HostGator Sucks! My Website Was Suspended Without Warning, Then They Demanded To See My Passport?

By   |  August 16, 2014

In an age of rampant identity theft, you’d think that asking for scanned copies of a “passport” would be reserved for, oh I don’t know… Homeland Security.

But here we are, well into 2014, and web hosting companies like HostGator (among some others) still believe they are entitled to ask for scanned copies of your “government identification” AND credit card, apparently – not to mention abruptly shutting off your website for unspecified reasons, based on some whim of some anonymous person working in some anonymous department of their company.

At least, that’s what happened when I recently launched a small WordPress website.

But let’s back up just a little bit.

More Invasive Than Airport Security

Prior to 2013, I had crossed paths with HostGator several times over the years, both as a web hosting customer and also referring several SMB clients their way. In general, they were always a pleasure to work with, and it was always an easy place to send clients because I knew they had reliable phone and chat support – plus, I kinda always figured they were “too big to fail.” I continued to refer clients to them long after I had personally ceased being a customer a few years ago – that is, until last week, when for some idiotic reason I chose to setup a microsite on their basic hosting package.

I had briefly forgotten that Endurance International Group – the “mafia” of the web hosting world, and the largest player in the industry – had acquired HostGator in 2012. (And in hindsight, I had noticed a very obvious decline in the quality of their affiliate program over the past few years, to the point of unsubscribing from their obnoxious, spammy newsletter updates.)

For years, I had read horror stories about their parent company, EIG, and its associated web hosting brands. Like so many others do, I figured those stories would never happen to me, and had not written off doing business with HostGator. (In fact, I’ve made thousands of dollars over the years referring people to HostGator’s services, so I have quite a bit to lose from cutting off ties with their company, even now.)

Boy, was I f*cking wrong.

A few days ago, I began working on a new website project hosted on the HostGator servers, and had saved all my data in WordPress using their control panel. That is, my payment via PayPal was already accepted, my account approved, and my HostGator server setup with all login credentials and FTP access already forwarded to me.

A few days later, I woke up and was ready to expand my Facebook advertising campaign (which I was using to validate a business idea by way of a squeeze page), when I happened to notice that for some reason, my entire website was missing. In its place was a page full of spammy ads and promotions offered by HostGator and their advertising partners. Like a band of dirty pirates, HostGator had commandeered my entire website during the night while I was asleep, and was profiting from all of my website’s traffic – without ever having said a word to me:

hostgator-spam-1

That’s strange, I thought to myself. I don’t remember asking HostGator to delete my website and replace it with spam that they profit from each time it is clicked.

I wanted to reach out and grab that smirking lady who had invaded my homepage without permission by the teeth and throw her across the internet.

Unapologetic, Unregulated, Monopoly

Figuring they must be having some critical datacenter issues or otherwise, I quickly hopped on their customer support chat portal – which by the way, had a wait queue of 30+ minutes BOTH times that I attempted to get help – and was connected with “Jason J.” who apparently is a Junior Administrator at HostGator. “I see we are awaiting the required government issued photo ID to verify your account,” he said, as if my inquiry was utterly stupid to begin with.

Not believing what I was hearing, I replied, “You suspend accounts without telling the customers? That is HostGator policy? If this had been an eCommerce site in the middle of an advertising campaign, HostGator’s policy is to shut down the site without contacting the customer, potentially costing them thousands of dollars?”

This was not the HostGator that I loved and remembered. Oh God, what terrible mistake had I made coming back to this company? I quickly went back and scanned through all of my emails, looking for any tickets or emails from HostGator telling me they were concerned about my account security, or requesting more information from me. What I found was a generic email from [email protected] that had been sent while I was sleeping asking for a copy of my credit card, despite the fact I had paid with a verified PayPal account, and despite the fact that my website had been up and running for 2 days already. (Note: I don’t even HAVE a credit card.)

Jason. J. replied with a few links to HostGator’s FAQ section, and then, without answering my questions, closed the chat session and disappeared from my screen.

I jumped back into the chat queue. Here’s the main shizz:

