ComplaintsforHostwinds.com

• Initial Complaint

  08/02/2024

  Complaint Type:

  Service or Repair Issues

  Status:

  Resolved

  More info

  There are 3 things within the last month that HostWinds has incorrectly done or just flat out took our company's servers offline outside of a maintenance window. 1. We asked to have a new test server set up with a **** 5. They did a **** 1. So we asked them to redo the **** and have the ** on a C: drive. They ****ed the **. So we are going to decommission that server because we do not want to go through HostWinds techs not doing the job they are asked for.2. We found that there were errors on our D: drive. Hostwinds decided on their own to start a Check Disk in the middle of the work day. This should have been done in a maintenance window. 3. Because of the above, we asked that a drive be put in an open slot. We did not ask for a restart. However, HostWinds decided to restart our server again, this time booting into the BI**. This situation took almost two hours to resolve. We have tried to contact the **** ***********************, multiple times, and he does not seem to have the time to understand what his company is doing with customer servers and data.Need to be able to get a hold of techs when there are emergencies and not be stuck in a holding pattern waiting for techs to respond.

  Business response

  08/02/2024

  ********'s has been in direct contact with the complaintive and personally believes this matter is currently resolved.

  Customer response

  08/02/2024

  Good afternoon,

  After submitting this complaint, the *** and Director of Operations got on a meeting with me and the *** of Operations at Veritas.  We talked through everything that was happening.  I was very surprised with there candor and honesty. They completely understood, took responsibility for their portion of the issues, and asked for some changes on our end.  Even spoke through how they are going to work through their escalation process.  They seemed to really take this seriously not just for us but from a HostWinds stand point.  I am not sure how complaints work but HostWinds has resolved our issue and I feel are going to take steps to remediate for all customers. 

  Customer response

  08/02/2024

  I have reviewed the business response and accept this resolution. 

  Consumer

  Most Recent Message

  Date Sent: 8/2/2024 2:45:57 PM
  

  Good afternoon,

  After submitting this complaint, the *** and Director of Operations got on a meeting with me and the *** of Operations at Veritas.  We talked through everything that was happening.  I was very surprised with there candor and honesty. They completely understood, took responsibility for their portion of the issues, and asked for some changes on our end.  Even spoke through how they are going to work through their escalation process.  They seemed to really take this seriously not just for us but from a HostWinds stand point.  I am not sure how complaints work but HostWinds has resolved our issue and I feel are going to take steps to remediate for all customers. 

• Initial Complaint

  01/18/2024

  Complaint Type:

  Billing Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  I was paying for a server to store files for several years. A year or more ago, the server was deleted but I was continued to get charged. I am out the payments as well as my files are gone which has a much higher value than the amount I paid to this business.

  Business response

  01/18/2024

  The customer was informed that ******************** doesn't actively monitor or micromanage services unless there's an issue within our infrastructure, legal notification of abuse, a specific problem reported by the customer, or if they have our monitoring service that automatically generates a support ticket upon failure.
  
  Concerning the specific service issue, these details were communicated to the customer since there had been no prior communication about this concern or any previous issues since the service's inception in Sept 2016 until recently. We **** a parallel to a cable company providing a cable box if, for some reason, the box stopped showing some channels a year ago without notice, the cable company would assume everything is working fine until the issue is brought to their attention. Similarly, the reported problem occurred over a year ago and was not communicated to us, leading us to believe the service was functioning as intended by the customer. Given the timeline and in adherence to our refund policy, a refund cannot be issued to the customer. Additionally, the service has been reinstalled and confirmed to be in working order by the customer since the most recent review.
  
  We can only urge the customer to regularly review their services, irrespective of the hosting provider or vendor, to ensure their service is functioning as intended. Neglecting this may impede a company's ability to address issues promptly and efficiently.
  
  Hostwinds Terms of Service: **********************************************
  Hostwinds Refund Policy: ***************************************************************

  Customer response

  01/19/2024

  I am rejecting this response because:   This business has been charging full price for a server that did not exist.  This is not a case of a service interruption.  This is a case of complete server deletion, loss of files and still charging full price.  When given the opportunity to make up for a year of charging for nothing HostWinds.com declined.

  There are damages here and the customer isn't asking for handouts.  Either refund the money or offer comparable service going forward.  This is a material breach of contract.  Worse, charging for a non-existent service could be considered fraud.

  Deleting the files and not charging would be suspect.  Deleting the files and making the customer pay for it is intentionally deceitful.
  

