Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Web Hosting : Review: HawkHost

[sze828791]

Hey everyone,

Well I had anticipated writing a review as a 'thank you' after this website was so helpful in my quest to select what I thought would be the best webhost. It never for a second crossed my mind that this review wouldn't be a positive one.

I had chosen to go with HawkHost after spending a few hours researching and carefully considering what I read on this forum. The lack of professionalism I witnessed next was both startling and disappointing.

I first signed up for their 'Advanced' hosting plan. I almost immediately got my welcome email and log-in details to the client section of their site. All good so far right?

It was still a little bit before working hours so I waited patiently for my account to get set-up so that I can start work on my site. In the meantime I switched the name servers for my domain name to point to HawkHost's. I also signed up for an account on their support site and submitted a short ticket asking what was next, what other information I need and should be expecting to get started, explaining how I chose HawkHost through WHT and how I was looking forward to being with them for years to come.

Next, I get an email from Cody Robertson saying, "Your order currently isn't passing our fraud check due to the order originating far from the billing address. Can you elaborate as to why this may be?"

At first I thought, "alright, this is a bit of a hassle but not necessarily a bad thing on their part... it's for my protection as well as theirs." I promptly and politely reply stating that I temporarily reside in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia for work and that my credit card company is aware of this. I asked if there was anything I can do to help move the process along and left my phone number (a U.S. line by the way). I've been able to use my credit card from here with no problems, including registering my domain with GoDaddy, so I wasn't sure why this "fraud check" was so different, especially after "elaborating" as Mr. Robertson requested. Also note that I use the web normally here through one of the country's largest high-speed internet providers (STC), I didn't sign-up with HawkHost through a proxy or anything.

I decided to call the 800 number Cody had in his email signature. There was no answer, so I left a voicemail with my phone number (again, a U.S. line) saying who I was. A few hours later I still hadn't received any updates or responses to my call or email, but I figured maybe this just takes time. So I waited a while and then called again. And again. By then it was about 10 or 10:30am Eastern Time. I decided to call one last time. Again, no answer.

I left for a few hours and came back home at around 2:30pm Eastern to find an automatic email from their billing department saying, "Void Confirmation from Hawk Host." That's right, they simply voided my order and never bothered corresponding with me or responding to my emails or phone calls.

Suffice to say I was rather shocked at the poor level of professionalism exhibited by HawkHost. What's the point of "fraud prevention" if all you do is ask the customer why they're far away from their billing address and then completely ignore their response and attempts to communicate? And then suddenly just void the transaction, again without any correspondence. I don't mind fraud prevention measures, I've dealt with them before with no problems, but I do mind when such measures completely fail and there is a complete lack of effort or professionalism on the part of the merchant.

Luckily, it seems there are enough quality hosting options out there to choose from. I probably should be thankful this occurred before I ever really got started with HawkHost. If the set-up process was so painful, I can only imagine what was to await me as an actual customer. After this awful experience, I've narrowed my choices down to StableHost, DowntownHost, and SpeedySparrow. I'm planning to build a mostly user-generated entertainment website similar to FMyLife.com or PeopleofWalmart.com, but with a different niche. Any feedback on which host to choose (other than what I can find through searching the forum) would be greatly appreciated.

If this forum is anything to go by, it seems my experience was the exception, but it happened nonetheless and I wanted to make sure you all know about it.

P.S., I've used the report function to tell the mods my domain name.

[Jedito]

Although this is against my interest, since we are one of the companies listed as one of your options , you may want to try to contact to Hawkhost, maybe it was simply a misunderstanding, we deal with fraudulent orders every day, and sometimes is hard to determinate which are false positives.

[RBurns]

I am sorry about your trouble. Hope you have better luck!

[Konrad4]

Sorry about your poor experience. Doesn't seem frequent that people complain about HawkHost.

[sze828791]

Originally Posted by Jedito

Although this is against my interest, since we are one of the companies listed as one of your options , you may want to try to contact to Hawkhost, maybe it was simply a misunderstanding, we deal with fraudulent orders every day, and sometimes is hard to determinate which are false positives.

Jedito, thanks for the suggestion but as written in my review, I not only "elaborated" on why I ordered from a location far away from the billing address as HawkHost had requested, I proactively attempted to contact them several times.

[afam4eva]

I host with HawkHost and haven't had any problem with them.

[David]

Technically, you never were a client though, correct?

[sze828791]

Update: I've received an email from HawkHost CEO Tony Baird apologizing for the mishandling of my order and explaining what went wrong on their end. They reauthorized payment, set-up my account, and gave me a $25 credit.

I appreciate them rectifying the situation and I've chosen to look past this given the sensitivity of international orders. Though I would have appreciated much better correspondence, they have done what any quality company should and made up for it. I will thus continue with HawkHost for the time being and check back in this thread periodically to update you all on my experience with them.

[stablehost]

Good luck!

[afam4eva]

Good to know. This is what good hosts do. Good luck.

[sze828791]

Thanks for the replies.

@afam4eva - I concur. I was quite upset as one can understand, at the communication issues more-so than the fraud prevention stuff. But everyone makes mistakes... it's how you deal with them that counts, and HawkHost made it right. I'll update you all after the next phase of my experience and look forward to it being a completely positive one.

P.S. I'd like to post my update in the original message, but I'm not seeing an edit function. I take it editing is disabled for a given post after a reply is made to it.

[WireNine]

P.S. I'd like to post my update in the original message, but I'm not seeing an edit function. I take it editing is disabled for a given post after a reply is made to it.

Editing of post is disabled after 15 minutes of the initial post, you can contact the mods to edit if needed.

Best of luck with HawkHost.

[HostXNow]

Glad to hear you got everything sorted in the end.

[GSalam]

Thumbs up for HawkHost, for taking the responsibility and doing everything possible to maintain a customer.

And Good Luck to you. Hopefully this will be your last nightmare ever

[MikeDVB]

Originally Posted by sze828791

Update: I've received an email from HawkHost CEO Tony Baird apologizing for the mishandling of my order and explaining what went wrong on their end. They reauthorized payment, set-up my account, and gave me a $25 credit.

I appreciate them rectifying the situation and I've chosen to look past this given the sensitivity of international orders. Though I would have appreciated much better correspondence, they have done what any quality company should and made up for it. I will thus continue with HawkHost for the time being and check back in this thread periodically to update you all on my experience with them.

That's definitely a step in the right direction. I've known Tony and Cody for a while now and they're both very stand-up guys. Do make sure to write an updated review after a few months!