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During my unannounced getaway from dotTech, there was a time when I wasn’t sure about the status of this website. What will happen to dotTech? Would I continue to update dotTech? Has dotTech officially reached its point-of-no-return? During this time the only thing I knew was that at the moment I wasn’t able to update dotTech. So, I figured since I wasn’t able to update dotTech for the time being, I could save a little bit of money by moving dotTech off a dedicated server and onto shared hosting. (Shared hosting is significantly cheaper per month than a dedicated server.) This made sense because there there wasn’t a lot of traffic coming to dotTech since I wasn’t updating, so there was no need for a dedicated sever at the time. (dotTech is on a dedicated server now, though.)
So I did a little bit of window shopping, looking at web hosts. I eventually ended up purchasing four years of shared webhosting from HostICan. I should have known better (never, ever purchase hosting from a company that has anything short of excellent reviews), but I got sucked in with a 50% off coupon; after all four years of shared hosting for $78 is a banging deal. I didn’t just pick HostICan out of the blue; I did do a bit of research on HostICan and they had mixed reviews about them. I figured with their 30-day money back guarantee I was relatively safe by going with them. Boy was I wrong.
Five weeks into my contract, HostICan send me an e-mail telling me I have “outgrown” my shared hosting plan and I need to upgrade to VPS, starting at $48/month. They then proceed to suspend my account – without even giving me a chance to respond to their e-mail - losing all of dotTech’s data in the process. (Some dotTechies may remember this as the dotTech turmoil era, when visiting dotTech.org would bring up a gruesome “account has been suspended account” page and all the recent forum posts were lost.)
In my e-mail response to HostICan’s support team I asked why my account has “outgrown” the shared hosting. (I was mighty suspicious how my account suddenly “outgrew” their shared hosting plan after the 30-day money back guarantee was up considering traffic was fairly constant for the whole five weeks.) They ignored the question. I asked what I did wrong. They ignored the question. I asked if it was possible for them to temporarily reactivate my account so I could at least grab my data. They told me they didn’t have a backup of my data. That is the last I have heard from them.
Now while I do have my suspicions about their justification for suspending my account, all webhosts have their rules about what they tolerate on shared hosting and what they don’t; so if I outgrew HostICan’s shared hosting, fine – that is not the issue at hand. The issue at hand is the fact that HostICan never explicitly told me why my account was suspended (aside from a vague e-mail), they never gave me a chance to rectify my mistake (I could have kept my other websites on HostICan and moved dotTech away from HostICan, back onto a dedicated server), and they lost five weeks worth of data in the process (luckily we didn’t lose everything, since I had a five week old backup).
I have repeatedly tried to e-mail, chat, and call HostICan to try to get this issue resolved; but they are ignoring all forms of communication and to this day my account remains suspended even though I paid for four years worth of service and only got five weeks.
After the lack of communication and their behavior, I tried to ask for my money back but of course, they didn’t respond. Getting the cold-shoulder from HostICan made me turn to the other “insurance” I had (or so I thought) – PayPal. However, turns out PayPal is of no help since PayPal “doesn’t cover service items”. With HostICan ignoring me, and PayPal being useless, it seems like my $78 are pretty must lost. $78 isn’t a large sum of money but it is nonetheless my money that HostICan has literally stolen.
I have already filed a complaint with the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) regarding HostICan’s behavior. Although I don’t expect much to come out of the complaint, it felt good filing it. Next step on the anti-HostICan campaign: Spread the word. This is me spreading the word:
Avoid HostICan more than you would avoid the plague.
THOSE *FCCBANED*!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
If you want cheep, I’d look into http://www.2GBHosting.com. despite the gimmicky like name they are actually very good, and there lowest plan only cost 20 a year (or 80 for 4 years so not much more then StealICan).
That sort of customer is “service” is …unaceptable!! to say the least!!
BUT happends all the time.
Very often the “small print” is not public at all…they pull it out of the hat when they want to :-(
Might also try filing a report with the Better Business Bureau too.
@Samuel: I actually got a very good deal on the dedicated server dotTech is on right now so dotTech ain’t going anywhere soon.
@Haakon Aas: Honestly, this type of behavior is only typical of the crap hosts on the Internet. Good hosts don’t treat you this way. And thanks for the monetary support, I appreciate it.
