BlueHost Email Blues
BlueHost mail is not sending again. This seems to be more and more common. Usually the problem goes away after a few moments, but this time it’s been at least 30 minutes. I filed a ticket with their support but they have not responded yet.
Another 30 minutes has passed and I have determined that their email server is down completely and so I am not getting emails there either. I filed another support ticket to let them know and to give them a alternate email address to contact me, but so far no response.
I guess they are out to lunch again…
July 13, 2005 at 2:37 pm
ok, we’re back up with email. No response ever from Bluehost and it took under two hours to fix this time.
Not exactly the level of service one would hope for, but still a little better than Brinkster.
People tell me that Dreamhost is better.
July 14, 2005 at 1:26 am
Of course, seeing how most CRM’s will send an email to the on-call techs when a new ticket is created, their email server being down would be a good explanation for the long delay :]
November 7, 2005 at 4:27 am
Bluehost isn’t terrible. They’re SPECTACULARLY terrible.
I’m pretty easy-going; If a tech doesn’t know what how to fix something — and he’s POLITE and TRYING to help — I’ll talk to him, and walk
him through what he needs to do.
Bluehost “Support”, most of the time, ANSWER their phones PISSED as hell. (I know why now, reading this page: they have angry users calling them all day & screaming.)
They’re unhelpful and rude, and I catch the guys lying to me aot. (Telling me servers aren’t really down, etc. etc.) It’s infuriating. Bluehost IS an inexpensive service, but it’s NOT a Free one for 12 year old users. Downtime is a pain in the butt. And you have absolutely NO confidence anything will be taken care of.
Email support is a JOKE. 1/3 ro 1/2 the time they don’t respond at all (except for those auto-generated “We Have Wonderful Service, Because You Are Special To Us” Hardy… Har… Har… )
I do have one interesting thing to add: at 1 point my account was switched from one server to another.
I realized that some servers are relatively stable– and some hardly work at all. A Bluehost drone even let that slip to me one time, on the phone. I asked to be switched to a more current version of PHP, and the guy said, “NOOO! That server goes down all the time!”
Anyway, this may be why some users, who aren’t needing to use “tech support” (in quotes on purpose) and don’t use higher level functions, may think it’s a good service. (Either that, or Bluehost has employees posting all their “positive” Bluehost reviews. NOT THAT THEY’D DO ANYTHING DISHONEST!)
INSTEAD OF FIXING THE BAD SERVERS, or switching customers to the better machines, they just take a rude attitude. Real pointless.
And VERY counter-productive.
If these guys were more honest, and less hostile, I’d say, “Fine. Discount service. They’re doing their best.” BUT THEY’RE NOT.
** One guy who answers the phones IS very nice. Not very smart, but very nice. Don’t remember his name. Problem: he knows hardly anything about computers, and he seems scared to death to ask anyone else for help.
He’ll say, “…Ah… I don’t know…”
FINE. I give him points for honesty– the only ones Bluehost gets.
But when I say, Could you ask somebody? … It doesn’t happen.
WEIRD how angry and agressive these guys are. I mean, W-E-I-R-D. Servers will be down, there are OBVIOUS repetitive technical glitches- and their 1st reaction is to start yelling at me it’s My Fault - “Your Browser’s BROKEN!”
Excuse me?
I’ve also caught these guys lying to me about charges and several other things. I should come back when I have the time and post all the
stuff one-by-one, because they’re probably lying to others too. -The big main ones are 1) The amount they’re charging me, 2) How
they process charges (They’ll tell you anything they think you want to hear. “No, we don’t keep a record of your financial information AT
ALL”- which is a bold lie), 3) “Our servers are FINE —- YOU’re having modem or virus problems!”
*** AGAIN, if Bluehost just told me the fucking truth, it wouldn’t bother me. “No, we’re charging you $10.00 more than what we quoted,
sorry.” “Our servers our down, we’ll get them up soon.” “Sorry, every TIDBIT of information we get on you we’re saving until the end of
time.”
Bluehost isn’t just a BAD service. They’re PATHETICALLY bad.
One of the owners (I think he is, anyway- one of the two brothers whose name’s on everything) has some kind of rage problem. Maybe I’ve spoken to him at particularly bad times, but… wow… Scary. I mean, SCARY.
It is just WEIRD, because if they treated me a little better, I’d write off the tech probs to things that come with a discounted service.
But they make you feel really taken advantage of. INCREDIBLY dumb of them. I’m very curious how successful their business is, and how large it is. It’s hard to imagine them doing well, to be honest. If anybody knows, please post about it.
