Customer ReviewsforHostPapa Inc

This is one of the worst hosting experiences I've ever had. I was a customer for a company that Host Papa bought (***** *****) and I was happy with that service. From the moment Host Papa acquired them, suddenly features of my contract became Ala carte offerings for a monthly charge and were no longer available to me. One of the highlights was email capacity. On my old plan, I had unlimited, but then I was relentlessly hounded by someone on their staff that I had to reduce my email to 500MB. Like 2-3 emails a day. I told them I was on a plan that had unlimited, and they told me my plan had changed. The kicker is, as I was reducing my email capacity, they shut off all my addresses. I had to tell them that I did what they were asking and for them to go look and they then turned them back on. Not to mention every 6 months something would go wrong like days of downtime, that they would blame my ISP on, but everything would work except for Host Papa hosted content. I knew my contract was up in Aug, but I was never sent any email (they know how to send them) to tell me my contract was up. So I come to find all my sites and emails disabled. I asked them why they didn't notify me and was told they tired to send me an email. I never got any messages from them at all. I called and asked to switch to a monthly plan, but they told me via a support ticket they can't do that (after they said the could) because I am a "legacy contract". But they had no problem altering my plan when they needed to. This place is a mess, their customer service is horrible, and they seem to not care about smaller clients unless you buy add-ons.

Hello *******, Thank you for your feedback! At HostPapa, we take great pride in delivering exceptional customer service, and it saddens us to acknowledge that we fell short of our high standards in your recent interaction. We extend our sincere apologies for any inconvenience or frustration this may have caused you, and we deeply regret the impact of this experience. Upon reviewing your account history, I've noticed that our Solutions team has come across a few problems with your account's resource consumption. To prevent damaging the server's performance and the other customers accommodated in the same shared web hosting environment, my coworkers in the Solutions Department have contacted you to address the problem as promptly as possible. In a shared web hosting environment, your account shares server resources with other customers who are also hosted on the same server. Every time a customer account experiences a surge in resource consumption, it may have an adverse effect on the server's general stability and negatively affect the performance of all other clients utilizing the same hosting environment. When this happens, we get in touch with the customer to see if we can offer any assistance in resolving the issue and preventing it from happening again. Although switching to a plan that better meets your needs might be simpler, my teammates also proposed a technical repair, which requires investigating the problem to determine whether it can be rectified. Each and every one of our customers' experiences is important to us; we really hope that everyone can appreciate this policy. We regret any discomfort this may have caused, however, please note that our resource usage is explicitly specified in our Terms of Service and that the limitations and allocated resources for each of our services and plans are properly described on our website, publicly available for everyone. According to our mail records, we have sent two emails about the continuation of your web hosting service in relation to its renewal. These communications are as follows: -> The 30-day renewal notification. We send out a notification via email 30 days prior to a service's renewal date. -> The 15-day renewal notification. An additional notification is sent 15 days prior to the renewal date when the invoice is also issued. Notifications such as those stated above are delivered to the primary email address on file. It is our customer's responsibility to supply an email address that is fully operational. Unless explicitly requested by our clients, we are unable to change that email address ourselves. In addition, should the auto-renewal function be enabled, and an invoice is generated by our system, we'll try to charge the associated payment method. The product was configured to automatically renew in your case, however, the payment method is no longer valid. This, unfortunately, is not something that is within the purview of our authority. As the invoice was not settled on time, the hosting service was suspended, ultimately resulting in an interruption in your service. We take all necessary measures on our end to ensure our customers' service continuity, as we understand the importance of having a continuous, and reliable service. Unfortunately, we are unable to take care of everything from our end and we require our customers to meet us halfway with a few measures on their end. Regarding monthly billing terms, that is something we offer, however, after checking your most recent ticket with us, I've noticed that there were a few misunderstandings, for which we are terribly sorry. I have also noticed, however, that my colleagues were able to apply a monthly term to your hosting services. It appears that the next day you opted to terminate your services. We're very sorry that this whole situation caused you any discomfort of any sort however, please know that it was not our intent to cause any trouble. We are only here to help you with everything that you may need down the road in order to achieve your goals and objectives in terms of web hosting. Have a great day ahead! Nicolae Customer Happiness Manager HostPapa Inc.