(4:02:45pm) Nathan M.: Welcome to HostGator Live Chat. My name is Nathan! How may I assist you today?
(4:03:51pm) Jesse: does HostGator only do business with people who possess a passport or driver’s license
(4:04:40pm) Nathan M.: We need to see some sort of government issued ID.
(4:05:32pm) Jesse: what if someone doesn’t have government ID, you discriminate against them? isn’t that like refusing to bake a cake for a gay couple
(4:06:27pm) Jesse: or is HostGator a division of Homeland Security, I’m confused
(4:08:15pm) Nathan M.: Let me Verify you as the account holder so that we can proceed. For security purposes, I will need to verify your identity by having you provide your account’s billing credentials in the popup that will soon follow this message. I apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.
(4:08:28pm) Jesse: I ask, because my website was apparently suspended, without my knowledge, and I potentially lost thousands of dollars in advertising revenue because of this incident… the reason your team gave, before closing the chat suddenly, was that I never sent government ID… even though your team had never even contacted me about this during time of sale, or during my server setup, or when my site went live, or after I spent hours editing code which is now lost
(4:09:27pm) Jesse: I fail to see which policies of your company, or any laws, that I or my website broke and which justified shutting off my website without warning
(4:09:41pm) Nathan M.: We apologize for any inconvenience this may be causing at this time, however, we do include details about our verification
(4:09:55pm) Nathan M.: We apologize for any inconvenience this may be causing at this time, however, we do include details about our verification
process in Section 1 of our Terms of Service and I apologize if the verification process seems excessive, however this process
is in place to protect our customers, as well as ourselves from fraud.
(4:10:53pm) Jesse: what fraud? I paid with a verified PayPal account, what exactly is the risk your company is running? and no, you never told me to send any documents at time of sale, or during setup
(4:11:56pm) Nathan M.: We never said you committed fraud, we simply require verification for all incoming accounts.
(4:12:22pm) Nathan M.: It is your responsibility to provide accurate, current, and complete information on the registration forms, including an email address that is different from the domain you are signing up under. If there is ever an abuse issue or we need to contact you, we will use the primary email address we have on file. It is your responsibility to ensure that the contact information for your account, including any domain accounts is accurate, correct and complete at all times. HostGator is not responsible for any lapse in the Services, including without limitation, any lapsed domain registrations due to outdated contact information being associated with the domain. If you need to verify or change your contact information, please contact our sales team via email or update your contact information through the HostGator Billing and Support System. Providing false contact information of any kind may result in the termination of your account. In dedicated server purchases or certain other cases, you may be required to provide government issued identification and possibly a scan of the credit card used for verification purposes. Failure to provide the information requested may result in your order being denied.
(4:12:27pm) Jesse: why? I fail to understand how pre-paying with a verified PayPal account puts your company at any risk of fraud
(4:13:11pm) Nathan M.: These are our Terms of Service.
(4:13:38pm) Jesse: are you a robot Nathan or is this a real human I’m chatting with, I’m confused
(4:13:47pm) Nathan M.: I am a real human and not a robot.
(4:13:57pm) Nathan M.: I am stating facts from our Terms.
(4:15:31pm) Jesse: you seem to only repeat blocks of text provided to you by the system…
(4:16:18pm) Jesse: does your company prevent you from answering in ways that require not pasting blocks of text
(4:16:19pm) Nathan M.: You may view these blocks of text at this link http://www.hostgator.com/tos
(4:17:03pm) Jesse: Nathan, don’t get snippy, the new founding fathers are probably monitoring this chat
(4:17:30pm) Nathan M.: We take our security and our customers security very seriously. That includes our terms of service.
(4:17:38pm) Jesse: I’m still waiting to hear if HostGator only does business with people who possess a government ID
(4:18:18pm) Nathan M.: If any customer is unable to provide a government issued ID then we will be unable to provide services to them.
(4:19:23pm) Jesse: that would seem to go against certain laws that protect against discrimination?
(4:19:58pm) Jesse: or does HostGator see itself as a governmental organization of some kind
(4:20:16pm) Nathan M.: I am failing to understand what we are discriminating against when we require this from all of our customers.
(4:20:54pm) Nathan M.: We do not discriminate against certain countries, this is a policy that we have in place for all of our customers.
(4:22:40pm) Jesse: as I’ve broken no policies of your company’s TOS – which is a contract between me, the customer, and HostGator – you shut down my website for no reason other than I don’t have a government ID to provide you, correct?
(4:23:20pm) Jesse: and you did so without even warning me about your desire for my government ID, I woke up and my website was full of spammy HostGator ads, while my advertising campaign was beginning.
(4:23:47pm) Jesse: because you had parked my domain without even a warning, or an email, or phone call, or conversation of any kind…
(4:23:56pm) Nathan M.: You were warned about this in the Terms of service which you checked the box to agree to when you signed up for our services.
(4:25:19pm) Jesse: hmm, I didn’t check anything that says “HostGator will abruptly shut off your website for reasons they will not explain to until you wait for 35 minutes on their buggy chat portal to ask them why it happened”
(4:26:19pm) Nathan M.: In the terms of service it specifically states that

