Get Your Money Back from Hostgator...

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As many of you are well aware, Hostgator have had some major issues this last week. The problem is none of this stuff was mentioned to members in advance and thus their 99.9% uptime guarantee comes into play here:

0.1% of a month equates to about 43 minutes. I'm not sure about you but my dedicated server was down for a few hours in total which far exceeds their guarantee.

I contacted Hostgator last night using their support email address (support@) and stated that I would like my monthly fee credited in line with their guarantee. I received the credit this morning.

Just thought I should let those of you know that you can and should get credit for your months hosting if you have also been affected by this problem.
#main internet marketing discussion forum #hostgator #refund
  • Thanks. I was wondering who else would mention this. I'm glad they're honoring their promise.
  • I actually got a $150 Adwords coupon in the mail from them this morning, which made me feel a little bad for leaving them.

    I wasn't really affected by the outage, so I probably won't ask for a refund. But it is nice to know that they're honoring their word.
    • [2] replies
    • Feel bad? They should bloody feel bad for selling themselves to EIG and telling customers they are receiving an "upgrade" to new servers when they are getting a downgrade.
      • [ 1 ] Thanks
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    • I haven't had an account with them in months and I got the same. $150+$150 more if I load $50.
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  • Thanks for the info. My dedicated was down for several hours as well. I was wondering if they would give a credit but figured Id wait until Monday to ask them if I didnt hear anything about it.

    Im still likely going to migrate away from HG though, not because of this last event, but because it really is not even HG anymore. New management, new owners, new servers, its HG in name alone.
    • [1] reply
    • I was 2 months into a 6 month shared plan. I asked for a prorated refund since I was past the 45 days and had used them before... They ended up refunding my whole 6 months instead of just 4.

      It took about 24 hours for the first ticket response and 50 more hours for the second when it was canceled and refunded... not bad.
      • [1] reply
  • i think they will never refund, lol. thanks for the info mate
    • [2] replies

    • I have no idea why people respond to a thread without reading the OP!


      @Will, good on you for requesting a refund that was rightfully deserved.
      • [ 6 ] Thanks
    • There; fixed.
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  • I had no idea the issues were this bad. Thanks for sharing guys. Any other horror stories?
    • [1] reply
    • I don't think a few hours of downtime in a couple years is a horror story.

      Probably? :p
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  • Banned
    [DELETED]
  • It's good to hear they are honoring their promise.
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    • Yes, I only noticed about 2 hours on my dedicated but that's only when I was watching. I really should have an alert system setup but don't as yet. So it could have been longer and definitely know others who were closer to the figure you mentioned. If you are running a launch or even an advertising campaign, it can mean a lot of wasted money. Not to mention those of us just running the average business where even short outages like this can result in a lot of support requests that cost us time and money to answer.

      Yep, I have to give them credit for that. I was expecting some canned response saying it wasn't their fault, etc but was delightfully surprised when they replied apologizing and with a credit to my account.

      Things like this happen. It's how people/companies deal with it that really counts. I am still looking at other alternatives because it hasn't just been the recent outage, my sites, etc have been noticeably slower since the recent changes. But I do have to give them credit for honoring their uptime guarantee.
  • I will give HG a couple of more months before deciding what to do. I feel not good leaving them after almost 6 years. I never had a problem before until last week. It's hard to find a hosting provider with a good support like HG...
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    • [2] replies
    • I'm feeling the same way since I've been with them for 8+ years now. I'm going to suck it and see but I have already looked at other options so I know exactly where to go and how much it's going to cost if something like this happens again.
    • Banned
      Have you noticed any chages in their support services over these years? Like delayed answers to your questions or something like that. thanks.
  • Nice move WillR, I am hoping that give the company a wake up call with more users asking for refunds.

    I haven't had a problem with them yet, but it seems to be a manner of time, and I am keeping my eyes open for alternative options
  • So who's the "new' recommended web host?

    Hostgator was always one of the more popular and reliable around.
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    • Thanks Will.. My sites were down too... I "will" take your advice and get my account credited.. I was so busy.. I didn't think about that..
    • A couple I have heard good things about and am looking into are:

      Liquid Web
      Wired Tree
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      • [2] replies
    • I switched from opencart to Arvixe. Took a while to get used to. But, support is top notch so far. And they're way more friendly with opencart.
  • Thanks for your suggestion! I'm already firing off request for refund email.
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    • Those who were most affected like the person with two days of downtime - seem the most understanding of the problem.

      It you have a brick and mortar business you can be closed by fire or flood or power outage....and you can be temporarily closed online by a server outage. The uptime these days is pretty amazing compared to a few years ago.

      kay
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  • I'm glad they're honoring their promise.
  • who owns Hostgator now? ..... I left them about 6 months ago due to other issues which were never resolved.
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    • EIG -- Endurance International Group -- acquired them in June 2012. Over the past year, they've made quite a few changes. The biggest one is the migration from Texas to Utah, the "upgrade", and the subsequent crash of their network.

      EIG owns 50+ hosting brands. Those are NOT individual companies, but lipstick on a pig. I explained it more in depth at WHT.

      Link: http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showpo...64&postcount=6

      This has happened many times now, as far back as ~2002 with Hypermart. It's happened to at least a dozen or more hosts now.
      • [ 1 ] Thanks
  • None of my sites (12 on 2 different accounts) with Hostgator went down.