Thanks. - Love this page, by the way. Those guys need to be grabbed by the testicles and shaken up a little. Maybe they’ll start treating customers better then.
November 16, 2005 at 1:09 am
Wow, Bluehost Survivor, that’s some story!
I agree with most of what you say. I never found them flat out lying to me. But I think the things they said to me were flat out wrong. They just chose the standard replies to any problem I presented: “it’s the fault of your site installation.” That was always a good way to fend me off.
The straw that broke the camel’s back for me was the 2 wks. of CPU Hell (read my post about the subject linked to this comment) where my site was virtually inaccessible to me & my visitors. After 10 support calls & 2 tkts. I came to realize that they either couldn’t or wouldn’t find out what was wrong. That’s when I realized I needed to get out of there fast. After doing a good deal of research & choosing Dreamhost based on some glowing reviews at the Mozilla support forum, my friend offered to host me on his virtual server. BTW, not a single CPU error since I switched. Guess whose fault that problem was?
Don’t be fooled by low cost or lots of storage or whatever. Pay a dollar or three more a month & go with a host that a lot of people recommend whether it’s Dreamhost or someone else.
November 25, 2005 at 11:14 pm
I can never get the PHP mail function working on Bluehost for more than 20 people on the recipient list. It works fine for about 10 people but after that, it times out and never returns. I’m frustrated and leaving them since they are never any help.
December 25, 2005 at 5:33 pm
A Poem - “Bluehost is my ISP”
Bluehost bad
Bluehost sucks
Bluehost licks little babies butts
(and bluehost tech support is CRAP too)
February 10, 2006 at 1:01 pm
Ditto the negative reviews for Bluehost.
The ARE rude, and their servers crap out alot.
People writing about their bad attitude nailed it.
Bluehost is a bad host.
A Bluehost tech actually told me I “had a problem with Microsoft” — eventhough it was OBVIOUSLY a Bluehost issue (servers).
— Also, most of the time now, they just IGNORE requests for tech support.
They don’t even send back their automated “we’ll get right back to you” emails anymore…
Pretty bad…
March 14, 2006 at 7:24 am
I am sad to say that I am also having email problems with bluehost. I have called them four times over the last day. When I try to log in I get a screen saying that I have been logged out or server error. The tech I spoke to last night said that it was a configuration problem on my computer. That there were cookies that wrer causing the problem. That my firewall was causing the problem. The problem appears to me to be at blue host because it has been internottent since a week ago. If it was a configuration problem my end then it should be all the time. I was not able to log in using another computer so it is unlikely that both compuers would have the same congfiguration issues. I was told that they had never heard of someone having the logged out screen that I have got. It has the log in windows duplicated in two positions on the screen. The tech last night took no interest in checking my computer settings just said he didn’t know what the problem was and couldn’t help me. They said each time that they could log on their end. This would suggest that it is not a configuration problem my end.. They said that they would give me a refund which is good. I guess Dreahost have got another customer.
March 19, 2006 at 12:47 am
You may want to take a look at http://www.vistapages.com, they have been a pretty good host to me and has been working ever since I got it!
March 20, 2006 at 9:05 am
After a couple of weeks of signing upand Bluehost still haven’t been able to give me access to my email. They still say that it is a problem at my end. I have switched to Dreamhost and hope that things will work better. If you would like to do the same use my promo code curedale when signing up with dreamhost for a $30.00 discount. This should work out cheaper than Bluehost for the fist year’s subscription at Dreamhost.
March 22, 2006 at 1:28 pm
agreed .. bluehost blows.
I have a used them to host three sites. All three of them have problems consistently. The customer support seems more like cover-up for ineptitude on all levels. They do not know what they are doing and they take forever.
I recently hosted with two others: 1) Godaddy and 2) 1and1.
I also have hosted with readyhosting.com and webmasters.com
Having used them all for more than a year. I would rate them in the following order (1 is best):
1. 1and1.com — great price, great service and no problems with the site or email (so far).
2. webmasters — a bit more expensive but they pulled through for me great. I do not know about their databases though because I used mostly static web stuff with them. They have an excellent control panel.
3. readyhosting — they get the job done.
4. bluehost.com — better than godaddy. Have you ever pinged a bluehost ran site? They consistently lose 25% packets when I ping test them. They tell me that this is a problem on my end.
Yeah right. I’m so sick of blue host right now I could scream.
