HostGator.com Scam - A Warning From Past Memebers

Hello,

I have been an off and on HostGator customer for the past year now and recently I ran into a problem so big, that in my opinion it deserves a post here at HostSearch.com

It all starts when I get an email stating…

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Greetings.

Please be advised that your domain name:

mysite.com

Has been suspended for a Copyright Infringment Violation and backup is available for your download should it be needed.

Regards, Tim
HostGator.com
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So I immediately reply with asking how it is possible that we are guilty of copyright infringement. I get a reply with a copy of a DMCA complaint. After examining the complaint I notice several things weird about it…

1) Complaint was sent from our competitor who runs a site just like ours.
2) The claimant said that we are infringing upon their patent pending html code (which has been around since the internet was invented)
3) In the complaint the claimant listed a patent number that they said we were infringing upon. Upon further investigation with the patent number and after contacting the United States Patent And Trademark Office, it has been confirmed that the patent number provided was invalid. Furthermore, there is no patent pending or issued to anything similar.
4) The claimant writing the DMCA complaint states that he is representing an incorporated business. Upon further investigation into this, it has been determined that there is no such business name or Articles of Incorporation filed for the business name listed. Also there was no paperwork filed for similar names in case there was a typo in the complaint.

So after finding these interesting but very valid reasons to belive that this DMCA complaint had no legal bearing in a court of law, we file a counter DMCA notice within about 30 minutes. Since HostGator uses ThePlanet, it would be ThePlanet’s copyright agent which would handle the complaint and determine whether or not the site could remain up. I send the official counter DMCA notice to both HostGator and ThePlanet directly.

After about 30 minutes I called HostGator and spoke with Tim in the sales department about my site, and when they would hear a response from ThePlanet. He assures me that I would have an official response within 30 minutes to 1 hour because ThePlanet is very fast at handling these issues. I agree and we hang up.

After about 4 hours with my account still be suspended and offline, I call HostGator back and speak with Tim again. He said that he would personally get in touch with the datacenter and call me back within 10 minutes.

About 10 hours later, I call yet again…. This time someone whom barely speaks English (probably someone from India) answers the phone and says that I need to send him an email for the issue to be resolved. I inform him of the open tickets I have already and he insist that I sent another email and he will personally respond to it within 10 minutes.

5 Hours later… No phone contact, no emails response, domain still offline…. I sent yet another email to Brent and Tim.

9 Hours later… No response. I call HostGator back and speak with another person whom sounded from India… After telling him my account info he says to email support and hangs up on me.

12 Hours Later….Domain still offline…. I finally get an email from HostGator saying that they can not host my site due to legal demands from their datacenter (ThePlanet).

I ask for more specific reasons, and they simply say, sorry can not host your site. I inform them that LEGALLY they have to give me access to my site data pursuant to U.S.C. Section 512(g)(3) which states that after a counter DMCA notice is filed, access to the disabled content must be restored unless a court order is presented to the datacenter.


Now the problem goes from the DMCA complaint to getting the files and backups from my account which was deleted WITHOUT any notice due to a DMCA complaint (which was proven to be full of errors and lies)


Since it was made clear to me that HostGator did not wan to host our domain and website, we finally agreed and asked for a full cPanel backup of all our data. Remember in the very original email it was clearly stated that a backup would be available for download.


First they want my username and domains to get the backup off of. I provide that information within 5 minutes, and after 10 hours with no reply, I email them back asking for an update,.

They ask me again for my username and domains, which I provide to them verbally and via email. Instructed that backup would be ready within 1 hour max.

14 hours pass by…domain still down…data still being illegally withheld…no response from HostGator.

Long story short…it took about 48 hours with 4 phone calls, 7 emails to get a response from HostGator regarding my site backups.

Finally a few days later I get an email from HostGator stating that they are having problems with my site backup and that they are working on it very hard.

2 Days later I get an email from Hostgator giving me a link to download my site backup…finally I smiled for a second…after downloading the file I noticed something real fast. The file size was 2K when my site used just over 75megs, and inside the backup file was absolutely nothing. Now I am really upset, and I email and call again a few times.

Then after another 24 hours, I get an email saying that “Our site backup is missing, and there is no possible way for me to get my data back off the server”. Remember that they originally deleted the account (NOT suspended) then mysteriously all the offsite backups are now missing. But Brent was happy to say that it was not their fault and it was ThePlanet’s since they provide a horrible backup solution.

So it comes down to this. HostGator received a complaint from a random person on the internet saying that they own a patent to html code (yeah right) provide a false patent number, provide a false company name, and HostGator immediately goes and deletes your account and all your data off your server without notice or any prior warning. Then suddenly all your site backups are now missing and it’s not their fault that you now have nothing.

I inform Brent to either give me my site backups which I am legally allowed to have, or send me a check for $300 which was the cost of the custom programming scripts on the server (which I have full receipts for proof of purchase). He simply says that “It’s not my fault you received a DMCA complaint”, however he fails to mention that he deleted my account data without notice or even investigating the DMCA complaint before making such drastic measures to someone’s account. Now all my site backups and everything is completely missing. Brent suggests I sue ThePlanet for providing HostGator with a cheap backup solution.

Overall: VERY bad experience with the way HostGator handled this issue, and then suddenly loses all your account data and leaves you with absolutely nothing.

Website is now hosted directly with ThePlanet with not one single problem. It still did cost me over $325+ for the scripts and custom programming all over again. Now I need to recover this cost which was incurred by negligence on behalf of HostGator.com




Here are some ticket numbers that were involved with this incident…

HGSales #ZIB-80060-282
HGSales #EQV-99225-951
HGSupport #EFX-28140-146




Law stating that a service provider must restore access to a site that has been disabled due to a DMCA complaint.

