Complaints

This profile includes complaints for HostPapa Inc's headquarters and its corporate-owned locations. To view all corporate locations, see Find Local Branches.

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  HostPapa Inc

  102 - 5063 North Service Road Burlington, ON L7L 5H6

  
• 

  HostPapa Inc

  1623 Military Road #1013 Niagara Falls, NY 14304

• 

  Host Papa, Inc.

  1623 Military Road #1013 Niagara Falls, NY 14304

The complaint text that is displayed might not represent all complaints filed with BBB. 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.

• Initial Complaint

  Date:01/11/2022

  Type:Product Issues
  Status:

  ResolvedMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  I purchased a ****** hosting package on October 20, 2022 with Hostpapa. After registering and logging into the ****** account, a system I've used for well over 10 years, I was not able to add domains to my account (which is the entire purposed of a hosting control panel like ******). The feature was not working (and I have attached a screenshot of the error). I was then forced to contact support to add the domain name.
  
  Over the next week, I was forced to submit three more support tickets for the same reason/problem (and each time I had to RE-explain the problem). After contacting support repeatedly, they would not resolve the issue permanently, so I was forced to move to another provider. I have never had this issue with any other ****** hosting provider.
  
  Finally I asked to cancel my account and ask for a refund (October 27th, 2022). They said no and I should read through their lengthy terms of service. However, the plain text on their homepage reads (and I've attached a screenshot of their page with this text):
  
  100% satisfaction guaranteed
  Our services are backed by an unconditional guarantee. Try our services risk-free.
  
  I have requested a refund and they have declined. I have no further recourse but to submit this grievance.
  
  Thank you.

  

  Business Response

  Date: 02/11/2022

  Hello *****,

  Thank you for getting in touch with us via BBB.

  I would like to being by extending our sincerest apologies for any misunderstanding caused on your end as a result of the way the refund situation has been handled. Please know that it was never our intention to cause any more trouble on your end as we’re only here to ensure that you along with your project succeed and that you have every resource available to enable you to do that.

  The errors encountered by you in ****** are due to a limitation that all of the web hosting providers enforce on their shared web hosting servers. As my colleagues have already explained a few days ago under Ticket #*******, the reason why we don't allow remote domains is that we had clients with malicious intents adding thousands of add-on domains that didn't belong to them (they hunted unused domain names) and then added redirections towards malicious or
  phishing websites. 

  The limitation is in place to ensure your safety and prevent any unwanted events from happening as a result of malicious intent.

  Therefore, whenever someone tries to add a domain in ****** that doesn’t point to our servers, they will encounter the error you mentioned in this complaint. The only way to add a domain name to a ****** account is by pointing that domain name to our name-servers or by contacting us and having it added for you after certain verification measures are passed to ensure the veracity of the ownership. 

  Concerning the refund, from what I can see, my colleagues from the billing department have already processed a full refund a few days ago under Ticket #*******. If you would have any questions or concerns regarding this, please reply to that ticket and submit your inquiries to my colleagues. They will be more than happy to get back to you and help you through it.

  Have a great day, *****!

  
  Regards,
  Nicolae
  Customer Happiness Manager
  HostPapa Inc.

  Customer Answer

  Date: 02/11/2022

  
  
  Better Business Bureau:
  
  
  
  I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID ********, and find that this resolution is satisfactory to me.
  
  
  
  
  Sincerely,
  
  
  
  ***** ******

• Initial Complaint

  Date:31/10/2022

  Type:Sales and Advertising Issues
  Status:

  ResolvedMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  COM-Web Hosting Starter Annually Aug-18-2023 Active
  Manage
  COM-WP Pro -Annually Oct-24-2023 Active
  
  i need a refund for both service above, i placed order on oct 24 for hosting plan after hostpapa kept telling me i need to upgrade my hosting plan thats why i was having errors on my site. they lied, my site was only getting 2 visits per day nothing big. also need refund for hosting plan web hosting starter i paid for in august 18th.

  

  Business Response

  Date: 01/11/2022

  Hello ****,
  Thank you for reaching out to us through BBB.
  I’d want to begin by apologizing for any confusion that the resource-limits situation may have caused on your end. It has never been our intention to create any kind of difficulty, as our sole interest is in seeing you and your project flourish.
  Initially, my colleagues from the Solutions Department had reached out to you based on the volume of hits your websites were receiving from a variety of sources. A large number of hits can be generated despite a small number of unique visitors due to things like search engine and malicious bots, poorly built website resources (such as plugins), etc.
  In a shared web hosting environment, when one account exceeds the allotted resources, it affects the performance of the entire server and therefore all of the other accounts that are housed on that server. Our goal was to prevent this from happening while also guaranteeing that your project is not severely impacted and that you have the necessary resources to support your project's growth and success.
  If an upgrade is required, we'll take care of it for you as long as you give us the green light. Once everything has been resolved, we will issue the service upgrade and the corresponding payment invoice. As far as I can tell, a new service was purchased from your end, which resulted in a provisioning problem due to the domain name already being hosted on our servers. As a result, the provisioning of the new service/product has been delayed.
  Because of this, we have a procedure in place for handling similar circumstances that calls for us to carry out the upgrade on our end, which will make things easier for you and help us avoid future similar problems.
  My coworkers have already cancelled the newly acquired services and refunded the money via Ticket #*******. Invoice number ************** has been disregarded.
  In reference to the preceding service, which you paid for on August 19 via invoice **************, including the following services:
  COM-Web Hosting Starter (*********************.com) (COM-WHB-S)
  COM Domain Registration - Register (*********************.com) (CO-DREG)
  COM-Domain Privacy (*********************.com) (CODPRI)
  A refund for the unused portion of the service will be issued on a prorated basis (since this is now out of our 30 days money-back guarantee).
  Using Ticket #*******, my colleagues from the billing department will provide you with updates on this procedure. If would have any concerns regarding this, feel free to reach out to them using this ticket once they handle this for you.
  Once again, please accept our apologies for any confusion over this matter, and while we're sorry to see you go, we hope that my response was able to clear everything up and that I’ve managed to properly explain the overall situation.
  Have a great day ahead, ****!