  Business response

  01/19/2024

  The service was purchased back in 2016. Our investigation revealed that, according to our records, the service has been running, but there were corrupted files in the customers OS discovered on 1/23/2023. Unfortunately, this issue wasn't brought to our attention until now, a year later, so our support options are limited. It's worth mentioning that, as a gesture of goodwill, we had already provided a one-month account credit for the service before receiving this report.
  
  It's important to note that the security of an account and services ultimately falls under the customers responsibility, as outlined in our terms of service. Nonetheless, we make every effort to support and resolve issues. However, given the considerable time that has passed, our available options are now limited.
  Currently, the service remains up and running, and we have resolved the corrupted files by reinstalling with the customers permissions. Regrettably, there were no local backups by the customer, and our backups weren't purchased.
  
  We strongly recommend considering the purchase of backups, monitoring (if available), and periodically reviewing services moving forward, regardless of provider.

  Customer response

  01/19/2024

  I am rejecting this response because:   The business is not applying their own Uptime promise found here and quoted below.  ******************************************************************************************************

  "Uptime Guarantee
  Hostwinds promises a *******% uptime guarantee. This promise means that the network we use and its power would be up with no downtime in excess of **** seconds per year.
  
  If our network goes down or the power is lost, Hostwinds will provide an account credit upon request made in a ticket for the cost of the whole day(s) affected by that downtime. Downtime excludes SSLs, domain name registrations, and software licenses.
  
  Conditions
  Hostwinds account credit would only be issued under this SLA for downtime directly related to connectivity to our network and power. Beyond this, no account credits or compensation would be issued for service interruptions caused by:
  
  Any scheduled or emergency maintenance
  Any ISP or other third parties blocking connectivity in any way
  Configurations as set by default or the account owner on a given service
  Actions taken or requested by an account owner
  Suspensions/Terminations as resulting from a lack of payment, violations of our Terms of Service, or possible fraud
  
  This uptime guarantee only applies to connecting and accessing our network; only the inability to do so would be considered "downtime" per this guarantee.
  
  Third-party software, code, scripts, or other content that is installed on our services is entirely the account owner's responsibility."

• Initial Complaint

  05/11/2023

  Complaint Type:

  Product Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  I am a client with Hostwinds since November 2019. we are based in Egypt and our developer in Russia. We cut ties and he informed us that the service suspended and will be canceled, this was last month, he is the only one who have access, on 03 May hostwinds deducted the fees for the 3 months plan, which we already had since 2019, we couldn't reach developer in Russia, than today my partner got his number and we called him to cancel the service as previously he said OK, he reach out to hostwinds immediately and file a cancellation request. within 5 minutes from my partner call. than hostwinds said sorry you are not eligible for refund as it passed more than 72 hours from the payment transaction? I am shocked before it was 60 days money back guarantee and one month grace period, also I did not get any updates that they changed the refund policy, also it should be at least 14 days, but 72hours to deiced if you need the service or no. beside we was on a force majure we can't cancel the service as we did not had any access. If you asked hostwinds you will find all access to the client portal made from IP in Russia not Egypt and even our card used for purchase it's Egyptian Card. this could be understandable if I stayed one or two months than I wanted to cancel my plan but it did not pass more than 6 days, beside they saying the refund will be Prorated Refunds why you use Prorated if you giving 72 hours only.

  Business response

  05/11/2023

  We understand that you may have concerns about our refund policy. We would like to inform you that our refund policy was updated a few years ago and can be easily accessed on our website at *******************************************************
  
  Furthermore, we would like to inform you that our billing department has already processed an out-of-policy refund for you yesterday. This refund was issued for the difference between the time your service was active and its termination date.

• Initial Complaint

  09/21/2022

  Complaint Type:

  Billing Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  Hostwinds charged my credit card without my authorization. I called them several times and they did not answer. When I finally got them online thru a text box that they have in their website, they indicated that I needed to cancel the account in order to get a refund. I had requested a call from one of their representative and I explained that I cannot afford to pay $307.00 and that I wanted to cancel and leave. They convinced me to get another plan an additional $59.00 was charged to my account and the $307.00 unauthorized charge was supposed to be refund to my credit card, but it has not. They fail to upload my two website. Now, I paid for the second service and my two website are down. Hostwinds is definitive a company not to trust. They do not resolve the issue and instead my two websites are down and the refund has not being granted. I need my money back. Thank you for your help BBB.

