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My bad experience with siteground.

Me and my team run the websites grimepedia.co.uk, grimeforum.com, grimestore.com and grimedigital.com.
Up until two weeks ago our grimepedia website was hosted with Siteground. We were hosted for little over a year until we hit problems with their service and bad business practise. We originally paid for a year of hosting which expired 2 months ago now. As we have a dedicated server which our sites are hosted at we decided that we would move our grimepedia site to this server. After 2 weeks of battling with the cpanel restore siteground gave us we were unable to get the grimepedia to work on our server and so decided we would renew back with siteground for another year.
A week after we had renewed with siteground we received an email from them telling us that for the past few months we have been using over our designated resources and that we must upgrade to VPS or dedicated hosting. With this they also told us that we would be removed from our current server until we upgraded. Now annoyed that they had waited for us to renew before telling us this we decided we would try and move to our new server again (expecting that we would be refunded for the time that we wern't being hosted at siteground).
After a week of trying we finally managed to get our grimepedia site working on our dedicated server and so emailed siteground to let them know we had successfully removed our burden from them and that we would appreciate it if their accounts department could now sort out our refund for the hosting time we paid for but never received. Siteground reply was to tell us that as we broke terms and condition by going over our usage and that as it was a renewal we would not be given a refund of any kind. Shocked we replied to make sure that what they were telling us was correct. Sitegrounds final offer was to allow us to continue using our account but that we host another site there in order to use up the time owed. As we have our own dedicated server and siteground are very aware of this I find this a ridiculous offer.
We are now currently in the process of speaking to our bank to have the fund returned and are in contact with trading standards.
We would also like to thank our great hosts at inspire-hosting.co.uk who have worked endlessly to help us get all of our sites up and running on our dedicated server.

[Hostamina]

I'm sorry to hear this - I'm surprised they won't give you any sort of refund, I would expect you to get at least a partial one.





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[ldcdc]

Quote:


A week after we had renewed with siteground we received an email from them telling us that for the past few months we have been using over our designated resources and that we must upgrade to VPS or dedicated hosting.


The sequence of that seems quite bad, I give you that. It may be that they review accounts after renewals, to reassess the viability of continuing to use shared hosting. It definitely would make more sense for the customer to have this kind of assessment done before paying for another term.
That being said, it's common enough for hosts not to offer refunds or even prorated refunds, past the money back guarantee. SG's proposal to let you keep using the account seems fair enough. Other hosts go as far as to terminate the account with no refund. All this is usually covered by the host's terms of service, to which you agree when you signup. Whether the law makes some of these clauses invalid, would be up to lawyers and judicial courts.





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Quote:



Originally Posted by Hostamina


I'm sorry to hear this - I'm surprised they won't give you any sort of refund, I would expect you to get at least a partial one.


Never. SG charges fines and fees for anything.
They disabled the cPanel backup function, there is a large fee (40$ last I checked?) to be allowed to make backups.
When they changed from cP 10 -> cP 11, it accidentally got enabled, so, I thought "sweet" and went ahead and made a backup. They must have noticed the file on my account because they tried to INVOICED ME for it!
SG is terrible, they treat their customers and support workers terribly, and they are incompitant at what they do.
Ive had my fair share of issues too, welcome to the club buddy.http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showth...89#post5415089






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Wow, I'm glad I'm not hosted there!

[The Stealthy One]

jayatgrimestore, sorry to hear of your bad experience. I do think you've picked the best route to resolving the problem from a financial standpoint: twice in the past, I have had to get my bank involved to get my money back from a host. Both times, my attempts were successful.
Good luck.





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[shakir]

They are good host according to me. Any how m so sad to hear like this issue from them, any how they have to note this thread and do some favor to you..





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[AeonCube]

Really sorry to hear about the issues you have had with siteground, I personally thought they had a good rep. Hope your talks with the bank goes well and good luck in the future with your new host





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Wow sorry to hear about your experience with SG. I've always heard good things about them too.





