Beware Of HostICan Hosting
08/03/2010 Update: HostIcan refund issue has been resolved with full refund provided by Mr. Denis Motova. He called me in addition to replying to my last email and leaving comment on this blog and has apologized for the “inter department” screw up. According to him problem was within Billing department and he was away during the last leg of communications I have attempted – hence I got no answer and issue quickly escalated. Because full refund provided I’m crossing out statements within this blog post that no longer hold true and providing update and resolution at the end of time line.
I still don’t think that getting a simple refund should be such a frustrating and time consuming process and has to escalate to the point it did
Original Blog Post Content with Edits and Notes:
HostICan VPS and shared hosting provides seemingly great value and since 2008 I was their happy customer, that is until I became a victim of consumer fraud when I have decided to take advantage of their “No Questions Asked Money Back Guarantee”.
I was actually quite surprised to discover that culture of defrauding the customer is something that appears to be encouraged by the company owner Mr. Denis Motova himself (Mr. Motova called me personally and advised me that he was out of town). This blog post will contain detailed information and personal opinion so you can decide for yourself if you decide to give your money to HostICan or perhaps look elsewhere…
In attempt to expand our presence my partner and I have decided to purchase yet one more VPS server for our sites. HostIcan was our hosting provider since 2008 and were quite satisfied with their level of technical support, price and performance. Due to that fact we have decided to simply buy one more new VPS Extreme server.
Here is the recap of everything that transpired this blog post and…
Why I Believe that HostICan is a Hosting Fraud Operator!
- On June 4th I have purchased a 6-Months “VPS Extreme” hosting package. $519.70 was paid via PayPal. HUGE mistake on my part as I knew that PayPal doesn’t provide buyer protection for any Digital or Service purchases. But at that time I have been a customer with HostICan for over 2 years and opted to go for convenience.
NOTE: Always use Credit Card for large purchases to be able to fight the charges! - On June 22, after being dissatisfied with the original purchase I have followed the process for obtaining a refund, according to the “30 Days No Questions Asked Money Back Guarantee“. I submitted a cancellation and a refund request (Ref #THT-759551) via a phone conversation with the customer service representative named Bakarr. According to an email that I received after this conversation I was to receive my refund within 5 days.
- On June 28 (6 days later) my purchased service has been discontinued and the billing account has been deleted from the system, however the refund has not been processed. I have sent an email in reply to the original ticket associated with the request for a refund.
- On July 2nd, I have called the billing department since I’ve never received a reply to my June 28th email. I spoke to the customer service representative Brad and asked for assistance with getting a refund. Brad said that he will forward the request to the billing manager and I should get the refund within 5 days.
- On July 4th I have sent a second email asking for refund and clarification since the refund still had not been processed and no communication was received. I know… it was a holiday but even later no response was received!
- July 9 – I had made a second phone call and once again spoke to Brad who opened a new ticket (Ref. # DYN-304071) to expedite the refund for the services. No refund had been provided.
- July 12 – I had opened a PayPal dispute, case #PP-001-016-538-114, to get my money back
- July 14 – PayPal closed my dispute. I spoke to the PayPal account manager who emailed HostICan with a request to honor their refund policy and advised me to pursue escalation outside of PayPal to following authorities: www.bbbonline.com, www.ftc.gov, www.ic3.gov (operated by the FBI), www.econsumer.gov. I honestly found PayPal stand on this quite interesting since in my opinion this is a direct fraud – company took the money for service and failed to provide, service that is measurable by term! But I guess whatever helps them rake the cash…
- July 16 – Called again and spoke to Bakarr, who promised to call me back with a final resolution. I waited for the promised call, which never came. Called back and spoke to Mike, who promised once again to escalate to the billing manager
- July 19 – Called again and spoke with Bakarr and Brad, both have promised to get with billing manager to honor the refund policy. Never received any replies and have not been credited.
- July 19 – Emailed owner of the company Mr. Denis Motova with the information provided above and received a reply “I will investigate, and my internal team will review to see what is going on and get this sorted.” I did make a mistake with date of initial purchase in email but since it didn’t impact the “Guarantee” period – it is non-essential. See the image below, click to see full image:
- July 23rd – I emailed Mr. Motova again and asked if he has any updates on the case – no reply
- July 29 – I emailed Mr. Motova and also CC-ed their Billing Support email address billing@hostican.com with a request to address the issue. I wanted to be sure that if by any chance Mr. Motova is on vacation or out of office – someone has an ample opportunity to respond and avoid escalation through legal channels. No reply from Mr. Motova but I did receive a notification that yet another support ticket (Ref. # NRI-810414) has been created.