  Business response

  01/04/2023

  Business Response /* (1000, 5, 2022/09/22) */ Hostwinds is a subscription-based service, and we take client data very seriously. Services will automatically renew upon their due date if the customer does not cancel them beforehand per our terms. In this way, services do not suspend, nor is there unintended data loss. Hostwinds Terms of Service: https://www.hostwinds.com/*****/terms; please review Payments. The service was originally purchased on a triannual basis three (3) years ago. It was renewed on August 7th, 2022 for another three (3) years. The customer purchased a different service on 09/07/2022 and began a migration of their triannual purchase to it on this same day. The migration ticket to the new service started on 09/07/2022. During this communication, our technical support required feedback from the customer on 09/07/2022 and continually followed up until 09/11/2022. We, unfortunately, never heard back, and the ticket remains pending a response. During this migration period, we would require the original service remain active until the migration is confirmed complete. Unfortunately, the customer canceled the original service that involved the migration data on 09/08/2022. This led to the service's termination and our inability to continue the migration as initially requested. Additionally, this is likely why their websites stopped working. The customer began asking for a refund for their original service on 09/19/2022, outside our refund policy: https://www.hostwinds.com/product-docs/billing/refunds. As such, we offered an account credit for the unused time per our policy and communicated this reasoning. All of our communication is within tickets and history archives. Hostwinds customers can review all tickets within their ticket portal at any time and respond accordingly there or through associated emails. Consumer Response /* (3000, 7, 2022/09/23) */ (The consumer indicated he/she DID NOT accept the response from the business.) Dear BBB, The transaction of $307.00 was charged without any of my concern. I have not enrolled in any Autopay. Hostwinds sent me an email suspending the service and i communicated with them letting them know that I cannot afford $307.00 and that why did they charged me $307.00 without my concern. They tried to sell me another plan and "accommodate my needs. Therefore, I purchased a $59.00 plan while talking to a representative over the phone. They agreed to send me a refund and advised me to leave the $307.00 plan open until they migrate the information. Thank you, Lilian Romero Business Response /* (4000, 9, 2022/09/27) */ Hostwinds can provide an account credit of $300.25 for unused time according to our terms of service, refund policy, and recorded communication within tickets. We would only require a response from the customer to the associated ticket within the account regarding the refund request. Terms of Service: https://www.hostwinds.com/*****/terms Hostwinds Refund Policy: https://www.hostwinds.com/product-docs/billing/refunds Consumer Response /* (4200, 11, 2022/09/28) */ (The consumer indicated he/she DID NOT accept the response from the business.) There is no Autopay set up and I do not agree with the $307.00 charge which I cannot afford. That is why I purchased a new plan more affordable and they advised me to buy a new plan that I could afford. I paid for the new plan 61.03. I requested a call back and one more time I was promised to get the unauthorized charge back to my credit card. I got a few emails indicating that my account would be suspended. Because I was okay with the account being suspended I did not call Hostwind because I was not interested in paying $307.00 for White label Plan. I was shocked when I saw a charge on my credit card for $307.00. I do not have any Autopay with Hostwinds. I contacted Hostwind for a refund and they said okay. Then, I agreed to buy a new plan more affordable for me of $61.00 which I paid in full. Now, I need my $307.00 back in my credit card account.

• Initial Complaint

  02/23/2022

  Complaint Type:

  Service or Repair Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  1) I upgraded on 9/13/2021 (their order **********) to a VPS with them due to the old server from them having limited email send capability. I was told by support this would not be an issue if I upgraded and I would be refunded for the remaining time on my prior service from order **********. 2) For a month after I paid for the new service, I was unable to send emails due to them providing a blacklisted IP address. There were over 40 messages sent and received with their support letting them know this issue needed to be fixed during this time period and it never was resolved. 3) After a month of a non-working service (unable to send emails) I moved my website elsewhere. I let them know this and requested cancellation and a refund for the unworking service on 10/17/2021 as can be shown through their own support ticket system. 4) I paid $432.94 for the first account with a 3 year term on 7/12/2020. They had me switch their services to their VPS on 9/12/2021. I should be refunded for 22 months of service that I never got to use and was told would be refunded of $154.57. 5) I had spent a total of $1,080.64 for the upgraded service that NEVER WORKED which should have been refunded in full but they never issued a refund. 6) They then billed me monthly after cancellation for secondary services that had been cancelled for a total of $136.82. 7) I was promised by their support a working VPS server where I could send emails without issues. I was also told my old account would be prorated and refunded for unused time. This was the agreement but even though I paid for the service, they never provided a working service. 8) I have copies of all the messages between myself and support to show everything I have said is accurate. I did not get a working service and should be refunded a total of $1,372.03. 9) I have contacted support and billing and they are refusing to refund me, even though they acknowledged both that I cancelled the service and it has never worked properly.