    I guess the problem only affected some of their servers.
  • None of my sites were down at all but for some reason I was very early in the transition. My sites were already moved when I started hearing about all the issues.
  • was not aware of the 99%. But will give them a support ticket and see how I get on.
  • So who are you guys using (going to use) now if you left (are going to leave) HG?
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    • I moved all my HG sites over to Stable Host. Read some good things about them here and liked their features/plans. Migration took just a few hours.

      And for the guys that need more than shared hosting, I'd recommend WiredTree for a VPS or dedi. I moved to them from Beyond Hosting last month, and their entry level VPS was cheaper and faster than the one I had at BH.

      Really happy with them so far.
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  • Hey guys

    I have just requested my credit from Hostgator so we will see how things go! (Given that I've spent around $100k with them on hosting over the past several years, I can't see them saying "no" - surely?)

    Also - I have been in touch with the guys at WiredTree and they really do seem to be "on to it." They replied to my "pre sales" ticket even outside of their usual sales dept hours. The guy I dealt with (James) was very thorough and answered all my questions quickly and professionally. Their prices seem pretty competitive too. Having said all this, it's always hard to tell what a new host will be like until you actually use them (and need their help I guess) but based on what I've been researching on them, I think I'll be joining them once I have time to transfer everything over!

    Aaron
  • I spent all day yesterday moving my 44 Hostgator sites to my WiredTree VPS SSD2000 account. Thankfully I use a lot of HTML pages vs WordPress and this made the migrations copy/paste easy.

    I've fired off the official cancellation form to Hostgator. They offered me a free month which I declined. I did request a pro-rated refund of remaining months (I had 3 years pre-paid). I'm officially done with them.

    On the bright side, the WiredTree SSD VPS is really, really fast.
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  • this effect will not be stay much longer i guess. use multiple sources.
  • Does anyone know if this is true for Bluehost customers too (part of EIG)?
    • [1] reply
    • Yes! Bluehost is part of EIG.

      See whole list:
      Endurance International Group - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

      2slick.com[11]
      AccountSupport[6][11]
      A Small Orange[14]
      ApolloHosting[11]
      Berry Information Systems L.L.C.[11]
      BizLand[1][4][6][11]
      BlueDomino[6][11]
      Bluehost[10][15][16]
      Dollar2Host[11]
      Domain.com[6]
      DomainHost[6][11]
      Dot5Hosting[6][11]
      Dotster[1][6]
      easyCGI[6][11]
      eHost[6][11]
      EntryHost[6][11]
      FastDomain[10][17]
      FatCow[4][6][11]
      FreeYellow[4][6][11]
      Glob@t[6][11]
      Homestead[3]
      HostCentric[6][11]
      HostClear[18]
      HostGator[1][15][19]
      HostMonster[20]
      hostwithmenow.com[11]
      HostYourSite.com[6][11]
      HyperMart[4][6][11]
      IMOutdoors[6][11]
      Intuit Websites[3][21]
      iPage.com[6][11][21]
      IPOWER/iPowerWeb[4][6][11]
      JustHost[22]
      MyDomain[6]
      MyResellerHome[11]
      NetFirms[6][23]
      Networks Web Hosting[6][11]
      Nexx[24]
      PowWeb[4][6][11]
      PureHost[4][6][11]
      ReadyHosting.com[6][11]
      Saba-Pro[11]
      SEO Hosting[25]
      Southeast Web[11]
      Spry[6][11]
      StartLogic[6][11]
      SuperGreen Hosting[26]
      USANetHosting[6][11]
      VirtualAvenue[4][6][11]
      VPSLink[6][11]
      WebHost4Life[6][11]
      Webstrike Solutions[6][11]
      Xeran[6]
      YourWebHosting[11]
      Source:
      Endurance International Group - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
      • [1] reply
  • Thanks for the update Will!

    I have a level 6 VPS and have also noticed things got "slower" since the take over.

    Although I didn't notice the downtime myself - I had several emails from customers saying links in my emails weren't working. I guess my sites were down while I was down (asleep). lol.

    Cheers,
    Coby
    • [1] reply
    • I've been with HG with a dedicated server for about 4 years, and they have always stayed within their up-time guarantee until this recent issue.

      In those 4 years I've not seen any change in server speed, and their support is exceptional.

      When I sent a support ticket the other day asking for a hosting credit under their up-time guarantee, it was processed immediately.
      • [ 1 ] Thanks
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  • Thanks WillR, after I view you started this thread I wrote a Tiket to HG support and ask to credit for one mouth because my server was down more then 5 hours on Friday and this exceed the 99 guarantee and here is the response to my Tiket:

    Hello.

    Thank you for contacting Hostgator. We apologize for the inconvenience encountered due to the network issues at our datacenter. We have added to your account a credit valued at one month of hosting for your hosting package. This credit will be applied towards any unpaid invoices on your account automatically. Again, we apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.

    We appreciate your business. Please let us know if you have any further questions.

    Sincerely,

    Angela
    HostGator.com LLC
    • [ 1 ] Thanks
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    Get Your Money Back from Hostgator...

    As many of you are well aware, Hostgator have had some major issues this last week. The problem is none of this stuff was mentioned to members in advance and thus their 99.9% uptime guarantee comes into play here: We guarantee that your site will be up 99.9% of the time we host it. This guarantee includes both network and server failures. If your site isn't up 99.9% in any one month we will issue a service credit to your account for the month. 0.1% of a month equates to about 43 minutes. I'm not sure about you but my dedicated server was down for a few hours in total which far exceeds their guarantee.