Dotster Reviews

DO NOT USE DOTSTER! At this point, 10/05/2013, I heartily would NOT RECOMMEND Dotster as a host. This is very unfortunate, as I have been a customer since 2008, and after having been through a bunch of other poor hosts, was relieved that I never, ever had issues with Dotsterhost, which has recently changed, and was only aware of my sites being down once for a short period in the entire time I was a hosted there. I have purchase more than 3 dozen domains through Dotster, and have advised my clients since 2008 to use Dotster (formerly Dotsterhost). I design sites, am an IT professional, and can follow instructions and procedures. In other words, I know that of which I speak. And do. Three days ago I attempted to close one account, and move the domains (roughly 30, all but 6 parked) to another account. The procedure, once outlined by a rep, seemed simple enough, and I followed it exactly. HOWEVER, now I am down completely, my business and personal sites are not just down but I am out of contact via email with clients, PayPal, etc etc etc., and the reason is because of the incompetence of the customer service reps at Dotster, which are obviously not in-country, never the same rep, each one giving different advice or demanding ID information well after the fact, and after these were accommodated, they transferred one domain over. It is Saturday night. I should be ENJOYING myself. Instead, I am scrambling to figure out what the hell is wrong with these people, and RANTING MAD. I am utterly powerless to effect any immediate change and so am feeling like a non-essential US Govt employee must feel right now, NO IDEA WHAT MY IMMEDIATE FUTURE HOLDS, and after drinking amply at the internet pro's well, am currently stranded in the deep dark frustrating desert. My criteria for webhosts is Uptime, features-per-price, and COMPETENT CUSTOMER SERVICE. In my immediate and likely to be ongoing experience (transferring to another host will take as much time and effort as getting these knuckleheads to accommodate this simple procedure), Dotster Customer Service is **incompetent**, and, worse, there is no holding them accountable for such crappy and business/buzz-killing, as they are clearly from a place on the other side of the planet, and I am sure that the terms and conditions that I, ahem, whatever, absolves them from any litigation arising from lost business. I am certain they do not care about my problem, as their responses are growing more asinine as my irritation and frustration exceeds my ability to keep it civil. Please note, my original correspondences with these..., anyway, it was very civil and full of "thank you"s and "please"s, and by the 3rd response, after the instructions from rep #1 failed to work and #2 suggested I had to follow the procedures outlined by #1, and then #3 requested my CC info AND a list of the domains I wished transferred, since they had to do it MANUALLY, I was LOSING IT with them... ....You know, you've been there. If you haven't, and dont want to GO there, then: DO NOT USE DOTSTER. DO NOT USE DOTSTER. DO NOT USE DOTSTER (Ahhhhh that feels GOOD after what I have been through these past 3 days!!!). Oh, by the way, DO NOT USE DOTSTER!!

the worst ever. often my mail and or server is down, they switch things up and kick me off without notice or transition. i have to spend hours trying to get back up again and again. i am dropping them asap.

I was automatically transferred to Dotster when they bought my former registrar NameZero. After a while I suddenly realized emails where no longer getting through any of my domains. Dotster provided no previous warning and the support on the issue was non-existent. I'm now trying to move away from this joke of a company. Problem is, i have whois-privacy enabled since the time with NameZero and now I can't update the contact details myself, so i'm waiting for Dotster support to take care of it. It's been several weeks, calls, emails, tweets and support tickets - still nothing! I don't wish my worst enemy this hell that is being stuck with the non-existent support of Dotster. Please be adviced - stay away from these clowns, they're the worst in the business - all categories!

I've been with Dotster for over 10 years. When they were bought out last year, one thing the new owners didn't buy was the courtesy, support, and reliability. They removed my contact info a week before renewals came due, so I received nothing about renewing. Payments didn't get made, so they wanted $250 per domain to recover them once my domains stopped working. Several hours with support and a few layers of management layer, I got them recovered without the extortion prices. Got all paid up, and their system now bills each year, per domain, separately. If you renew 10 domains for 1 year, expect to see 10 charges for about $15 all in a row on your statement. It gets worse... any sane bank will automatically chargeback all but 1 of the charges as 'accidental duplicate billing'. You won't find this out until your domains all go bad a month later when Dotster receives the chargeback. Then you have to pay again, along with an expensive chargeback fee, to get control of your domains again. If this was 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, or 2011, I would have recommended them whole-heartedly as very reliable with quick and easy to contact support. Now, expect contacting support to take an hour or more. Their new staff must be underpaid, based on their attitudes. When you do get a resolution, be prepared to resolve the resolution. When that's resolved, be prepared to resolve the resolution again. Stay clear. Once I have my domains back under my control, I'm leaving. They've lost a very long time, loyal customer who made the mistake of referring too many people to them.

Trying to load a freshly uploaded slide show, I end up in getting a site with a string of links to others. It's not my site but under my Domain. I have sent reports of my displeasure to Dotster's Customer Service but, to date, have not received the courtesy of a reply. I am contemplating switching hosts and mentioned as much. Does not seem to make one iota of a difference it seems. Stay off this host would be my advice..