Bluehost
reviews and complaints

Buyer beware they upsell when you have issues saying if you pay more your experience will be better. But then they never deliver said thing you pay extra for. I bought site lock and was hacked and the entire server went down. I couldn't even get through on the phone. I asked for a refund within 24 hours of paying for my site and was up sold instead. I asked that my time be extended since I went with said upgrades. I still wasn't happy because they never enabled a green lock on my site. I'm still trying to get a green lock! I asked for a refund multiple times with no reply. Chat is a joke they either don't come to the chat or they end it before anything gets resolved. Recently they said I could get a refund. Then asked for a code to do so. I give them the code and they come back saying they will give me 25% of my money back and will keep the money for site lock because it's out of the timeframe to get my money back. Well if they enabled it when I bought it that would be ok but they did not. I've consistently asked for them to give me the green lock or give me a refund. They say you'll see a green lock in 72 hours. And it never appears. Months go by doing this and still no green lock. I'm sorry you can not insist someone needs something and not give it to them and make them pay for it anyway. Then I find out they disabled SSL from my site after I told them they were thieves and fraudulent. And they went silent on emails. I've emailed for over a week without a reply. I want all my money back as I asked in the beginning before they started up selling me to enhance my experience. What a joke! I'll never see my money. They literally sold me something I never received and are forcing me to pay them for it! Then the same day in retaliation put a warning message on my site that told people they were going to be hacked if they continued to my site! I'm not happy and I'm going everywhere I can to let the world know DO NOT USE BLUEHOST! THEY ARE A SCAM!

Please avoid bluehost if you don't want to be charged forever on a website you are not going to ask anymore. I asked the customer representative last month to cancel the autorenew for my domain because the website is not in use anymore. However, when I check my email today, I found a billing invoice of the domain name I wished to cancel! This is absolutely intolerable, and horrible scamming tactic on your part. What a shame!

Bluehost makes cancellation impossible. I decided to cancel my trial month just 2 hours after signing up, finding that the options were extremely limited for website building. There is no way to cancel on their website. Instead, they require you to call in for "verification".

A little ridiculous since no verification was needed when I submitted my credit card info but, Ok I called since there is NO other option. After multiple questions the representative then magically finds your account but has to know why you want to leave. As I explained, I am no longer interested in the product the representative seemed perplexed. I told him, thank you please remove the auto renewal and disconnect all services. After hanging up, I receive the following email:

This is Von one of the Bluehost Representative. Please call us back for us to cancelled the account. We are unable to cancel the account since you were unable to verify it.

Thank you!

Thank you,

Bluehost Support

http://www.bluehost.com

For support, go to http://my.bluehost.com/hosting/help

I renewed my webhosting for 36months-this cost me $1051.39 AU on sunday Dec 4th they decided i had a TOS violation and were shutting down my website.The abysmal customer service and the fact no one could explain why there was a TOS caused me to migrate the website.They did this delibratley after the 30 day renewal clause had run out so i cannot recieve a refund but they cannot supply the service either.They refuse to refund any of the money.I can cancel my account but they wont refund even though the problem was caused by them

One of the single worst customer service experiences I've ever dealt with. In my first year as a customer, I contacted them once a month about a very specific issue I was having with Printful and Printify. It took them two or three weeks to reply, and everytime it was the same painful process: Request information on my last ticket, answer all the same questions again, find out my last ticket was closed without being resolved, ask for resolution and support, and then be told that they'll respond soon with help. A month goes by, start it all over again.

After my first year, I attempted to cancel my hosting. Instead, they charged me double. When I asked for a refund the same day, they insisted they would reach out to me to help. When I contacted Bluehost a final time, they said they can't offer a refund because their refund window is 30 days--I contacted them after 21 days. I finally went through my payment processor to request a chargeback, and they are fighting it. The irony is that I expect they will respond to this review.

Bluehost will fail you. Bluehost is possibly the worst option for any hosting, ever, and I recommend literally anyone else. The scammer down the road will at least respond to you.

