sign up

[ntj9]

i really really think that the sign up page needs an addition! !

i am a uk customer and i signed up a few days ago after much research. i was sick of going from host to host and so i decided to sign up with hostgator who had the reputation i was looking for.

so far no complaints about the hosting. and support is very good.

but if you are an international customer, and if you assign an email address as contact address that is part of the domain you are transferring (hostgator warn you not to do this, but some people like myself will do it anyway cos we are not clever) or if you don't check your email very regularly in the hours after sign up, then you may find yourself in the position i was in.

i signed up and my credit card was accepted.

i got my welcome email and logged in to whm.

set up my accounts - spent quite a long time setting up my accounts by the way!!

during this time i spoke to chat but nobody warned me of what was to come - and i didn't get the email asking for my docs cos by this time i'd changed the nameservers

waited for nameservers to finish propating (all sites were now working and all email addressess too) and went to sleep.

got up the next day and tried to check email - no connection.

tried all my sites - no connection.

went to hostgator site (live chat) and asked what was going on and was told that my account had not been verified as they required a copy of credit card and some solid I.D like a passport or drivers licence scanned and emailed.

so i supplied these documents.

went to work

got home later and found that my main domain was back online (i had now been verified) but all i was seeing was the "index of" page.

logged into cpanel and discovered that everything that i'd setup / uploaded the previous day had been deleted completely.

once again back to live chat and discovered that all unverified accounts (those that don't receive the documentation from uk or international customers in a hurry) are automatically deleted from the server.

felt quite aggrieved but went back into whm, set everthing back up and reuploaded all the stuff again anyway.

finished setting everything up again and now everything is great.

but, the reason for this post is that i think that there needs to be a message comes up on the sign up page (as soon as you indicate that you are an international customer) that you should not set up all your packages, domains, email addresses, and all the other stuff, until hostgator have verified your account, and in order to do this you willl have to supply documents to prove your identity. i would NEVER have setup everything up as soon as i got my welcome email if i had known hostgator were waiting for documentary evidence of my identity and that if it wan't received in time all my work would be deleted completely from the server.

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just get a message set up that says:

you are an international customer. please supply scanned copies of <<this and that>> document so that we can verify your identity. please do not configure your sites until this has been done as failure to supply aformentioned documents will result in deletion of all your data from the server.

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yes i should have followed host gators instructions about the contact email address having nothing to do with the domains i was moving to them - so that was my mistake. i would have got their email if i'd done what they asked. but say i'd done the right thing, then had to go to work or something, i'd still have missed the email and had all my stuff deleted.

another thing that occurs to me is that you could have phoned me on the number i supplied at sign up before you assumed i was not who i said i was and deleted all my sites.

ok, i didn't like that and i sound pretty negative, but to all those thinking of signing up that read this, just be aware of this little pitfall if you are not from the usa, and sign up anway cos support here is great and my websites are working well. i look forward to not having to move to another host again as going by what i've heard my site will never be down like it has been so much in the past)

cheers

[osirion]

I understand where youre coming from as I myself am an international customer and would have hated that happening to me. As far as I recall I didnt have to send through any documentation; but then again - it was a couple of years ago and I might be mistaken (or maybe their policies changed).

You do have to cut HG some slack however; you didn't provide an external e-Mail as specified and so thats probably where the miscommunication came in. I think if they sent you an e-Mail - then they did enough. Reason I say this is because there is a ton of fraud being carried out in the world today and Im sure HG get's their fair share of it. Imagine if HG had to sit phoning every single international customer (and imagine getting an answering machine!) trying to acquire these documents from them? HG would probably go bankrupt just on their telephone bill!

But I do agree that they should warn international clients not to setup anything until their required documentation has been received. I would actually take it one step further and not actually issue the welcome e-Mail with the account details until the required documentation has been received!

PS- I don't know if it was just a typo or if your new to the game, but its called propagating (propagate/propagation) not propating

[ntj9]

I would actually take it one step further and not actually issue the welcome e-Mail with the account details until the required documentation has been received!

PS- I don't know if it was just a typo or if your new to the game, but its called propagating (propagate/propagation) not propating

i didn't think of that. not issuing the welcome email until confirmation has taken place is an excellent idea.

and yes "propating" was a typo. i wish i'd noticed that before i posted it on a board full of web designers / resellers

[alexmosutheskypirate]

ahmm weird i signed up less than a month ago..and i just gave credit card stuff and...yahoo mail..nothing else..20 minutes and i had the ftp data..started uploading..and all fine since that day...
i reside in spain and payed with a visa electron..i think..don't remeber..it's my father's.
don't know..they didn't ask me for anything else...

saludos

[ntj9]

yeah i also know a guy who signed up not that long ago and he wasn't asked for these extra documents either.

hhmmmm

[Serra]

It depends on the fraud rating of the order. Some orders with higher fraud ratings will require extra documentation.

[ntj9]

just having a look through the forum and i came across this thread of mine.

i can only conclude that i sound like osama bin laden and therefore deserved some special treatment.

strange though, cos i am from the scottish borders - with a big scottish accent

[Serra]

It really does just depend on the fraud rating the order gets. Anyone outside of the US gets a little more attention that people inside the US because there is more fraud outside of the US than inside because it is harder to verfiy things.

Don't take it personally, it just depends on things like location.