Do not recommend hostgator.com

[GatorUser1]

this is 100% my opinion - but if I can save someone else the headaches and problems that I have had, then it is so worth it. I have owned my company since 1998 and hostgator is the 2nd dedicated server that I have used and the worse BY FAR.

the first month of service - they double billed my credit card. When i got my statement it showed TWO charges for $219.00 each. When I called billing dept - they say that their records show that I was billed only once and the 2nd charge was voided - I faxed them my cc statements to prove that i was in fact charged TWICE. They, for whatever reason refuse to believe that their system could be wrong.

My cc company was sent copies of my cc statements, they checked their transaction history for me and saw that in fact I was billed twice for the same month of service. When hostgator.com refused to fix the billing issue, my cc company disputed the 2nd unauthorized charge. Over one month later, hostgator shut down my server with NO notice and they refuse (even after getting copies of my credit card statements showing the double billing) to make this right and want me to pay the second charge.

I will never use a company that's billing system is this out of sync and that obviously believes in overbilling. Stear clear of this company!! On top of all of this, it's my opinion that their customer support is so inadequate and they have zero customer service skills.

[KWHS]

look on the brightside, they could have charged you 3 times.....

I had a billing issue that support couldn`t / wouldn`t resolve... when it escalated though I have to say Brent (GatorBrent) and myself came to a mutual agreement... it took a few weeks to resolve, but it did get resolved.... maybe you need to shout higher up than the support staff

[kmaw]

Why did you post the same thing in two different forums??

[Eric]

Why did you post the same thing in two different forums??
Probably so that we could reply to this one.

There's no excuse to not pay back what was taken unfairly. It should be pretty obvious to HostGator when they are paid twice.

[tomowa]

I will never use a company that's billing system is this out of sync and that obviously believes in overbilling. Stear clear of this company!! On top of all of this, it's my opinion that their customer support is so inadequate and they have zero customer service skills.

I never had a problem, and I'd hazzard a guess that the vast majority of HG's customers have neither. So you can't make a blanket claim that HG is to be avoided at all costs. I'm sure there is more to the story than we know here so far. I always take a review like this with a grain of salt, when somebodies first interaction on a forum is to knock something.

[prabudh]

hi,
few visa and master card issuer banks take minimum 45 days to roll back(credit reversal) if you had a transaction problem while you tried paying first time and it was locked somehow and appeared on your statement cause it would need another 45 days to reflect back and card statements are generated before 45 days(most cards do).

I've experienced this card problem earlier in some company but it was all settled once the lost payment reflected back automatically after 44 days.


so i don't think its hostagtor's fault if you chargebacked the amount which actually reached them as server monthly price.

just my 2 cents.

see ya,
pk

[gwyneth]

Whatever HG's flaws are, complaints about the billing and the billing system do not appear very frequently in this forum, and those suggesting HG billing errors are even less common.

In fact, searching the forum with a variety of queries shows that yours may be the only posts in all of 2006 with issues like that. Some complaints about uptime and refund policy were the closest, and that's not very close.

I'm sure there is more to the story than we know here so far.

Isn't there usually?

You went to the trouble of creating an account just to tell everyone

Tell everyone twice.

[GabyZ]

this is 100% my opinion - but if I can save someone else the headaches and problems that I have had, then it is so worth it. I have owned my company since 1998 and hostgator is the 2nd dedicated server that I have used and the worse BY FAR.

the first month of service - they double billed my credit card. When i got my statement it showed TWO charges for $219.00 each. When I called billing dept - they say that their records show that I was billed only once and the 2nd charge was voided - I faxed them my cc statements to prove that i was in fact charged TWICE. They, for whatever reason refuse to believe that their system could be wrong.

My cc company was sent copies of my cc statements, they checked their transaction history for me and saw that in fact I was billed twice for the same month of service. When hostgator.com refused to fix the billing issue, my cc company disputed the 2nd unauthorized charge. Over one month later, hostgator shut down my server with NO notice and they refuse (even after getting copies of my credit card statements showing the double billing) to make this right and want me to pay the second charge.

I will never use a company that's billing system is this out of sync and that obviously believes in overbilling. Stear clear of this company!! On top of all of this, it's my opinion that their customer support is so inadequate and they have zero customer service skills.
Is only an your opinion, they have the best support staff of the hosting companies, when I contacted their support staff I resolve all in less than 2 minutes and they did an upgrade in less than 30 minutes and in my country it was the 31 of December at about 13 p.m ..

[Charlie]

I've been with HG for over a year now with no problems. However, you would think that if it was that big of an issue, you would have at least given a name on the original post. It's pretty easy to complain big when it's anonymous.

[gwyneth]

Each time I look at this thread, it seems stranger. Not only did the guy create the account to complain (twice), the name he chose seems WAY out of proportion.

It's not as if Brent had been sneaking into the guy's house at night and rifling his wallet. I couldn't find any other post that had ever made an issue of HG's integrity. Search the forum for 'billing'--there are only about 200 posts total, and most of them involve questions resellers have about setting it up for their clients.