- July 30th – I have followed advise provided by PayPal and submitted complain to every site provided to me as well as writing this blog post.
Post Resolution Facts:
- August 2nd – I have called PayPal and requested escalation and investigation of the HostIcan business practices, since they do business through their merchant account.
- August 2nd – I received full refund as guaranteed by HostICan Policy. Mr. Denis Motova left comment on this blog, called me personally and apologized for the problem in billing department. According to him he was away since our initial communication, which allowed problem to escalate and become public knowledge.
As it stands today, HostIcan took my money for 6 month of service, which had been cancelled after 18 days. I have followed their outlined procedures to get my money back, according to HostICan’s Guarantee. The refund had never been processed regardless of my many attempts, including communicating to the owner of the company. At this point it is safe to assume that I am a victim of fraud.
Not to mention that it took me and my partner few weeks to migrate all our sites and business to new host. I have mentioned it in my previous post “Blog On The Move“.
Since HostIcan methodically and intentionally ignored all my attempts to resolve this issue via normal means I want to use this blog post as means to warn other consumers by sharing my personal and detailed story!
I withheld nothing and if HostICan choose to reply here – it will not be deleted!
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Summary 08/03/2010:
After multiple attempts and escalations I have received full refund! I appreciate direct intervention by Mr. Motova and final resolution of the problem. I do think this issue should have never be allowed to escalate to the point it did and since it became public knowledge – this post will remain online with my edits and final resolution.
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Alex, unfortunately this is not the first such comment I read about HostICan. I have heard thattheir management changed recently and ever since they started to slip in the customer service department. I see more and more comments advising to stay away from them. Really sorry to hear you fell victim of their fraud.
Thanks Mike,
Unfortunately I only started looking at those reviews when I had my own problem.
I am sorry to hear that they keep misleading people. I believe that soon or latter things will change as more people share their experience with them as a company – I did and you too and we can only hope that other people will stumble on these articles and at least be more aware when picking a hosting company.
Thanks for comment, I agree that unfortunately at this point we can only hope that other customers will avoid our mistakes. I did however submitted official complains to all the federal services and BBB. I think scammers like this have to pay for what they do!
Oh Alex,
What a sucker of a thing to happen to you. I honestly believe you are doing the right thing now in making this public after trying to hard to rectify the matter on a personal level.
It seems these guys are clearly evading you and this is a very cowardly thing to do. Unbelievable that a hosting company needs to resort to cheating its customers out of their money!!
Hope you can get your money back at some stage. Would be good to see them shut down by the authorities.
Monika,
I honestly don’t think I will get my money back – they had plenty of opportunities to provide it before it got escalated. I simply want to use this post to warn other people of the practice that HostICan choose to engage. If you note in my email to the company owner (as registered with BBB) I specifically asked:
I can only assume at this point that failure to address the issue, when given ample time is an answer.
But once again – this is my PERSONAL opinion, based on my own recent experience.
I have no experience with HostICan, but I have had similar experiences. It really becomes a heart-break when you leave a place of business where you have had a good relationship.
I recently lost two weeks of work production for a similar reason. I had a shared hosting provider who intentionally left setting open that introduced vulnerabilities to my websites outside of my control. More recently, several of my sites have been rapidly attacked and damaged by someone with the ability to delete the .htaccess files. As best I can tell, the only two ways to access these files is from my cpanel or from a higher authorized access than I have to the servers themselves.
When I contacted the vendor, I provided information on how to set a switch, a setting that literally would only take seconds, and they not only refused to change the setting, but told me I was responsible for protecting my sites by purchasing a more expensive package they offered (which only had 1/2 the resources I was currently getting.)
Now I am protecting myself by initiating a system of backed up sites between two providers in two parts of the country. Sure, I am paying twice as much as I would have, but I have piece of mind that if places like HostICan buy one out, I can move on without losing a week of work.
I have no doubt that you are also taking steps to prevent downtime in case something happens where you are. After all, how do you measure the loss of several weeks work?
Good luck in the move and with your future plans in this regard.
Buck
Buck, hosting is tough business and sometimes in attempt to protect their customers security measures make host providers less then usable for many purposes. That is why we have switched now to a service where we simply lease the hardware and install the OS and everything required for us to run the sites ourselves. But luckily our combined knowledge allows us to take that step, I know majority will not.
