Beware - CANCEL Hostgator hosting service is not easy

I just recently got a problem with Hostgator. At first, I understood them and decided to move to somewhere else. But then, I got a hard time canceling my account with them. (Already filled a second CANCELLATION form yesterday to cancel my account.) Until now, I'm still waiting for them to confirm my cancellation. That already took me three days and don't know when should this situation end.

Let me tell you what I faced with Hostgator from the beginning :

I have a website that moved from 1and1 due to the problem of too small of MySQL database size available. (Looking for Web Hosting?) I started by moved to BlueHost but because a CPU Quota limitation they have is pretty annoying. (Hard Limit) So, a week later, I decided to move to Hostgator. At Hostgator, I got quite some problem with them. They said my website used too much resources. (Strange thing is that, I never got such problem while I was at 1and1 and the website was completely moved with everything exactly the same except, there was a bit more data available. Well, the policy maybe different.)

They moved me twice to different servers which was fine. The last server I was on last for many months until last week, they suddenly blocked my website by changed permission on directory so that no one can access my website. (Actually, even I don't like this method but it's better than what I got with them before. What they used to do to me is to block my account, I couldn't even log-in to get my data.) The reason they gave to me was that I use too much of their CPU resource.

They told me in an e-mail that the only way I can stay with them was to go for Dedicate server which I found it at $174 on their website. That's like 20 times to what I've paid. So, I decided to move to another company that provide VPS for reasonable price. That took me a couple days to set everything up in Linux. (I'm a Windows user and I had no choice but to try to set up my own server under Linux.)

Once I was done with my new server, I decided to fill in CANCELLATION form at Hostgator. I got a reply 4 hours later saying that they have a special promotion for $75 for dedicate server. (Why didn't they said it earlier?) Well, that's a good price but because I already moved, I don't want to have any downtime on my website anymore. So, I just asked them a few questions about how long the special will last. (Since I may need it sometime in the future.) I also let them know that I still want to cancel my account. I got no answer ever since.

Then, yesterday, I filled another cancellation form in which, it took me a day without any reply. I still don't know what should I do. I may try to fill in a lot of cancellation form so that they don't have any excuse saying that they got the problem with their ticket system.

My conclusion, the service at Hostgator is ok. They usually reply within about 2-4 hours. (Except this cancellation thing.) Also, be careful when updating their ticket system. The ticket may disappear after contacting them through ticket a couple times. (I got a couple of that problem when I reply to ask for something but never get any answer back at all.)

A note for everybody who plans to use Hostgator .... Live Chat is really useless ... It's something similar to FAQ but you can have someone to interact with. They can't do anything more than that. For example, in my case, when my website got blocked, I've contact them through Live Chat first and the answer I got is... they don't know. They told me to e-mail support@hostgator.com to ask this question.

Another problem I got with them was when I moved server. When, I moved within their servers, they didn't really have same information. When I contact different support channels like .. billing@hostgator, support@hostgator and live chat. All of them have different information about my DNS, My IP Address, etc. Some of them know my old IP, DNS while some of them know my New IP, DNS.

If you read until here, you can tell that I didn't hate Hostgator. They do have some problem which I understand but the only thing I really disappoint is CANCELLATION.

The Good and The Bad : Hostgator

Good
- Live Chat - You can contact them anytime.
- Good price

Bad
- Live Chat knows only things in FAQ. They can't do anything else. Support@hostgator is what you really need to contact.
- CANCELLATION is difficult
- Ticket system is the worst. Communication can be lost. (But I'm not sure it was used as their excuse or not.)

Update (Feb 27, 08) : After I've posted this story, a few hours later, I got an e-mail from them saying that my account has been canceled. However, they gave me nothing about confirmation number. So, I have to keep watching my billing. However, I think everything should be ok now.