This company is a scum! Stay away if you don't want scummer partying over your credit card! On my way to cancel my domain and hosting I stumbled across my previous purchases. I was shocked to discover they charged me for 200$ "for hosting renewal" on the year 2020 (and this is after I paid 89$ for hosting renewal already that same year. I chatted with an agent who said that apparently I purchased a 3 year hosting plan that date. I never did. In fact, I didnt log in into my account for years and didnt make any changes to my plan or anything at all. I checked my email history to see if I got any order confirmation email or any email regarding my plan change and there is no sign of such deal ever been made. There is however an order confirmation for the 89$ hosting renewal that I DID agree to. In different words, they charged me 200$ under the table without me knowing or being notified for a "plan"I never made or agreed too. The chat agent said she doesnt have any proof to show me, email or chat history of any sort. And she refused to refund me for this scum. Don't give your credit card info to these scummers!

I've hosted multiple domains with Bluehost since 2016, and I've helped numerous clients do the same. I've never had any issue with their services until this year.

They've recently started a partnership with a 3rd party company called Sitelock, which has created a policy change that can be seen and is directly affecting many customers.

Earlier this year I noticed I wasn't getting my email. I was informed that my back office was infected with malware and that they would run a scan to show me the files that would need to be deleted. I was then transferred to the 3rd party company whom I was told would be able to help.

What they didn't tell me was that they would charge an amount quite above industry standard in order to delete the files that Bluehost has access to, and complete abilities to delete themselves.

Upon refusing to pay what Sitelock requested (using very high pressure and threatening sales tactics) when attempting to log back into my cpanel in order to delete the files myself, I had been locked out.

I am unable to access my account to fix the issue, and Bluehost refuses to fix it themselves due to their contract with Sitelock, and they will not grant me access into my account to fix the issue.

I'm highly disappointed that a company I've used and loved for years, has made such a clearly corrupt policy change in order to forcefully extract more money from it's user base.

Furthermore, there is no way that my account could have been infected with malware through my sites which are externally hosted, or my email which is copied and forwarded to another program I use to check it.

So, they seem to have significantly decreased malware protection or are intentionally infecting it's users sites in order to extract more profit.

On Sept 28, 2022, I spoke with a rep to establish a Bluehost website for my National Book Tour. I was told the site would be available within 7 - 12 business days... which was fine. However, October passed, the tour ended, and the website was not up for viewing. Neither was I consulted to work on the site with the site builder as promised. Had I not contacted Bluehost to cancel and refund the $700.00 payment they debited from my account, I doubt seriously that anyone would have contacted me. I did call to cancel this work order within the thirty-day time span. They had no idea that the site was not being built. The reps on the phone can do little, and there was never a Supervisor to talk with. This "no-refund" mantra is continuously repeated when you do talk to a rep. I have gone elsewhere to get this site built, but it is troubling that a supposedly reputable company can not deliver its promised service and uphold its loophole to keep your money. I am so disappointed. Someone should be held responsible for taking advantage of sincere consumers.

Hi, about three months ago I found I could no longer upload media to my server. At that time I was told by Bluehost I needed to upgrade to a larger server. I did that at a cost of about $3000 USD or $5000 NZD (I am based in Auckland, NZ). Since then I've had nothing but trouble with my website (www.13thfloor.co.nz). It crashes daily and I've had to spend hours on "chat" with Bluehost support to get it back up, only to go through the same process again.

I have hired a new admin/tech person to help with things from my side and he, too, is frustrated.

I am at my wit's end. No one at Bluehost seems to be able to do anything to fix this permanently. Instead they give the server a reboot and send me links on how to try and fix things from my end.

Nothing is working.

I have been a long time customer with Bluehost, both personally and for clients of mine. They HAD been the go to hosting company. This has all changed. A couple of events have caused me to lose faith in them.

When you call tech support, you are calling because the issue you are having is out of your understanding level. For about a month, I have called on four different issues and each time got a person who 1) did not have a basic understanding of file management or the capabilities of Bluehost 2) Were very disinterested in helping to solve said problem and 3) refused to answer basic questions.

