HostMonster
Reviews and Complaints

As you consider Hostmonster for your web hosting needs, it's important to note the diverse range of experiences shared by customers. While some users have praised the customer service and reliability over years, others have faced challenges with technical support and unexpected account upgrades. The positive reviews highlight quick issue resolution and helpful staff, emphasizing the long-term stability of the service. On the other hand, critical feedback points out instances of inadequate support leading to website downtime and billing disputes. When choosing a web hosting provider, it's crucial to weigh these contrasting perspectives and align them with your specific requirements to make an informed decision.

All my web sites are unmanageable with 403 error. I cannot delete my web site and start over again. I cannot redirect my web site to another server outside of hostmonster. Multiple sessions with support online, two promised to get me to tech support, in both cases promises were broken, and nobody from tech support got back to me.

Deleting files and redirecting a domain should be very basic features which does not work, and yet tech support is a blackhole and for more than 72 hours, I was shoved around like a ball by call center staff who cannot even understand that deleting files and redirecting a domain should be basic features.

I had been customer for 20 years and I am very disappointed.

OMG! Bluehost/Hostmonster is ridiculous. I've had an "Escalated Ticket" for 3 days with no communication except ME calling THEM & emailing the "Escalated Ticket Dept" multiple times everyday trying to get one of my client's emails restored after they disappeared overnight on 10/31/23. We are quickly approaching the 72-hr mark of the "24-72 hrs for resolution" & still no communication. And Lie?! Big Time Liars! One of the dozen CS Support people told me they were 50% complete on the processing of restoration of missing emails when last night I found out they haven't even started! I'm concerned that I may loose one of my best clients whose employees have had no emails in 3 days!

Just called again & was lied to, again. Said they had not recvd the 6 emails asking them for clarification on their form that I've sent in the past 24 hrs.

my dear sirs

At the outset I must apologize for my poor knowledge and use of the English language to express my displeasure and dismay at the current events, I chose to write this text in Portuguese (my native language) and use Google translator to translate it into English.

Since 2007 I have been your happy and satisfied customer. I kept with you a website “paccho.com” that for the last 15 years has been helping hundreds of people with insulin dependent Diabetes, especially low-income children and young people, to maintain a much improved quality of life, with great ease practicing carbohydrate counting - a strategy considered very difficult and complicated to follow by many patients and health professionals – using the various tools available on that site for free. I am not aware of a more powerful and complete set of instruments to help treat these diabetics. That tool includes a closed-loop control of Diabetes, on the one hand helping the patient in all the stages of carbohydrate counting, which leads him to apply adequate doses of insulin, completely relieving him of the calculations necessary to obtain these adequate doses and, on the other hand, helping the treatment guide professional with detailed analysis, which even helps them adjust the individual parameters of the calculation for each patient. In the very beginning, each patient received only a simple table generated by Paccho, a kind of personal abacus, which allowed him, with a simple consultation there, to obtain the suggestion of the appropriate dose of insulin (without having to do calculations, without needing a computer, calculator, cell phone or any similar device). This was an invaluable help, obtained practically effortlessly from the customer, at a time when smartphones (or even simple cell phones) were not yet as ubiquitous as they are today, which are in the hands of even the lowest-income people. Due to the current ubiquity of smartphones, other tools have been created to make carbohydrate counting and the necessary flow of data increasingly easier, which used to be done by notes on paper forms and today transit directly via the Internet between the patient and the Paccho server and from this to the advisor's computer, after the treatments that offer help are carried out on the Paccho server, indicating to the advisor how good the relationship between the types of slow (basal) and fast (bolus) insulin is, what is the average of blood glucose measured by the patient and, therefore, an approximation of the expected value for glycated hemoglobin (the key parameter most observed by diabetics and their advisors to assess the quality of diabetes control).

The Carbohydrate Counting Method, the theoretical basis for supporting Paccho (acronym in Portuguese for “Carbohydrate Counting Support Procedures”), uses three basic parameters, individualized for each patient, to calculate the appropriate dose of insulin. Legally, these parameters can only be set and adjusted by the treating medical advisor and therefore cannot be self-adjusted. Paccho has resources to help this professional, offering him a region of the best adjustments based on the data systematically provided by the patient. Paccho uses a brute force method equivalent to a multiple ellipsoidal linear regression to suggest an optimal region for the specialist responsible for the treatment based on the information provided by the patient. This is necessary because traditional tools, even Artificial Intelligence (for example, Artificial Neural Networks), normally provide a single point in the analyzed hyperspace, while Paccho needs to offer a region, to the expert advisor's final decision, thus incorporating his experience to the final decision, in compliance with the legal requirement. This requires Paccho to perform about one hundred and fifty thousand analyzes per month of information (30 days), which is a statistically advisable value for a good decision. This processing is supported by the standard processing time slice offered by the Hostmonster server and can be resolved in a PHP script, even for a longer period of information (2 or 3 months). In special cases where an extra dimension must be included to also analyze basal insulin, the amount of analyzes per month of information rises abruptly to about 28,800,000, requiring processing of C+ compiled code to be supported by the standard time slice provided by the server.

