I kept writing them and nothing was done. The worst thing was when I was on vacation just this weekend. My customers account was disabled with an explanation that they were sending SPAM. (This is a valid corporate client). Green Geeks could not prove any spam sending from their server or maillog, they just cited that mail from this domain was being filtered at some third party service. THAT’S WHAT I’VE BEEN WRITING ABOUT YOU IDIOTS, FOR THE PAST COUPLE WEEKS!!!!! Your IP is blacklisted!!! I had to come back from vacation early cause Mr. George the tech support person said I had to answer my e-mail if I wanted support. Even though I told him I was not able to get to my email on my phone (this was over chat). Then later that night GreenGeeks phone lines were down, so I couldn’t even call them!! So now I’m changing hosts as fast as possible, these guys are morons and even worse they are morons that lie! I apologize to be insulting them like this, as I’m usually a mello guy, but unfortunately they deserve it.

Switched to Green Geeks a week ago, as it seemed like the best hosting company I had ever seen. I couldn’t believe I’d never seen it before. What an utter delight.

*queue horror movie music*

I’ve never had such bad customer service. I’m a very patient, understanding person, and I’m sure it’s because they are understaffed or something, but it’s been an utter disaster.

I was told that they would kindly move my files across, and not to update my site because they would be doing it that very afternoon. Imagine my delight and excitement at finding such a brilliant host.

They promised this every day for 7 days, and have *almost* moved it by today (they’ve messed up some files during the file transfer process).

They have been either unavailable or grumpy/tired.

At one point, after not receiving a reply on my urgent ticket for over a day, I tried to give the office a ring, but it played holding music for 10 minutes, then asked me to leave a message, then told me that the “users mailbox was not recieving messages”.

I went onto their livechat but the guy asked me to phone.

So no help over email, phone or livechat.

The migration was incomplete, and look 7 days.

The hosting is not set up correctly for Drupal (had to fiddle around with my php.ini for even my small Drupal site).

They changed my FTP password from my previous web host (whilst ‘transferring’ my files. They did this without permission, leaving me with a broken site on their server, and without letting me know what the new password was. When I used Livechat to ask what the new password was the guy told me patronisingly that they hadn’t changed the password. It took them a day to own up to it, and then they gave me the wrong password, so I am still locked out of my own files.

They were totally non-contactable for nearly 24 hours (I am on GMT).

What makes all this so much more sad is that I really wanted to like them! I was ready to forgive and forget each time they messed up as I really liked their website, and thought they looked amazing.

What a disaster.

Here is how the extortion works!

Green Geeks has a “Free domain for life” promotion, in which they claim that if a customer signs for a hosting plan they get a free domain for life. The truth is that it is a ‘domain name stealing exercise’, or a ‘force customer to host with green geeks for ever’ scam.

Here is the scam. When a customer signs up for website hosting with green geeks, and they get a new domain name or transfer their domain to green geeks, their domain name fee is deducted from the hosting plan. Inevitably it appears that the domain name was for free. However the scam is that, the customer is never ever given the account information to manage their domain name. Such that the customer can not independently renew their domain name or even transfer their domain name to another host.

Basicly a domain name belongs to the entity that has the domain name account information. In essence green geeks is owning this customers, domain name under the pretext that they have provided them with a domain name for free. When the domain name expires, if the the customer chooses not to renew their hosting plan with Green Geeks, but wants to retain their domain name or even transfer it to another host, they are asked to pay an ambiguous amount of money even upwards of $250. Refusal to renew your domain name with Green Geeks, will practically result in the customer losing their domain name unless they pay the asked amount of money to green geeks.

So if a customer has a premium domain name and does not want to renew with green geeks or does not want to lose it, they are forced to pay what ever amount of money that green geeks asks them to pay for domain name renewal or hosting plan renewal. Because the customer does not have their domain account information, they are at the mercy of green geeks. They cannot choose to host elsewhere. Note that at the time of Domain renewal, the customer’s hosting fees may have increased from what they paid previously at time of sign up. So this exercise can go on indefinitely as long as you host with Green geeks. In essence the customer does not own their domain name. If you request for your domain name acount information and want to transfer your domain name, you will be expected to pay an exorbitant amount of money. They claim that they are getting a refund they gave you initially for the Free domain name. they then charge you what ever they want.

So if you have held your domain for at least a year, you will have already obtained some form of internet notoriety, in the form of google page rank, or even dedicated website traffic, so it is also in green geeks interest that they keep your domain, They will make it as hard as possible for you to transfer your domain name, such that they themselves set up one of those advert based directed websites on your domain.

Please wait for a site operator to respond.

You are now chatting with ‘George’

George: Hello, my name is George, welcome to Green Geeks, may I have your name and how may I help you today ?

you: hi George

you: do you have your own servers ? whats the main IP

you: ?

George: Hello,

you: ?

George: Yes, we own our servers.

main IP?: IP?

George: IP address: 65.60.35.50

main IP?: thnx plz give a min

main IP?: who is SINGLEHOP.COM then ?

George: Our servers are in there facility.

main IP?: so you do not own your servers

main IP?: you rent them

George: We do own our servers.

George: Our datacenter is located in Chicago, IL and is one of the Greenest data facilities in North America. This state of the art facility is equipped with raised floors, climate control, fire suppression systems, 24/7 security, UPS & generators and water detection systems, to ensure that our customers data is safe and secure.

George: Server Details:

George: Intel Quad core processors with RAID 10 storage arrays, 4 GB DDR2/DDR3 Memory and 100Mpbs connection to the Switches. Multi-gig connectivity to our network’s edge routers.

George: http://www.greengeeks.com/why-us/our-datacenter.php

main IP?: I dont need another a description of the server

main IP?: why dont you tell me how it work meaning that the owner Tray went out a bought a sounple of servers and rented some floor space at singlehop.com is that what you are saying?

George: Yes please.

George: You can email sales@greengeeks.com to get further information regarding that.

main IP?: GAWD I HATE LIARS

main IP?: NO WONDERS THERE IS SO MUCH BS ON THE NET