Better Business Bureau Online Complaint System


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The following complaint was submitted on 10/25/2000 12:28:53 PM:

CUSTOMER INFORMATION:

Ms. Dawn Marie Warren
forums@prodigy.net


COMPANY OR ORGANIZATION INFORMATION:

GX Hosting, LLC
57 West Canadian Woods Rd
Manalapan, NJ United States 07726
http://www.gxhosting.com/

COMPLAINT INFORMATION:

Complaint #: 143691
Complaint Type: Company (other than automobile)
Date Received: 10/25/2000
Primary Complaint Classification: Delivery Problems
Secondary Complaint Classification: General Service Problems
Complaint:
I purchased domain hosting through GXHosting on a month to month basis. My site went down on 10/10/00. I contacted GXHosting's tech support by sending them a tech support ticket as their site requires. They responded with in 12 hours telling me that our site and others along with it are having DNS errors and that this was why the site is down. They told me to fill out another ticket if the site isn't back up in 72 hours. I waited 72 hours and the site was still not back up. I then placed another ticket. They responded in 48 hours saying the DNS problem was more serious than first realized. 4 days later the site came back up for about 6 hours. Then the next day it was down again. On 10-20-00 I placed yet another tech support ticket. I have had no response to that ticket. I then placed another ticket, and again no response other than their usual auto responder. On 10-22-00 I received an e- mail invoice stating that GXHosting was going to charge my account $15. But the price is suppose to be $10 a month. I wrote their billing department and told them about the overcharge. I also restated that my site was still down and inaccessible for 12 days (by that point) Having searched their web site, they now have completely changed their original pricing packages, and have tried to change mine with out notice or agreement. Thus attempting to bill me for their new package rate. I received a letter from Andrew Guberman on 10/23/00 stating the billing would be cancelled and that it was a mistake. In that letter he did not address the problems with my site still being down. Thus I have been paying for domain hosting service but the domain has been down for over two weeks now, with no hope of resolution. Current status: I have sent 6 technical tickets to resolve the problem with our domain being down. I have had no satisfactory response. I have e-mailed the CEO, and every e-mail addresss for GXHosting, with no response what so ever regarding this problem. Their terms of service states that they guarantee a 99.9% up time. But Obviously, being down for over 2 weeks isn't being up for 99.9%. I am beginning to believe that they have closed down our site because they are renovating their service plans and don't want to have to be obliged to uphold their contract with us. If they can keep our site down and force us to relocate our site, then they can then push all new users to pay higher rates. There is a message board at HostSearch.com with over 150 complaints against GXHosting: http://www.tips-tricks.com/cgi-bin/ubb5.30a/Ultimate.cgi Run a search on "GXHosting" and you will see that mine is one of hundreds of problems consumers are having with GXHosting.
Desired Settlement: Other (requires explanation)
Settlement Explanation:
What I need is to have my site go back up for a week. I need to access my files in order to move our site and close the account. I can't just close the account because there are literally hundreds of pages on our site. Please assist with the non response and failure to deliver what we are paying for. Also assist us to get our web site back so we can close the account.
Customer Service Rep: Mr. Andrew Guberman
Product or Service: Web Site Hosting
Model Number: http://www.mtcforums.net
Account Number:
Order Number:
Salesperson: Mr. Andrew Guberman
Payment Made: Yes
Purchase Price: 9.95
Disputed Amount: 9.95
Payment Method: Credit Card
Purchase Date: 8/30/2000
Problem Date: 10/10/2000
Complaint Dates: 10/11/2000, 10/13/2000, 10/18/2000


The bureau that will handle your complaint is:

BBB of central New Jersey
1700 Whitehorse Hamilton Square, Ste. D-5
Trenton, NJ 08690 -3596
Phone: (609)588-0808
Fax: (609)588-0546
Email: info@trenton.bbb.org
WWW: http://www.trenton.bbb.org

Further side note to Annette's erratum - Snitz doesn't have a UBB import feature (unlike vB) so all the threads were lost, no doubt. I very much doubt the webmasters at Tips-Tricks bothered to save any of the GX threads either.

I would have never ordered from a company that does not have secure credit card processing on their site.

This should be your first clue...