On February 3, 2022, I was sent an email warning that as of February 13, 2022 the site “paccho.com” would stop working as Hostmonster would no longer support older versions of PHP (previous to 7.0). It suggested that I look for another provider or update the software to newer versions of PHP. I was floored and entirely surprised by the lack of knowledge and disregard for customers shown in this new behavior by Hostmonster.

About 40 html pages plus some complex PHP objects are needed to fulfill all Paccho functions. Only the object destined to the treatment of databases, one of the oldest and that most used code not supported by the newest versions of PHP, is composed of more than three thousand lines of code. How could it be redone, tested and published in just ten days? Mainly by a lonely old developer, which is my case. I can even imagine that Hostmonster cannot be guided by cases as special as mine, but… TEN DAYS? PHP itself grants YEARS because it publishes in a version that deprecated code will no longer be supported in new versions that will take YEARS before they start to be available. Outside the period of coexistence of versions normally offered by host providers.

Fortunately, a little over a year ago, because of problems I had in making payments abroad, I transported a version of Paccho to a hosting provider in Brazil, where it works under the domain “paccho.com. br”, but no as well as on Hostmonster. Which is why I have kept the payments for my “paccho.com” hosting there, even without using it, at cost overcoming the difficulties of doing so, in the hope of returning to use the site on Hostmonster, where it worked so well. Without hope, with great regret I already canceled the automatic renewal of my products in hostmonster and, sadly, I will leave the satisfaction of being your happy and satisfied customer, as soon as the current deadlines expire.

However, I don't know why it's so heavy for you to maintain support for PHP versions 5.6 and earlier, upsetting and practically driving out loyal older customers like me.

Recife, February 22, 2022

FRANCISCO VIÉGAS

My websites have been down, and I have been on the phone with HostMonster, and Bluehost since January 29th trying to resolve this issue. My business is going under and I need someone to help me with this. I have been with them since 2003 and have never ran into any issues. Now no one is available to speak and/or help. No communication to help give me piece of mind and still no contact from the escalation Team. No supervisors, nothing.
I still have no conclusion and it has been escalated several times and I have received no emails and/or call backs. Both of my websites are down, and I can't even log into the wordpress, Dashboard. The error is "Page not found" when trying to access my Dashboard. I cannot begin to express the overwhelming disappointment in a company I had respected so much.
To have such neglect is unfathomable, inexcusable, and downright wrong. I lost over 2 million in Financial backing.

Domain name going into redemption and then after explaining my situation and being told nothing could be done about the $70 charge at that level of support even though there were extenuating circumstances. I was then told a supervisor was unavailable to speak to me! In this day of customer service, this company is failing in a very big way. I told the first line support that I will stop using his company's services after many years of loyal patronage.
I think this organization does not value or reward loyal customers and is only concerned with making as much money as they can. I'm very disappointed with Hostmonster.

This is definitely a very untrustworthy business I have been incontact over 40 times to cancel all services. They just keep on sending emails for approved domain names and deduct from my account which I have had to report to ACCC Australian government and my bank. Ive had to cease all money banked into my account or they would just auto sweep from my account without authority. They repeatingly sending over 5 messages a day to my email over and over for deliberate spamming my email. ATO Australian Tax have also been notified of this illegal activities for theft and fraud. DO NOT USE THIS BUSINESS

9/13/2017

My website was shut down on 8/30/2017 for "violation of terms/malware" issues. There was no notice -- just completely shut down on that date. I didn't realize the site was down because I was busy WORKING, and only discovered it when trying to show something to a client on the site.

I called the support number for Hostmonster, but was switched over to Sitelock from the Hostmonster support line. I was told by the person on the phone that my site did indeed have malware, and that for a mere $99/month PER SITE (I have 2 subdomain sites) they could clean up the site, protect me in the future, and get my site up and running again. I said that's a ridiculous amount of money and then the price came down to $59/month for the primary site, and $10/month for each of the subdomain sites. I still declined and told the rep I was being held hostage -- either pay up on my site stays down. I was informed I could try to remove the malicious code myself but they didn't recommend it.

