GreenGeeks Unethical

The Short Explanation Of What GreenGeeks.com Did To Me.

I had been with GreenGeeks for over 6 years on a plan that included one free domain name for the lifetime I was in the plan. At first they tried to charge me full price of website hosting for a three year renewal, no break in price. I said I wanted to go month to month then they cut my price in half. Next they billed me for domain name renewal. I complained that it shouldn’t be included. They then charged my card the next day before responding to me and 92 days outside of when my domain name needed to be registered. Most domain name registers renew 30 days out from the renewal date and you can’t renew outside of 90 days. Their response to me was that I was correct about the free domain name for the lifetime that I was on the plan and that they were giving me a credit on my account. I could see the credit and asked them to credit my credit card. They refused. I told my credit card that GreenGeeks did not have my authorization for this charge and my credit card company credited me. GreenGeeks.com suspended my account because of my getting back my credit. You can read the full story below along with the documentation and how they continued to mistreat me including not contacting me to resolve the problem for three weeks and continuing to charge me. I suspect the three week wait was them trying to inflict pain on me, all very unethical.

Things I Have Learned From This Experience With GreenGeeks.com Website Hosting And To Know Before Selecting A Website Hosting Service.

1.      Website hosting companies run the gamut of reliability and ethical treatment of their customers and they can turn on you on a dime. It is better to be suspicious if something seems out of the ordinary like a high bill for renewal on a year, two or three renewal. If they put a renewal bill for say three years at full price, demand to go month to month and prepare to leave for another website hosting company. You should get some sort of break from full price if you are paying anywhere in advance. Greengeeks tried to charge me the full month to month price for a three year advance payment. It does not make sense for you the customer to pay full price in advance for a three year contract when you can just pay month to month for the same price.

If things start getting weird with your website hosting provider, like unexpected amounts for bills, trying to force you to another plan, and not answering question fully or beating around the bush, it is time to move and get a new website hosting provider.

2.      One free domain name registration for the lifetime of the plan is not worth it. It may seem like a savings but it is actually a hook to keep you with a website hosting service making it hard to extricate yourself from their service. They can hold your domain name hostage as GreenGeeks.com did to me. When you eventually transfer, they may charge you a transfer fee. They often will charge you for domain name privacy each year as an option. The price is often the same as registering the domain name would be. Many domain name registers include this for free.

A big advantage of not having your domain name registered with your website hosting company is if anything starts going sideways you can quickly switch to another website hosting company by uploading your website to another website hosting company and pointing your domain name to the new website hosting.

I use NameSilo.com as my domain name register and have been for years for most of my domain names. They are a primary domain name register. Domain name registration is fast. They are very competitive in price and as an option they include privacy registration for free. They lock down the domain name unless you want to move it. Their website is antiquated but it gets the job done. Getting the job done and being up front is what counts.

Many website hosting services are not the domain name register and contract this out. They are secondary domain name registers. If you do a “who is search” of your domain name, you can see your actual domain name register and if your address and phone number are public.

3.      A money back guarantee is only worth it if the company stands behind it. GreenGeeks.com only offers a 30 day money back guarantee. I knew this going in over 6 years ago. Many website hosting companies do not have a time limit guarantee and will refund the rest of your unused portion of your website hosting service. They may cost a little bit more but they often have more service options or may include other services for free. GreenGeeks.com tries to act and market themselves as a top website hosting company, but they lack some services. The conditions of a money back guarantee offered by a website hosting company is good sign of how much trust you should have of their website hosting service.

4.      If you have multiple websites, I think it is a good idea to have at least two website hosting providers. It does cost more but you spread your risk and it allows you to quickly change where a website is hosted in case one of your website hosting providers goes sideways.

5.      E-mail – If a website hosting company freezes your account they will freeze your e-mails. Most website hosting providers use an e-mail service. It will take a little time from them freezing your account to stopping e-mail. In that time you may be able to move mail. If you do not have another website hosting provider and your domain name is at a register and not with the website hosting company freezing you, you can shift quickly to another website hosting provider, redirect your domain name to the provider, set up e-mail accounts like you had previously and then you will continue to receive e-mails from the switch on. You will not be able to move your previous e-mail even if you have them on an IMAP account setting until your account becomes frozen. E-mails and domain names held as hostages are the biggest things a website hosting provider can hold over you. Both can be mitigated.

It is good practice to move or copy all e-mail to local account and folders if you use an e-mail program like Thunderbird or Outlook. The local account is located at the bottom of the account list. There are advantages to keeping e-mail on the mail server as backup, but there are pitfalls.