Hi Alex,
I am so sorry to hear of this happening to you. I think there are more and more people now a days being scammed. I don’t understand why people do not honour their commitments. It is very easy to give a refund via paypal. It should not be a problem for them other than they are choosing to defraud you on purpose.
I sell a ‘Spray Tanning’ manual online and whenever I have ever been asked for a refund even if I don’t believe the person deserves one I have still honoured it no questions asked. It is not worth the negative publicity.
Good luck in your mission to get your refund or at least help get the company de-listed.
Cheers
Jacinta
Jacinta Dean´s last blog ..The 100 Blog Comment Challenge Is On!
Jacinta,
My partner and I have several products and in our business we have honored refund even beyond the refund period provided in our guarantee. It was done as an exception but I still think its better for the business to not have a customer then have unhappy customer.
I will never host with Host I Can. Stupid fraudsters! There are many such hosts online these days.
Saksham´s last blog ..Blogging To The Bank Review
Alex,
Sorry to hear about your troubles with HostICan. As affiliate marketer I make most of my money promoting web hosting providers (I promote HostICan) as well.
To say the least I am very disappointed by the fact that they made no attempt to contact you and resolve the issue. I will be following this with great interest.
Again sorry for your trouble.
Vlad Zablotskyy´s last blog ..Tip For Datafeedr Users- Removing Rel Canonical – Why And How
Thanks Vlad,
Actually as you can see I have initiated and made multiple attempts to resolve this issue. Don’t forget that while dealing with this problem I actually had one more VPS server with them and I had every intention to keep it.
I stated on several occasions during the conversations that I’m an existing customer and would like to keep it that way – all I was trying to do is to get the money back for the New Server I have purchased and then decided not to use, all within their defined 30 Days time frame.
Luckily at same time when I canceled new VPS I was already working on building out a new VSE server with Media Temple, but its intent was quite different from what it is now – it was to be an EXTRA server to offload some of our sites. When all my attempts failed, we started to and just completed migration of ALL my sites to new server.
I have canceled the VPS Extreme account I had with HostICan since 2008 this past Friday. I have no intentions to contribute to their cash flow when I feel I was scammed by them.
Can’t help but feel responsible. I believe have been promoting them since 2008. How many more clients are being treated like that? How many of the clients referred by me are being treated this way??? I am very close to say to them “You Are Fired!” as affiliate marketer…
One dissatisfied client is one too many…
Mr. Motova, please do the right thing. Every one can make a mistake, your company is not beyond making one either. You still have a good chance not only to save company’s face but end this situation on a positive note. Do the right thing.
Vlad Zablotskyy´s last blog ..Tip For Datafeedr Users- Removing Rel Canonical – Why And How
Damn man, sorry to hear of all the troubles.
Right up to the point of talking about the owner ignoring you I thought (hoped) it was a mere yet frustrating case of a mass interdepartmental breakdown, as it happens lots with offline corps as well. (Right-hand-left-hand two different directions.)
However, when the owner, the man that can snap a finger and refund says, “I will investigate, and my internal team will review to see what is going on and get this sorted.”, you know something nasty is afoot.
Refund NOW, THEN investigate what happened.
Dennis Edell´s last blog ..Last Post and Current To-Do List
Thanks Denis,
It was my thinking exactly and when I got almost instant reply from the person I believe to be owner (according to BBB record) I thought that all the problems were over. Sad that I was wrong and had to go to extremes I normally never would.
It’s very bad to hear that HostICan is a big fraud. Your true review about them will be really help new customers to stay safe from them. Since you have provided every proof they can’t say that this is something a wrong news. I recommend you to publish this in every webmasters forums too and help the members on there to be safe.
pratish´s last blog ..BMS Results 2010
Alex,
It is a shame to HostICan that they have acted this way, without any honor whatsoever. Also, they should know that the internet is a very public place, and they should want to save their reputation by taking care of business in a very respectable way.
Alas, they have not. And all of us appreciate you bringing this out into the open so we are not scammed!
For many marketers, losing that kind of money is devastating and they would not bounce back. I am glad to see you were able to pick yourself up and continue running. Kudos to you, Alex.
Peggy Hurd
Peggy´s last blog ..Your Home Office
Peggy,
$500 is an unpleasant loss no matter what level you are on, especially when its not warranted. I appreciate the comment.