I used the chat feature for Hostmonster and got someone who SAID they ran a scan to see if there was malware. The tech said she found malware, and that I would need to remove it before they could get the site back up. She gave me a price of $99/ YEAR to get Sitelock to clean up the site and scan/clean up malware and viruses for a year. I needed the site up, and I'm not tech-savvy, so I had to capitulate.

Got Sitelock, scan was apparently run for malware -- none found. So basically I was extorted into purchasing a product from a company that owns both Hostmonster AND Sitelock (EIG.) I've been a Hostmonster customer for years and never had a problem until recently. I'm beyond frustrated and angry that this scam is going on, and that I was a victim of it. I'm looking for a new hosting site, although EIG owns many of them as well.

I took screen shots of the chat (interesting that they do NOT provide a transcript as most companies do) and also the Sitelock scan results showing no malware found on my site. I plan to blast on social media to warn others about this -- found many occurrences of the same thing happening to other websites. How is this different from the people who lock down your computer and demand a ransom to unlock it?

On Friday afternoon, my website that is hosted by hostmonster.com was working fine. I usually upload and/or edit files several times a day as has been my practice for 10-12 years that it has been hosted. When I returned from my afternoon walk at around 4:30 p.m. EST, my website was not accessible nor could I access my file manager although I could log it. I called a hostmonster technical support person who gave me a validation token 914917 at 5:14 p.m., and he claimed there was nothing wrong on their end, but the problem with the log in was a problem on my end.

It turned out that was not the case. Apparently, my IP address was "blackholed" or "blacklisted, " and I was given no notice of this nor was I provided any corrective action so I could access my file manager or even access my own website from my internet browser.

After several stressful hours of trying to problem solve the situation with Apple Customer Care who were very helpful, it was determined that there was nothing wrong on my end. There was nothing wrong with my browsers, firewall, proxies, etc.

I telephone a hostmonster technical support woman on Saturday morning, and she assured me that a "ticket" would be implemented, and that a "senior" technical support person would call me later that day since it was 5 a.m. in Utah. The senior support staff were supposed to be in 3 hours later, but nobody cared enough to call or e-mail me at all on Saturday. In the meantime, I went to my local library where I was able to log in and access my files.

After finally figuring out from Apple that the problem was at hostmonster, I called technical support and spoke with Breana; after several minutes of discussion on the issue, she was able to find out that I was "blackholed" and that is why I didn't have access to my website that I've paid hostmonster to host. I then spoke with Brett Barnett who informed me that I would have to assure hostmonster that after running malware and antivirus programs, there was nothing on my end that would compromise the hostmonster servers.

I did run the malware and antivirus programs, and as suspected, there was no problem with my computers, computer files, network, etc.

Your customer service is absolutely the worst I've ever encountered in my life, and you have lost me as a customer. I am absolutely flabbergasted, shocked and extremely disappointed that you would take the action you did without notice by telephone or e-mail; you acted irrationally without giving me any due process or recourse. Then, you had two technical support personnel over the next 48 hours who could have corrected the problem, but didn't act on the issue. I would still be without service or communication about the "blacklist" had I not acted so dogmatically to resolve the problem.

As I am writing this now at 5:00 p.m. on Sunday, July 2, 2017, I was promised by the last hostmonster technical support person that my service would be reinstated within the next "few hours." The last 72 hours has been very stressful for me due to the poor communication, technical support and customer service that hostmonster provides its customers.

I hope my complaint will prevent further problems by poor management, supervision for your customer service and technical support personnel; these people are only a reflection of a poor overall executive team that allows issues like this to ensue.

Sincerely,

Dave Taylor
Davetgc.com and MWolverine.com

June 2017. Waited 45 minutes on the phone for support. Was disconnected. Tried again, after 30 minutes, disconnected. When I finally made contact I was told they were having a problem with X and they fixed my issue quickly. WHY they didn't post on their site or say on the phone that problem was being fixed is beyond me. I wasted a lot of time.

Fast forward. I launched my WordPress site but the URL still comes up under construction. No way to let them know. Why? They discontinued tickets so I'd have to wait online for hours or on chat for 30+ minutes. Unacceptable.

What used to be a fast and effective support organization has become crippled and dysfunctional. They are clearly understaffed and no one is minding what the customer needs. They should have an announcement of their problems when customers call.

