First off, I withdraw every recommendation to Hostgator if I ever gave you one. If you register with them, you’re definitely on your own. I haven’t been able to come up with any post for about 5 days now because the “Gator” decided to give my butt a deep bite. 😀 It’s not a cool animal to play with, trust me. They claim they eat up competition but don’t be fooled, they may decide to give you a bite too like they did to me after a year of being a loyal customer and even recommending them to people.
I expect to get negative comments on this blog post because when you’re hosting with Hostgator and everything seems to be going smoothly, you would believe your dealing with the best host in the world and you would go to any length trying to defend them. Don’t take it personal, I was once like you but believe me, Hostgator sucks!
If you read this story on about the guy who lost about 60 websites because Hostgator suspended all his accounts over a flimsy excuse, you definitely won’t believe it because it sounds like a lie. If you’ve not gone through something similar, it’s always hard to believe such horror stories. You can read the guy’s full story on webhostingtalk. It’s then you’ll get to understand that Hostgator is just another overselling host that doesn’t give a crap about you or your business. All they do is “eat up competition” with their stupid publicity and make money.
I received a message on Friday morning and someone was asking me if I was working on my site or something. I told him I wasn’t doing anything and checked my blog and forum to see my account had been suspended. Did I say suspended? No, my account was cancelled! What did I do wrong? This must be about CPU usage, I told myself now knowing it was a lot more serious. I contacted support on live chat and was made to understand my account was cancelled. I asked what was wrong and the dude told me my account account was cancelled because I signed up from an blacklisted IP address. I tried explaining that my ISP uses shared IP address for all it’s customers and millions of people may be using the same IP address but all that fell on deaf ears. I then told them to let me have access to cPanel so I could move my stuff and the dude opened a ticket for me. I also asked for the unused credit in my billing account I got this about 5 hours later:
Hello,
Due to the circumstances leading to this account’s suspension, we will not be able to provide any refund. Unfortunately we will be unable to disclose any information in regards to this.
Please contact us if you have any further questions.
What the heck! The suspension was mindless and rather dumb. What do you expect me to do? I’ve been hosting with them for almost a year now, how come you’re just telling me this? My payment history has always been clean, never done anything shady, always referred people to you!
Fine! I’m not asking for a refund of what I paid for webhosting, all I’m asking for is the unused credit in my billing account and my website data! I kept that the money there for renewal but I was told I wouldn’t be getting any refund. I had about $136 dollars there. For over 24 hours, I got no reply, it was like the ticket system was no longer working.
Hostgator parked my sites, displayed their ads and made money off the traffic I worked so hard for and they refused to reply my ticket for almost two days. You can even check my post on their forum here. Up till now, I received no reply on that post. Let me make something clear, Hostgator support is cool when you have little problems like file permission problems, .htaccess edits and other little things but when you have a real serious problem, it’s only then you’ll know that Hostagator supports sucks balls.
For almost three good days, Hostgator made money off my websites and refused to reply my tickets. They denied me my money and refused to let me move to another webhost. All the guys on live chat kept escalating my ticket but nothing nothing happened. This started on Friday but it was not until Sunday when I was lucky to talk to one agent named Karen M. that I got the first sensible reply. I made it clear I didn’t want my ticket referred to an administrator or escalated anymore and that Hostgator is rather being fraudulent, she told me to wait and contacted her Supervisor directly. It was then I got an apology for the delay and got the link to my full cPanel. I got my $136 on Monday.
A friend too had his account suspended because he was accused of trying to bypass their verification process. Yet, another one also got suspended without any reason. They only emailed him stating at the condition surrounding the cancellation could not be discussed.
If you believe Hostagtor is that great, wait till you have a real serious problem, it’s only then you’ll know that the support sucks like hell. You will be ignored and won’t have your ticket replied for hours. Mine took days! Hostgator sucks and I won’t recommend it to anyone. I was a loyal customer but I only realized that they don’t give a damn about customer welfare after a year of being with them.
I’m very sure you’ve read negative reviews about them on the internet and you might think people only made those stories up. They are all real but you won’t believe such things till it happens to you. Are you still hosting with them? Be careful, the Gator bites! I was a victim of its poisonous sharp teeth. They don’t give a crap about you, your site or your business and it doesn’t matter how long you’ve been with them.