Tried to upgrade, was cancelled instead. Lost two weeks worth of content

[elbuzzard]

I have been a customer of HostGator for almost 3 years, and up until last Friday was happy with the service.

On Friday, at around 10:15am, I attempted to upgrade to Swamp package from a Baby package via the website. I received an email that read:

Subject: [#UTJ-496791]: >>>>>>>>> UPGRADE <<<<<<<<

Hello,

We have cancelled your account. If you were paying with a credit card, your account will no longer be billed.

If you're using PayPal as your payment method here at HostGator, please be sure to cancel your subscription with PayPal to prevent future billing. The steps to do this are listed below:

1. Click the My Account tab.
2. Click the History subtab.
3. Choose the Subscriptions field from the Show dropdown menu.
4. Check the From box and change the date back 2 years.
5. Click Search.
6. To view the details of a specific Subscription Creation, click Details in the Details column.
7. At the bottom of this page, click Cancel Subscription.
8. On the confirmation page, click Cancel Subscription again.

Please note these steps only apply if you have a paypal subscription setup. If you are using paypal to send single payments no further action is needed on your part.

We wish you the best of luck with your new host and hope you choose us again if the need should ever arise.

Thank you,
Michael
Hostgator Sales
1-866-96-GATOR (42867)

Ticket Details
===================
Ticket ID: UTJ-496791
Department: Sales
Status: On Hold

That's right, they cancelled me. I immediately replied to the email informing them of the error and checked my website. Sure enough, it was gone. Just like that.

I immediately called in and spoke with two different reps, Jim and Mark. Jim was understanding, but ineffective in getting my site back. The second rep, Mark, was much more helpful. After a long conversation with the admins and his manager, Brian Modansky, I was assured that my website would be restored to the way it was exactly when it was taken down. That would be 10am, Friday April 6th. To date, this has not happened. The content is two weeks old, and I have lost all settings in cPanel (email, subdomains, filters, etc.).

I recieved an email this morning:

[#UTJ-496791]: >>>>>>>>> UPGRADE <<<<<<<<

Hello,
I apologize but we do not have a back up from 10am this morning since they are done on a weekly basis.
Thanks,
Pauline
HostGator Support

Ticket Details
===================
Ticket ID: UTJ-496791
Department: Sales
Status: On Hold

That's it. You can imagine I am quite upset with HostGator's level of service and incompetency in doing right by a long-standing customer who was trying to pay them more money. That's the truly frustrating part. None of this would have happened if I had not decided to upgrade.

[GatorChad]

Hey, we're extremely sorry about this. I was working with Chris to get your account restored, it should all be restored from backups. Please reply back to your ticket if all is not well now. I'll also work with you through that same ticket on getting you compensated for this.

[elbuzzard]

You are getting there on restoring the site, but it is not complete yet. The ftp accounts are still missing.

I really wish I didn't keep getting these "Your account is working now!" emails when it is not. I have received no less that four emails from three different people telling me everything was fixed, when it clearly was not, as a simple check of the domain name would result in a 403 error.

I really wish I hadn't been promised a complete restore to the way my content was at the moment of deletion, only to be told later that this was impossible. Be honest from the beginning. I was certainly upset at losing my site, but I am much more upset at being lied to.

I really wish that my entire site hadn't been deleted IMMEDIATELY after your employee mistakenly canceled my account. Perhaps even an hour's delay would have allowed this whole mess to be resolved quickly and to your customer's satisfaction. Add in some safety checks to your canceling procedure, since it is obvious that errors can occur.

Quite frankly, I'm amazed that you can be so unaware of what you are doing that you send out an email with a subject of >>>>UPGRADING<<<< that tells me that my account was canceled.

I am sorry to drag this into your public forum, but I tried email and the phone and got very little satisfaction from either mode of communication. Phone reps were unable to contact email reps or each other and were very reluctant to elevate my call to someone would could resolve the problem.

I appreciate you taking the time to fix these problems, but I really regret that they happened in the first place and that it was so irreparable.

[elbuzzard]

Another 24 hours, and my site is still not functioning the way it did before this situation.

FTP accounts are missing.
Subdomains and parked domains are listed in the cPanel, but do not resolve.

[GatorChad]

Kent, we should have this fixed now. Please reply back to that upgrade ticket if everything is not the way it should be.

[elbuzzard]

Thank you.

[elbuzzard]

Just got off the phone with Brent, the owner of HostGator.

I was pleased to see that he took the time to contact me by phone and find out what happened with this. He also made sure I was adequately compensated for the loss of content, as well as my time and trouble.

Mistakes happen. What matters is that they get fixed in an appropriate manner. HostGator may have screwed up, but in the end they made it right.

Thanks.