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[ivtz]

Quote:



Originally Posted by jayatgrimestore


Me and my team run the websites grimepedia.co.uk, grimeforum.com, grimestore.com and grimedigital.com.
Up until two weeks ago our grimepedia website was hosted with Siteground. We were hosted for little over a year until we hit problems with their service and bad business practise. We originally paid for a year of hosting which expired 2 months ago now. As we have a dedicated server which our sites are hosted at we decided that we would move our grimepedia site to this server. After 2 weeks of battling with the cpanel restore siteground gave us we were unable to get the grimepedia to work on our server and so decided we would renew back with siteground for another year.
A week after we had renewed with siteground we received an email from them telling us that for the past few months we have been using over our designated resources and that we must upgrade to VPS or dedicated hosting. With this they also told us that we would be removed from our current server until we upgraded. Now annoyed that they had waited for us to renew before telling us this we decided we would try and move to our new server again (expecting that we would be refunded for the time that we wern't being hosted at siteground).
After a week of trying we finally managed to get our grimepedia site working on our dedicated server and so emailed siteground to let them know we had successfully removed our burden from them and that we would appreciate it if their accounts department could now sort out our refund for the hosting time we paid for but never received. Siteground reply was to tell us that as we broke terms and condition by going over our usage and that as it was a renewal we would not be given a refund of any kind. Shocked we replied to make sure that what they were telling us was correct. Sitegrounds final offer was to allow us to continue using our account but that we host another site there in order to use up the time owed. As we have our own dedicated server and siteground are very aware of this I find this a ridiculous offer.
We are now currently in the process of speaking to our bank to have the fund returned and are in contact with trading standards.
We would also like to thank our great hosts at inspire-hosting.co.uk who have worked endlessly to help us get all of our sites up and running on our dedicated server.




Hi folks,
I wanted to take a moment and share with the community the other side of the story:
The client account was about to expire in the beginning of October, and the customer requested to extend the expiration date by a day in order to take his files and switch to a different hosting provider. Our sales reps updated the expiration days. Then again a day later another request was given for an additional extension, which was again given courtesy to the client. A week later the client decided to renew their account - maybe as stated in the thread above experienced problems with the switch/server/new host.
A few weeks later, around the end of October, our automated server resource system (not many hosting companies have one) detected that the account in question has started to generate a lot of cpu - actually we have graphs and statistics, and they showed that for the two days prior to the abuse case initiation, the site consumed an average of 20CPU hours per day - much more than the average hosting account, which almost never consumes more than 1CPU hour per day. Even though the the system detected a problem immediately, the Siteground staff waited for a couple of days before initiating the abuse case, as sometimes peaks are possible, and an abuse case should not be initiated based on a peak.
Our team initiated a ticket and notified the customer of the problem and instead of suspending the account, left the account active and notificed the customer that we can keep the account active for another 48 hours either to fix the problems, or upgrade to a dedicated solution.
The client replied informing us that he wants to leave, and requested a backup, which was provided quickly and free of charge.
Two weeks later, the customer requested a refund of all unused months, and our technical supporter informed that according to our terms of service, all renewals are non-refundable, and hence, offered the customer to use the account for another website. The customer never replied to this last message.
end of story/
It is funny to read how Siteground waited deliberatelly for a renewal payment to come through and then targeted the customer. The truth that nobody tells is that each time there is an abuse, no matter which the hosting company is, the price that the company has to pay to handle the abuse case is always more than what the customer pays for their hosting:
- first of all when there is a CPU abuse - no one hosted on the server receives a good service - sites might get slow, sometimes reboots and hence downtime
- clients complain generating work for the support
- clients turn unhappy - it is very difficult to please a customer and very easy to get one unhappy - hence people might leave, might tell their friends instead of "these guys rock" "these guys suck"
- to handle the abuse costs money - someone has to look at the issue, to talk to the customer
- the customer might be unhappy and leave - lost revenue
- the customer might be very unhappy and tell their experience (this thread, and numerous other reviews, tell their friends etc...)
- me writing a reply here also costs money, or maybe at the moment someone else needs my help and doesn't get it...
I am really sorry that the OP is not pleased with our services - it is really hard for every hosting company to do their best and still not being able to please the customer.
As far as the refund for unused months is concearned, even though it is our policy not to offer refunds, I would like the OP to send me a PM so that we can arrange some sort of a partial refund.





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Ivo
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Last edited by ivtz : 11-25-2008 at 08:20 AM.
Reason: spelling mistake