[thelist] avoid hostpro

[Erik Mattheis]

Don't use HostPro, they suck. The message is entirely a complaint, 
but perhaps someone will find the info useful in the future when 
doing a search for web hosting, shared web hosting or web hosts 
particularly if the're searching for review, customer experience, 
hostpro, host pro. This is my experience:

I was using them for CF Hosting ... had four accounts on two 
different boxes, on both of which they had mistakenly enabled CFFILE. 
When they discovered their error they disabled the tags, which gave a 
bunch of errors on my sites. It took more phone calls than I would 
have liked, but eventually, I was able to get credit for the time I'd 
prepaid on the accounts. Once my credit was used up, I cancelled the 
UNIX accounts that I'd left there.

They didn't clean up several accounts - some were still accessible 
through their IPs for two years. Also, their billing department never 
got the info that two of the accounts had been cancelled, and I've 
been receiving bills for them ever since, despite my complaints. I 
just ignored the bills. One was for a sub-domain for a domain that 
billing WAS cancelled on. I'd been speaking to my account manager on 
the phone phone through the whole mess, so there was no paper trail 
for my cancellations.

A few months ago, some billing type person started calling. She was a 
complete idiot ... I got her to do a three way call with a tech 
person to explain what a sub domain was ... feeling smug as he hung 
up, she told me I still owed for that subdomain. Many hours of 
winding upwards through the bureaucracy later, I finally got a guy to 
take off the part of the bill for the sub domain. And I guess I'll 
get around to paying for the other one, which I don't owe when I feel 
like it - just to save all the poor trees they've been cutting down 
to send me bills.

And lo and behold, I'm now starting to get notices from them: 
"Transaction Declined" - they're trying to bill an old old credit 
card I opened the account with, something I never authorized them to 
do in the first place.

HostPro sucks.

<tip>
When making financial agreements verbally, write a short email or 
letter saying "This is just to confirm [whatever the verbal agreement 
is]. Please respond that this is also your understanding of our 
agreement.
</tip>

-- 
- Erik Mattheis

"Everything's better"
http://gozz.com/
(612) 827 3963