This is not helpful when you are having problems with your website. If you are looking for a web hosting company, I am hearing that Ionos has a good hosting company at a good price. Check them out.

Then to add insult to the situation, I received a bill with a bluehost heading, but links that went to hostgator.com asking for payment FOR SOMETHING THAT WAS ALREADY PAID.

Not only was the bluehost person unable to explain this but 1) He did not want to talk to me and kept attempting to have me call hostgator. Even after I explained I have NO business with hostgator and did not know about them until I looked at the backend of the email received. 2) through much pushing, I found out that someone had called WITH THE SAME INVOICE earlier in the day. How? Why? 3) I was promised a call regarding this issue which I never received.

4) After wondering out loud why they were not outraged about an email with their company logo was sent to me requesting payment, I found out that they are SISTER COMPANIES. 5) They have NO SPOOF EMAIL DEPARTMENT. In this day and age? With the amount of fraud involved?

I immediately shot out an email to all of my clients advising them of the situation and have begun setting them up with another hosting company until bluehost gets itself together. (which means permanently).

Good luck all. Avoid the risk.

I am a customer of bluehost. I renewed my contract for them to put my website on the internet on 27/7/2022.

2. On 26/8/2022 after I added a post to my website I discovered that no browser could load my website. Trying to go to my website waikuenleung.com none of its content s could be seen. Instead, the following message appeared on the webpage:

‘Internal Server Error

The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.

Please contact the server administrator at [protected]@waikuenleung.com to inform them of the time this error occurred, and the action you performed just before this error.

More information about this error may be available in the server error log. Additionally, a 500 Internal Server Error error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.’

3. I have asked bluehost through their chat, email and messenger to fix the problem but bluehost refused.

4. I want bluehost to perform its duty to put my website on the internet so that my website can be read with any browser.

5. I have communicated with Raymond of Bluehost who put up a lot of excuses of not getting my website onto the internet, e.g.,(1) putting the blame to WordPress, (2) there were too many visitors to my website and asked me to block some of them from accessing my website and most recently (3) the website was infected with malware and I needed to pay extra money to get rid of those malware.

6. I told Raymond it was their duty to put my website onto the internet, any problem preventing the upload was their problem, not my problem.

7. I asked Raymond to give me his surname but he refused.

8. If you want to read the emails exchanged between Raymond and me please let me know by return email so that I can send them to you for your attention.

9. Please take appropriate action. Thanks.

Regards

Wai Kuen LEUNG

I just purchased my domain and created my website with bluehost 8/2022. As soon as might site went love, that's when I knew I made a mistake signing up with them. My first issue was trying place a a payment button without using their plugins. Then when I tried to use their plugins, it was very difficult to find a functional plugin for PayPal. Then, all of the sudden, when attempting to write emails to and from my email name, I found that the emails weren't even going through. Out of frustration, I then I attempted to unlocked my domain so I could take might domain to another hosting company. At first, it look like everything was going to work out with a transfer. Bluehost's automated authorization code for my site's name popped up right away, but then when I went to then other web hosting company (GoDaddy) to do the transfer, it wouldn't go through; as though there wasn't enough characters. Then when I sort help from the 24 hr online chat, his response was to try to transfer with a different company to see if the same thing happens. Lol! Okay, so I went along with his idiotic idea. When I tried to transfer to Hostgator and Hostinger, they both said that the domain name was locked. Went back to Bluehost to double check for the unlock status, requested the authorization code again; which came back as the same number, and you know the rest. Bluehost is part of a junk corporation. Stay away. Now I have to change everything.. website name, Business name with Secretary of State, and Copyright. I wish that I had read the Tooltester review before I signed up with this company. Good news is at least I found out right away what kind a junk this company is before I got too far down it's rabbit hole. Thank You. E.Smith

Dear Sir,

I have configured our domain in Bluehost and hosing our website properly. But, Not able to access all functions on our website (not able to open) at this time, Showing 404 Error Code. kindly look into the matter and provide us proper solution. Thanks '

Lost my web-site and shut down my email. No one at support was able to help.

