The worst support i had in years. Dissapointed

[Darth Pincho]

Hi everyone. I want to tell you my story here in hostgator. And how this has been the worst customer support i had in my entire live as a webmaster.

I open and account here in order to move my website form imhosted.com to hostgator.com, finding a better quality service. 5 years ago when i start in imhosted i was impressed with the quality and bla bla bla, but every day quality, support and server performance go down. So now my hosting service in imhosted is terrible. So i decide to moove.

Well i sing up, use ftp to transfer my backup from imhosted to hostgator. And my nightmare begins.

I ask for my backup to be restored (ticket #ZPZ-994256 Posted On: 30 Jan 2007 05:49 PM). Well i supose that technical support know how to do that. I put in my ticket that this backup is form another host provider. In order to take the propper actions. THEY are the admins, i not. The restore the backup on 30 Jan 2007 08:10 PM and my entire acount crash.

I can acces my control panel, but everithing showed in there belong to my old host. Even the plan name... jejejeje. Well i understand and reply the ticket on 30 Jan 2007 08:20 PM (10 minutes later). And in this reply i say:

Ok perfect. Now please:

1) delete all subdomains or parked domains under my account:

So today 3 days later and 6 replies later they dont do that. It is not a specific statement this later one???

Well the story do not finish here. I add 2 more replies to the ticket providing them with all the information about the issue. And my big surprise comes when i read the ticket response (19 hours later), response says:

Hello,
All of the requested has been completed. Please note that in the future, every time you reply to the ticket, it moves the ticket to the back of our queue. We work from oldest to newest tickets so this means we will not see it until we clear out all of the older tickets first. As you have seen, this greatly increases our response time although it's due in no fault of our own.


Regards,
Richard F.
Systems Administrator
Hostgator Support

Well in my planet "All of the requested has been completed" means problems solved, all of them. Solved and tested by the way, because if you dont test it you arent sure is solved. But possibble im some ET.

I check my control panel and now even my main domain or cpanel works... jejeje. Now im worst. I have no other chioce than understand and reply back. AGAIN. I write in teh past saying that my account was corrupted by the backup restoration, and as i can see it my ticket was read by a human being in "blind automated mode". He or she dont take the propper time to read, analize, correct and test what im saying in my tickets. Only read the first lines jump fast to do something and reply back saying all was solved... jejjeej what a joke. This can be a minnor mistake in a hosting company with a 1 hour average response ticket system, BUT NO IF YOU TAKE 14 OR MORE HOURS TO ANSWER BACK. if you make a mistake wich such delay response time THE CUSTOMER LOOSE A COMPLETE DAY OF WORK OR BUSSINESS.

Really dissapointed and angry i write back again.

31 Jan 2007 04:29 PM
Hi, now i cant even acces my cpanel. Nothing works, not my main domain, not
my parked domain.

My username is: xxxxxx
Main domain: xxxxxxx

Parked domain I want: xxxxxxx

Please log into my cpanel via frontend browser and test it. I have lost 14
hours sending replies.

Please verify my statistics are working for my main domain and subdomains.
Please verify I can add and remove parked domains and add on domains in my
cpanel. And for no losing my time and yours please TEST IT.

It is extremely urgent, google can lower my page rank for this long 404
error of all my pages.

As you can see, write something more simple than that is not possible. Well i had the hope this will be end soon, BUT NO, the automata syndrome attacks again and i receive a delayed answer (4 hours later) saying: guess what? YES. Everything done.

But as you can imagine the automata syndrome dont let the technical department read my ticket carefully, THE MOST IMPORTANT PART WICH SAYS: "TEST IT". Now i know the syndrome very well and if i have 4 issues i will write 4 different support tickets for each one. But 2 days ago that look like no sense to me.

I reply on Posted On: 01 Feb 2007 08:47 PM, I quote

also I can add parked domains but NOT add on domains. I have problems with
the add on domains.

Delete them all please and verify in my cpanel that you can add them, the
folders are created, and you can delete them later. I have one addon domain
called xxxxxxxxxxxx wich I want to delete. When I try to delete it I
receive this error:

Addon Domain Removal

Syncing Ftp Databases....Done Error from park wrapper: Sorry, you do not
control the domain elgatoespanol.net Sorry, the subdomain elgatoespanol
cannot be removed because it is linked to the addon domain
elgatoespanol.net. You must first remove the addon domain.

NOTICE im talking about add on domains, not parked domains. Is a different
section in cpanel.

You have to test all of this manually. Because something is corrupt in my
cpanel. And your backend can show everything normal. And I still have the
problem.

Its extremely important to me that you test it. Because I have 3 days with
this issue, have sent more than 6 replies and my problem was not solved.

In my ET planet this is an explanation wich can be perfectly understood by a 15 year old computer fan kid. Even if you dont know the technical items involved you can know whant im telling you to do. right?
NOTICE THIS IS THE 3 REPLY I ASK THE SAME THING. 2 DAYS LOST IN THIS MINNOR FILURE.

As ussually, 4 hours later i receive a response. But i was sleeping. So the next mornig i read the email and guest what it says??? everithing fine now. But the atomata syndrome is a complex thing. The technical department only solve the issue of my main domain. But the rest was IGNORED. I get MAD A LOT.