I received an invoice from HostPapa this morning for $691.15. Allegedly it is for hosting services from May 3, 2023 to May 3, 2026. I haven't done business with HostPapa for four or more years. I paid for one year's hosting and then stopped. I never did upload a file for my website * ***** ******** *** **** * **** ***** ******** But when I did cancel my service, I recall being hounded with notices to renew even after I told them I was not. ************* When I called today, I was told I should cancel my account. I flatly refused. Why, I asked, so you can bill me for all the time between when I did cancel and now? No, you cancel it, and don't ever contact me again. **** ***** **** **** ** **** *** **** **** ******* *** *** **** **** ***

Hello ********, My name is Nicolae and I am the Customer Happiness Manager here at HostPapa Inc. I have reviewed your account and I was unable to find any written cancellation requests submitted from your account. For reference, you may access the following article, which accurately details how to properly submit a cancellation request: **************** Given that a cancellation was not requested for your HostPapa services, our system has followed the protocol of sending renewal notices accordingly. We send a notification 30 days prior to any service renewal letting our customers know about the upcoming renewal. We then send another notification 15 days prior to the renewal date when the invoice for the renewal is issued. Please know that stopping using our services does not represent a cancellation request. A written cancellation request following the guide above would be required. We also accept a ticket directly opened from your account mentioning your wish to cancel the services. In light of the above, I hope I was able to shed some light on the entire situation and that I was able to clarify your concerns. Feel free to get back to me in case you have further questions or concerns! Have a great day ahead, ********! -- Regards, Nicolae D. Customer Happiness Manager HostPapa Inc

I rarely rarely leave reviews, but this time I will take the time. I hope it saves someone from a very bad mistake.

For 20 years me and my clients were with LFC Hosting. Best customer service ever ... UNTIL they were bought out by HostPapa. The very DAY that all my sites moved to HostPapa servers, we have had nothing but problems.

In fact, after all my sites were migrated to HostPapa, I received an email from HostPapa informing me that the new credentials to my new control panel(s) would be sent in a separate email. Never received it. Called support. They said they would resend. Nope. Never got it until at least a day later.

In the last month alone, just one of our sites was down 29 times in the last 17 days.

Customer service is NON existent ... and even when you end up talking to a real person (which is rare), they know next to nothing. Today (April 17, 2022) multiple HP servers have been down for the last 5 hours almost, and still done.

Last week at HostPapa's suggestion, we moved from Shared Hosting to a VPS, HOPING this would resolve the downtime. They promised a migration to happen at midnight on Friday April 8. Saturday morning (April 9) ... nothing. Tried to contact Migrations department. No response. Tried phone ... no one answering ... left voice mail. Tried online support chat .... finally someone replied and said it could take several hours. THREE DAYS later, we got a reply. That was April 12.

Today is April 17, and while they did finally migrate the site, they completely failed to follow their own procedures, and put our site live. The direction they had received (and by their own acknowledgment their own procedure) was that they would NOT switch DNS until 'after' we had a chance to review the site running on the VPS.

The result? Due to subtle SQL Server differences from old server, and fact we were unable to do pre-launch testing, our site was still down.

*************

Hello ****,

Thank you for your feedback.

Unfortunately I am not showing an account under your name and ownership with a VPS service present, I do show a shared account under your name and I can confirm this service was recently impacted by an outage with our upstream partner overnight last night, resulting in multiple servers being inaccessible temporarily. The outage has been resolved at this time, and we are working with our partner to ensure steps are taken to avoid such an outage in future and I am sorry for any inconvenience caused by this.

In regard to the VPS and migration issues you have experienced, as noted I am not able to find an account under your name and ownership with a VPS service, however, generally our Migrations team are indeed unable to provide telephone based support, this is due to the time consuming and highly technical nature of migrations work, particularly with Windows and Plesk based services. With this said, our Level 1 Technical Team are able to provide callbacks where needed and can relay information, as well as requesting escalation of any Migrations related issues, in order to bring any problems to a swift resolution. It appears in this instance that there are communication failures on our part, and for this I would like to extend my sincerest apologies. The account holder where the VPS service is held can reach out to us for any assistance they require with their VPS service and/or any migrations related issues that may still be outstanding at this time, please have them contact us from their HostPapa account - or if you are able to verify security on their account or are added as an additional contact on their account we can assist you directly, on behalf of the account holder.

Thanks,
Richard M
Program Manager
HostPapa, Inc

Richard M from HostPapa said:

"It appears in THIS INSTANCE that there are communication failures on our part, and for this I would like to extend my sincerest apologies."

