HostGator's support is sooo frustrating...

[Rachel Incoll]

What are your thoughts on this?

I have a reseller account with HostGator (which I've had for several years now) on which I host numerous sites of mine...but I'm on the verge of changing hosts because of what seems to me to be rather incompetent customer support.

I've had a problem with one of the sites which has seen a sudden increase in bandwidth usage over the last few months - it's gone from 20 to 30MB a month (as it's ONLY used for customer service emails & doesn't receive much traffic) to 3GB last month!

Last month it only received 70 hits, which account for less than 10MB of that bandwidth.

As I suspect the site has been hacked somehow & is maybe being used by email spammers, I contacted HostGator yesterday to see if they could shed any light on it.

This is what's happened so far:

Hostgators first reply:

Checking the bandwidth I see the that the bandwidth is consumed by imap. How often / large is your autoresponse?

My reply:

I don't have any autoresponders set up on that account - all my email
autoresponders/bulk mailing go out through 1ShoppingCart.

The domainname.com email accounts receive notifications from 1SC each time someone subscribes to the newsletter on my main site & up to a dozen or so customer support queries each day.

Hostgator's reply:

I am showing auto-responders for 3 email addresses. I verified by sending a test message to subs@domainname.com.au.

I am showing responders for these 3 email addresses.
sales1@domainname.com.au
salesa@domainname.com.au
subs@domainname.com.au

My reply:

The problem isn't with that domain www.domainname.com.au, but with the www.domainname.com domain which is the contact email address for the main site (.com.au one). - this is something I quite clearly stated in my first email to them.

Hostgator's reply:

They are under the same account though, so the .com.au and just .com are using the same resources under that account.

My reply:

Yes, but I've never known a totally separate domain in a separate hosting
account (created under the same reseller account) to suddenly lose bandwidth because of what's happening on a different domain! I'm sorry, but that simply isn't possible (or shouldn't be possible).

I have numerous other domains/sites on that same reseller account and NONE of them have this problem. If it was happening to one, you'd expect it to happen to the rest.

The .com.au site has ALWAYS (for several years) used a lot of bandwidth as it has a lot of traffic - up until a few a months ago the .com site only
used 20 to 30MB. Why should the amount of usage on the .com.au site all of a sudden start affecting the usage on the .com site? It doesn't make sense.

What if I was actually using the reseller account to resell hosting packages to other people, instead of just my own sites? You can't tell me that if someone was using a heap of bandwidth on their hosting, it would affect the amount of bandwidth used on other people's accounts.

HostGator's reply:

Both accounts are under username xxxxxxx is what xxxxxx was stating. The bandwidth is allocated to the user and its domains.

My reply:

You still haven't answered several questions in my earlier email though.

If that's the case though, all hell would break loose if I was actually
using that reseller account to resell hosting packages to the general
public. Clients would be very angry that the usage of another client would
take away their bandwidth so I honestly don't believe that is possible.

The way I have that reseller account set up is exactly as you would to
resell hosting to the public. Separate hosting packages, each with their OWN disc space and bandwidth allocation, to which 1 domain is allocated.



...I'm still waiting to hear back from my last email, but I wonder if they're going to reply.

What they're saying sounds like a whole load of bull to me...I'm very close to transferring my websites to another host today . What's your thoughts?

Rachel

[pavondunbar]

Originally Posted by Rhys Davies

Never email hostgator, there's no point.

Go to there website and there is Live Chat Support.

Should get your problems answered sooner

I agree...

I use Hostgator for my hosting provider and their online chat support is better than emailing them.

Never had a problem with support...thus far.

Pavon

[Marhelper]

Originally Posted by Rhys Davies

Never email hostgator, there's no point.

Go to there website and there is Live Chat Support.

Should get your problems answered sooner

If only that were the case ... I have spent hours on the "live chat" only to end up realizing that I knew more than they did (and that is not saying much).

[Rachel Incoll]

Originally Posted by Marhelper

If only that were the case ... I have spent hours on the "live chat" only to end up realizing that I knew more than they did (and that is not saying much).

Yeah, I think that's a big part of the problem. They just don't seem to have a proper understanding of the problem or the hosting set up.

[Ian Middleton]

I just called them from the UK and found their support brilliant and nothing seemed to be a problem for them in helping me. Look- I am even recommending them as a result!!

Have a go and you will get results

Good luck
Ian

[JohnMcCabe]

Rachel, on simple things I use LiveChat or a support ticket.

For anything like this, I pick up the phone.

Hostgator has been the most responsive host I've had for a reseller account.

[Christian Sawyer]

Host Gator probably has the best support in the industry. Give them a call or use the live help.

Emailing Host Gator is inefficient and much slower

-Christian

[Kay King]

I used to advise not to use the chat - but it has drastically improved.

I've also had excellent support through email. HG, like most services, has different support levels and what you need is to get kicked up to a tech for support - that can be done by email or phone.

For this problem, I'd phone them and tell them I was getting nowhere by email and needed to speak to a higher level tech person.

Good luck!

kay

[itsliz]

I've always found their support to be great. I use Live Chat every time though, never email.

[peter gibson]

As opposed to other providers, I've found hostgator to be rather brilliant. And as another poster mentioned, a catastrophe like this is worth a phone call for sure. I never email for support, it's almost as bad as snail mail.

[jace]

I use the live chat, The quality of the support you get though depends on who you get in the chat. I had a really great experience with on of them. He went into my account and fixed the problem for me, That was great.

[Rachel Incoll]

Originally Posted by dps

I think part of the problem is they ARE answering your question, but you don't realize what they're saying.

First of all, have you checked your web logs? Have you checked your web STATS?

David, if you read my first post carefully you would see that I HAVE checked my stats & they're NOT showing any reason for the increase in bandwidth.

Originally Posted by dps

Anway, what this guy seems to be trying to tell you is that you've got an AUTO-REPLY enabled on three IMAP/MAPI mailboxes. That's often referred to as "vacation autoresponder". When someone sends an email there, it sends back an auto-reply saying, "thank you for mailing me. I'm away on vacation and will return next month. blah blah". What are yours configured to send? And why?

There are NO autoresponders configured on that account as I said in my original post! HostGator was incorrectly referring to the .com.au domain and not the .com.

Originally Posted by dps

You think he's referring to your 1SC AR. These guys don't have a clue about things WE refer to as "auto-responders". To THEM, an "auto-responder" is a vacation auto-reply thingie.

Where do I say that he's referring to my 1SC autoresponder? Nowhere...I'm just informing them that I have no need to use the autoresponders in my hosting account as I use 1SC.


I should think it's pretty darn clear that they aren't answering the question - not that they are but I don't realise it.

After several more emails back and forth this morning it seems that we might actually be talking on the same wavelength now. Now that they've figured out that:

• It's the .com, not .com.au domain that we're talking about.
• That the .com one isn't one of the several other domains/subdomains that are parked with/share the same account as the .com.au one.
• That the .com one DOES actually have a different Unix username to the .com.au one & therefore IS on a completely different account with it's own bandwidth & disc space allocation.

Rachel