You may be required to provide government issued identification and possibly a scan of the credit card used for verification purposes. Failure to provide the information requested may result in your order being denied.
(4:27:21pm) Jesse: my order was already CONFIRMED… HostGator provided login details to my server, FTP passwords, and my files and database were already installed and my website live and running.
(4:27:57pm) Nathan M.: Yes and we provide limited access for a short time, until it is time to verify the account.
(4:28:30pm) Jesse: at no point during point of sale, or during server setup, or during my website going live was any request made by HostGator for any “government ID”… I went to sleep, came back, and my website was full of spam ads.
(4:29:24pm) Jesse: limited access for a short time? that was not limited, Nathan, it was full server access and my website was up running and live for nearly 2 days, and then abruptly shut off without reason by your team.
(4:30:08pm) Jesse: please explain to me which policies or laws I broke to warrant such treatment
(4:30:56pm) Jesse: your company potentially cost me thousands of dollars in lost advertising, besides the negative reputation of my business among my potential customers
(4:31:00pm) Nathan M.: This is not a policy enforced just on you Jesse I assure you, this is documentation required from all of our customers.
(4:31:52pm) Nathan M.: The sooner your ID is sent in the sooner your package will be activated and your site will be up and running.
(4:32:11pm) Jesse: wow, so you treat many other customers like this? ballsy, very ballsy
(4:32:54pm) Jesse: MY SITE WAS ALREADY UP AND RUNNING… do you understand Mr. Nathan? my site was up and running, my advertising campaign had begun, and you shut off my website for no apparent reason
(4:33:50pm) Jesse: I had to wait in your chat queue – twice – for 35 minutes, just to figure out what was going on.
(4:35:05pm) Jesse: your lack of remorse speaks clearly to the attitude HostGator has with its customers
(4:35:55pm) Nathan M.: I sincerely apologize for the inconvenience this has caused you, however I assure you this is not against you and you only.
(4:36:59pm) Jesse: I asked “Jason J” for a backup of my website, in a desperate attempt to get my site back up, which I’ve been waiting for now for over 2 hours, on top of the nearly 12 hours that my website has been shut down already
(4:37:54pm) Nathan M.: If you have received a ticket, this process can take up to 48 hours to receive your backup.
(4:38:22pm) Jesse: are you serious? after this entire story I’ve just shared with you?
(4:39:02pm) Jesse: I must wait another 48 hours for my data?
(4:39:57pm) Nathan M.: That is correct
(4:42:02pm) Jesse: is there anything else you’d like to add to this conversation, before I put it up on Reddit for thousands of webmasters to read?
(4:42:10pm) Nathan M.: Was there anything else I can help you with that has not been addressed already?
(4:44:00pm) Nathan M.: Do you have any other questions for me today?
(4:44:52pm) Jesse: I’m assuming that’s a “no”
(4:45:27pm) Jesse: if you send me a copy of your passport and credit card, I will send you a copy of mine… deal?
(4:46:15pm) Nathan M.: Do you have any other issues I can assist you with today?
(4:47:19pm) Jesse: I don’t even know your last name here Nathan M. …I mean seriously, why would I send a minimum wage support technician a copy of my passport and credit card?
(4:48:13pm) Nathan M.: Jesse you are not personally sending me your information, you are sending this to the company.
(4:49:24pm) Jesse: how do I know you aren’t going to turn around and sell it to the highest bidder like that fat chick did on CNN… who’s risking more here really… me or you?
(4:50:50pm) Nathan M.: Our company is PCI compliant, we do not sell any personal information from any of the customers we have.
(4:52:01pm) Jesse: even the TSA doesn’t ask for my credit card when I board a plane to London… but even if they DID… I sure wouldn’t give it to those power-tripping rent-a-cops
(4:52:31pm) Jesse: how does HostGator trump Homeland Security? seriously, I don’t get it
(4:53:32pm) Nathan M.: I am sorry, but this chat has drifted off the topic of web hosting related assistance. If you don’t have any further questions related to web hosting, I will have to end this chat.

screenshot on imgur.com

77 minutes. That’s how long I chatted with Nathan M, but like a well-programmed cyborg he wouldn’t budge – not restoring my website, nor sending me a refund, nor sending me a backup of my website files and database.

I suppose if he’s making somewhere near minimum wage, perhaps I ate up somewhere around the $7.16 I initially paid for my hosting.

Meanwhile, EIG continues to devour competition, buying up every hosting company it can on its way to complete control over the North American web hosting industry. While the FCC debates net neutrality and forcing ISPs to become “common carriers” – in affect, something like public utilities – have we forgotten about Wall Street backed companies like EIG that are running an entirely different kind of net monopoly?

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17 Comments on “HostGator Sucks! My Website Was Suspended Without Warning, Then They Demanded To See My Passport?”  (RSS)

  1. I had a horrible experience with Hostgator too. Wrote about my main gripes with it (mainly rubbish support) a few days ago.

  2. Glad to see articles like this showing Hostgator for what it really is. I recently just wrote my own Hostgator review (see link) about why I hate it – main reason is lousy support since EIG brought them out.