Another possible solution is having all your e-mails forwarded to a Google, Hotmail or something like that e-mail account. There are also separate “pay for” e-mail only providers.

You are very vulnerable if your practice is to only sign on to your website hosting e-mail provider account and read and store your e-mails online.

6.      Courts and lawyers- If your account is frozen over a dispute with your website hosting provider, it can be hard to resolve. I never once was able to talk to a manager or anyone who had the power to make a decision to resolve my problem. It took them three weeks to respond to my support ticket with how much they wanted from me to unfreeze my account. So you think lawyers and courts, yeah if you have a big enough loss that can be documented.

Most “Terms of Service” (TOS) of website hosting companies will state that lawsuits must be filed in the Superior Court in the place of their location. Furthermore, even though in my case I never asked for GreenGeeks to be my domain name register and they essentially agreed they made a mistake, the alternative is to file in small claims court. Unfortunately, with a few exceptions, small claims must be filed in the court of the district of the defendant.

So unless you have a big, economic case against your website hosting provider the most you can do is warn other customers. The only leverage customers have to be treated right is for customers to leave bad website hosting services for good ones.

7.      Back up your website locally with every change. Backing up should be a given. A local copy makes moving your website easier and possible if you are locked out of a website hosting account.

GreenGeeks.com Unethical

My account has been suspended since                  , through no fault of my own.

I started receiving website hosting services from Green Geeks on                 2012, and things had been going smoothly until the suspension. The website hosting service that I agreed to and continue to be in is EcoSite (Legacy) which included a free domain registration for lifetime as long as I was in the plan. As you can see from my recent 3 year EcoSite renewal invoice, Support Ticket, I am still on the same plan. In Support Ticket- I specifically decline to switch my website hosting plan and stated I was fine with being in a legacy EcoSite plan. In response, your representative, Ralph Ramirez, keeps me on legacy and says that if I want to migrate to a new platform in the future please let GreenGeeks know.

From your own Term of Service http://www.greengeeks.com/legal/tos.php:


My account invoice list clearing shows that I was never charged for domain name registration outside of website hosting plan until                .

On         , I noticed a pending invoice in my invoice list that was billing for my domain name. I opened a new Support Ticket ID #            and asked why my domain name was not included in my plan. GreenGeeks charged me $13.95 for domain name renewal on              before responding to my support ticket, before the due date of the invoice              , and 92 days before my domain name was set to expire on               .

You cannot renew a domain name outside of 90 days of the expiration date. GreenGeeks actually renewed my domain name on               . On Support Ticket             , a GreenGreeks representative acknowledges the issue and says a service credit has been added to my account. I ask for my credit card to be credited as I did not ask GreenGeeks to be a domain name register outside of my website hosting plan. If you were going to charge me regardless of your free domain name for life and your own Terms of Service, I had 90 days to choose a different domain register which I already had.

Since GreenGeeks, on its own accord, charged me for domain registration outside of my website hosting plan, it is a charge that was unauthorized. After requesting Green Geeks to credit my card and GreenGeeks failing to do so, I disputed the unauthorized charge with my credit card company               . When GreenGeeks realized I had received my chargeback, they suspended my website hosting services and account.

I have never entered into any agreement with GreenGeeks to be a domain register outside of my website hosting plan. I never changed my website hosting plan from my original "Free Domain Name for Lifetime" website hosting plan. This Support Ticket thread shows that I turned down moving to a new plan and wanted to stay on my original plan. GreenGeeks domain registration charge and new domain name registration service were unauthorized.

I made a number of calls to people in billing, none of whom could help me, but understood what was happening. They said they would leave messages to management and Joshua Dargie. I even offered to reverse the charge back and had that set up with my credit card company. It required GreenGeeks to accept the reversal. In 5 days, GreenGeeks did not accept the reversal and that window closed with the credit card company. No manager ever tried to contact me. Customer service people marked their message to management as urgent.

I have made repeated attempts to correspond with Joshua Dargie. Three weeks and I get a standard support reply from Joshua Dargie. Three weeks to reply, a reply that could have been sent shortly after the charge back. In the reply, you said I could reverse the chargeback with my credit card company and if I could not do that I would be charged $108.90 for unsuspending my account and my “fraudulent chargeback”. I did earlier try and reverse the chargeback. GreenGeeks never did anything. Was it a punishment or just more poor customer service?