@pceasies: I tried the BBB before I filed with FTC; I couldn’t find them on there. Later I learned they already have an F on BBB. >.>
@Everyone: I just want to clarify this isn’t a “I-need-money” post. The $78 are out of sight, out of mind. I am not crying or hurting because of it anymore, nor was it too big of a financial loss. (The bigger loss was the data… arggggghhhh.) This is a “avoid-HostICan-more-than-you-would-avoid-the-plague” post.
@Ashraf: I wasn’t suggesting moving dotTech there, it was more in case you ever need cheap hosting for a side project or something like that.
As to the BBB, woops!
@Samuel: Ah, okay. Thanks for the suggestion.
That is the craps, I had the opposite occur with me, after 4 years with the same hosting company (canadianwebhosting) they then claimed two of my sites to be consuming to many resources, and they shut them down. Thing is I had 8 sites hosted on there server. The other 6 were still experiencing issues after the two “problem” sites where stopped (so obviously the server was simply overloaded). Anyways they made no apology for the mistake and I left them asap.
hosts are always greedy, more or less. few years back, i signed up for MS officelive for free, in agreement it never said it might be a paid service in future, when MSOL got established, they started charging me $15 per yr for the domain, if i don’t, i lose the site including my email address that i started using as one of my primary ones! i could simply say no to them (after transferring my site), however, this email has become known to my friends and acquainted ones, changing this would be a problem.
Thanks for the heads up. How many different hosting review sites did you visit and read about HostICan? I’ve looked at hosting off and on, bought some, got screwed by some, poor service on the website, poor service from the hoster, mostly mediocre experiences. Large hosters, small hosters, big names, no names. I am not even sure how much to trust the reviewers. Based on my experience with your reviews (always been good), I wonder if there is a trusted review of reviewers type of website? So, I assume you are recommending your current hoster? Who is it?
@mukhi: I had MSOL, and for the recored, EVEN after they started making people pay, they didn’t make the original people pay. It took them at least a year to do so. And if you did say know you would not lose your site, only the domain name and any email addresses based on it. (NOTE: I’m not to fond of MS’s decision to make us pay either, but at least have the facts strait).
@nz: I am sorry to hear that. Letting a customer go after four years is poor business.
@mukhi: Really? I thought MS let everyone keep the free domains for life that took advantage of it. I guess not. Did they not allow you to transfer the domain away? There are domain registrars that are cheaper. 1and1 is one of them but they are very slow so I wouldn’t recommend them. Internet.bs is another; I have not personally tried them (yet) but I hear they are good.
@Ray: I can’t remember where I read my reviews. However, now there is only one place I go for webhosting advice/reviews: webhostingtalk.com. Webhostingtalk is a basically a community where people gather and talk about webhosts. I highly recommend anyone looking for webhosting to visit webhostingtalk before making your decision about anything; it doesn’t have everything – and of course since it is a forum based website there can be “fake” information – but it is a very good resource.
I have only been with my current host for a little while so I can’t “recommend” them yet; I need to give it more time to evaluate. So far, though, they have been great. I am with Turnkey Internet.
@Samuel: @Samuel: Ah that explains why I heard MS wasn’t making people pay.
@Ashraf: Yea, its was a pretty good deal while it lasted…500MB, one free domain name, 50 email address at that domain name. Not great but not bad either. My biggest complain was the lack of any server side coding.
I still have the account, and i use 1and1 to register the domain name.
those beep beep beepers.. how dare they think that they mess with us dottechies and they will get away with it.. haha companies nowadays, cant trust them online… sigh.. what to do what to do..
but i like this server better Ashraf :P
@Samuel:
well, MSOL service sent me an email telling me that if i didn’t pay, i would lose my site including email address. i did not find any reason to disbelieve them.
@Ashraf
yes, they would let me transfer domain, but i would lose my email address. there are very cheap options like godaddy (time to time, they offer for $1 for the 1st yr i know).
That really blows. The fact that you are doing something to get the word out about HOSTICAN ‘ T is really the best course of action. You can talk to the FCC , BBB, and whatever other 3 letters you like, but the fact is, Those agencies are for Oversight and have no power to directly take action against any company or entity. I will tell you, Word of mouth is a very powerfull tool. You did mention that you had read some negative feeback or reviews about them before you decided to use them, I wonder what made you not heed the warnings? And I wonder If you can use that place where you got your information, use your experience and story to make a strong enough case against HostIcan, So that the next person will have no second thoughts in making the same Ill fated choice.
