My Namecheap Hosting Nightmare

I use Namecheap to host my domains and am very happy with that side of doing business with them.  They have a coupon every month, give you a year of private registration with every domain, and I don’t have to worry about my domains being swiped (like I’ve heard of happening with Godaddy).

Just over a year ago, they released a new hosting service that I decided to use to separate some domains from my main server (which I have at Kiosk and their service rocks).

I also used it to host some videos to keep my server from dragging and loading slowly (this was from the days before Amazon S3).

I added a few domains including 3 sales pages and a blog.

Then, the problems started…

First, my sites literally stopped working.  The web page and image files were all still there, they just didn’t show or had errors when I would type in the main address.  This was all happening during a product release, which I had hosted on my plan with them.

After contacting their support and waiting awhile, they basically said it wasn’t their fault and nothing was wrong.

So, I re-uploaded my files for the main site I had traffic going to and it worked again.

Then, a month later, my hosting plan got suspended.

It turns out that the WordPress Plugin Podpress has files inside of it with the word “torrent” in them.  I was not doing anything wrong and my account hadn’t been hacked.  It was just that word being on their server that sent up red flags.

It took over a week to explain to them that I wasn’t doing anything wrong and got my plan reinstated.

I requested compensation for the down time and they replied with a direct “No”.

The final straw came this month.  I left every site down a year ago except one.  It was also the site that had all of my video files attached to it.

I began getting emails from people that had purchased my Traffic Manifesto that the videos inside were sending them to pages that said my account was suspended for nonpayment.

Now, I can be a touch forgetful at times, so I figured I must have forgotten to pay the bill.

I logged in to their site and tried to pay the bill and it stated that I’d already paid it and was up to date.  I went and checked my receipts and they were right.

I immediately transferred all of the domains to my server, uploaded about 4 GB of video files, and switched the DNS there.

I’ve NEVER experienced such rotten service, or a more horrible hosting company in my life.  They suck, so don’t ever use them.

As a lesson, don’t sell something if you can’t provide a great product and a solid experience for your customers.

UPDATE – I was contacted by Namecheap’s VP of their hosting and he profusely apologized.  He gave me one of their VPS plans for free for a full year to make up for it.  That’s the beauty of social media