I just got an e-mail from SiteUpTime which listed a monthly summary of all the times my site has been down in the last month.  The list was blank.  When StartLogic was my host I used to get at least one notice, and often two or three, every day.

A recent comment to this post reminded me of the billing problems I had with StartLogic.

I was running two sites there, davehitt.com, and podcastpeers.org.  My increasing disgust with their crappy performance and non-existent support inspired me to move davehitt.com to DreamHost, but I was putting off moving Podcast Peers because the heart of it was a forum, and moving forums is a major PITA.   (Moving a static site is much easier – you just copy the files to your new host and point the domain at the new host’s name servers.)  However, their daily outages meant I wasn’t going to be able to put it off much longer.

I received an e-mail notice that my hosting for davehitt.com was running out in a month, and they would automatically bill my credit card for the amount (I think it was about $120, but don’t recall exactly) when it came due.  I wrote back and said I had moved the site, that if they were paying attention they would see there was no traffic to it (the files were still there, because I didn’t bother to delete them), and that they were not to bill me.  Two weeks later they notified me again.  Once again, I told them not to.  I even logged on to the site and canceled my account for that domain.  Sure enough, they socked my CC on the appointed date.

I called, pissed, and told them to take the charges off my card.  They said it would take two weeks.  When I told them that was unacceptable they said “Sorry, that’s the way we do it.”  How’s that for customer service?  It takes them a moment to fraudulently charge your card, but two weeks to get around to correcting their mistake.  Two weeks later they still hadn’t refunded my money, so I called again, and finally got my refund.

Calling Startlogic is not fun either.  It takes at LEAST an hour on hold before you get through to anyone, and then they often “accidently” disconnect you.

So now they’ve managed to get even worse – now they’re charging $35 to refund a charge that shouldn’t have been made in the first place.  I guess when your reputation keeps new customers away the only way to make a profit is to screw ex-customers.

BTW, I’ve been very happy with DreamHost.  I did move the Peer Awards over there, and also host Bloodwitness.com with them.  All the sites all under the same account, and they don’t charge any extra for multiple sites, which is pretty sweet.  Their support is very good.  They do it through e-mail, which they respond to quickly.  If you want to call it’s ten bucks for three calls, which is more than reasonable.  (They’re losing money at that rate.)  When my sites got hacked (because I’d neglected a WordPress update) they were able to restore a copy of everything – the static files and the databases, (which they conveniently had on hand) with a minimum of hassle.

If you’re considering them, sign up for a year with the promo code HITTMAN and you’ll get $50 off.

In the meantime, don’t forget: StartLogic Sucks!