Systems are always down on live chat support, used the service for years, we used to submit support tickets and the issue would be attended to no problem.

Email support no longer exists only live chat, systems always down, "not able to assist you at the moment, try again later."

This is very poor service especially when you business domain is down..

What has happened to Hostmonster?

Chat Transcript

Hostmonster Chat Transcript
Chat ID: [protected] Initial Question: My *** domain has been
deactivated, please fix this as we need it back up and running.
9:27:53 AM Sangeetha B Hello Alexi, thank you for contacting support. My
name is Sangeetha. and I’m happy to help you.
9:28:17 AM Alexi Karalis Hello Sangeetha
9:28:25 AM Sangeetha B Could I get the last 4 characters of the Main
account password to verify ownership of the account?
9:28:42 AM Alexi Karalis ****
9:30:04 AM Alexi Karalis Are you still there?
9:30:45 AM Sangeetha B Yes, I am here. Please hold for the moment there
is some internal connection problem .
9:31:03 AM Alexi Karalis no problem
9:35:22 AM Alexi Karalis Do you still have a connection problem?
9:36:41 AM Sangeetha B Yes, the issue still persist. I am really sorry
for the inconvenience that has caused you.
9:37:00 AM Alexi Karalis when will you be able to resume helping me?
9:42:24 AM Sangeetha B Alexi, Currently the internal tools are not
working. So can you please contact us later ?
9:43:26 AM Alexi Karalis can i email a support ticket as I need the
issue resolved urgently?
9:43:36 AM Alexi Karalis our domain is down
9:43:55 AM Alexi Karalis due to the following issue
9:43:57 AM Alexi Karalis *****.com has been deactivated due to an
unverified billing contact change for [protected]@*****
9:44:31 AM Alexi Karalis the contact address for the domain is my old
email address, *****.com that is no longer valid
9:44:59 AM Alexi Karalis I need all the contact addresses changed from
*****.com to ****.com
9:45:23 AM Alexi Karalis We need the domain back up and running for
business
9:46:03 AM Sangeetha B I apologize for the issue you are having.
Unfortunately, I am unable to access your account at this time due to
some internal system issues. We hope to have full access restored
shortly but until then I am only able to assist you with non account
specific help.
9:46:40 AM Alexi Karalis what is the hostmonster email address for
support?
9:47:54 AM Sangeetha B Alexi, we currently don't have email support now.
9:48:26 AM Alexi Karalis thats a bit of a problem as we now have no
support at all
9:48:38 AM Alexi Karalis this is poor service

Hostmonster.com & Phishing

The Web hosting company Hostmonster.com uses servers
that have recently been connected with phishing as
it relates to customers of Lloyds Bank of England.

A recent client of Hostmonster.com has informed us
that a certain account was deactivated due to the issue.
The interesting news is that Hostmonster.com could not
prove that the phishing had originated at his site
when asked, nor could Hostmonster.com prove that the
issue was not due to security flaws of the servers
Hostmonster was using.

The honest approach to handling the matter would have
been for Hostmonster to deactivate all servers until
the source of the problem was identified and handled
completely.

It would seem that "passing the buck" on to its own
customers in order to "Save face" may be the tactic
of Hostmonster.com, in order to create apparency that
they are cooperating fully.

Hostmonster.com promotes a software program by the name
of SiteLock, with whom the company is an affiliate. Such
software is utililized to supposedly minimize such threats.
A conflict of interest here is up for grabs and may
be up to the interpretation of customers of Hostmonster.com.

Anyone considering utilizing Hostmonster.com for their
Web hosting needs may want to think twice. Also, authorities
are encouraged to keep a close watch on the business antics
of Hostmonster.com

I ordered a table online from Brandsplace.com. I got a confirmation email right away, but 8 days later I don't have any additional information. I can not track the status of my shipment or get a response from the multiple emails I have sent. In addition, their phone line is constantly busy. When I found another, non-800# to try for their organization it said the line was disconnected.

I believe they may be out of business -- but still accepting payment. DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY!

This company's pricing is very misleading. They offer a great deal through their online advertisements; however, upon payment - you are charged a completely different cost. Additionally, most online companies show you an invoice total for verification purposes prior to finalizing your payment - this was not offered during checkout. I immediately canceled my account. Save yourself some valuable time, perform a user review search first.

###s stoped my service and ranaway with my money. had there service for a few months. and a few weeks ago, they stop my service and didnt refund my money. stay away from these ###s. do not do business.
http://best-10-web-hostings.com/
hostmonster.com

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