Actually i never heard that site,but about click fraud that just happened to me,you tell so detailed, thanks for sharing
tedifa´s last blog ..The beauty of Disneyland Park in Florida
Thanks for the warning, I will stay clear of HostICan. I am on the lookout now for other scams like this. Sorry to here that you got caught by this
Christopher Roberts´s last blog ..Bloodhound SSC
Well, IF we take time to check we can easily find them. Problem is – unless you actually run into problem you don’t normally search. If I would have checked HostICan I would have easily found that BBB doesn’t give them accreditation and gives them “F” rank:
http://www.bbb.org/richmond/bu.....-21017360/
“Problem is – unless you actually run into problem you don’t normally search.” Yeah, I see what you mean. Do you think that we put too much trust in online businesses? As in the real world, we would usually check a firm out before using it, whereas online, I know that we are a lot less likely to.
Christopher Roberts´s last blog ..Formula 1 Carbon Cuts
What a bummer. Nice of you to warn others of the extremely poor way in which they treated you. I can’t understand why they won’t honor their agreement and how they could let it get to this stage. The bad publicity would cost them a lot more than what they owe you.
Sire´s last blog ..How A Woman Made Me Change My Evil Ways
Yeah, I have no idea what they are thinking…
Thank you for getting the word out! By nature I’m a trusting soul~ I’m very grateful you warned me so I don’t give HostICan a shot at my $500!
~Linda
Linda G. Cox´s last blog ..Generation Y
Just checking in to see if there is any change. I am sure they have read this thread by now. Any response from HostICan?
Vlad Zablotskyy´s last blog ..Tip For Datafeedr Users- Removing Rel Canonical – Why And How
Vlad,
I haven’t received anything. Honestly I don’t know if they even care enough.
Glad you are getting the word out on how this company lacks integrity and doesn’t stand behind their guarantee! I often wonder how so many of these companies stay in business not to mention don’t seem to care about their reputations.
It is just awful that you and your partner were treated this way. I recognize the hard work it takes to move your blog and get it all set up. Most of all it is sad to see that a company you have done business with for a couple of years chose to sever the relationship forever in the fashion they did.
Glad you are up and running again and really glad I found your site! Great info you pack on here! Thanks for all your hard work!
“Dream, Believe, Become…”
Tracey Keefer
Tracey Keefer´s last blog ..5 Pillars of Success- a New Perspective- Pillar 1
Tracey,
Actually blog move was the simplest process – it is all the other sites and membership scripts migration that nearly killed us
But it also gave us opportunity to simplify and re-arrange our business. So there is something positive even in this mis-adventure 
Growth and learning there lies the silver lining to all mishap adventures!
Perspective can make you powerful or powerless and you have gained much power in this process.
But as you said the real service is in your sharing and sparing of others from the same lesson! The smart ones will learn from you!
Thanks again!
“Dream, Believe, Become…”
Tracey Keefer
Tracey Keefer´s last blog ..5 Pillars of Success- a New Perspective- Pillar 1
Ouch! What a painful situation to have to go through witha company you’ve been paying money too! Yikes!
Thank you for the heads-up on this company! I recently purchased a VPS and am glad its not with them!
Kimberly
Kimberly Castleberry´s last blog ..An Introduction to Google Adwords and Adsense
Thanks, sometimes we bite the bullet – hopefully my business experience with this company help others evaluate their options.
Alex,
Thanks for getting in contact with me. I apologize that it took me a while to get back to you. Per our conversation, this issue has been resolved and once again my apologies on behalf of the billing group.
Thanks again for letting me know about all of this.
- Denis
Guess it took throwing it out there in the open on your blog that expedited the refund!
That’s one way to get the owner to respond!
But the damage has been done and the old saying applies too little too late, as he could have avoided this whole thing by ensuring his policies are actually executed as promised!
Rock on Alex!!! and thanks for saving the rest of us!
“Dream, Believe, Become…”
Tracey Keefer
Tracey Keefer´s last blog ..5 Pillars of Success- a New Perspective- Pillar 1
Denis,
Thank you for your reply and resolution of the problem. I have edited post to reflect resolution.
A very bad experience.I will never host with HostICan.BWN I heard first time about this host in your site
Lakhyajyoti´s last blog ..7 Things You Should Know To Write a Killer Article
Alex, thanks for updating us about the resolution.