5. tied with bluehost — godaddy.com — they just have little to no goods for hosting.
Thanks for the sound board here.
March 23, 2006 at 5:49 pm
You should check out my web hosting provider… i have not noticed any problems with them so far, http://www.vistapages.com
March 29, 2006 at 10:39 am
Thanks for this post and to all the commenters! I was almost going to sign up with Bluehost before I read this.
April 30, 2006 at 9:00 am
Sorry, but what hosting provider likely to use?
Are there any honest information about hosting providers over the Internet at all?
May 13, 2006 at 10:14 am
I am SO ready to change hosts from Bluehost.
I, too, have experienced all the problems - and more! - listed above. Except the phone rudeness, because I know better than to call them. Instead, I get all the rudeness in writing! Ha ha! Not that it’s much help to have the proof of ineptitude…
What I wanted to add here is a specific issue of sending mail - Bluehost has a limit of 50 messages sent per hour per account.
If you ask, they will increase it to a maximum of 500 per hour per account.
What is an account? Depends which teckie you ask, they will say per domain name or per the whole account, even if that is 6 domain names!
When you ask why, they say to prevent spam!
When you persevere, they finally let slip that it’s to limit server traffic.
Hello?!
What’s the point of being able to have thousands of email addresses on the account when less than 5% of those addresses will be able to send mail at any one time!
Oh, and let’s not forget that 1 message cc’d to 50 people counts as 50 messages, and boom! no sending mail for an hour.
It gets worse, though, because it took the server 4 HOURS to reset in my case, and for 2 of those hours I wasn’t able to RECEIVE mail, either. It was actually bouncing!
Yeah, I, too, suspect that it’s Bluehost employees posting the good reviews, and everybody copying them on their review websites as “content”.
What a scam Bluehost is!
I don’t trust them with anything anymore, even getting paranoid to the point that I try to be extra polite when I post issues, just so they don’t spit in the burger back in the kitchen, know what I mean?
Question remains - who to host with?
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
June 26, 2006 at 3:19 pm
I was just about to sign up!!! wow, thanks for this info, they must suck like hell. im using gate.com currently and they are great.
also fractopolis.com is another great hosting company
July 17, 2006 at 11:22 pm
Bluehost is TERRIBLE
Rude rude
Everything allready written above times TEN.
NOW THEY’VE STARTED POSTING ADS ON THE MAIN PANEL: thats one reason I’m PAYING a hoster; so I Won’t Have Ads!
Some of the staff have terrible rage problems. Scary. (Probably from all the calls they took BEFORE yours, with people yelling at them.)
…And, somehow they manage to blame YOU for problems: YOUR net connection’s bad, YOU have a virus, etc.
AAAAAAAH!
A reallllllly bad, frustrating, rude experience. I wouldn’t even recommend them to people I hate.
July 17, 2006 at 11:24 pm
And,the positive comments about Bluehost MUST be being written by Bluehost employees.
NO WAY are they coming from people who use the service.
July 18, 2006 at 4:52 pm
I guess it all boils down to what is the servers architecture and total capacity with setup. Ihave bluehost account and so 3 of my friends totaling about 20 domains together. I moved them all to bluehost and must say customer service has been outstanding. (try Dreamhost…more like nightmare in your dream
anywhays may be bluehost started to hit very hi numbers in terms of bandwidth and traffic and were not well prepared for that volume of visitors. now they are in a semi crushing phazeclaiming the power outage is the issue but comon u mean Utah cant delver power to your severs? I dot buy that. I’m gon alinger a bit and then probably gona hit mediatemple.com for some promising hosting quality with fiberoptics dediated ip and top if the line in the industry HP servers with Redundant power supplies, redundant fans etc.
July 21, 2006 at 4:22 am
Without going into pages and pages of issues I have had with Bluehost, all I can say is Bluehost’s service and support really suck!
August 6, 2006 at 7:20 pm
I really wish I have read this post before I sign up for Bluehost. Yes - they have some really great library collections with a nice installation wizard. But on Box 151 - they gave me a horrible decision-making 2-day experience. The server is very unstable, and the Apache httpd server constantly stops all the time.
I was considering switching from WebHero (formerly Catalog.com) because they have permanently lost two months of data in MySQL, but their web server is so far reliable in the year I have been using.
