Hostway

What I am going to describe is only the most recent abuse from this company. This abuse has been going on for years. Over the past year, I have filed 3 Better Business Bureau complaints but this time they have gone too far, and I am forced to tell my story so that others never do business with this company. This is my story for the last 6 weeks with this incompetent, unprofessional, rude, and abusive company.

I received my first invoice from Hostway on September 8, 2010 for $33.01. I wrote Hostway a check in a reasonable amount of time as I have always done for many, many years. I cut the check on September 16, 2010 and mailed it the next day. I typically sit down and cut checks twice a month - once at the beginning of the month and once in the middle of the month.

Just 2 days after the 18th, I received an insulting and threatening email from Hostway stating that my account is past due, requesting the payment immediately, and threatening to interrupt my services. How rude and unprofessional. I replied to that email stating my account was not past due and that I had put a check in the mail and they needed to allow enough time for it to be delivered. It was at that time I notified them that I would be filing a BBB complaint for their improper and unprofessional billing practices.

Four days after that, on September 22, I received an even more insulting, threatening, and unprofessional email in red type stating, "Please pay your past due balance of $33.01 immediately or your account will be suspended. An account suspension will interrupt your service and make your website unavailable to the internet community."

This was the last straw with this rude company and it reminded me that I had to file this complaint. I have not and will not ever accept this type of behavior from a vendor. This is a reminder of who they work for. They work for the customer and must treat and will treat the customer professionally and with the utmost respect; with a sense of thanks and gratitude for their patronage. If Hostway finds it impossible to comply, then they must be penalized for their violations.

I always pay my bills on time. Vendors line up for the chance to do business with me and my 4 companies, and they treat me with the respect a successful businessman is due. That is the only acceptable "due" in my life, and it has nothing to do with the "past".

On 10/23/10, I received this email after paying my invoice in full more than one month ago and Hostway depositing my check more than 3 weeks ago:

"This is your final notice of your past due balance before we officially close your account. Your account is currently suspended."

This is as abusive as any hitting, punching, kicking, gay bashing, racial slurs, and any other form of verbal and physical abuse. Hostway is the worst internet hosting company anywhere. Do not do business with this company!

On 8/26/11, Hostway got RMCB collection agency involved to collect. On the advice of my CPA, I paid the $35.01 to protect my good credit and my good name. She also advised me to go after Hostway to collect my $35.01. To start things off, I have just filed my second BBB complaint against Hostway and a small claims lawsuit will follow.

Do not to business with Hostway! They are incompetent and have put me through hell for paying them on time, every time. Please, please do not do business with this company, ever!

What I am going to describe is only the most recent abuse from this company. This abuse has been going on for years. Over the past year, I have filed 3 Better Business Bureau complaints. But this time, they have gone too far and I am forced to tell my story so that others never do business with this company. This is my story for the last 6 weeks with this incompetent, unprofessional, rude and abusive company.

I received my first invoice from Hostway on September 8,2010 for $33.01. I wrote Hostway a check in a reasonable amount of time as I have always done for many, many years. I cut the check on September 16, 2010 and mailed it the next day. I typically sit down and cut checks twice a month, once at the beginning of the month and once in the middle of the month.

Just 2 days after on the 18th, I receive an insulting and threatening email from Hostway, stating my account is past due, requesting the payment immediately and threatening to interrupt my services. How rude and unprofessional. I replied to that email stating my account was not past due and that I had put a check in the mail and they needed to allow enough time for it to be delivered. It was at that time I notified them that I would be filing a BBB complaint for their improper and unprofessional billing practices.

Four days after that on September 22, I received an even more insulting, threatening and unprofessional email in red type stating; "Please pay your past due balance of $ 33.01 immediately or your account will be suspended. An account suspension will interrupt your service and make your website unavailable to the internet community."

This was the last straw with this rude company and it reminded me that I had to file this complaint. I have not and will not, ever except this type of behavior from a vendor. This is a reminder of who they work for. They work for the customer and must treat and will treat the customer professionally and with the utmost respect; with a sense of gratitude for their patronage. And if Hostway finds it impossible to comply, then they must be penalized for their violations. I always pay my bills on time. Vendors line up for the chance to do business with me and my 4 companies and they treat me with the respect a successful businessman is due. That is the only acceptable "due" in my life and it has nothing to do with the "past".

After having been with Valueweb for years, Valueweb was sold to Hostway. Since the time our website was migrated over to Hostway, we've experienced nothing but problems, prolonged downtime, many excuses, and long waits for technical support.

While their slogan is that "we're passionate about web hosting," they don't show it in their site administration or customer service.

Moving a website is a tough decision to make, but we moved our site from Hostway to Network Solutions. Funny thing is, Hostway didn't even ask us why we were leaving them.

We had an account with Valueweb, a web hosting company that maintained our web site, emails and domain name. This company has apparently been bought by Hostway subsequently the transfer of our account to Hostway. We were not told of this, we found out about this when a little more than 15 days ago, we started having problems with our email and web site.

After a good hour on the phone we were able to retrieve our emails except the general email with our company's name. They told us this email and our website will be functioning within 24 hours. 15 days later (Friday August 21st) when we found out that we are missing our emails we called back and again they promised it will be back in order in 24 hours.

When nothing happened on Monday, we called back on Tuesday morning and after being on the phone for at least 2 hours they told us that unfortunately they cannot retrieve our email account and the solution would be to change the address which is equivalent to changing our logo! Which means that all our stationary, our business cards etc. would need to be changed let alone the fact that our business contacts are no longer able to send us emails.

Our frustrations lead to the decision to change our web hosting company. Now to our horror, when I called Hostway to let them know that we were changing to a different company instead of giving us the opportunity to transfer our files (including all the graphic works and data for our website), they took our data out and now we cannot even make a transfer of our files to a different database of our choice.

Clearly these people have neither a sense of business in knowing how much damage they have caused nor the decency particularly in view of how much trouble they have already put us through to at least accommodate a transition.