Hey people, do you read your customers tickets? really? i know my english is not the best one, but if you can understand this post you can understand my tickets. This little mistake can make your support quality go from 5/5 to 2/5 rating in one second. the main objective of you guys (support people) is to SOLVE problems.

When i get calm down i reply again jejejeje, you can beleive this right? Posted On: 02 Feb 2007 07:17 AM. I quote:

Ok now the domain is available. Please check my add on domain feature.
Please delete all the add on domains in my account, and verify I cand add
and delete them in my cpanel.

Something is corrupt there. If I create a new add on domain, I receive no
errors, the folder is created under www/newaddondomain/ BUT in the add on
domains control panel I do not see the domain again, I cant delete or edit
them.

This feature was corrupted 4 days ago due to a backup restore from another
server complete backup. So check the configuration file for such feature.

regards

4th or 5th time i ask the same. DELETE THE DAMM ADD ON DOMAINS PLEASE. I HAVE 4 DAYS ASKING IT. And the support people have the birght idea of anwers me back (10 minutes later, a miracle) asking me:

Hello,

I am going to remove the addon domains. Please let me know if you have backed up the folders associated with them.
Best Regards,
Shashank Wagh,
Systems Administrator & Level III Support,
Hostgator.com LLC.

Friend do you read? in wich language i have to tell you:

DELETE THE ADD ON DOMAINS.
BORRA LOS ADD ON DOMAINS POR FAVOR DE UNA VEZ POR TODAS.
KAPUT.
IS NOT OBVIOUS?

if i have 4 days asking for it and making complaits for the delay, do you think i have it backed up or not? Well you are not sure? how about SOLVE IT BY YOURSELF? how much clicks takes you backup them for yourself, delete them and tell me you have made a preventive backup, and now the backup is located in xxxxxxx folder. 20 more seconds may be??? is that a too much demanding task to do?

Well i reply to this question saying: YES PROCEED. On 02 Feb 2007 08:50 AM. Now 14 hours later my ticket is still open waiting for being readed by some guy at the support department.

Do you think that 4 days to solve some minnor failure like this i a quality support department? If you where the customer, paying for the service, loosing money because your wensite is not making money, receiving complaints form the customers of the website, etc, you where happy??

Because is completely rassonable that you, as a hostgator employee, try to answer this post, triying to explain some things or to get the reputation of the company back on top. I understand that, its your job. But if the support deppartment do thier jobs in that way this post would not be here.
And if you think im doing this for the specific ticket you are wrong. Im trying to show the type of support exist here.

[Darth Pincho]

Sorry for double post but i excedeed the maximum 10.000 characters. So here continues....

For example. In the web page you can se a very fancy button wich says. Live help. mmmm interesting. Wao such feature is great. But what the customer outhere doesnt know is that live support is not support really. The people on live support only say you: "hello you are talking with xxxx how may i help you". You can ask them whatever you want!!! and the only things you will receive are, fancy words, excsuses, wait a moment please, and the common end is: you have to submit a ticket because your problem can only be solve by one administrator. jejejejejejejeje mmmm so WHY THE HELL ARE YOU THERE?? what is your job? only sayme hello and repeat me with the automata sindrome that i need to submit a ticket?? or sayme: your ticket status is openn and some administrator will check it soon.

I talk with live support more than 20 times in the last 4 days. And the do not solve me ANY SINGLE ISSUE. So that feature is completely USELESS. YOU WILL ASKED ALWAYS TO SUBMIT A TICKET. So dont waste time and money, fire that people or instruct them, hire more people in order to have more system administrators and reduce the time response of the tickets.

In conclusion, the support attention i have receive here is the worst icomapred to all the hosting companies ive been before.

The spped of the server is very good, the price, the services included. But GOD BLESS YOU IF YOU NEED SUPPORT. YOUR NIGHTMARE WILL BEGIN IN THAT PRECISE SECOND.

Think it twice before you host here. Evaluate carefully how complex are your requirements, scripts to install, etc. Because if you need more attention than the average Jhon Doe you can have troubles.

Jejeje i bet this post is answered first that my pending ticket. You will see. See you tomorrow i need to sleep.

[GatorBrent]

I looked over this ticket, and in all honesty I believe there might have been a language barrier on what you wanted done.

Few questions....


You can remove addon domains yourself from cpanel why didn't you do this?
Why did you signup with a different domain then what you wanted to restore?


If this was a simple restore there wouldn't have been any issues at all. Why weren't these changes done at your old host and a backup provided of how you wanted it rather then a backup being provided with many changes being needed to be done?


Please let me know. thanks!

[Darth Pincho]

I do the backup in my old hosting. And because is a main backup it have all the configurations of the other server. I dont know that in the past, i think that this main backup only contains databases, files, and emails. But not my name at cpanel, domains subdomains etc.

Now im using a different main domain and i plan to host some other sites. All with a different domain and contained in one single folder inside www/

So using add on domains is simple. But the add on domains funtion in my cpanel is corrupted. Doesnt work. I click delete a domain and receive one error message saying that im not the owner of that add on domain.

I know it can be done using cpanel. But if cpanel deosnt work i cannot do that.

For example. Today, several days later, im still having add on domains in my account that cannot be deleted.