HostPapa reviews – Page 5

Awful service, avoid at all costs

As soon as I had my wordpress site installed, the site became incredibly slow to load. Usually 5 seconds for a simple page to open. The site's performance was nothing short of terrible. I contacted HostPapa support and they refused to accept that 5 seconds for a page to begin loading was "too slow". In fact in the support email he guy said "that's pretty good really".

It later transpired that only 32mb of RAM was available on the shared hosting (not enough for the WP installation I was running) and this was probably part of the problem. HostPapa support refused to entertain the idea of allocating more RAM (even if it meant paying more).

When it came to the end of my 1-year contract, they sent me an invoice to renew, in which my hosting fees had almost doubled, and the cost of renewing a .co.uk domain for 1 year was £10.99 (you can get these for £2.99 anywhere else). So I decided to take my business elsewhere.

Transferring a domain away from HostPapa is a nightmare. It's not possible to update the IPS tag yourself. Telephone support directed me to a page on the control panel that did not exist, and the support guy couldn't understand. He instructed me to open a support ticket. Just in case, I tried the online chat support thing and the same thing happened. So I opened a ticket asking for the IPS tag to be updated. It took them 3 days to respond, with an automated email that said "you must reply to this email: please confirm that you do not wish to renew this domain (yes/no), please confirm that you wish to transfer this domain (yes/no)" with still no mention of the IPS tag. I replied to that email, and it's been a further 2 days with no response. I've since been back on the online support chat, and the technician said my ticket was already on the highest priority and they were working as hard as they could to resolve the issue.

Updating an IPS tag takes like 3 seconds, to type "SOMETEXT" into a box and hit submit. 5 days now and they're still working on it. Awful, awful support.

Between terrible site loading times, terrible support, the inability to update an IPS tag manually (every other host I've used includes this feature), and 5 days (and counting) to get this simple task completed, I wanted to migrate away anyway. To almost double my hosting fees as well? Terrible.

Avoid this company.

Bad when it works and a huge ball of stress when it doesn't

Hostpapa, when I joined, was an excellent Canadian hosting company. Unfortunately, after a time it became clear that their priority had changed from being an excellent hosting provider (at the time they were rated #1 in Canada) to just another money grab.
Their hosting was never fantastic. It always had problems with staying up but those problems got a lot worse when their support went downhill. Now their standard response, no matter what is happening, is to blame you and lock up. You have to have infinite patience when you call or chat with their staff because they are infuriating. They will tell you ball faced lies and then refuse to listen to you.
Hostpapa may or may not be the worse hosting on the planet, but I can tell you that if you're website going down for several days a year is not something you can tolerate then Hostpapa is not for you.

Biggest Pro: Price
Biggest Con: Everything besides price

WORST of the WORST

I used hostpapa as my first web host without checking it out as I should have. It said 30 day money back guarantee so I thought I would give them a shot. First, the web design software to build a site (Soholaunch) was archaic. I went out and purchased Web Easy to design the site.
Second, tried to publish the site, finally got to speak to someone in tech support because I needed some info from hostpapa for the FTP program to upload the files, The guy was clueless as to what I was asking him. This combined with terrible wait times for tech support I decided to ditch them. Third, they did not return all of my money, only a portion. Fourth, I had to obtain a Authorization Code to transfer my Domain to another host. I did get the Authorization Code but they also had to point the Name Servers to the new host, this I could not get done. I spoke to them three times and still no action. FIFTH and this is the real clincher; on their website it lists 115 George Street, Suite 511, Oakville Ontario Canada (near Toronto) it's about a 45 minute drive from my place so I took a drive there. It was a UPS store and they were using a P.O. Box. NO PEOPLE - NO OFFICE. I am writing this review while on hold with their tech support to get the NS changed 55 minutes so far on hold...

Account suspended

I've been with Host Papa for over 4 years now. They've been quite bad at the beginnings, lots of downtime, etc. but then they improved.

I had my account suspended 1st time about 2 years ago due to excessive use of resources. Ok, I created DATABASE with 20GB size, guess their servers can't handle it. So I found out that UNLIMITED as they claim is NOT at all Unlimited! Took me several days of hassling with them to get my account back.

After this incident everything was fine for another 2 years. The speed increased and the uptime was fine. Until today!

I saw another message from them: "Your account has been suspended for overloading mysql server with heavy query."

Are you kidding me?! I've checked the SQL query responsible for this but it was a simple query I've been running the whole time.
I'm really upset since they just decide to suspend your account without any notice. I'm running e-commerce sites there and now they are all down.

I had enough! I'm switching to proper hosting - most likely Amazon Cloud.

Guess Host Papa is good only for very small sites with almost no traffic, so if you need something more, find a better solution.

Biggest Pro: Cheap and relatively fast.
Biggest Con: Poor customer support. Bad for larger scale websites. Very fast in suspending your account.

