Limited but positive experience

I reckon Namecheap is perfect if you want to get basic hosting at minimum cost.

What I did do:

I have moved to namecheap mainly due to low cost, plus it provides dynamic dns, free email forwarding (which works) and cheap email hosting (which works). I took the SOPAsucks promotion away from Godaddy.com. Also it provides whois privacy for free which Godaddy uses for revenue raising in their bait-and-switch marketing strategy.

What I did not do:

I did not buy web hosting yet as I am not forced to - I want to see how everything works out first.

My Experience:

Some of the set up is a bit confusing at first, but its still easier to navigate than Godaddy and help is easier to find. The email hosting is similar to Exchange but is supposedly in beta still. However it works without any problems for me - its at least faster than Godaddy's servers were, and much cheaper. The live help is 24/7 which worked on New Year's Eve (when I transferred). The whole thing took about 1 hour to achieve, but the email hosting needed 2 days to be activated due to the new year holiday. I forwarded emails during that time and that went fine, however it is slower than having direct hosting for some reason.

All in all namecheap has an amateurish name for a company, and its website is obviously built on a low budget, so I am not surprised that people have had mixed experiences. However despite all that, everything is working, so I have no cause to complain.

Biggest Pro: Low price and a lot of free features
Biggest Con: Setting up is a bit confusing

terrible terrible terrible

Namecheap was ddos attacked on the 24th of december 2011. It was not my site, yet a whole server worth of websites are down. It has been 6 hours, and my site has been down. Their guarantee is 99% uptime, and less than 44 minutes a month of downtime. They lie. I paid 50 a year for the webspace I cannot use apparently...

The good thing is the customer support and 24/7 online chat. They really help you start your site and answer questions, but apparently don't know how to run one.

Biggest Pro: online chat support
Biggest Con: downtime

Namecheap.com is dangerous... buyer beware

I had a horrible experience with namecheap.com. If you are interested in signing up, I would seriously re-consider...

I will leave out the commentary and just give you the facts. Buyer beware…

1. Made sure all the domain contact information was updated. Grab’d the ECC code. Plugged in the credit card and the transfers was flawless… dig/nslookup/whois all responding nicely! In the same transaction I setup cheap hosting for one of the domains and I received an email that said 6 hours to provision.
2. Logged in the next day to start pushing out content for the web hosting and the account is locked.
3. Received 3 emails.

First email: my account is locked because of possible fraud around my CC and transaction.
Second email: userid and password to there ticket support site. (the userid and password in clear text)
Third email: my account will be cancelled if I do not send a “photograph of both sides” of my CC through the email.
4. I responded to the third email inquiring about the “indicators” that determined the fraud. I also told them that I will not send my CC through the email to anyone, nor do I know anyone who would.

5. The response I received was the same as the original email. I logged on to their “live help” system and expressed my thoughts about security and my CC. I was told that they are not authorized to assist me (heard this several times), I should contact the fraud department. I ask for the number, and I was told there are no phone numbers. (seriously)

6. I responded to the fourth email stating again that I will not send my CC through the email and I would like to know what indicated fraud. I receive another email stating that I will be cancelled if I don’t send my CC. If its cancelled, my domains do not go back to godaddy and I am unable to manage them at namecheap.com.

7. With bile in my throat and defeat in my eyes, I sent a photograph of CC… and I am back in business. When I recover from the beatings I will do more research and vacate namecheap.com.

So, am a paranoid person? Are there hackers on the wire ready to do unspeakable nefarious acts with my CC? No and No (maybe).

I communicated with several people at namecheap.com via email and live chat. What troubled me the most, is that not one person I communicated with seemed troubled about me sending my CC through unencrypted email. They couldn’t even provide me with an alternative, such as a FAX. This company is hosting your data, your websites, your credit card information, SOX, HIPPA, and other critical information.

This indicates a disregard for security at namecheap.com embedded in their culture.

In 2011, companies as well as consumers should guard their data.

Sorry about the length…

Eric

Namecheap stealead my domain name

The bad story for me started last month, on 4 august i succesfully transferred my domain (eg: www.s-article.com) from some registrar to namecheap.com (did this so i can manage the dns servers from there). I've also buyed hosting package from namecheap.com and for a time things went fine. Some weeks later i decided to upgrade my hosting account to a VPS and after i had several talks with namecheap.com support team i've made the order. Things didn't happened as we discussed and my site went down so i decided to move it to another hosting and since i wasn't able to use the VPS from namecheap.com at all, due to their technical problems, so i requested my money back.

From this point things started to be very ugly, short story is that i received my money back but namecheap.com banned my account and also removed the dns servers which i've set for s-article.com and the very bad part namecheap.com simple changed the owner of my domain and is not me anymore is them. I never gave them the accept to do that, i never wanted this to happen.

I've already tried to talk with namecheap staff but they said i didn't respect their upgrade policy (things related to hosting package) and therefore they closed my account even if the part with domain is a separate thing for which i paid.

I have and i can provide any data is needed to prove that the domain www.s-article.com is in fact my domain and namecheap.com abusively took it couple weeks ago.