Not that we'll ever learn the real story, but it really makes me wonder.

[ufopsi.com]

Every day, I find HG really good. Contrary to my previous host, they are transparent and don't hide issues.

[vtrain]

Whatever HG's flaws are, complaints about the billing and the billing system do not appear very frequently in this forum, and those suggesting HG billing errors are even less common.

In fact, searching the forum with a variety of queries shows that yours may be the only posts in all of 2006 with issues like that. Some complaints about uptime and refund policy were the closest, and that's not very close.
[snip]


I and others were billed twice but the problems were sorted out.
http://forums.hostgator.com/showthread.php?p=30825#post30825

I cannot complain at all because at the time I lost about 7$ with the refund but asked for the uptime guarantee that month and that repaired the 7$ lost.

Vtrain

[gwyneth]

I just reread Vtrain's thread, and offer an apology for over-generalizing--by the time I went back more than six months I was just skimming the first message in the threads that mentioned billing and the first message in that one was about suspension for potential email fraud (not Vtrain!!!)

Still, the gist of that thread was that billing problems explained to HG get fixed.

I bet what triggered the confusion/mess/problem here was the new account then the chargeback. Some credit card companies actually make you refuse services subsequently to anybody's who done a chargeback--they will NOT accept that card from that merchant again-- so in his case he would have been better off being slightly more patient.

[ahiyas]

some may not like hostgator. but i will be moving my hosting to hostgator (http://www.silveratoll.com). I am still researching and hope HG will be my choice.

[Serra]

Many, Many, Many people hate HostGator and I'd guess that 20 or 30 people a week run away screaming and vowing never to return. (Which they never do). Many, many, many of those stop by the forum and yell at the top of their lungs that HostGator sucks!

However, I can assure you, while HostGator isn't perfect, it doesn't allow massive sites on shared hosting, doesn't allow server abuse and spam on any of its servers and likely will drive away any customer who is a resource hog, simply because you can't get unlimited processor power for pennies...

A few things do stand out, if you are willing to work with them, HostGator's support is fast and very good, mostly. Yes, support pissed me off more than once, but in the end, I'd say that their support people are about the best and the fastest.

So, if you come here, expecting to use unlimited processor power or that HostGator will teach you web design/apache/servers... or try to get a site setup in 1 hour, you'll leave disappointed. If you come here, move your site, take time and work with support, reply to their questions and be brief in your own requests, then you will be very happy.

Of course, some servers are worse than others and if you get a sucky one, they don't suck for long, but they do suck once in a while, then you might have a bad start, but in the end, when all is said and done you will be happy, they are inexpensive and they scale all the way up to a massive Pro level server that will take care of most any need.

Please go to the customer review forum and read ALL of the negative responses. (Ignore the positive ones). Once you've done that, I'm sure you'll agree with my assessment when I moved here, that you can live with the negatives for all of their positives.

If you wonder about me, read some of my posts, I'm not a cool-aid drinker of any sort.... I'll call HostGator out when they are wrong.

[PsiPro]

my cc company disputed the 2nd unauthorized charge. Over one month later, hostgator shut down my server with NO notice and they refuse (even after getting copies of my credit card statements showing the double billing) to make this right and want me to pay the second charge.

Can't say I blame them, I would have droped you in a second as well. If their merchant gatway said the money was returned and the transaction voided, it was, if it didn't get to you there is a problem, but HG can't fix it on their own.

This happened to me as well, I got double billed, so I called them up and they asked me if I wanted a refund. Told them to just credit it to next months payment and they did.

BTW, "to make this right" you actually owe them money becasue of the charge back fees... There is nothing that would make me want to work with a customer who did a charge back...

[vtrain]

This happened to me as well, I got double billed, so I called them up and they asked me if I wanted a refund. Told them to just credit it to next months payment and they did.



Well then you pay interests rates to your CC company, too :)

Vtrain

[GatorJay]

This was never a double billed account. The account was signed up for on 08/30, and the first charge was voided. Then once the account was verified it was rebilled the original charge. Because the customer waited 15 days to verify, half of there billing month was already over. We recognized this and put a 110 dollar credit on the account.

After months of using the dedicated server, a chargeback was put in for the 219 dollar charge. The account was suspended, and the customer was given the chance to pay the fee again to reactivate there account. They chose not to do this.

[Serra]

After months of using the dedicated server, a chargeback was put in for the 219 dollar charge. The account was suspended, and the customer was given the chance to pay the fee again to reactivate there account. They chose not to do this.

Thanks for giving us the rest of the store. Moral of the story is don't do a charge back! HostGator is a lot nicer than I am. If someone does a charge back on me, I give them the money back, but I NEVER unsuspend their account.

Chargebacks are for when the merchant will not deal with you, not to just get money back that they took by mistake. The chargeback fees are huge.