SiteGround.com, Inc.

Hello, we are very sorry to hear that you are not happy with our service. We would like to address the points you have raised: 1) Please note that on shared hosting plans resources of the server are shared among multiple users, that is why it is important for us to monitor the individual usage in...

each account. Only this way we can ensure that all customers can take advantage of fair amount of the server resources and we can prevent abuse that can negatively affect the websites of the other users. Every customer has access to a control panel from where to monitor accounts stats, processes and executions so that the customer can troubleshoot any problems on time. Please note that the shared service you have purchased does not include management of the customer's website processes. Our team monitors the server status and health, and makes sure that a website in good standing can be hosted with us. If the website itself has issues related to its script, plugins, themes etc., the account owner or its developer are responsible for resolving them. In cases when the usage spikes appear suddenly, our team cannot inform the customer in advance, but has to react immediately to resolve the problem. In your case immediately after limiting your site, we have provided you with analysis of the IP address generating the extra resources usage, and worked with you to quickly remove the limits and put the website back online. 2) When we identified the IP causing the most usage we have tried to block it in firewall, however you have enabled CloudFlare on your account so our approach to block it on our servers was not successful. In your previous CPU limit tickets via the help desk system we also suggested some techniques to lower your executions and guided you to our tutorials about them. 3) The server section of our full features list page provides specific details on the CPU executions limit for each plan, so we have that available on our website. The mechanism for handling resource abuse is described in our terms of service that each user agrees to at sign up. Please note that since the downtime of your website is not caused by an error on our servers or by our team, but was the result of your usage exceeding in times the average usage per customer on the same server, we cannot provide you with compensation. In case you wish to cancel your service with us, please initiate a cancellation from your account, and our Billing department will check if you are eligible for a refund for the remaining unused months.

Hello, we will be glad to help resolve the issue and send the refund as soon as possible. Just in order to clarify the situation. Our technical team has tried to transfer the website of the customer from their last web host to us, but the cPanel password provided to us was not correct. Our system...

sends out automatically updated about such issues, but we did not hear back from the customer. As it seems the emails to her inbox have bounced, as it happened with several emails regarding her SiteGround customer area password and about the requested refund.The customer has asked for refund via chat on March 16th - our representative informed her that we need to validate that she is the owner of the account before we can proceed with the cancellation. Since the customer was not able to login to their customer area, she was asked to send an email with attached documents proving the ownership.An email was received, but again our message to her bounched. In our records we see that several of our representatives have tried to send email but to no avail. They have also tried to contact the customer via phone and since no one was available on the other end, have left voice messages.The information received here and the attached pdf will be forwarded to our Billing department immediately and they will make sure to issue the requested refund.

Hello [redacted],Your account was renewed because we did not receive a confirmation for your cancellation request. Our 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 account. Please note that this can be done from your Customer area and not via ticket. From 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 handled. Our 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 mistake. Thus 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 automatically. Please 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 date. Since 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 refund. There is no further response from you in the ticket, so he could not forward your request to our Billing. During 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 refund. While 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 back. Refund for the initial payment has been issued yesterday and the money should appear in your bank statement in 7-10 business days. Regards!

Hello [redacted],Indeed our accounts are renewed automatically, but this is only in order to prevent downtime for the website of the customer due to credit card or bank issues. We state this explicitly in our terms of service. What is more, before we charge a credit card, we always send out at least 3...

reminders about account renewal to make sure that the customer is aware of the renewal and is able to cancel their accounts if they are no longer needed. Since we did not receive a cancellation request from you, the account was renewed. As far as the price is concerned - the price you paid initially was a promo price, only valid for the first billing period. This way new customers have the chance to test our services with a small initial investment. After the first billing term is over, our regular prices apply.Please note that we are always ready to work together with our customers to resolve any billing dispute that might occur. Unfortunately you haven't contacted us after the renewal, but first 5 months later when a refund is no longer possible. As we see from our records in a chat with our Customer Care from June 18th, you agreed to have the remaining time added to another account you have with us. As discussed, the expiration date of your second account has been already extended with the prepaid amount from the now cancelled account [redacted]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 [redacted], and find that this resolution is satisfactory to me. 
Regards,
[redacted]

