Hostgator suspends accounts after getting money

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mirnitagl

New Member
I read in a few forums about people from outside the USA (and a few also from the US) who have paid in full and then their accounts have been temporarily suspended until they have been "verified" Verification involves calling long distance to hostgator office, waiting a long time at the phone to then have an operator ask you for all sort of personal questions:eek: That is absolutely outrageous!
I am from Spain, Europe, not precisely a "risky" place I'd say and I have a 4-year verified paypal business account which I have used many times to pay for items and services all over the world, including of course the USA. I have never been treated like I had to prove anything to anyone. The info you give when you pay is good enough for all companies...except for this one, it seems.

Here it is a transcript of the conversation I just had with a hostgator operator in which he confirms they make a verification (after taking your money, of course) Something it is not written in hostgator web anywhere.

Chat Transcript
info: Please wait for a HostGator operator to respond.
info: Welcome to HostGator Live Chat! You are now chatting with 'Nick M.'
Nick M.: Welcome to HostGator Live Chat, how may I assist you?
Mirna: Hello! I'd like to ask you a question that's important for me .
Nick M.: sure
Mirna: I have read in many forums that hostgator has the bad habit of accepting money from people from other countries and then ask all sort of verifications, including a phone call to their offices or the account is cancelled.
Mirna: and not only that, after they cancel the account, they take a looonnggg time to return the money
Nick M.: We ask for verification from people that are in high risk areas.
Mirna: I am from Spain and have a verified paypal account
Nick M.: Or whose info doesn't match up
Nick M.: For instance:
Mirna: but I don't want to have make any long distance call or give personal info
Nick M.: If you Credit Card says you live one place, and you place the order 1500 miles away
Mirna: I consider that you have no right to ask my personal information
Nick M.: that flags the account
Mirna: My account is from paypal.es, that is, paypal Spain and I live in Spain
Mirna: but I don't want dirty tricks, if you do that, just let people know in your webpage
Nick M.: We do sometimes verify people.
Mirna: I have been a powerseller at ebay spain for 4 years, have a verified paypal account and for me it would be very insulting to be requested more info thatn what's normal
Nick M.: But it's for your security.
Mirna: don't say "we verify some people" that's very ambigous say WHo you verify and in what circumstances, that's more honest
Mirna: no, it's not for MY security
Mirna: hey, I'm just Spanish, not stupid
Mirna: I just want to know: are you going to take my money and then not provide the service right away but to ask me to call you long distance, have me waiting at the phone and ask for all kind of personal info
Nick M.: I'm not sure I understand the question.
Mirna: ?????
Nick M.: It is possible that we will ask you to verify.
Mirna: that was a question, I forgot the interrogation mark
Mirna: oh, that's good to know. I will let every one in my blogs and forum know about your double policy: one written in your web page and the one you don't tell until you grab the dollars
Mirna: Thank you for your time



I'd like someone from this company (Hostgator) to answer me why they start a business relationship with a client who pays upfront treating him/her as some sort of delinquent.
 
G

GlennQuagmire

New Member
luckily im with websitesource. haha i was thinking about HostGator but hell no im staying after this. :D thanks for that useful info.
 
M

mirnitagl

New Member
hostgator grabs the money and cancels the account afterwards

You're welcome. After reading it in forums and hearing it directly from them, I just had to warn people about this dirty trick.

Please, tell me about websitesource. How is their service? Have you experienced any downtime during the time you've been with them?
I just visited their site, there's one thing I don't like from a start, they have their chat "online" but once you try to chat with them, the suystem is actually an email that is sent to sales department. Not nice. When a chat read online, someone must actually chat with you.
How is support in that site?


GlennQuagmire said:
luckily im with websitesource. haha i was thinking about HostGator but hell no im staying after this. :D thanks for that useful info.
Click to expand...
 
W

workaholic

New Member
well, you know there is always internet fraud, if you from some risky areas then they have to do it ... after all if you're fraud before you may do the same thing as they did.
 
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marbas

New Member
This is great. Thanks for the warning. At least we are aware on this and never be fooled around again. I have heard news about this, but I personally haven't encountered it. But thanks.
1.gif
 
S

suncoasthosting

New Member
Each company has their own policies. While you we do not endorse any other companies policies it is up to you as to whether you deal with them. If you do not read their terms and conditions then you should not enter in to the agreement with them. If they deem you a risk they deem you a risk it is as simple as that.

You may have a good rap on ebay etc but fact is Internet Fraud is quite a big problem that is not getting smaller. It is really no surprise that companies like hostgator are taking these sorts of measures.
 
krymson

krymson

Member
I live in Houston and I'm an ex-employee of Hostgator, they have all there stuff backwards up there at hostgator, there are some of the smartest people i have ever known there but the way the business is run i dont like. Brent Oxley in my opinion is far too young to run a business that big and he runs it with some of his friends, his dad controls his finances. I got fired because i fixed peoples websites for them that are having MySQL problems, the people asked me where i learned all of that and I told them i do web design and they took my name down that was it and i got fired... try to help and bad things happened be cause they said it was conflict of interest because hey have a "web design" department which consist of ONE guy making once a month updates to their site, its retarded but i used that experience i gained there to incorporate into my web design business and the hosting services i provide to my clients.
 
