I’ve been looking for a new web host for a while and heard several good things about Hostgator along with some firm recommendations so I thought I’d give them a try.

Thing is though, the guys who’d recommended them can’t have had the utterly disgusting treatment meted out to them that I received from the ’support’ desk there. Let me explain…

After checking out the services offered I decided the business plan would suit me best and opted to pay monthly. I’ve never been a fan of paying for a year or more upfront because I like to experience the service offered for a month or so first.

I signed up, paid by Paypal, set up a monthly debit and was forwarded to a page informing me how to access my account – smooth sailing so far but that’s when things started to get a little rough…

I tried to log in several times but access was refused so I contacted the live ‘help person’ to find out what was cooking. After a little while of puzzlement on her behalf she stated that an email had been sent to me giving reasons why.

Strange…

Then I noticed an email from Paypal stating my payment had been refunded – “What? Why?”

The live help was no use — just repeating that an email had been sent. So I waited for the email from ’support’ to arrive and after about 10 mins there it was. When I opened it this is what greeted me:

Thank you for your order with HostGator.com!

howtowritekickbuttcopy.com

Your account has been marked for a security verification. Because of this, in order for us to host your domain, we will require payment via bank transfer or Western Union.

This was followed by a set of instructions on how to pay by those means and a severe warning to follow these instructions to the letter otherwise payment will not be accepted. Also there was a minimum payment required of $100.

“WHAT… What’s going on? Security violation? What have I done wrong?” I felt like a criminal through no fault of my own and there was no explanation in the letter. I also noticed that if you want to cancel the account later ( assuming I got one set up in the first place) Hostgator DO NOT give cash refunds if payment has been made via Western Union or Bank transfer — they will only give a credit toward their services.

That’s nice! You want to cancel your account but can only get a ‘refund’ in the way of a credit against the continued use of their services… Sounds a bit shady to me what do you think?

As you can imagine I was a little upset at the email and the instructions minus explanation so replied stating that they had made me feel like a criminal and asking what was cooking.

Their terse reply was:

Due to the number of fraudulent signups, PayPal reversals, and charge backs from accounts signed up from China, all account sign ups from China must be paid through either a bank wire or Western Union. This has nothing to do with you specifically, but it is company policy. Please let us know if you have any further questions.

So that’s it — I live in china so I must be treated like a suspicious character… AND you’ll notice the tone of the reply? nothing else in the email, no apology or anything… Oh they did address me as ‘Hi’ so I have to give them 0.5 out of 10 for trying!

By now their tone and attitude was a little upsetting and I wrote back asking whether the wanted to in fact do business with me… They still had a little chance if they humbled themselves and apologised like they should have done in the first place. If they’d addressed the first letter with a:

“Dear Stuart, Thank you for your interest in opening a host account with Hostgator. Unfortunately due to the high number of problems encountered when accepting payments from mainland China we have to ask for payment via bank transfer or Western Union rather than credit card or Paypal…” or words to that effect things would have been smoother.

I mean that’s how any sensible company that values it’s name and clients would respond isn’t it?

Sadly though not Hostgator…

In fact the next reply I received was MUCH WORSE!

But let me ask a couple of questions before I get to that.

If they know there are problems receiving payment from mainland China why do they allow the user to select Paypal and Credit card from there in the first place???? And why do they not inform buyers from China of the alternative payment options when they try to place an order? Are the deliberately trying to mislead people?

And of course where are their customer relation skills? Many people comment on how good their support is — well all I can say is they should be thankful they didn’t speak to the rocket scientist I did…

I COULDN’T BELIEVE THEIR REPLY!

Forgive the capital letters but this really takes the cake…

This is how they replied:

Hello,

This doesn’t mean that we do not want your business. What is does mean is that we are following company policy, which you agreed to when you signed up, and can not make an exception to our policy for you.

At no point have we stated that you are a criminal. However, as any investigator can tell you, when some one claims that they are not a criminal without being accused of being a criminal, that person is either a criminal or planning on doing something that they know to be questionable in nature.

I mean really!! “we never said you were a criminal but you must be if you think like that…”

Who are these guys? Which PR school did they go to?? And are they interested in business???

I’m still waiting for the reply to the email I sent in return but doubt they’ll even bother. But I can tell you this I’ll NEVER< NEVER use Hostgators services and will go out of my way to tell all of my friends and clients about their atrocious attitude…

But you know what?

I think they did me a favour… heaven knows what kind of shoddy treatment they’d have meted out in the future IF I signed up!

I hope you don’t have the same kind of treatment from your webhost. I tell you what why not reply and let me know your horror stories and if you have one a good story — eems good webhosts are few and far between these days..

Speak to you soon,

Stuart.

PS
Need a sales letter written or critiqued? Drop me a line to: copy [at] kungfucopywriter.com – I’d love to hear from you.