[To assist us in bringing this matter to a close, you must give us a reason why you are rejecting the response. If no reason is received your complaint will be closed as Answered]
 Complaint: [redacted]
I am rejecting this response because:I did not ask for account credit, I asked for a refund.  Your company no longer has my trust or loyalty.  You still have not unlocked my account, and I will have no further negotiations until my account is unlocked.Regards,
[redacted]

The case of [redacted] was handled by several supervisor during
the last months, and also reviewed by our CTO personally to ensure that
we have assisted the customer in the best way possible. Our research
confirms that the experienced downtime, for which the customer demands a
refund, was...

not caused by SiteGround, but by website issues not related
to our hosting services. All support tickets were always processed and
resolved timely, with exception of the actual account size issue that
emerged in February 2016, and for which our team provided all the
information neccessary for resolving it, but the actual resolution was
in the hands of the customer.As our team informed [redacted]
already in a ticket from September 2015, the data base (1.2 GB in size)
of the website was too big for the selected Cloud plan; in addition to
that, the website had 60 plugins installed and not well written code,
which also affected negatively the performance of the site.The
developer of [redacted] personally acknowledges this as quoted in a
ticket: "a professional web developer who has gone through and fixed
coding errors and optimized my site and is in the process of working to
just rebuild my site completely to give it a "fresh" start. (...) my
site had a horribly corrupt database, which is now fixed (...) I do not
know technical terms, but ultimately it was determined that my site just
is too large for the server I am on with you guys."Since the
customer's website was using more resources than the ones allocated to
the used plan, our team provided information about the possible
solutions, which indeed included an upgrade to a higher plan with more
resources or seeking the help of a professional web developer, not
offered by us as a service.Since no measures were taken about
the website size issue, in February the site exceeded the available
resources and this resulted in data base errors and website issues such
as blank screens. Our team has tried to resolve this by decreasing the
size of the data base and by applying further measures. Unfortunately
all of this was insufficient considering the limited resources on the
current hosting plan and the desire of the customer to keep all
available data.As the customer declined the option for upgrade
and demanded a backup, we have cooperated and provided as an exception a
usually paid service for free in order to facilitate the access to
backup copy of the database. The full database for the site has been
sent to the customer multiple times after checks and verification, that
it contains all files and no errors for accessing the data. Our Support
team from all levels including top-level supervisors were actively
involved for several days in troubleshooting and resolving the case to
the client's satisfaction.In regard to the backup request of the customer:We
certainly did not disable the backup functionality - the reason why
[redacted] was not able to get a backup is that it was large in size
and the server did not have enough free disk space to hold the backup
restore data. In regards to the accusation that our team did not
want to cooperate and communicate over the phone - please note,
that our advanced technical support, as the one required in this case,
is available only through our HelpDesk. In order to re-create the issue
described and provide solutions, our team needs detailed information in
writing, which is best provided though our ticketing, and not through
the phone, where often information cannot be validated in real time,
emotions come to play, and all this can lead easily to
misunderstandings.Also, please note, that our supervisors are
not available 24/7, but only during regular office hours. Still, all of
[redacted] requests were handled on time, and only non-technical
requests (e.g. billing) or requests to reconsider our position were
handled slower, since they required internal discussion with several
team members from different departments.In regards to the accusations that we have lied to the customer about our refund policy:According
to our records, the 30 day money back guarantee was not discussed
during the initial call. What was discussed, was the fact that the
website had optimization issues already with the previous web host, and
that our company does not offer web developer services. What is
more, refund is usually available for new shared hosting accounts only,
and not for Cloud, nor for renewal payments. Since the Cloud account was
purchased already in 2014 and renewed 3 times since then, a refund as
per our 30 day money back guarantee coundn't have been issued.A
cancellation fee, as the one described by the customer, is only required
if the user cancels too late - not during the mentioned period in the
terms, or if the user took advantage of special promotions (free domain
for example) or non-refundable upgrades (which are 3rd party products
that we prepay to the vendor in advance).Still, when in
September 2015 the customer informed us about the decision to move
to a new web host and inquired about the refund policy, since there were
whole 8 months until the expiration date, our Billing department agreed
to provide a refund of $792 upon cancellation for the remaining unused time,
although we had no obligation to do that. The customer's response at
that time was that they will contact us additionally once ready to cancel.
The ticket was reopened by the user only in March 2016 - 6 months later.
As per the initial arrangement, we provided refund for the remaining time - only 2
months at that point.During the entire time [redacted] was our customer, our
representatives have assisted her with much more than what's actually
included in our hosting service scope, and provided multiple services
for free, although they were time consuming and complex, and required
involvement of web administrators. Since the issue was not caused by our
support specialist neither by our server setup, we cannot provide the
refund requested.

