I don’t know the purpose of a rant about a hosting provider except to vent my own frustrations, so I’ll keep this quick. Here’s a step-by-step list of the reasons this blog is not on Bluehost:
- During checkout, I was never shown a total amount for my order - just a monthly price. It wasn’t clear whether I would be paying up front or be charged monthly.
- I left a field empty, and when the page reloaded to ask me to fix it, I was also switched back to the most expensive hosting plan.
- There’s a checkout page that upsells some services. Fine. I didn’t want them, so I clicked the “skip this step” link. My order was immediately finalized, and I was taken to a confirmation page saying I would be charged $140 immediately. I never saw a total before I was charged.
- Their online chat support rep emailed me a cancellation link. I wish he could have just canceled for me, but he said I had to do it myself. Whatever.
- Clicked the cancellation link - had to sign in. Hadn’t created an account yet at this point (apparently paying and creating an account are separate actions).
- Tried to create an account - stymied by arcane password requirements.
- They wrote a PASSWORD GENERATOR to help you make a password that meets those requirements. Talk about solving the wrong problem.
- The cancellation form had a space for feedback. I tried to explain these things but the form cut me off at 500 characters, which to me implies they don’t really care about my opinion.
So to sum up - checkout was misleading, to a degree I can’t believe is solely due to lack of effort. The cancellation process was onerous, and the company obviously doesn’t care about my business. For these reasons I will not use Bluehost, and I suggest you don’t either.