That i beleive, is how you can turn that whole incident into a positive thing.
When you drive your car down the road into a huge sink-hole, you climb out and say, Damn, that sucks for me. Then you stand there and put up a huge sign that says, STOP huge SINK-HOLE ahead. The feeling of keeping others from the same misfortunes you have had, is one of gratification and is healthy. The feeling of seeing yet others speeding by,around your sign and going right into the sink-hole, well thats just icing on the cake. :-) Thanks for everything you do. It’s means a lot.
@mukhi: That stinks, and I’m sorry to hear that!
I wrote to sales@hostican.com; billing@hostican.com; support@hostican.com; affiliates@hostican.com with the following message. Maybe everyone should do the same.
I’ll be posting this link everywhere until you make it right.
http://dottech.org/tipsntricks/keeping-them-honest/19662
Hi Ashraf and all
Don’t fret it, dotTech it;
then hostican will be Ghostican
@mukhi:
I’ve been ripped off by godaddy twice, including 1999 when he was “Parson’s Software.” Very uhappy memories, especially Bob’s 1999 comment “TOO BAD!” Now, Bob Parson seems to use godaddy as a platform for his ego (“How I made $68 million without trying” and “The godaddy girls” – half naked models who swoon all over him – check it out).
I was also ripped off by 1&1. The problem with them is you have to go through soooooo many hoops that if you miss just one, they take your domain name and sell it to the highest bidder. Contacting FCC, FTC and ICANN resulted in ZERO replies, but then I’m just a nobody so why should anyone care about my stolen domain name anyway?
In summary, WATCH OUT for godaddy and 1&1
I am real sorry to hear of your problem Ashraf. I have found with PayPal you are only covered on EBay transactions & I assume half.com, if you use PayPal anywhere else your NOT covered (Protected).
Their answer will be it’s not the same as a credit card. Many website retailers accept PayPal but when I make purchases on any website other then eBay I use a real credit card where I am protected. I would advise anyone to use a credit card when your transacting off EBay. $78.00 is $78.00 better in your pocket then theirs. I am glad it wasn’t hundreds of dollars and found that you were out of luck. I wouldn’t let them get away with that. I would also file a complaint with the Attorney General & Dept. of Consumer Affairs of your state & the state where HostICan resides. also I would also post on websites like ripoffreport.com & others so the $78.00 you lost will cost them much more. I would also let them know that their silence on handling your problem will cost them more then the $78.00 they stole from you. I hate to see you get taken like that If it’s any consolation your not alone Ashraf, here’s a link to a complaint with HostICan though not similar to yours you can add to it:
http://www.ripoffreport.com/web-hosting/hostican/hostican-worst-customer-suppor-2bzfb.htm
here’s more links on Hostican:
http://www.webhostingtalk.com/archive/index.php/t-863452.html
http://www.askdamagex.com/f14/hostican-com-rip-off-25190/
http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/hosticancom-c346972.html
http://www.bbb.org/richmond/business-reviews/internet-web-hosting/hostican-in-ashland-va-21017360/#rating
Here they are rated F and gives a local phone number (804) 412-0390 and a contact name Denis Motova which gives you a better chance of speaking to a human beingand someone who may care about their reputation. Ask for Denis Motova & explain problem & if not solved you will take it public & to the government agencies.
I will alway support u Ashraf ur the best :P
We should write about their shady practices here:
http://www.mywot.com/en/scorecard/hostican.com
You can check web hosts here:
http://www.webhostingreviews.com/
HostIcan has pretty bad reviews.
Glad to have this site back! Thanks for your effort
@paul birch: 100% in agreement ! Godaddy has been feeding me false stats just to make it look good so that I keep my hosting with them. They spam like crazy and when you talk to someone you get the feeling they are talking down to you like your a child.I have got 1 month left with them(used gift visa to set up account so cant get refund) and then they go by by. A so called friend suggested them to me and I have been kicking my self in the but ever since.(6 months) Ya they are cheep but not worth it. ALSO when I first started my site my slogan for my company was ” Turbo charge your pc” . I was on go daddy one day and wouldn’t you know it, their new slogan was “Turbo charge your business” mmmmmmmmm fishy? I think so