Complaints
This profile includes complaints for HostPapa Inc's headquarters and its corporate-owned locations. To view all corporate locations, see
Customer Complaints Summary
- 18 total complaints in the last 3 years.
- 2 complaints closed in the last 12 months.
If you've experienced an issue
Submit a ComplaintThe complaint text that is displayed might not represent all complaints filed with BBB. Some consumers may elect to not publish the details of their complaints, some complaints may not meet BBB's standards for publication, or BBB may display a portion of complaints when a high volume is received for a particular business.
Initial Complaint
Date:01/11/2022
Type:Status:ResolvedMore info
Complaint statuses
- Resolved:
- The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.
- Unresolved:
- The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.
- Answered:
- The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.
- Unanswered:
- The business failed to respond to the dispute.
- Unpursuable:
- BBB is unable to locate the business.
I purchased a ****** hosting package on October 20, 2022 with Hostpapa. After registering and logging into the ****** account, a system I've used for well over 10 years, I was not able to add domains to my account (which is the entire purposed of a hosting control panel like ******). The feature was not working (and I have attached a screenshot of the error). I was then forced to contact support to add the domain name.
Over the next week, I was forced to submit three more support tickets for the same reason/problem (and each time I had to RE-explain the problem). After contacting support repeatedly, they would not resolve the issue permanently, so I was forced to move to another provider. I have never had this issue with any other ****** hosting provider.
Finally I asked to cancel my account and ask for a refund (October 27th, 2022). They said no and I should read through their lengthy terms of service. However, the plain text on their homepage reads (and I've attached a screenshot of their page with this text):
100% satisfaction guaranteed
Our services are backed by an unconditional guarantee. Try our services risk-free.
I have requested a refund and they have declined. I have no further recourse but to submit this grievance.
Thank you.
Business Response
Date: 02/11/2022
Hello *****,
Thank you for getting in touch with us via BBB.
I would like to being by extending our sincerest apologies for any misunderstanding caused on your end as a result of the way the refund situation has been handled. Please know that it was never our intention to cause any more trouble on your end as we’re only here to ensure that you along with your project succeed and that you have every resource available to enable you to do that.
The errors encountered by you in ****** are due to a limitation that all of the web hosting providers enforce on their shared web hosting servers. As my colleagues have already explained a few days ago under Ticket #*******, the reason why we don't allow remote domains is that we had clients with malicious intents adding thousands of add-on domains that didn't belong to them (they hunted unused domain names) and then added redirections towards malicious or
phishing websites.The limitation is in place to ensure your safety and prevent any unwanted events from happening as a result of malicious intent.
Therefore, whenever someone tries to add a domain in ****** that doesn’t point to our servers, they will encounter the error you mentioned in this complaint. The only way to add a domain name to a ****** account is by pointing that domain name to our name-servers or by contacting us and having it added for you after certain verification measures are passed to ensure the veracity of the ownership.
Concerning the refund, from what I can see, my colleagues from the billing department have already processed a full refund a few days ago under Ticket #*******. If you would have any questions or concerns regarding this, please reply to that ticket and submit your inquiries to my colleagues. They will be more than happy to get back to you and help you through it.
Have a great day, *****!
Regards,
Nicolae
Customer Happiness Manager
HostPapa Inc.Customer Answer
Date: 02/11/2022
Better Business Bureau:
I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID ********, and find that this resolution is satisfactory to me.
Sincerely,
***** ******Initial Complaint
Date:31/10/2022
Type:Status:ResolvedMore info
Complaint statuses
- Resolved:
- The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.
- Unresolved:
- The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.
- Answered:
- The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.
- Unanswered:
- The business failed to respond to the dispute.
- Unpursuable:
- BBB is unable to locate the business.
COM-Web Hosting Starter Annually Aug-18-2023 Active
Manage
COM-WP Pro -Annually Oct-24-2023 Active
i need a refund for both service above, i placed order on oct 24 for hosting plan after hostpapa kept telling me i need to upgrade my hosting plan thats why i was having errors on my site. they lied, my site was only getting 2 visits per day nothing big. also need refund for hosting plan web hosting starter i paid for in august 18th.Business Response
Date: 01/11/2022
Hello ****,
Thank you for reaching out to us through BBB.
I’d want to begin by apologizing for any confusion that the resource-limits situation may have caused on your end. It has never been our intention to create any kind of difficulty, as our sole interest is in seeing you and your project flourish.
Initially, my colleagues from the Solutions Department had reached out to you based on the volume of hits your websites were receiving from a variety of sources. A large number of hits can be generated despite a small number of unique visitors due to things like search engine and malicious bots, poorly built website resources (such as plugins), etc.
In a shared web hosting environment, when one account exceeds the allotted resources, it affects the performance of the entire server and therefore all of the other accounts that are housed on that server. Our goal was to prevent this from happening while also guaranteeing that your project is not severely impacted and that you have the necessary resources to support your project's growth and success.
If an upgrade is required, we'll take care of it for you as long as you give us the green light. Once everything has been resolved, we will issue the service upgrade and the corresponding payment invoice. As far as I can tell, a new service was purchased from your end, which resulted in a provisioning problem due to the domain name already being hosted on our servers. As a result, the provisioning of the new service/product has been delayed.
Because of this, we have a procedure in place for handling similar circumstances that calls for us to carry out the upgrade on our end, which will make things easier for you and help us avoid future similar problems.
My coworkers have already cancelled the newly acquired services and refunded the money via Ticket #*******. Invoice number ************** has been disregarded.
In reference to the preceding service, which you paid for on August 19 via invoice **************, including the following services:
COM-Web Hosting Starter (*********************.com) (COM-WHB-S)
COM Domain Registration - Register (*********************.com) (CO-DREG)
COM-Domain Privacy (*********************.com) (CODPRI)
A refund for the unused portion of the service will be issued on a prorated basis (since this is now out of our 30 days money-back guarantee).
Using Ticket #*******, my colleagues from the billing department will provide you with updates on this procedure. If would have any concerns regarding this, feel free to reach out to them using this ticket once they handle this for you.
Once again, please accept our apologies for any confusion over this matter, and while we're sorry to see you go, we hope that my response was able to clear everything up and that I’ve managed to properly explain the overall situation.
Have a great day ahead, ****!Regards,
Nicolae
Customer Happiness Manager
HostPapa Inc.
Customer Answer
Date: 08/11/2022
Better Business Bureau:i believe they refunded me now.
I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID ********, and find that this resolution is satisfactory to me.
Sincerely,
**** ****
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