  Regards, 

  Nicolae

  Customer Happiness Manager

  HostPapa Inc.
  

  Customer Answer

  Date: 08/11/2022

  
  
  Better Business Bureau: 

  i believe they refunded me now. 
  
  
  
  I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID ********, and find that this resolution is satisfactory to me.
  
  
  
  
  Sincerely,
  
  
  
  **** ****

• Initial Complaint

  Date:26/09/2022

  Type:Billing Issues
  Status:

  ResolvedMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  Hostpappa is trying to ****** money from me. They sent an email September 21st stating they will automatically bill my credit card for extraneous charges. They also plan to ***** my domaine name that I have purchased from another company! I am furious at the attempt to ****** money from me.

  

  Business Response

  Date: 27/09/2022

  Hello Jodie,
  
  My name is Nicolae and I am the Customer Happiness Manager here at HostPapa Inc.
  
  I
  would like start by apologizing for any misunderstanding and confusion
  that has been generated around the renewal of your services.
  
  First
  of all, I want to clarify the confusion regarding your domain name.
  According to Order #****** which has been submitted by you on
  Oct/22/2021 when you initially signed up with us, the services acquired
  are:
  
  Web Hosting Starter (***********************.ca)
  
  This is your web hosting service which gives you access to all the functions such as emails, website content, databases, etc.
  
  Concerning
  the domain name services, you decided to transfer your domain name to
  us when you signed up with HostPapa, therefore, we will manage the
  renewal of your domain name. As you can see below, the domain name
  transfer service is included on the initial invoice and the order:
  
  Domain Registration - Transfer (***********************.ca)
  
  This is your domain name service included with the web hosting plan. This is
  included for free for the first year. After the first year, it will
  renew at regular rates.
  
  My colleague from the Domains team
  notified you through email on Oct/28/2021 that your domain transfer
  request failed, and you responded on the same day with the EPP Code
  required to transfer the domain to HostPapa. You may see the specifics
  of this transfer request by navigating to your dashboard > My Support
  > Ticket Number: *******.
  The domain is now managed by
  HostPapa as
  the domain transfer was accomplished thanks to the EPP Code you
  provided. We would like to note that a domain transfer will fail if we
  do not get confirmation/acceptance from the Registrant (you).
  
  As a result, the transfer of the domain name has been performed with our consent, per your request.
  
  Regarding the renewals that were coming on Oct/22/2022 for the following services:
  
  Protection Power - Basic (***********************.ca)
  Website Backup (***********************.ca)
  
  These
  are add-on services which you have opted in for, according to Order
  #****** submitted on Oct/22/2021. These services renew annually.
  
  The
  only service that renews every 3 years, as per your initial order, is
  the web hosting service and this indeed, is set to renew on Oct/22/2024.
  
  You
  may always verify this information by logging into your HostPapa
  dashboard and navigating to the My Billing section - Invoice
  **************. As you can see below, you will be able to view all of
  the services you contracted with HostPapa along with their respective
  agreements inside this section:
  
  Web Hosting Starter (***********************.ca) (********) Oct/22/2021 - Oct/22/2024
  Protection Power - Basic (***********************.ca) (********) Oct/22/2021 - Oct/22/2022
  Domain Registration - Transfer (***********************.ca) (*******) Oct/22/2021 - Oct/22/2022
  Website
  Backup (***********************.ca) (*********) base price ($ 0.00 /
  Year) Backup Plan: 1GB Storage (+$ 19.95 / Year) Oct/22/2021 -
  Oct/22/2022
  
  The full context about this confusion was clarified by
  my colleagues in Ticket #******* on September 24th, 2022, and the
  add-on services (Backup + Protection Power) were also cancelled at your
  request.
  
  Lastly, I want to reassure you that there was never any
  intent to ****** you or pursue ******* behavior, as you have claimed in
  this thread and in the ticket. Every piece of information stated above
  and by my colleagues in the ticket I've referenced is completely
  accessible from your HostPapa dashboard and fully transparent
  
  To that end, I hope that I have succeeded in making this situation perfectly clear.
  
  Have a great day ahead, Jodie!
  
  Regards,
  Nicolae.

  Customer Answer

  Date: 27/09/2022

  
  
  Better Business Bureau:
  
  
  
  I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID ********, and find that this resolution is satisfactory to me.
  
  
  
  
  Sincerely,
  
  
  
  ***** ********