B

BMA

Banned
I figure everyone is going to take issue with at least one policy of their hosting company.
To get a fairly objective comparison of hosts, I think you have to go to a hosting review website and see which companies have the highest percentage of satisfaction. I like the set up of this website: http://www.webhostingreviews.com/

If you think your host is bad, notice the satisfaction rate and read the comments on 1an1.com! And they say they're the largest domain registrar in the world!

The "high risk area" qualification sounds kind of bogus, but I can certainly see why a company would want to verify the identity of people placing orders - especially if there are red flags. Companies have to protect their reputation with credit card merchants. If they take too many bogus orders, the credit card merchants can blacklist you and create other horrors. Fortunately, my agency has good customer service, and we've never had a single chargeback despite doing business nationwide and internationally.
 
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E

eProHosted

New Member
They are such a large hosting company that you would think they could cut back on such a harsh verification process or have a better support team to handle the requests. Perhaps they should review some of their business practices or suffer from the loss of more potential clients. They are one of those companys that are too large to care about all of its clients on a personal level.
 
R

Roly67

New Member
Hostgator: New business process, plot lost?

I also suffered at the hands of the dreaded "verification" process.

My company is a UK registered, Ltd company with previous HostGator accounts.

HostGator took our order on Friday and returned (refused) payment on Sunday (2 days later). No info on why, so I went into live chat. The chat transcript is at the bottom of this note.

This is just a plain weird way of doing business in my opinion. Well avoided!

:D

---
My primary domain is ****.rolosoft.com. Sales processing problems



(12:10:20 PM) System: There are currently 0 people in front of you and 133 chat technicians assisting customers.

(12:10:33 PM) Matthew He: Thank you for contacting HostGator Live Chat, my name is Matthew. I will be happy to assist you today.

(12:10:45 PM) Rowland O’Connor: Hello. Can someone help please?

(12:10:58 PM) Rowland O’Connor: Hi Matthew

(12:11:22 PM) Matthew He: I am pulling up your account at the moment.

(12:11:24 PM) Rowland O’Connor: I’m trying to order a Business package but there seem to be some problems

(12:12:55 PM) Matthew He: What issue are you experiencing when you are trying to purchase a business account Rowland?

(12:13:32 PM) Rowland O’Connor: Purchased by PayPal on Friday. Heard nothing, today Hostgator refunded via PayPal

(12:14:11 PM) Rowland O’Connor: Trying again by credit card but the screen says I already have an account (news to me)

(12:14:26 PM) Rowland O’Connor: Remind password function not sending details to me

(12:14:44 PM) Matthew He: It looks like we attempted to call you to verify the account.

(12:14:53 PM) Matthew He: Before I can disclose private information regarding your account, I will need to verify your billing information.

(12:15:00 PM) Rowland O’Connor: OK

(12:15:00 PM) Matthew He: For security purposes, I will need you to verify your identity by providing the PayPal transaction ID of your most recent payment, or the last 4 digits of the credit card on file for the account, depending on your payment method. I apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

(12:15:40 PM) Rowland O’Connor: You have successfully signed up for a subscription to HostGator Web Hosting using PayPal.



Your first subscription payment, for $11.96 USD, has already been sent to hostgator.com.





—————————————————————-

Subscription Details

—————————————————————-



Date of Sign Up: 5 Aug 2011

Subscription Name: HostGator Web Hosting Subscription Number: ********



(12:16:29 PM) Rowland O’Connor: Our office phone is not contactable at weekends, but voice messages can be left

(12:17:22 PM) Matthew He: We would need to be able to call you or you can call us to verify your account. Another method would be that you can submit a scanned copy of a photo ID to [email protected] if you are unable to call us.

(12:20:25 PM) Rowland O’Connor: Hmm. Wouldn’t have minded doing this if this was made clear upfront (or asked for by email). Sorry Matthew, but I think I’ll be taking our business elsewhere on this occassion – I’m not filled with a warm, fuzzy customer feeling on this (unlike our previous Hostgator account)….Sorry & thank you for your help.

(12:21:00 PM) Rowland O’Connor: closed this chat intentionally.
 
A

Absolution

New Member
I got burned pretty bad with the first host I have used, ended up loosing a domain name out of it, and I learned my lesson of getting the domain names myself. Now I use http://www.ixwebhosting.com/ and they have been really good to me. I have no complaints really. The few times I had any problems it was fixed right away.

Although apparently a lot of people had bad experiences with IX up times. Which makes it more confusing to me since I always had good communication with them and I was never lied to. I guess it could be the way I treat the customer support?
 
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