I sent GreenGeeks a certified, signature required letter so I know they do know the details and have no excuses.

Furthermore, Geengeek tried to charge me full price renewal for paying 3 years in advance with no break in price for paying in advance. Slimy. Supporting Support Ticket Documentation

Things To Look For In Selecting A Website Hosting Provider

Website hosting is a very competitive industry, so pricing reflects more what services and features you get. A lower price may not be a good deal but reflects fewer services or features or a lower tier website hosting provider. So really look at what you get when making comparisons.

1.      Money back guarantee. There are now many website hosting providers that provide a money back guarantee that will refund any unused portion of your prepaid amount. There is no time limit. Some only offer a 90 day money back guarantee. GreenGeeks.com only offers a 30 day money back guarantee.

2.      Backup website and databases. I would say all website hosting providers claim to backup. The better ones allow you access to the backups through the C-panel. This is important specifically if you have databases and need to go back a day or more. GreenGeeks does not allow access to backups through your C- Panel.

3.      SSL certificates are becoming not just for websites that transfer sensitive information like credit cards between the user and the website. They also help establish that your website is legitimate and not a spoof website to deliver malware. Search engines are prioritizing websites with SSL certificates.

4.      SSL certificates were and still are an “add on” sale. There are free flexible SSL certificates through Let’s Encrypt https://letsencrypt.org/ and Cloudflare. Many website hosting providers now allow you to apply either or both through your C-panel. If you use Cloudflare, you cannot use a website redirect to https or you will get a 404 problem or certificate problem. Redirect is done through an .htaccess file located at the root of your website. A .htaccess redirect to https looks like this:


This cannot be used with Cloudflare making a SSL certificate from Let’s Encrypt or from anywhere else redundant. The above can be used with any SSL certificate.

For Cloudflare you would a .htaccess file with use just:


, or none at all.

5.      Some website hosting providers will allow you to purchase a dedicated IP address even on lower level shared hosting plans instead of using a shared IP address. On a shared IP address, if someone sharing the same IP address happens to be spamming or scamming, your website can get banned or blacklisted along with theirs and everyone else sharing the same IP address. You will probably not know it until your website disappears from search engines or your emails start getting blocked by ISPs. In shared hosting, others sharing the server can affect your site and cause problems. You can have different IP addresses on the same server. Some website hosting providers allow for the addition of a dedicated IP address on a shared plan for a cost. With some website hosting providers, it is included in their price plan. GreenGeeks does neither.

6.      “Unlimited” in reality is not unlimited, so don’t be afraid of website hosting plans that have a storage or bandwidth limit. In reality, most websites never hit the limit even if you host multiple websites in one plan. If you do hit a limit and need to upgrade to another website hosting plan, it can be a good problem to have. The only limit people may have is e-mail so pay attention to that detail. Many website hosting providers contract out e-mail handling to an e-mail company.

7.      Some website hosting providers give a flat rate per month or year(s) and not a discount price that may go up at renewal. Initially, part of my problem with GreenGeeks is that they tried to charge me full price on renewing for 3 years in advance with no discount for paying in advance. You need to stay on top of renewal prices.

8.      Most website hosting providers allow for unlimited website hosting on one account. Some do have a limit. In reality, if you have multiple websites, you should have two website hosting providers as stated above. You should not be dissuaded from a website hosting provider or plan by a limit on the number of websites you can host on the plan.

9.      Do not use proprietary website builders. This locks you into a website hosting company making it impossible to move to another website hosting company easily. There are many free CMS’s (Content Management System) that usually use php and databases to build websites. You can be a complete novice and build a website with Wordpress, Joomla and Drupal to name a few. These can be installed through the C-panel software installer like Softaculous. Having a database connected to your website does make it more difficult to move.

10.      Things most website hosting plans now include and if they don’t the website hosting company is not worth it: File Manager, FTP Accounts, Softaculous Apps Installer or similar installer, Php packages, php selector (If your php selector does not allow you to select the most current php version then you are on an inferior website hostinging plan), E-mail, SQL Database wizards and managers, phpMyAdmin or similar database manager, Visitor stat collection like Awstats, and SSL/TLS tools.

Comparison of three webhosting company cPanels and the features and servies they provide. One of which is GreenGeeks.com, which provide fewer services than similar competitors.

11.      Things like Optimize Website, Link Building, Marketing and SEO Tools are often hooks to paid outside companies that get information on you and try to sell packages to you. Website hosting companies get a portion of this profit.