Dawn, you should also send complaints to the FTC and AG of the state in which they're located. See my webpage at http://www.forumhosts.com/hosts.htm for contact information (scroll down). Unfortunately, the two stories published about GX Hosting by cbsNewYork.com have also disappeared.

Note that your BBB complaint is unlikely to result in any action, as the BBB is simply a tracking organization. It takes 30 unresolved complaints before they post an alert. Even TrueHosting and ***** never got that many -- the only host I know of that did was Galaxy-Web ( http://www.stlouis.bbb.org/alerts/19990601.html ), yet another company run by a child.

Tip-Tricks have replaced their UBB with another forum software package. It does not appear that any of the messages from the previous forum were imported.
Damn, I wish more people running these forums would realize how important past discussions are and do a better job of archiving them. History is SO important when you're researching hosts! I've lost too many important links from my "how to find a host" page because (for example) a discussion in which the owner of a hosting company threatened to sue an unhappy user, on an older version of this board, has been lost to a software upgrade. Posts like that do more to show the true character of a company than anything I could ever write!

Originally posted by Deb Suran
Note that your BBB complaint is unlikely to result in any action, as the BBB is simply a tracking organization. It takes 30 unresolved complaints before they post an alert. Even TrueHosting and ***** never got that many -- the only host I know of that did was Galaxy-Web ( http://www.stlouis.bbb.org/alerts/19990601.html ), yet another company run by a child.

Deb, I used to think this too, but I'm not so sure. I talked to them the other day and they seem to be doing more now than they used to do. Though the BBB is still for tracking, I do believe they follow up on the complaints. Not sure if anything ever comes of it, but I was asking about what services they offered businesses and it seemed nice. Anyone 'round here a member and think it is worth it?

I should have been more clear. They act as a sort of mediation service, as companies don't want unresolved complaints on file about them.

So, you buy something from DebSuran.com. I charge your credit card. You don't get the item you ordered. You complain to me. I ignore you. You complain to the BBB. That's bad. Your complaint is now part of the public record, and if anyone checks with the BBB before making a purchase from DebSuran.com they'll see your non-delivery complaint. They send me a copy of your complaint. Whether or not it was an honest mistake on either side, I don't want your complaint to be a part of the public record, so I send you another order. The BBB follows up with you, you tell them you got your order. Case closed.

This works with legitimate businesses because they REALLY don't want unresolved complaints on file about them. Those that are less than honest won't care, and the BBB can't do anything but post alerts because they have no enforcement authority. That's why you should also complain to the AG and FTC, which are governmental and, if there are enough complaints, can take action.

Yep, that sounds more like it. You should work for the BBB! Good explanation of what they do, and the whole process.

I don't know anything about GX hosting except that I have had a number of "refugees" from them over the past few weeks.

If I have been getting that number then it looks like their client leakage is considerable.

Gordon

All I know about them is they are starting to cause some of us problems, I also got some ex-customers from them, but because they registed their domains with GX, GX hold the Admin, tech, owner and Billing contacts .. I've been trying forever to get a hold of them to change the darn DNS's .. no luck

The ones we got all had Network Solutions domains registered independently of GX hosting so the transfers went through OK, or at least as normally as NS transfers do.

I would love to know how many customers they have lost in total.

There is a lesson there for all of us web hosts.

Gordon

I would say that judging by the Tips-Tricks thread alone, they would have probably lost about 40-50 customers at the very very least....

Well, the nightmare continues. We are now at over 30 days and our site has been up a total of three days the past 30.

I moved all files to our site on Host Rocket (we have two web sites, one with GX and the other with Host Rocket)

I think its interesting that GX has changed their web site and packages. They got rid of the cheap packages and now have some pretty bad prices. That should make them less popular. I am beginning to suspect they turned us off because of the price changes. They had also overbilled us this month, with a higher rate than our package was contracted for.

Also, this outfit is run by two teen agers. Saw an article from New Jersey about them.

I just cancelled the account. I already figure we just lost our domain, though we are the billing and adminstrative contacts. GX only holds the tech part of our domain.

Thanks for the help, I am going to try some of these urls to see what other complaints I can file.