Hello [redacted],We have checked your accounts with us in detail - as we see, you are a customer since 2010 when you purchased your first StartUp account. Since this date it has been auto-renewed 3 times, after sending out at least 3 email reminders before the expiration date. For these autorenewals we...

have never received information from you that you did not want them to be processed. Please note that we auto-renew accounts as explained in our terms of service, in order to prevent downtime for the customer's website. If you are not happy with the autorenewal system, please contact us in order to disable it for your accounts.The $14.95/month price is an introductory price for our [redacted] plan. You can secure this price for up to 3 years at the initial signup. After the initial period is over, our regular prices apply. As we see in 2014 you have purchased a [redacted] plan for 1 year at the discounted price. As soon as the initial term was over, the account was renewed at the regular price, again after sending out email reminders in advance.In our ticketing we see that you have contact us about the autorenewal of the [redacted] account in December 2015, which is 6 months after the charge. In this ticket on the very next day our Support team has explained that we can issue a refund for the remaining 6 months, but we did not receive any confirmation from you.We can see that you contact us again 2 months after that through phone and on [redacted], and requested refund anew. Since we received your confirmation at that point, the refund for 6 months time has been issued successfully.

[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.  They were prompt and helpful in their response.  I plan on continuing to do business with them.  I'd like to thank the Revdex.com as well for helping resolve this issue.
Regards,
[redacted]

[To assist us in bringing this matter to a close, you must give us a reason why you are rejecting the response. If no reason is received your complaint will be closed as Answered]
 Complaint: [redacted]
I am rejecting this response because the vendor needs to clarify the following sentence in their response: " Our 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 institutions. 1. This was never explained to me.2. What does it mean that they are going to be "processed by the bank institutions?" Please clarify. Thank you. 
Regards,
[redacted]

All my experience with Siteground has been always been just fine!
All positive and no complaints from me...
Prices are reasonable too!!!

Hi [redacted],We have reviewed the case in details and we would like to add some clarifications on this issue.Our records confirmed that in May you have reported a fraudulent transaction with your credit card. We followed up with you and offered as a quick solution the option for you to reverse the...

chargeback and get a refund from us without going through the long chargeback procedure. As you chose to continue with the chargeback, we had no other option but wait until the completion of the procedure by the banks and credit card institutions.You have contacted us on several occasions in the meantime to ask about the refund, yet during chargeback the funds related to the transaction are frozen until case gets settled and we could not proceed to issue a refund.Once we got a confirmation that the chargeback was completed, we have issued a refund for both transactions made with your credit card in the amount of $152.Unfortunately, when you complained and we investigated, it turned out the refund was issued only in paper, but the funds were not technically transferred back to your card due to a system setting in our bank account. That caused an unnecessary delay in the whole processing and closing of the case, for which we would like to apologize!I can now confirm that we have successfully issued your refunds on October 4. One of my colleagues from the customer service team will email you the ARNs codes so you can trace the status of the funds. It may take a few days until they enter your bank account.Regards,Marina Y[redacted]SiteGround

