resources of a physical server such as RAM, CPU, I/O, etc., which are not infinite, are shared between the accounts located thereIf one of the accounts uses more than the allowed share, other accounts will be affected negativelyAccordingly, we have to apply limitations to make sure that this doesn’t happen and to make sure that all accounts are allocated a fair share of these resourcesIn our case these limitations are stated on our sales page - the full feature list: https://www.siteground.com/shared-hosting-features.htmAlso, please note that you can check your script executions from cPanel at any time, not only when you've reached the set limit
Unfortunately, when it comes to shared hosting we cannot modify the basic of how the service is provisioned and we will not be able to fulfill your request to change our TOSHowever, we do understand that the upgrade gap is too high and in case you wish to go to a different provider, we will issue a refund of the remaining time unused

Hello *** ***,The money back guarantee applies to our web hosting servicesIn your case you have purchased our StartUp plan for $- this amount has been refunded already.You have additionally purchased the following extras - HackAlert and Backup service, which are
third-party services that we pre-pay to the respective provider and are non-refundable for us as wellThese extra services are not covered by the money back guaranteeIf the pre-sales representative has missed to mention this during the initial chat, we do apologize and will make sure that this rep will receive feedback from their supervisorAs he specifically recommended to you to add these extras, without clarifying the money back options for them, we have now initiated a refund for the remaining amount of money - it should appear on your bank statement in 7-business days

[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 is satisfactory to me. 
Regards,
[redacted]