I have to clarify that there has been poor communication and poor customer support in MOST INSTANCES. Not just with my account, but my client's accounts as well.

Richard M said:
"The account holder where the VPS service is held can reach out to us for any assistance they require ..."

The account holder of the VPS (one of my clients) DID reach out ... repeatedly ... and the response was very late in coming.

All I can say is that working with HostPapa is most frustrating.

Host Papa bought out ********** where I had my website and email hosted. They gave me a 48 hour notice that they were going to shut down my account. In order to get the same service at Host Papa, they charge 17 TIMES as much as ********** charged.

Hi James,

Thank you for your feedback.

Reviewing your account I am showing we originally contacted you on 23rd September 2021 regarding the resource usage issue on your account, and at no point did we provide a suspension notice in this instance. We have also provided a range of options to resolve the resource usage issues, an upgrade is not the only option available to you - you can reduce your resource usage to within that of your current plan; upgrades are only offered as a way to sustain the current level of resource usage without needing to make any changes to your account, website configuration and usage (and often provide additional growing room).

I am showing you have since opted to move to a newer plan to support your current usage, and this matter is now resolved.

Thank you for your continued custom, we're glad to have you on board.

Thanks,
Richard M
HostPapa, Inc

In your reply, you state that "at no point did we provide a suspension notice." In contrast, I received an email from HostPapa on September 27 with the title "Email storage limit reached: your account will be blocked in 48h". In that email can be found this text: "If your account is suspended, you won't be able to access, receive, or send emails. This will also mean your cPanel will be suspended and, as a result, the websites included in your hosting plan will not be accessible to the audience." I think a reasonable person would call that a suspension notice. Your claim to the contrary is outrageous and insulting.

When my account was acquired by HostPapa, the usage had been stable for years. To maintain that same usage, I would have been required to pay many multiples of the price that I was paying with my previous hosting provider. I was required to vastly reduce my usage. Still, with much less usage, I am still paying multiple times what I was being charged previously for much more usage. Claiming that the problem was merely one of usage is a red herring.

Hello James,

Thank you for your reply.

As noted previously upgrading was not the only option available to you, your resource usage could have been brought to within the limits of your plan, you have however opted to upgrade to a higher plan rather than resolve the resource usage issue. If are no longer happy with this option you can still reduce your resource usage and then downgrade, we will issue a pro-rated refund as a goodwill gesture.

Resource usage with ********** was enforced, but on a less rigorous basis. The plan limits we are now enforcing were in place previously however these were typically not enforced by ********** Systems Administrators unless the host server was suffering, by which point the issue would be impacting all customers hosted on the server. HostPapa takes a more proactive approach in resolving such issues, in this instance excessive disk usage for non website based files, prior to the host server becoming heavily impacted, providing a period for the issue to be resolved through optimization, upgrade/plan changes, or moving away if that is the preferred option.

Initially as you were unresponsive despite multiple contacts from your Account Manager a 48 hour suspension notice was sent, at which point a response was received claiming we were threatening suspension unless you upgraded the account; this was never the case as was clarified by your Account Manager at that time, and further clarified in response to your review.

Thanks,
Richard M
HostPapa, Inc

Issues started once our previous hosting company was bought out by HostPapa. The customer service is the worst I have seen. They never call you back, only email which takes more than a day to get back to you even when the issue is urgent. We migrated our email to ************* and old emails were not visible for days and the worst part is that there is zero communication. The 'call center' does not know anything and you are not allowed to speak to anyone with technology understanding. We are still having email problems and get the same reply when we call: 'Someone will email you soon'. How are we supposed to run our business without emails? Even though they say they mark it urgent that does not mean anything. How is it urgent when over 14 hours and still no reply?

Hello Paul,

Thank you for your feedback.

Unfortunately our Migrations and Level 2 support teams are not able to provide telephone based support due to the amount of time required for them to work on customer issues, typically these require in-depth troubleshooting and analysis which can't be completed within the time constraints of a phone call. With this said, there are delays with your migration which definitely should not have happened - particularly the timescale for awaiting a response, as such I am truly very sorry for the inconvenience caused by this and I can confirm we will update our internal processes to ensure this does not happen again in future.

I am showing your migration is complete with no further issues as we have not received any further response from yourself since May 7th 2021; if you are still experiencing any issues what-so-ever please reach out to ***********@hostpapasupport.com and we will check into this further for you.

Thanks,
Richard M
HostPapa, Inc