I am a consultant and was hired by my client to handle problems the client was experiencing with the domain. The client was having problems with a high volume of spam mail arriving and had attempted to contact Bluehost regarding this matter, Bluehost was not the source of the spam,but Bluehost was no longer blocking spam to the client's mail box.
After repeated and failed attempts to get a response from Bluehost, my client contacted me about it. I suggested moving the website and mail to another hosting service, GKG.net who has an excellent reputation for fast and personal customer support and provides spam filtering as a feature for their service. I called and emailed Bluehost's technical support over the course of about 2 weeks. The domain was coming up for renewal in August and we wanted to make sure we succeeded in tranferring the domain before the expiration date, as my client did not want to renew service with Bluehost. During that time I spoke or corresponded with various people and received very poor and often conflicting assistance regarding our subsequent transfer of the domain, website and mail to GKG.net.Some of the information, provided by Bluehost, as to their requirements to begin the transfer, was very misleading and lead to the domain being blocked from transferring.
So that this is clear, the registrant email address on record was no longer valid. I asked Bluehost technical support if we should change that before attempting the transfer, knowing that if an email address on record is wrong, then the subsequent transfer notification email that is sent to the registrant or administrator would not be received and the required response from the registrant or administrator to authorize the transfer would never take place, causing the transfer to fail. The technician stated that we should definitely update the records for both the registrant and the administrator before attempting the transfer.
The technician guided me step by step on Bluehost's Website control panel for these steps. In fact the technician also provided step by step advise for cancelling the webhosting on Bluehost and the steps required to release the domain for transfer. When I contacted the registrar, wildwestdomains.com (WWD) concerning the denied transfers, they informed me that bluehost blocked the transfer, stating that the domain had already been transferred in the last 60 days and would not be able to be transferred again for another 60 days. This would in fact have forced my client to have to renew with Bluehost for another year.
I advised them that Bluehost was wrong, that no transfer had been made since the domain was original created with Bluehost and that we were wanting to transfer the domain away from Bluehost, because of their incompetent handling of this matter. WWD then advised us that Bluehost had wrongly advised us to change registrant information, and that by doing so ahd in fact locked the domain for 60 days. We would have to take the matter up with Bluehost. Now just so this is clear, Bluehost during the first week of this process, had already authorized the transfer and issued my client the code(s) necessary for WWD to release the domain to GKG.net.
When I called Bluehost again regarding WWD's refusal to transfer, I was advised that we had made changes to the registrant information and that was the reason for the denial. I was told to speak with "Joseph" who could "possibly" arrange to fix the problem. I left 2 messages with "Joseph" to call me back. He never did. I then called WWD, and was advised to send an email to
generalmanager@wildwestdomains.com regarding our grievance with Bluehost. This email address turned out be invalid. I called WWD again and this time was advised to send the email to
president@wildwestdomains.com. This time I got a response that proved to be the nail in the coffin for Bluehost. WWD after reading our lengthy explanation of the problems experienced with Bluehost, agreed to release the domain to GKG. Did the problems stop there? NO! When we had GKG.net re-submit the transfer request, Bluehost again sent email to the client, expressing their concern as to whether the domain transfer should be done and asked the client to access the Bluhost side and go through a rediculous set of steps to process the transfer.
My client sent me the email Bluehost sent and asked me to manage it. Believe me when I say, this company definitely does NOT have a well informed technical support staff. We did finally manage to get the transfer completed. The site is now transferred and is running on GKG's servers, email is working. I figured we could move on, knowing that Bluehost and WWD were out of the picture. 2 Days later I received an email from Joseph. Remember him? The person who was supposed to handle it? He informs us that we cannot transfer the domain until September 11th, because the domain is locked for the 60 days because of the change to the registrant information. Is this person an idiot? Does he not even bother to check on the domain's CURRENT status? Hello!, GKG has it already. So I fired off a simple response, something to the effect of, Try doing your job and research the problem BEFORE you send out inaccurate emails. I would like to say this is done, but no.. there's more. My client received another email yesterday. This one tops them all.
"From: BlueHost.Com [mailto:support@bluehost.com]
Sent: Friday, August 18, 2006 9:39 PM
To: (my clients email address)
Subject: (my client's domain name) Registrar Changes Detected
This is a courtesy note to inform you that (my client's domain name) is no longer
registered through BlueHost.Com.
It has been transfered to another Registrar.
If you wish to have it registered with us again, you'll have to transfer it
back.
And, just to let you know, your domain (my client's domain name) is totally
nonoperational at the moment.
I'm sorry that your new hosting provider isn't working out so well.
You may login to your Domain Manager here if you wish:
https://www.bluehost.com/dm/You do not need to respond to this message, but if you feel there has been a
mistake, or if you have questions or concerns, please let us know.
Thank you,
Bluehost Support
http://www.BlueHost.Comemail:
support@bluehost.comToll-Free: (888) 401-HOST
Need I say more?
Now just so we are clear on one final note, I mentioned GKG.net because they are a good solid no frills customer oriented company. They keep things simple, they answer their phone and they provide top notch Customer Service and Support! Call it a sales pitch, fine. But Service is where many of the hosting services fail miserably! Try calling ANY major host or registrar and see how long it takes to get a response at all and then actually get your problems resolved..
I have been using GKG.net for my 8 domains and for all my clients since 1998. They are the example of trustworthy and loyal. Cheap is not the best choice if support is non-existant.