[To assist us in bringing this matter to a close, you must give us a reason why you are rejecting the response. If no reason is received your complaint will be closed Administratively Resolved]
 Complaint: [redacted]
I am rejecting this response because:The business responses verify that they delivered incorrect information about the cost to migrate my account, however, they do not offer restitution for their error, but instead offer not to do it again.  This solution could help future clients make an informed decision, but does not remedy my predicament.Additionally, the free upgrade came with stipulations that I would be charged if I upgraded before my expiration date, so, I waited until that date.  When I tried to upgrade on my cancellation date however, the functioning of the site was not available.  I was therefore unable to renew on that date.  I continued trying to renew my account without success until I contacted chat to accomplish renewal.  It would seem that these requirements and eventual problems were calculated to deny me the free upgrade.  It is definitely correct that the information I received from chat, influenced me to renew.  I tried many times to pay for the renewal and the migration at the same time, but was told, I would have to wait until after the renewal; I would have to create a ticket.  The whole time I was not told that the cost could be more than $50, even though I asked many times, if $50 would be the total cost.  Each time, chat told me yes, only $50.  I do not feel I have been treated fairly during this whole transaction.
Regards,
[redacted]

We have reviewed the customer's reply. Unfortunately it does not provide new information but repeats the initially expressed concerns, that we have already addressed in detail.As stated in a previous reply - we have already provided refund for the remaining unused time as an exception from our policy.

Hello,As we see, you have an open ticket about this refund in the SiteGround HelpDesk. Our Billing department is currently in the process of issuing the refund and as discussed with you your website will remain active until 31st of October. We are sorry that the purchased hosting plan was not...

suitable for your site, but unfortunately on a shared server there are resource consumption limits in place, which have the goal to assure fair allocation of resources for all users, and cannot be changed per customer. We wish you all the best for your online projects. Regards,Marina Y[redacted]www.SiteGround.com

Hello [redacted],We have received your response and we would like to address your points. Please see below the clarifications you have requested:1. On January 5, 2018 we have received a phone call from a bank agent who wanted to get information about a charge of $139 from SiteGround on your credit card. To check the details about the transaction our phone operator asked for the domain name of the hosting account, which you have provided upon the request of the bank agent. In that phone conversation our representative verified that you have successfully cancelled and got a refund for a security scanning service, and the amount of $139 was a payment for your hosting renewal. He explained that you can cancel the service via your client area by going to the billing section —> cancel services and get a refund for the money back to your credit card.2. You submitted a chargeback for the hosting account renewal payment through your bank, which we received on January 7, 2018. Our team has attempted to seek your cooperation to settle this matter directly with you by sending several emails, but we did not receive a response from you. Now we are not able to assist you further on the refund and cancellation, and the dispute for the transaction will be handled by the bank institutions involved, your credit card company and our payment provider system. This means the amount you paid is blocked until the banks complete the resolution process.We are available to answer any other questions you may have regarding this matter.Regards,SiteGround Team

We are sorry you do not feel treated fairly. We would like to fix that and also offer some additional explanations.1. You have expected to receive 1 year free upgrade to [redacted] for the account [redacted]Please
consider that both of your websites were close to expiration (they both
had less than a month until expiration), and thus a renewal payment
would have been inevitable even if you took advantage of the free
upgrade. As our promo terms state, GrowBig accounts as the one you
wished to upgrade, as part of the promo will be renewed for 3 months at
the prices of the current plan and after that we will upgrade the
account to a higher plan for free. The mentioned 1 year free upgrade was
available only for StartUp plans upgraded to GrowBig as clearly stated
in the promo email.Regardless of all that, you were clearly
notified that you cannot take advantage of the promotion as it had
already expired when you came to our live chat asking about it.2.
You have expected to receive free transfer of website [redacted].com
to the account [redacted] instead of free upgrade as
part of the free upgrade promo.We will transfer the content of [redacted]com to the account [redacted] for free. We have initiated the restore of the backup and transfer for you. Please check your tickets to follow the status of the transfer.

[To assist us in bringing this matter to a close, you must give us a reason why you are rejecting the response. If no reason is received your complaint will be closed Administratively Resolved]
 Complaint: [redacted]
I am rejecting this response because: It is the same response being sent over and over without any results.
Regards,
[redacted]

Hello [redacted],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 misleading. We do appreciate your feedback and will make the necessary...

adjustments on our website and invoice to explain the billing periods better. We are also willing to provide you with a $49 for the domain redemption fee. Could you please reply to ticket [redacted] 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[redacted]www.SiteGround.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 [redacted], and find that this resolution is satisfactory to me. 
Regards,
[redacted]