To be honest, I think hosting it on my own Windows Server 2003 will be my best option right now since I have full control over it…
August 20, 2006 at 5:28 pm
I’ve been with Bluehost for a few months and have experienced nothing but problems-downtime, database errors, mail timeouts, FTP slowness, you name it. I’ve also been waiting 65 days for a commission check, for sending them a new customer. I left a comment on the CEO’s blog about all this and it never appeared. (He has comment moderation, gee, I wonder why) Bluehost just plain sucks, and it’s being run by a loony.
August 29, 2006 at 2:13 pm
Bluehost has had numerous issues with there servers/boxes having too many accounts. This causes overload of processes which effects emails, speed, and all control panel usages. Their tools such as SSH is good and all other tools are standard. But if they could figure out a way to lessen the amount of account to one box, this would put there hosting service at the top.
Everyday their servers are overloading during peak hours. The community is starting to be aware of this issue but no action has been put into effect to remedy this by Bluehost.com. I give them a 2 rather than a 1 only because they offer SSH.
September 29, 2006 at 4:44 pm
I’ve been with bluehost for a year now, hosting 3 sites, one for my own artwork and sculpture, one for the artist studios and event i help coordinate and one as a more general arts network pages for Sydney and Melbourne.
We recently restructured how we do our banking, closing down a couple of peripheral accounts to stream line the accounts. one of these accounts was the one that bluehost was billing.
Unfortunatly, rather that do us the courtesy of notifying us of a billing problem by email, thus allowing us to login to our bluehost account and update the relevant information, and sending us all on our merry way, they decided just to delete my entire account, webmail, php the lot, and then not even inform me of this action - I found out when I couldn’t access my @mekanarky.com mail accounts, had to mail them through yahoo and wait 36 hours for a response. Being based in Australia, trying to sort things out by phone is not economical or practicle, the response i recieved was a very brisk “sort it out with billing” from a mister Jay Ward. Billing is now shut till monday, leaving me with at least another 2 days downtime, for me, the forum, several dozen artists that use our webmail, the mailing list and newsgroup etc. etc.
I now have to figure whether it’s worth rectifying the situation with Bluehost, even just to retrieve the site arcitecture and mail info, which I’m informed “might” be backed up, or to just screw the whole deal and go with a more obliging host that has abit more respect for it’s clients, but face the somewhat daunting prospects of filling in the gaps in the site (mambo, blogs etc.) and trying to compile a list and contact the various people who have lost their email accounts (numerous irate phonecalls have helped with this to some extent, but some of the crew are overseas, hard to contact and relying on their email).
Bluehost can rot in hell.
November 1, 2006 at 7:16 pm
THE OWNER OF http://WWW.BLUEHOST.COM IS ACTUALLY THE OWNER OF http://WWW.HOSTMOSTER.COM. BUT COMPANY ARE SCAMS. WATCHOUT DOING BUSINESS WITH THESE COMPANIES. BLUEHOST IS HOPING THAT IT COULD ACQUIRE MORE MEMBERS WITH THE NEW NAME HOSTMOSTER BUT KEPT THE SAME MESSED UP STAFFS AND OWNER.
April 2, 2008 at 10:19 am
I have been using bluehost for about 3 months so far, hosting about 5 or 6 different sites. Over the last week I have noticed a bit more downtime than usual (which is why I wandered on to this blog) but I would like to say some words in defense because I think the majority of opinions above are HARSH!
Firstly, if you need to be sending thousands of emails in the space of one hour I’d think about purchasing a more expensive hosting package! Instead of cheaping out and then having a go at bluehost because they dont want their thousands of users overloading the servers all at once. I think that is fair for the price you are paying (the equivalent of £40 quid a year for sooooo many features!).
Secondly, I had a problem that I couldn’t fix (it was at their end) shortly after signing up, and after chatting with them via their home page chat (note NOT ON THE PHONE! Who isn’t cranky when they have to answer their work phone? lol) it was fixed within an hour or so. The person I spoke to was very polite and understanding and seemed to know exactly what they were talking about.
So people, just remember - for every bad review there’s probably a hundred good ones you don’t hear about because most people don’t feel the need to shout about it if they had a good experience.
Bluehost = a great company who give their users a great service and an abundance of features. Of course they have their occassional problems but NO HOST IS PERFECT unless you do it yourself!
April 13, 2008 at 12:53 am
Bluehost has perfected the ultimate in terrible web hosting experience.
Bluehost=Excessive Downtime
Bluehost=Pathetic Technical Support
Bluehost=Email that doesn’t work
Read more about my nightmare with Bluehost
Read about Bluehost’s TOS from a customers point of view.