site5.com

Total con artists

I was a site5 customer since 2006. In 2017, a few months before my plan was scheduled to auto-renew for another two-year term, I switched my site to a cheaper site5 plan. Site5 refunded the unused portion of my old plan; however, I did not realize until recently that they had never cancelled the billing for the old plan, and it renewed in 2018 for another two-year term even while my new plan for the same domain name was still active. My new plan also auto-renewed in 2019 for two more years. So for my last two two-year terms, I have been double-billed for the same website.I was told via a site5 chat window that my old account could not be refunded while it is still active and was advised to place a cancellation request for my duplicate account, after which point a credit would be applied to my billing account. So that's what I did. When that request was processed, they cancelled BOTH plans and my web site ceased to function.The following Monday morning I reopened a ticket and waited for a response. And waited. And waited. Finally, 66 HOURS later, I got a response. I was told that I had cancelled the wrong plan, that I should have cancelled the new plan instead, the one I had just renewed months earlier. Any mention of a refund is quickly met with a link to their refund policy, which essentially states NO refunds beyond the first 45 days for ANY reason. I can attest based on personal experience that "customer satisfaction" and "doing the right thing" aren't valid reasons.So like many other site5 reviewers, I have noticed a decline in customer service the past few years. Their only support options are a ticket system or via chat window. It once was possible to call site5 and speak to someone local if an issue arose. Now, in their exact words: "As an Inbound Support Center, we do not provide a callback to our customers. I am sorry for it. We have discontinued the phone support."One thing positive I will say about site5, their uptime is legitimately very good. Unfortunately, that alone isn't worth the slow and underwhelming support. There are too many other options. I switched to Complete Internet Solutions, which is not only cheaper with a price lock guarantee but provides quality customer service as well; my one issue was resolved via phone in less than an hour. I should have switched from site5 years ago.

Date of experience: Jan 17, 2020