I've made complains to icann.com and enom.com and they resolution is to to talk with namecheap to get my domain back. As it seems, in case namecheap don't have a special relation with them, any registrar can change the owner of a domain and unless you're ready to start a process via a court law, you're the "loser"

Conclusion

1. icann sucks
2. enom sucks
3. never move your domain to namecheap, they can get it from you and there is no straight way to get it back

Biggest Con: Thiefs

Namecheap.com or Namehostage.com

I was searching to change hosts for my website and read many glowing reviews that were either written by the two employees/owners they have or friends of theirs.I should have been alerted when a prompt came up directly after my purchase stating that each request is reviewed by a live person-well the money is being held for you by my bank now,huh?!-and it could take as long as 6 hours.Actually try 13 and then my account that I so carefully researched and built was frozen,get this,by a "fraud" department! For what,I had no explanation.Then they demanded a clear photocopy of my driver's license and a scanned copy of my credit card,both sides...I tell the truth.I was receiving these communications from a Milla and a Nikita,I tell no lie..And "I" appear fraudulent.I tell them no way,refund me and take my business to Fatcow,however,my site is still in the grips of NAMECHEAP and they refuse to release unless I do as I'm told by them.Lol,I do not exaggerate.I told them that even Go Daddy doesn't sink to such levels of extortion.Let's see,they take my money,promise greener pastures,immediately freeze me out of my account,make ransom demands and hold my domain name hostage,telling me it's my fault that I refused to give them what they wanted.HELL YEAH I DID!This is internet extortion to the 10th degree if I ever heard of it!!!

Namecheap = Downtime

I'm very disappointed in namecheap and it's services.

It's promises a lot on their website but deliver nothing.

Ok the set up for your hosting and sites are pretty easy, tho you need to know anything from webhosting and internet, normal internet users will not understand the stuff about editing DNS and such.

The website loads extremely show, this is not a temporary problem, it does this every day, beside that we have daily downtime, sometimes 20 times a day!

This is unacceptable for a webhost.

Biggest Pro: it's cheap and the set up is fast
Biggest Con: daily downtime

No problems whatsoever

I've been webmastering for years now, and I've tried many different webhosting/domain services.

And so far, Namecheap is the only one that delivered what I expected.

Speed is good, and I'm running many WordPress websites with thousands visitors per day, and so far no problems. I liked it so much that I upgraded my shared hosting to their VPS.

The downside was that support team was good, but not the top-of-the-line. I'm the one who asks so many questions, and they have replied within hours if not less than an hour, which is impressive. But there were times that I had to explain a bit before they understood what I wanted to do, and one time it took me a whole day with them to find out that I couldn't do what I wanted to do. Maybe it was my bad explanation, but sometimes they seem to be too busy to look at my problems personally. Oh, and live support doens't help much, but opening ticket does.

And if you're the one who manages many domains, Namecheap provides many options including free DNS, POP3 settings and more. I've never seen that many options for my domains that I'm still learning a bit.

There was once about 20 minutes of downtime, due to hardware failure on VPS server.

If you are looking for a new webhosting service, I recommend you to try Namecheap services; they have 14 days money back guarantee. I'm sure there are better companies for my needs, but so far Namecheap delivered and I'm not going to move unless if something horribly goes wrong. I doubt it though.

Biggest Pro: speed, price

STAY VERY CLEAR OF NAMECHEAP.COM

Initially Namecheap was very pleasant in there assistance moving from my current hosts to thiers.

I was impressed with the price and the unlimited domains, space etc...

HOWEVER,

My first month the site was down for over 2 days (1 day at a time but on business days so clients see an unavailable page)

This week I send an email (as I usually do) to my mailing list with 5,0000 on this, and also my webmaster was creating a OTO sales page to go on my current sales page.

Without warning I found that my sites were suspended.... which meant I could not login to my control panel or access my emails.

After contacting the live support I was informed that an email was sent and my account was suspended. I enquired why and also how could I read the email if I could not access emails (this went over there heads!)

They informed me that I could only send 200 emails per hour (would be nice to know this before you sign up) and that a Malacious script had been installed.

I am not very tech savvy!... BUT there was no where telling me about the emailing limit before signing up, and my webmaster had only created a smll pop up for people leaving my sales page to offer a discount (not too malicious is it???)

Since then Namecheap having been playing cat and mouse in getting my sites live again.... sending messages through there support site We are waiting for you to agree not to do it again.... Of course I am just trying to get me sites live so YES I agree. Then another load of messages saying the same.

All the time trying to explain to them that my website down has cost $$$ in sales and reputation and could they just please get the site live again.

More messages with the same do you agree.....

YES YES YES each message sent back to them.

Another message back from them Do you agree?.

Ok I am not a tech savvy person and I dont understand problems in sending emails to my mailing list or that an OTO page is a malicious script.

But Namecheap will hold you ransom and cost you money if you are not careful.

As soon as my sites are unsuspended I will be moving for sure!.

Unless you are very web savvy or demand to read fine print stay clear of these COWBOYS!

Biggest Pro: Price
Biggest Con: Information and support

Has not been long but it has been hectic at first - my fault!

I have not been on these guys that long but screwed stuff up at the start and had great customer support.

Most emails were back within an hour or so or faster which surprised me and helpful as well.

Will stick around for a while and see how it goes.....

Biggest Pro: Customer service
Biggest Con: Limited Cpanel options

Can't even do a simple transfer

Spent more than 16 hours just trying to fix an issue with the verification email not arriving. First time I encountered such a painstaking process as a domain transfer. Perhaps they were good before, but I think they've reached a peak.

I can receive an email from them, so I wonder why not the verification email... they always blame it on the spam filter which was off all the time.

I have yet to receive a refund, let's see...

Oh well, buyer beware!

Biggest Con: Can't even transfer a domain