Purchase 5 domains and WordPress Support on Feb 4th. It was explained that the Main domain could take a few days to transfer/verify, then my website would propagate. I contacted support every couple of days. On the 10th, my email and website went down. My wordpress site had been release to BlueHost. My previous admin access no longer worked. I was unable to receive emails from customers. I was out of town and didn't notice right away. I was never told this would be an issue pr anything I would need to fix. I spent an hour with Microsoft- then another hour with BlueHost. Then back to Microsoft who finally fixed the issue. but I LOST a weeks' worth of emails (business email, orders, State licensing info and client correspondence).

It is now the 18th of Feb. My website is lost. No one at Support can help me. They say they can only wait for migrate. But one can reach migration. I have spent hour trying to get this resolved. I have lost hundreds of dollars!

I'm so upset. I trusted them. They took my money and screwed up my business. This is a nightmare

I have a backup of our website in our file manager and I have been blocked from restoring my website. It has been 24 hours and still no resolution.

No update. No Tier 2 support (as promised) but they have our money and our site for 2 more years.

Asked me for more money for 2 products: SiteLock + for $299 to protect our database *which had been working fine* and a site restoration for $199 despite my having Updraft and CodeGuard.

Very standard WordPress template with no cherry picked plugins. They basically have pulled us offline and won't give us any information.

Seriously bad customer service.

Basically, it is impossible to remove or delete your whole account from their database. Even domains I asked to be deleted from my account list, they cannot remove. For some reason they cannot understand what I'm trying to ask. They said that it has been removed, but I can still see the domain in the list! WTF did they remove?

I asked for my whole account to get deleted, and no - you can't do that. Your information is their property, unfortunately.

STAY AWAY FROM THIS COMPANY!

In Feb. 2021, I purchased a domain/hosting from BlueHost. As soon as I got the receipt, I requested a refund due to a spelling error. They refused to refund the domain but agreed to cancel hosting. In June, they sent an email stating that the hosting had expired. I looked into my banking account only to see that they were charging me for the canceled hosting. I called them and they refused to refund the money. They only offered to refund the past 30-day charge and the promised to — once again — cancel the hosting. In August they began charging me TWICE a month for basic web hosting for the expired/canceled domain. I called them again to get request it to be canceled and my card to be refunded. Again they agreed to cancel but only refund $11.70. Subsequently, I transferred my personal website and hosting in October to another hosting company. In Novembber, they sent me an email that my personal website hosting expired (a month after I transferred it to another service provider). They continue to charge me for hosting for that site as well. After repeated calls they REFUSE to do anything and told me to contact my bank and request a charge back. I am absolutely appalled by BlueHosts blatant fraudulent activity and completely disgusted by their (lack of) customer service and HORRIBLE business practices!

I signed up to Blue host last year and paid for three years of hosting, they have now taken out a payment for the next year which has already been paid. The chat line doesn't work in the UK and I can't afford to ring America to get this resolved. Due to their actions I have now gone overdrawn at the bank and will be charged, not acceptable.

Dear Sir,

sometimes when we send email some error occurred delivery failed.
example-
host cloudmark.mail.unifiedlayer.com [74.220.195.20]
SMTP error from remote mail server after end of data:
552 5.2.0 User naplinfo-sh006.webhostingservices.com administratively prohibited:
cpanel account has violated hourly sending limits.

Please resolve this issue.

Regards
Keshav
[protected]

Hello,
I have been with bluehost for over 2 years. I was changing my sipninthekitchen site and needed a temp site to replicate the live one so that it would not have so much code. When I was done with the temp site I requested for it to go live and have the current live site to be the temporary site.
The 4 sites that should be in my portal are:
1. 1. http://box2179.temp.domains/~sipninth/
2. 2.https://www.sipninthekitchen.com/
3. 3. AStoneconsulting.com
4. . Thecruxxx.com
and all of the sipn are gone.
I asked for my sites to be restored due to a bluehost agent wiped out the wrong site saying he had a UPS delivery.