  3. Hey Jesse, nice article!

    We at Cloudwards.net just finished a lengthy investigation on EIG after seeing so many horrible reviews of EIG, and we published it today. Would love to share it with you if you are interested :)

    Thanks!

  4. Blue Host, or even WIX basic hosting, is better than Host Gator!

  5. HostGator took down all 9 or websites, after we complied with a bogus DMCA complaint about a photo outside of a courthouse of someone in a high profile case. They claimed we needed to remove this photo which we immediately did and responded. Without Hostgator responding back to us, they removed all of our almost a dozen sites we host with them. Where is the due process? We depend on these sites for our business. Even the guy who answered the phone at their company said he was on our side and could not understand why they would do that!

  6. Yup f**k this host, their dirty take down cost me a client without so much as a warning. I say do what you can to embarrass these b******s.

  7. Hostgator conveniently cancelled my site for ‘terms of service’ violations, right after I paid my hosting fees for a year in advance.
    The same way I have paid them for the last 8 years they had hosted the very same site.
    They claim they sent me a notice by email, which I never got. Recently, I noticed they billed my credit card….AGAIN, for another years of hosting…even though they took the site off line 3 months ago!
    (After successfully billing me for the next 12 months!)

    I can’t access ANYTHING, not the cpanel, not the cloud backups I paid extra for, only the hostgator billing portal, where I get no answers.

    Please take your business elsewhere.
    My site was established, made a little money, but was more informational than profitable.

  8. I bought a 2-year shared hosting plan for Host Gator yesterday because of all the 30% off affiliate coupons flying around the internet. The SAME THING happened to me less than 24 hours after signing up. They gave me cPanel access and took my money, so I assumed everything was A-OK.

    I wake up this morning and find that they parked a set of advertisements and essentially wiped my website offline. WTF. No warning!? LESS THAN 24 HOURS. Why do they think it’s a good idea to just throw a website offline haphazardly? I honestly am considering asking for a refund as opposed to spending 2 more years with a host that’s so willing to drop your site. I can only imagine what happens when I’m a year or so in with a dedicated Userbase and I fall off the face of the Earth.

    Luckily I was smart and bought the domains from outside of Host Gator.

  9. I literally just moved my website to HostGator – an ecommerce site that has to be online 99% of the time and of course I log on to find it suspended. I’ll be cancelling my payment and moving on. Unbelievable and inexcusable.

  10. im having the same problem just now!!!

  11. Yes, I faced the same problem also!

  12. I had similar experience. I never received any mail from them requesting me the government ID and credit card photo. They simply suspended my website without any notice.

    Their live chat person was a junior staff. When I said that they should atleast send me a mail for verification request. She said they did send me a mail. In fact, I never received any such mail. She provided me with a link to their Terms and Conditions. And when I said I can not trust hostgator and would like to transfer to another hosting service, she just provided me with a link where I could cancel my hosting which seemed so rude. It appears they do not care about you and are just fine if you want to cancel their services. They won’t try to retain you as a customer.

  13. There is a way to pay hostgator without Credit card and Paypal. You can use (VCC) Virtual credit card to complete the payment.
    For more details follow the below link:
    http://www.hostgator-black-friday-2013.com/how-to-make-purchase-payment-for-hostgator-webhosting-without-credit-card-paypal-india

  14. Hey Jessie,
    I wnated to share some experience also on hostgator, I use to be in the hosting business for 14 years , sold off to a medium sized company. Then got into affiliate marketing . I rank A few big honest web host review sites. Hostgator was the biggest shaver of sales. I would send them 50-100 sales a month and by months end it was 8 that they owed me for. I would then do a whois look up on the domains and see 80 were actually still using there service and active websites. They were marking them non payable . I think on a big scale they got a lot of free customers from affiliates. I stopped promoting them.I sold off my site and started a new host. http://www.hostoople.com. If you ever need anything let me know.
    Nick

  15. @Anon,

    The problem with self-hosting your own websites or databases is that it’s simply not practical for performance. A site needs to be connected to internet backbones in a high traffic hub city to be reliable:

    https://collegetimes.co/loading-speed/

    @Josh, thanks very much for your kind offer, however I will probably return to one of my unmanaged LEMP servers at this point :)

  16. Hey Jesse — Sorry to have to contact you this way. Please delete this comment when you’ve gotten the message.

    We’ed like to offer you a free cPanel account for your small projects to test out our shared hosting service.

    Please contact me with a domain that you would like hosted.

    Thanks,

    Josh
    TransNOC
    [email protected]

  17. An excellent example of why you should not be using “hosting companies”. You should instead host the website on your own hardware, that you own and control, and that is attached to nothing more than your internet connection.

    Then you don’t have a 3rd party, in the middle of the night, simply deleting your site because they want some photocopies of identification.

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