My forum keeps going down!

[Urchin]

I am planning on moving from hostgator asap.

I did my research before signing up, I have quite a large forum, quite busy, but only an average of 50-70 people on during very busy periods.

About 3 times in the last month my service has been disrupted, today no topics can be viewed, tech support have said this is because "viewtopic.php was causing too much load on the server"

I was told hostagator were reliable! I am not impressed!

I have a tech support guy who rang on my behalf cos I was out when it happened, and the kept him on the phone asking dumb security questions for 45 minutes! before they told him the problem. WHICH IS STILL NOT FIXED BTW!

Ticket [GCE-4961354]: TOS/CPU : gator734: urchin

[GatorDHanna]

I'll definitely pass on that ticket to one of our senior administrators for further review, but 50-70 people on a busy forum at the same time is probably pushing the comfortable limits of a shared hosting environment.

As far as verification procedures on the phone, did the person you asked to call us remember what we asked? I've never heard of verification taking anywhere near 45 minutes. It takes about 30 seconds if the caller has the right information available (typically the last four digits of the credit card on file).

[Urchin]

I understand what the problem was, that we used too much of our shared space. Thats fine, however, this is the first time we have had service disrupted, usually its a router issue, nothign to do with our forum. The lack of communication during these disruptions has proved to be very frustrating.
I also had what I class as a very rude email yesterday evening when I suggested we take of certain forum features we believed had a glitch, to try to resolve the issue. Therefore I needed access to our forum to get to the admin panel to turn everything off.

Hello,

I can not allow you to crash this server like that. Do you realize the amount of damage you were doing to every other site that was hosted on this server? Do you realize that you are also stopping email for processing for everyone on this server? You can have all the time that you need to correct this matter, but we can not safely enable your forum until the issue has been resolved. Please keep us updated on your progress and provide us with the details of what has been modified.

Sorry but there is just no need to be so rude when I am trying me very best to rectify the situation.

When I signed up to hostgator, I spoke to the tech chat people at length, describing exactly the kind if usage I have, to TRIPLE check it wouldn't be a problem. Due to the amount of problems we have had over the last month, I feel I was mis-sold the service.

sorry the above was suppose to say this is NOT the first time our service has been disrupted, I can't edit.

[GatorDHanna]

I assure you that you weren't intentionally mislead about whether or not your site would work on a shared account here, but I completely understand why you're frustrated nonetheless.

I apologize about the rude response you received. I agree it was uncalled for and I've sent that reply to the employee's direct supervisor for further review.

I'll reply to your ticket with further information. Thanks for your patience.

[Urchin]

Well I am back and it's NOT good news.

I cancelled my HG account 2 months ago and thought that was the end of it.

Oh, no, I checked my bank and I have been billed for the last 2 months, even though I answered all the cancellation confirmation emails etc.

Fair enough, its a mistake, I understand, I asked for a refund.
Checked my bank again today and although I have been refunded, a change in the exchange rate means I have lost money.

I sent this email:

Hello

I am still not happy about this

I have been refunded 2 amounts.... £5.85 and £5.86 but I was debited £6.45 and £6.25

I understand that this is the exchange rate, but, to be frank... this was your mistake, not mine, you took unauthorised money from my account and I expect it to repaid IN FULL

And got this reply

ello,

Our records are showing that the full amounts of $9.95 on the two invoices were refunded. I do apologize if the exchange rates have changed. However we would not be able to refund the invoice for more than what was actually paid to us.

Please let us know if there is anything we may assist you with in the future.

erm, no, I am not happy with this. I did not authorise this money to be taken and now I have lost money because of it.
I know no one can see what the exchange rate is going to do but I have lost out now due to a mistake on Hostgators part and I am not happy about it at all.

Its a matter of principle, I want my money refunded IN FULL

[GatorDHanna]

Hi there,

I looked at your account and ticket history with us.

On May 22, you filed a cancellation request. We replied the next morning asking you to confirm some personal information and verify your email address. You did later that afternoon.

I then saw your forum post and responded to your ticket apologizing for the trouble you had been having and offering to help and get involved. I asked you to advise on what you’d like to do, but we never heard back from you in that ticket.

It looks like you contacted us shortly afterwards (probably via live chat?) to confirm you wanted to cancel, but the person you spoke to didn’t note that accordingly. That was our mistake and I apologize about that. When you notified us that we had not canceled your account, we promptly provided you with the refund that was owed to you.

The fact that the exchange rate changed is obviously beyond both of our control. If the exchange rate was in your favor (which happens occasionally), I doubt it’d be a problem.

Our goal is obviously not to cheat our customers in a currency exchange scam that happens to be favorable to us. With that in mind, if you’d still like us to get you the $2.00 or so that the difference ended up being, please reply to the ticket and I will get it to you.

[Urchin]

Thank you.

I have replied to the ticket. I in no way think this is Hostgator doing some sort of scam to take extra money from me, they refunded the same amount of dollars they had wrongly debited, I understand that.
I just happen to think if hostgator make a mistake that results in me being out of pocket, as a matter of courtesy and goodwill the mistake should be rectified.
This is why I replied to the earlier ticket and was somewhat surprised to find it was not going to be sorted out.