Thread: Host Gator Tech Support Doesnt Seem to Read Messages

I dont want to "dis" Host Gator as I have been using them for years and I think their service is really good. I have tried other hosts and have found none better.

BUT I do have one problem with them. Whenever I do have an issue and I contact tech support they dont seem to read my message before replying. They will ask me questions that I have already answered and they remove the previous communications from the reply.

Anyway, this evening I found that my email wasnt working for a certain website. Well, that is I can send email fine but for some reason I am not receiving it.

Here is the first message I sent to support (some info has been left out ie email address and url):

Hello,

Suddenly I am not getting email for *******

I have made no changes to anything in cpanel or my Outlook Express and I am not getting any errors with Outlook. I have sent test messages from different accounts and none are getting through but when I send a test email from the ****** account it goes through.

(My web url)

Thanks

Now their reply:

What is the error message or bounceback message you are receiving?

And next my reply

DID YOU READ MY MESSAGE? I SAID THERE WAS NO ERROR MESSAGE PLAIN AS DAY

I am just not getting any emails delivered, no error messages at all

Here is what I wrote PLEASE read it before replying

(Here I copied and pasted my original message)

Sir you have encountered an irresponsible support technician, just file a complain to the owner and get him/her fired

Also you can see the following message in their site.

If you ever have a problem with regular support just ask that your ticket be assigned to Brent and he will personally take the time to give you the VIP attention that you deserve.

It seems I always have this problem with their support people and often the messages go back and forth and round and round and each time a different tech replies (usually) and often asks the same questions another tech has already asked and gotten an answer to.

Yep, this sort of thing frustrates me more than anything and for me, it happens almost daily, whether via a support channel, client or friends. I figured no one's interested in what I have to say, lol.

I have had to resort to the caps as well to get them to read what I had said, I believe I made a similar thread here awhile back, can't recall the company though.

Sometime last summer one of my sites was down for about three hours. I emailed support naturally, and they replied AFTER the site came back up with a short one liner that said something like "Your website is loading fine for me please check it again"

I feel I should say that even though I am griping about this I believe that HG is one of the best hosts out there. I have tried several different ones over the years and I had similar experiences (or much worse) with all of them when it came to things like this

Originally Posted by kentuckyslone

Sometime last summer one of my sites was down for about three hours. I emailed support naturally, and they replied AFTER the site came back up with a short one liner that said something like "Your website is loading fine for me please check it again"

Same here, another annoying one, my hosts do that all the time, as if I imagined it, I'd rather get a response that they're looking into things to see what could have happened...or something... anything but a canned response.

Contact brent@hostgator.com directly

Well, my email for that site started working again. In the mean time I know I lost a lot of messages. When it started working again I didnt get the missing emails. This email account is for a website that is VERY busy and active and I get a lot of contact messages from visitors but for 3 or 4 hours I got nothing (during the busiest time of the day for my site). I didnt even get the confirmations for approved comments in the WP blog section of the site.

Anyway, when I got online this morning I got an email from HG basically telling me that he email was working. Yeah, it is working now - so long and thanks for all the fish

I've been hosted by them and their support is really poor...

Originally Posted by Colleen

Same here, another annoying one, my hosts do that all the time, as if I imagined it, I'd rather get a response that they're looking into things to see what could have happened...or something... anything but a canned response.

Well the problem is that they are likely just getting to your ticket after the service has already come back up on it's own. It's very difficult to go back and see why a service was offline especially if it was not a long time. It could be anything from a service failing and restarting on the server, a switch or router having a hiccup or some other networking issue, or an issue between you and your server.

I've seen a wide range of issues that caused issues for all clients on a server to just one client with an issue in their own local network that was causing problems.

At any rate, if the service is up and running it's not usually worth the time for a level 3 tech to go back and see what happened unless it keeps happening over and over. As an example if the server goes down once for 30 minutes (unexpected) in a whole year it's not really worth investigating deeply as 30 minutes in a year is WAAAAAAY better than 99.9% but if it goes down for 30 minutes two times per day then that should definitely be looked into.

I'm not saying there aren't hosts that would look into even the smallest outage (most of the smaller hosts likely would, if they know what they are doing) but when it comes to an operation the size of HostGator's it's not nearly as likely.

At any rate, I'm looking at this more from the service provider's side of things than the client's side of things although I can definitely see the client side of things as well as I have "been there, done that" so to speak.

My problem was ongoing. I wasnt getting any of my email for that site and even after it started working again several hours later I never received any of the missing emails. When I received the first response from HG the problem was still happening. I told them clearly that I wasnt getting any type of error messages - they replied by asking me what error message I was getting..... There is absolutely no excuse for that.

No need to react they way you did, though.

They are sane - they don't like you.

Originally Posted by PeterAnderson

No need to react they way you did, though.

They are sane - they don't like you.

This coming from the person who has a hissy fit and continues to have one for a simple infraction?

That's rich.

Originally Posted by PeterAnderson

No need to react they way you did, though.

They are sane - they don't like you.

Hello Peter are you back to start your attacks on me again?

Originally Posted by GRIM

This coming from the person who has a hissy fit and continues to have one for a simple infraction?

That's rich.

more than one, actually.

Get your facts right.

and, to the asshole #2, YES.

Originally Posted by PeterAnderson

more than one, actually.

Get your facts right.

and, to the asshole #2, YES.

and with that you have been banned from this thread.

OK here we go -- name calling and admitting to being here for personal attacks...

Originally Posted by kentuckyslone

OK here we go -- name calling and admitting to being here for personal attacks...

Not to worry, he has been permanently banned and told to not come back.

what did you say Colleen?

Hostgators sales support seem to be better than the after-sales tech support

I think this problem is common among web hosts and not exclusive to HG at all. I have tried quite a few different hosts over the years and I still think that HG is the best, at least they have been much better than other services I have tried. I have 2 accounts with HG and if I ever need another hosting account I will probably go with them again.

I probably should have left "Host Gator" out of the subject and just said "Tech Support"

Originally Posted by stefanie

what did you say Colleen?

Where? When?

Originally Posted by Colleen

Where? When?

huh? what? ounno ... :3084:

when you were saying no one listens to you. Ounno, it doesn't make sense anymore. LOL