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FeedsHostgator & lost files
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Over the last year or two I have probably given more positive reviews than negative reviews. But it appears I have to gripe a bit about a hosting provider now. Until today I have been fairly happy with their service, but what happened today i’ll be canceling my hosting account after nearly a year.
Before I signed up with hostgator.com a year ago I went into their 24/7 live chat to ask them about some of their policies. The main question was do they allow of un-copyrighted song files to be hosted on their servers. Which the tech person said, and I quote (as I kept the chat log) “as long as they not illegal in the U.S”. I then said we host various Concert files from Classic Rock groups such as Pink Floyd, U2, Grateful Dead etc… and that they are legal to host these as no copyright infringement are broken. Then went ont to the whole archive.org thing, and he said “that should be fine”.
So flash forward to last week. A year after I have been hosting roughly 100 of these concerts someone logged into our FTP Server and deleted all of the files. Put up some really nasty index.html that forwarded to some porn website that had a virus on it. We eventually caught the person and banned him. I contacted HostGator in regards to their backup system. Which they say the backup all accounts. I opened up a ticket to restore just the folder that was lost. And had to pay a restore fee, which IMHO isn’t warranted. I’ve never had to pay for a backup before. The Sales Department pretty much immediately dinged my CC, then said they would forward the ticket to the restore team/admin, which it sat there a few days. Finally someone answered it and said they would take a look.
A few more days went by and today and I got a ticket reply stating that I was over my inode limit and they cannot restore the backup. Then went on to say they deleted the directory I want restored because they do not allow hosting of MP3 files. Which again these are Concert Files, whom I have been hosting for over 5 years now on another (good) provider. So I told them to REFUND my card immediately, which looks like they are in the process of.
My first gripe is… don’t have your sales/tech people tell me I can host these files, then down the road say I can’t. Do not say you can restore my account/directory then give a bogus “inode limit” excuse. Then do not go into my account and physically delete my directory. I find this unacceptable, and its why i’ll be moving my account to another provider.
I have been a happy customer before this, but due to this I’m going to cancel. I do not like to be told I can do something, then someone else with the same commpany says… nope can’t do it. Have them say they can restore an account then… nope can’t do it.
So i’ll be happy to tell everyone I know.. stay away from hostgator.com. I sure as will..