Mr. Motova, I imagine it was hard thing to do – apologize for the screw up in public. I hope this is being viewed at your company as a learning opportunity. Whoever is in charge of PR at HostICan would have lost their job- if I was in your shoes. I was expecting an official response from HostICan to be among first 10 comments of this discussion.
As an affiliate I made some decent pocket change promoting web hosting providers. While I have not made any money with HostICan the pages on my websites featuring HostICan all used to stress on “No Questions Asked Money Back Guarantee”. I have removed any mentions of HostICan 30 Day Money Back guarantee, for time being.
I hope you can understand where some one like me is coming from. As an affiliate I might be found liable one day for promoting a guarantee that… oh well has rather number of complicated steps to it (don’t take my word on it since I am not a lawyer).
My initial intent was to publish a longer post on one of my own blogs. However, I needed to tune it down a bit- especially after refund was made.
As one of the comments mentioned a “screw up” like this already caused big deal of damage. And it’s consequences will last longer that one might imagine- Internet is a strange beast with extremely long memory.
I still believe HostICan has an opportunity to change things around by making sure no one has to be in Alex’s shoes. Just think about it, even Alex admits that your company offers above average hosting solutions. I think small hosting companies like HostICan can outgrow GoDaddy’s and Yahoo’s of web hosting world if they do things the right way.
Vlad Zablotskyy´s last blog ..Tip For Datafeedr Users- Removing Rel Canonical – Why And How
I have never heard of that site, but I know that find good and affordable hosting can be difficult. I have moved hosting three times since in online business and run a dedicated server now.
The two hosting companies I would recommend are Serverloft, and ThePlanet. Later this year I intend to move to Serverloft because there you get more bang for your money.
Mark´s last blog ..The Other Guys
Good to see it’s all resolved. A shame that it had to get to this though. Let’s hope it’s a lesson learned.
Sire´s last blog ..How A Woman Made Me Change My Evil Ways
It’s an awful thing when businesses do this. It makes it tough for people to trust those of us who conduct business ethically.
But Mr. Motova’s absence should not have had an impact on whether or not you get a refund- that’s why we hire & train staff- to handle issues for us. A simple yes over the phone to his employees should have done the trick. Geesh, I managed a bar/restaurant from a hospital bed several years ago.
Your post shows what real power there is in blogging. keep it up.
Kathy Pop
Kathy Pop´s last blog ..What To Do On The Off Weeks In The Challenge
Thanks Kathy,
I agree with you but Mr. Motova did come through and I’m not going to speculate on what might have been or why something didn’t happen.
Blogging is a power and that is one of the reason I published this post, bad publicity is not something a business relying on web should be looking for but sometimes is necessary
Glad to see it was all resolved, Alex… Looking at the dates involved, maybe you misunderstood their ’30-day refund policy’ – obviously it means it takes 30 days of action on your part before you can expect a refund…
Doug Champigny´s last blog ..Online Marketing Tips For Small Offline Businesses
Hi Alex,
Sorry you had so much trouble getting your money back. Like Kathy said, it is a shame that businesses let things like this happen.
I ran an off line business for 42 years and was away many times during those 42 years, but I always made sure that my employees knew exactly what my policies where for any foreseen situations.
That is all that in necessary.
Herschel´s last blog ..Get The FastWebFormula Bonus And Learn Internet Marketing Techniques Quickly
Sorry to hear what happen to you Alex and thank you for sharing this post to make us aware about HostICan.
Aaron´s last blog ..Today on the Spot – WWE Smackdown vs Raw 2011- WWE All-Stars
Add Fatcow to this list, there hosting is terrible, downtime quite often, slow load times and ftp problems. I even got an email 1/5 into my term telling me my account was going to be deleted, had to call them to get it sorted.
Matthew´s last blog ..Financial Advisors – Should you trust them
Thanks but am not creating a list here – just sharing my personal experience with a very specific host
I remember how one of my friend loose all her three years valuable wordpress database as her hosting site runaway closing his business in between. I always insist on world class well known branded hosting to my readers.
Shanker Bakshi´s last blog ..Is Your Blog Ready for New facebook Search Engine
Even the best hosting can have server issues and failed drives, etc. But generally they do backups and you should advise your readers to do them also- cause ya never know…..
Kathy Pop´s last blog ..Google Analytics- Is It Accurate
What a nightmare…congratulations on your refund. That just goes to show you that as a consumer you can still put pressure on an organization to do the right thing.