[Edited by Carrie Dawn on 11-05-2000 at 04:48 AM]

You have not lost your domain if GX Hosting is only listed as the technical contact. The *registrant* is considered the owner of record, so as long as the domain is registered in your name you're OK. The problem you're having is so common there's a name for it: hostile host, which is when a host tries to block your transfer. ***** did the same thing to me. It often works because most people don't know what to do. All it should take is a fax to Network Solutions (if you registered the domain name with them) that includes an image of your driver's license, to prove you are who you say you are. You should e-mail your registrar, or better yet, give them a call if you can, and find out exactly what to do in order to get your domain released.

I just looked up your mtcforums.net domain, and I see your business is listed as the registrant. You should have little trouble getting your domain released.

Originally posted by Deb Suran
I just looked up your mtcforums.net domain, and I see your business is listed as the registrant. You should have little trouble getting your domain released.

Thank you for the information. I will contact our other host and see what it will take to transfer it. My understanding is that GX uses bulkregister to register domains with and according to messages that were on "tips & tricks" forum, this is not an easy transfer.

We have hosting with Host Rocket (that we have been delighted with for a couple of months now with). So, maybe transfering to them would be the easiest.

Carrie Dawn

I was afraid you'd say it was registered with bulk register. Well, then you might have some problems, but hopefully all will be well in the end. I'd consider transferring the domain to another registrar ASAP.

I think if you contact Bulkregister, you may be surprised. I have seen it work to contact them, as they will threaten the company with contract breach...

Yes .. some of the lucky customers that had their name as the Owner contact and where registed via bulkregister were tranfered with a simple letter to bulkregister .. they are not that bad :) .. BR I mean

GXHosting has not changed its prices significantly, and has not gotten rid of cheap plans: here is the $5.95 hosting plan (http://gxhosting.com/unix.phtml?show=simplicity). Therefore the conjecture made in the complaint doesn't stand.

And GXHosting will probably remain popular for a while... :)

Originally posted by sja

And GXHosting will probably remain popular for a while... :)

Popularity comes in two flavors!

LOL... You got *that* right!

Originally posted by sja
GXHosting has not changed its prices significantly, and has not gotten rid of cheap plans: here is the $5.95 hosting plan (http://gxhosting.com/unix.phtml?show=simplicity). Therefore the conjecture made in the complaint doesn't stand.

And GXHosting will probably remain popular for a while... :)

this is the advertised price of their "new package".
Price: $5.95
5 Megabytes of Web Space
Unlimited Mailing Lists
Dedicated IP Address
Unlimited POP3 E-Mail
Catch All Pop Acount
CGI-BIN + Free Scripts
PHP 4.0 Installed
Web Control Panel
FTP and Telnet(SSH) Access
FrontPage 98/2000 Extensions
99.9% Up-Time Guarantee (fuzzy math, mine was down for 30 days!)
Free Tech Support (yeah right, what tech support!)

Our package was:

200 Megabytes of Web Space
Unlimited Mailing Lists
Dedicated IP Address
Unlimited Pop3 E-mail
Catch All Pop Account
CGI-Bin + Free Scripts
Counter
SSL
Chat software
5GB Transfer
SSH Telnet Access
GX Unix Standard Features
Web Based File Manager
Front Page Extensions
and the list goes on and on...all for $9.95 a month...

How can you say the prices haven't changed? $5.95 for 5 Megs is a big difference over 200 megs...

and the features have been dramatically reduced...

up until 5 days ago, they had done away with the old packages...now they have added them, and their names, modified the content to some what look like the old ones, but now the package I had is more expensive and has a different name. All with out contacting their existing customers and notifying us they were going to charge more for their packages. They even tried to over charge me, when they hadn't notified me to begin with. Is it good business practice to just over charge your customer with out notifying them that your prices are changing?

I really think you have to have been a customer to understand the crap this company is pulling. Or at least listen to the tons of complaints floating around the net about them. One board saw 155 posts regarding the garbage that GX is pulling.

I'm not saying they're a good company or that they were right doing what they did to you. It's just that I don't see such changes in their plans as to presume they were doing all that on purpose to lose you as a customer because you were using the old plans.

You should compare your $9.95 plan with the $10.95 they now have. There's no great difference. There are 100Mb less, but other features vary. Do you think they would pull such crap deliberately just to gain 100Mb?

Other than that, you are perfectly right. I have to thank you for letting me know, otherwise I would have probably signed up with them and regretted it...