U.S.C. Section 512(g)(3)


What are your thoughts on this issue?

While I agree that they should have not deleted your site files that quickly and should have had a reliable backup solution, I would not agree with your assessment that it is a "scam." They have not fraudulently made any claims nor falsely led you on as a scam.

DMCA matters can be quite delicate and there is often pressure on the host to solve it quickly by suspending the site. I have always had issue with the DMCA in that it places the burden of discovery on the web host. In other words, once properly notified then the host is pressured into becoming the judge and jury. We do NOT like those types of calls at all unless the presenting evidence is extremely convincing and the infringment obvious. You were correct in sending in your counter complaint and that should have stopped the process until further investigation could be made. But then again, that is my point. Why should the web host become the judge and jury on such matters? Those matters should be handled by judges in a court of law. While the DMCA does make some provisions for this, it is very clear that the expectation is that we should investigate and make a determination of merit then take the files down if customer does not do so in a reasonable amount of time. Put simply, web hosting companies do not have the legal training nor time to determine such matters.

Best Wishes for a .Net Success!

I think they owe you for more than just the $300 you paid for in scripts. I think they were quite negligent in the way that they treated you.

I can understand if they suspended your site without having looked into the complaint deeply to see if it was a fraud but to have simply deleted the site completely and give you such slow response about what was going on is beyond terrible service.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by GetVideoCodes

About 10 hours later, I call yet again…. This time someone whom barely speaks English (probably someone from India) answers the phone and says that I need to send him an email for the issue to be resolved.

9 Hours later… No response. I call HostGator back and speak with another person whom sounded from India… After telling him my account info he says to email support and hangs up on me.

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While it unfortunate that this happens with you and you suffered. It is really bad that you are just pointing Indians (while even you are not suree if they were Indians or not).

Today almost all companies uses skilled Indian workforce and you should not point to nationality of someone on the basis of your personal assumptions. :(

After hearing that story I wouldn't touch those guys with a ten foot T1 cable.

I can't believe that they are giving me one week to move one of my sites to a semi or dedicated server. And i'm not close at all to my limits.

I'm currently using their Aluminum reseller package. I have Disk space 5,000mb/5gb and 50,000mb/50gb and i'm no where close to using them up.

In a month i use like 4gb of bandwidth total for all my sites, and disk space is just like 20mb. Now they are complaing that one of my site is using too much cpu. Is it not with bandwidth and disk space you use to control things? We have one week to move, well that's the time they give us before they will delete it. But we want to fight them over it.

Any ideas as to how to go about it?

Thanks in advance for your comments.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by GetVideoCodes

Hello,

I have been an off and on HostGator customer for the past year now and recently I ran into a problem so big, that in my opinion it deserves a post here at WebHostingTalk.com

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This is HostSearch.com, not WebHostingTalk.com. Come on, give this site some respects. Don't just cut and paste.

It was a copy and past error but what makes difference? If HostGator is a really scam company, people here have to know it.

I looked at hostgator's prices and plans and I'm not suprised you were having problems. They offer unlimited domains with 5GB space and 50GB transfer hehe. The only problem is that they expect you to use maximum 10% of that. You get what you pay for.

I have had an account with hostgator in the past with no problems, this story is bad to hear from them.

Does this type of action happen with alot of web hosts?
i have never run into anything like that

Look like i have seen same post in WHT.

Wow! That is quite a complicated matter.

So what I'm wondering is:

If you ascertained that the original deceptive email was sent by a competitor - what are you going to do about that?

What's to stop them from doing the same thing again?

Is there any protection that the rest of us can have against a similar claim?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by highpr

Wow! That is quite a complicated matter.

So what I'm wondering is:

If you ascertained that the original deceptive email was sent by a competitor - what are you going to do about that?

What's to stop them from doing the same thing again?

Is there any protection that the rest of us can have against a similar claim?

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I'd say the best protection is to have recent backups of your site and use an external dns service so things can be switched quickly. My own opinion is theplanet is a scary place to have your website housed.

And I don't see why hostgator would need to delete the files instantly. Disabling the website is easier and quicker, and reduces the chance for horror stories to be posted and archived forever on the Internet.

Any 5 buck an hour tech can delete files thinking he is backing them up....happens all the time in this business.

*The Planet??? WOO HOO

I'm quite surprised that "your files" would be deleted so quickly.......after-all.....The Planet is one of the largest spam DC's out there next to SBC.

You'ld think that your files would've remained indefinitely after a complaint like that due to their lack of oversight on just about everything else......"including their mail servers".

Not a big "The Planet" fan by any stretch.......our techops has nearly half of any their DC ip ranges blocked completely out.......permanantly.

Tough one to have to go through my friend and we feel for you.......

I suggest just going dedicated entirely or even better....*Managed.
It's the only real way to fly.......

Hi

I do see both sides to the argument here. Hostgator have to do as the planet say as the rules are strict, hostgator cant afford to have there servers switched off or suspended.

Also in reference to the backups being removed, maybe hostgator only use the NAS backup service, I personally use the planet but refuse to use NAS as its not secure and its rubbish, we use Disksync which is tape drive based and have access to backups made XX days ago, and its secure so we cant acidently remove files etc.

But however, Hostgator have to do as the planet say, as they agree to their T&C and do exactly has TP say. Its what hosts have to do!

What was it that you were doing wrong? phishing site? mp3 etc.