  Business response

  04/05/2022

  Business Response /* (1000, 5, 2022/02/24) */ The customer upgraded service on 9/12/2022, and our technical support resolved the customer's migration and concerns by 09/25/2022, where they (Hostwinds Technical Support) received no further communication from the customer. The customer also purchased cloud backups with the service, separately billed. There was an inquiry into the cancellation of the purchased service on 10/17/2022. Our billing representative provided the steps required for customers to cancel their services. Additionally, our representative communicated that this would not cancel their object storage, stored and billed separately. Our representative explained this in detail and provided steps to review and delete the stored backups if they no longer wish to be billed for them. The service was purchased triennially and eventually canceled by the customer on 10/18/2022, well outside our refund policy. Please see the Hostwinds refund policy here: ****************************************************** . The remaining balance was provided as an account credit as per the policy of $1044.83. Unfortunately, their object storage was never deleted as instructed and remained billed because the customer never deleted them. The customer finally deleted the object storage on 02/11/2022. As the customer was provided account credit, the account credit should have been used to pay for the object storage until it was finally deleted. We have issued a refund in the amount of $136.82 for the backups billed that should have been taken from their account credit between 10/01/2022 - 02/01/2022. Therefore the customer was left with a remaining credit balance of $908.01. We also keep all communication logs for transparency reasons on behalf of the customer and ourselves. Hostwinds Refund Policy: ****************************************************** How to Cancel Hostwinds Services (indicating it does not cancel a customers object storage): ******************************************************************* How to Delete Object Storage:****************************************************************************** Hostwinds Terms of Service: ************************************* Consumer Response /* (3000, 12, 2022/03/08) */ ***Document Attached*** The company is acting as if they provided a working service as advertised which they did not. As shown in their own technical support logs the IP they assigned was blacklisted all across the internet which prevented it from being able to send emails either personal in nature or for our company. This blacklisting was still there around a MONTH after I had paid for the service and it forced me to move to a different provider. For that entire time the service they provided never worked as advertised, and they refused to take the necessary step of simply assigning a different IP that was clean to my account instead of one where the previous user (before we ever had the IP address they gave us) had been sending viruses and got the IP the company decided to assign to us blacklisted. See the attached file which is part of their much longer support tickets where it clearly states the IP address they assigned could not send email and that I needed a working IP. Even with a ridiculous amount of messages with support (I gave them roughly a month to fix the problem with continuous support tickets opened) they didn't fix this and the service NEVER worked as promised, so I cancelled, and should be refunded in full. No other resolution will be considered acceptable when they never provided the service I was billed for at any time that worked properly. Please let me know the next steps to escalate this since I will not be ripped off by this company or accept just a "credit with them" for other services they offer. Business Response /* (4000, 16, 2022/03/18) */ As of late, it is our impression that this matter has been fully resolved and rectified. We have received no further communication from the customer regarding our resolution since March 8th, 2022.

• Initial Complaint

  08/30/2021

  Complaint Type:

  Service or Repair Issues

  Status:

  Resolved

  More info

  Hostwinds claims to support e-commerce. However, after transferring 2 domains and investing in 3rd party design and security services i began getting errors on me website check outs. After much trouble shooting the e-commerce software company sad Hostwinds us blocking access to their services. I reached out to tier 4 support - they say i have to pay more to upgrade to a different service. I upgraded another domain to business level and get the same errors. They want me to move my servers to a VPS server that costs double. This is bait and switch. They now claim i am against their terms of service by BACKING UP my data. Yet Hostwinds ALLOWS the installation of that plugin. I am looking for a clean break from This company and a pro rata refund for unused services. Hostwinds says they can only refund money 72 hours after purchasing which in violation of consumer protection in *********.

  Business response

  09/15/2021

  Business Response /* (1000, 6, 2021/08/31) */ It is of my understanding we are in communication with the complaintive in regards to this complaint and the complaint is dropped for now. Please let me know if this needs to be reviewed again at another time. Consumer Response /* (2000, 8, 2021/08/31) */ Company contacted me finally. Negotiations are happening. Please close this case.

*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. ↩