£84.cancelled .got£60. back

im a newbie to web host etc,chose hostpapa for all the good reviews .i found..took 3 year deal for £84 [uk]
first thing i ticked box fo hp to transfer my domain from 1&1.got a link on how to do it my self.i ,i had now idear as im new to this .ask them to do as it says in add .told to follow instructions in email ..did i get fed up trying yes .[polite way of putting it] after hours of messing around i sorted it out.now on to the web builder ...night mare for me ,easy if you now the xyz's...i ended up with to home pages after trying to delete one i deleted more than i shud and lost the web build program no gallerys .could not even see my home page...told hp .thay said no problem we will reset it and i can start over .got another link to install the build program?.so thy did not reset anything....so gave up cancelled my account before the 30 full refund past.
got email a few hours after telling a email as been sent for me to reset my details and start over ,still not got it .its in my spam acording to them ....anyway got a email saying i will get refund for £60...i paid £84..still in my 30 day full refund....i have my own domain...not hp's....so wares the full refund gone ,do thay keep the vat aswell .it cost £70+vat so if thay do im still £10 down on the cost...£24..for doing nothing but post links for me to sort out myself....
ok im new and dont understand all things teck ..with web building....but not to do as thay say and give me links how to do it myself ...its of putting .and have left before i get to stressed with any future problems...
just the refund thing now i have got back to them about it .......stay away ....to stressfull...

Biggest Pro: none for me .will look elseware
Biggest Con: custermer service shud be renamed do it your self .we carnt be bothered..

Want to waste your time and get stressed out...?

...then sign up to Hostpapa!

I switched to Hostpapa appx. 2 weeks ago. Incredibly unhelpful and on one occasion rude customer service.
Hopefully they'll make good on their "30 day money back guarantee" but I'm not placing money on it.

Avoid at all costs.

poor service

I have not got satisfaction and trouble free e-mail service.
Most of the communications are form posts.
Phone followup does not happen. They promise to look after matters but nothing happens.

Biggest Con: Promises, promises but nothing happens.

HOST PAPA SCAMMERS - DONT WASTE YOUR TIME OR MONEY

I wished I was one of the lucky ones who read all this jargon before signing up with Host Papa.

AUSSIES BEWARE!!!!!

I signed up. I didn't even get as far as receiving my pass codes to get online and start my website with Host Papa becasuse they stuffed up.

After weeks of trying to rectify the problem - WHICH HAS BEEN SOMEWHAT IMPOSSIBLE

DONT EXPECT TO FIND ONE PERSON TO SPEAK TO. YOU CAN LEAVE A THOUSAND MESSAGES ON THE PHONE BUT NOT GET ONE RETURN.

DONT EXPECT TO GET NOTHING BUT EMAILS SAYING SOMEONE WILL BE IN CONTACT SHORTLY - BUT NEVER EVER DOES.

NOW I HAVE TRIED REQUESTING CANCELLING, BUT NOW THEY ARE CHARGING ME ANYWAY!

DONT RISK IT AND TELL ALL YOUR MATES ABOUT HOST PAPA.

DONT RISK IT.

Biggest Pro: ABSOLUTELY NO PRO'S WITH THIS COMPANY
Biggest Con: NOTHNG BUT RIP OFF MERCHANTS WHO WILL TAKE YOUR MONEY AND RUN!

Not as Bad as Above But Don't Host Mission Critical

Host Papa is reasonable - I don't know if it deserves all of the extreme negative reviews here
Reliability seems fine
Tech support - inconsistent
The main problem is that twice they have had major upgrades that did not go as planned
Basically they turned off tech support and ran away for 2 weeks
I had on the first time - as i recall - went to the European affiliate of the company with Skype and had to scream
Then somehow it became catch 22 as i recall - all of the sudden i got action - but it was to the switchboard of the company in Canada - that had a recording
Very few firms offer low priced Canadian based ip hosting
Host Papa does do that - if you want the Canadian ip for Google.ca better search engine rankings
Yet if you are hosting a major website that is mission or income critical you might be better elsewhere
A number of graphic artists i know use it as first line hosting
This would seem strange to me

Biggest Pro: Canadian IP
Biggest Con: Erratic Clueless tech support when have major upgrade issues

Beware!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Stay away from these thieves.
I was a customer since March 2008 and had pre-paid for a hosting plan that was paid in full until March 4 2011.
In December 2010 for reliability reasons, I needed to move my domain name off the host papa servers to my own servers but I needed to keep my corporate domain name.
They would not do it unless I canceled my hosting plan, which I did. They still would not release the domain name until I paid an additional $29.95 for the rights to the name and then after I paid them they released the domain name and pointed it to my servers.
I assumed I had complete ownership to the name for which paid for and I thought that I would be notified when it was going to expire by the registrar, at which time I would be responsible to renew the domain.
On March 4 2011 with no warning I lost access to my corporate website and all email addresses I had associated with my domain name.
I did a who is on the name and Hostpapa was listed as primary owner with me as secondary owner. It turn out that Hostpapa charged me $29.95 for the domain name (even though it was paid in full until March), but didn’t actually honor the agreement of the sale by listing me as the exclusive owner as they indicated they would.
This was their smoke and mirrors to rape an honest customer from my hard earned cash. When the domain renewal came around they renewed it (as shown in the current who is) and now will not release my domain name property until I pay them again.
To compound things, I have been leaving them multiple voice messages and emails but for several days now, and the only response I got was that for security purposes they will not discuss anything with me unless I send them an email from the email address I had registered with them. This is ridiculous since they have me locked out of my own emails and I cannot send or receive email from that domain.
Since this domain name is associated with a corporate website, I have sent this to my legal department for assessment.
These people are bad news, do yourself a favor and stay far away from them.

Biggest Pro: None
Biggest Con: Frauds and no honor