bluehost.NET Crooks?

[iFloop.com]

On April 24th, 2006 I registered MTHOODBLUES.COM in error with BLUEHOST.NET instead of BLUEHOST.COM, where I intended to register it. It seems that BLUEHOST.NET is somewhere in Hungary and does not respond to emails, has its website in Hungarian, and has only an international phone number listed. When I looked I found that MTHOODBLUES.COM was registered with GODADDY.COM and locked down with BLUEHOST.NET as the entry for all contacts. My business name and address are used in the registrant information. All possible account transactions were shown as "locked" and I have never received any user name or password for the account. Most disturbing is that they have pointed the domain name to my web pages at the domains for my primary business. Since these people show every evidence of being crooks, I have cancelled the credit card transaction and notified them that I will pay for the domain name when and if I receive appropriate account information and access. Still no response. Can BLUEHOST do anything to resolve this situation?

[areidmtm]

Can BLUEHOST do anything to resolve this situation?

Nope. It is the users’ responsibility to do research on the company before buying. AND your first clue should be that the entire site is in another language. If the domain is locked with bluehost.net, then bluehost.com cannot do anything until bluehost.net releases it.

It’s liking going into a store and buying something, then going into another store and asking for a refund. They’re not going to give you a refund, it’s not their product…unless it’s Wal-Mart, those idiots will take back anything.

[P00r]

Write to the .net registrar or authority (No idea who it is.) they should be able to help.

You can alway send an e-mail to suport about it, if they feel for it they may help you transfer it! or better if you are good at ping pong or starcraft write to Matt directly and put your domain name on the table :)




On April 24th, 2006 I registered MTHOODBLUES.COM in error with BLUEHOST.NET instead of BLUEHOST.COM, where I intended to register it. It seems that BLUEHOST.NET is somewhere in Hungary and does not respond to emails, has its website in Hungarian, and has only an international phone number listed. When I looked I found that MTHOODBLUES.COM was registered with GODADDY.COM and locked down with BLUEHOST.NET as the entry for all contacts. My business name and address are used in the registrant information. All possible account transactions were shown as "locked" and I have never received any user name or password for the account. Most disturbing is that they have pointed the domain name to my web pages at the domains for my primary business. Since these people show every evidence of being crooks, I have cancelled the credit card transaction and notified them that I will pay for the domain name when and if I receive appropriate account information and access. Still no response. Can BLUEHOST do anything to resolve this situation?

[iFloop.com]

This was not a case of knowingly going into the wrong store. I knew I wanted to register the domain at BLUEHOST.COM. I was unaware that BLUEHOST.NET existed. When I googled BLUEHOST and "domain registration" I got a page that had the same look and colors as BLUEHOST.COM. All business names on the page were simply "BlueHost" without any extension specified. I THOUGHT I was registering at BLUEHOST.COM. This is obviously an attempt to scam people.

[Early Out]

When I go to that page, I have to act very quickly in order to keep from being dumped into the Hungarian language part of the site. Once in the English part, most of the links produce 404 errors. The pages that are there have numerous grammatical errors, and are sprinkled with errors like:

Warning: file(prices.dat): failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/bluehost/public_html/en/domain.php on line 18

In short, there are warning flags all over the place. Yes, they're crooks, but the website should have tipped you off to the fact that they're incompetent, at the very least, even if their crookedness isn't obvious on the surface. I wouldn't have been lured into giving them a credit card number for anything.

[areidmtm]

If you knew you wanted to register with bluehost.com then why didn't you just go to bluehost.com, instead of googling bluehost and going to bluehost.net? This seams kind of like a duh response. Of course you're going to get about a million other sites called bluehost and again DUH, the site colors are going to be blue, hence the name bluehost. They wouldn't make their colors green would they? Like I said before, your first clue should have been that bluehost.net is in a completely different language AND research any site before giving them your money, even if you know what site you're on and where your money is going. You're right, this is obviously an attempt to scam people that are obvious to where they are and who they are giving there money to. I'm sorry that I don't have much sympathy for you, but like I said DUH

[himself]

On April 24th, 2006 I registered MTHOODBLUES.COM in error with BLUEHOST.NET instead of BLUEHOST.COM, where I intended to register it. It seems that BLUEHOST.NET is somewhere in Hungary and does not respond to emails, has its website in Hungarian, and has only an international phone number listed. When I looked I found that MTHOODBLUES.COM was registered with GODADDY.COM and locked down with BLUEHOST.NET as the entry for all contacts. My business name and address are used in the registrant information. All possible account transactions were shown as "locked" and I have never received any user name or password for the account. Most disturbing is that they have pointed the domain name to my web pages at the domains for my primary business. Since these people show every evidence of being crooks, I have cancelled the credit card transaction and notified them that I will pay for the domain name when and if I receive appropriate account information and access. Still no response. Can BLUEHOST do anything to resolve this situation?
I would suggest trying to go through godaddy, since it seems that your domain was actually registered through them. If godaddy shows that the domain is registered under your name and not bluehost.net, you may be able to to regain control of it.

[KVN]

They also seem to have bluehost.org
.. and it's mainly in english

(nice animated FavIcon too)

[iFloop.com]

To those of you who offered genuine suggestions for solving the problem, my sincere thanks. To those of you who simply took the opportunity to bash the victim of a scam, I hope someday you get a life. The page I registered on was in English and exhibited no obvious problems. I suspect it was the .org page. Next time I have a problem or identify a scam I'll just keep my mouth shut. Obviously, you folks prefer to learn everything on your own, the hard way, and think everyone else should too. Have a nice life.

[Early Out]

I'm sorry you fell for a scam, and I wish I could tell you how to rectify the situation, but my gut feeling is that you're going to have to swallow the loss, and chalk it up to experience. It's certainly worth trying to go through godaddy, but I wouldn't get my hopes up.

I just looked at bluehost.org. It's not quite as bad as bluehost.net, but still has countless examples of the kind of "close, but not quite" English one often sees in phishing emails. And their "Promotional Package" offers, for $9.95 a month, 15Mb of storage (that's mega, not giga), and 1Gb of transfer. They want another $1.20 a month for each additional 5Mb of storage (again, that's mega). This isn't just a red flag. This is a great big, screaming, shouting, flashing red strobe light. Frankly, if they're just crooks, and don't intend to provide any service anyway, I can't understand why they don't offer better bait.

You yourself said, "This is obviously an attempt to scam people." The key word is "obviously."

[areidmtm]

I suspect it was the .org page.
First you say it was .net, now you're saying it may be been .org. You have no idea where you are. You must like giving away your money to people you don't know. Thoes sites are only a scam for the not so smart people that fall for it.


Obviously, you folks prefer to learn everything on your own, the hard way, and think everyone else should too. Have a nice life.

Well with that said, you're no better then us, huh? Besides the damage had already been done before you had posted here. Not much any of us could really do.

[KenJackson]

You're right, iFloop.com. Reading the responses, I was surprised at the lack of sympathy for a mistake anyone could make, which has less-than-simple consequences.

But totally apart from your experience, now that I've been alerted to its existence, I'm comparing bluehost.com and bluehost.org. Wow!

__________________ bluehost.org ______________ bluehost.com
Storage _____________ 50MB _____________________ 15GB
Monthly traffic _________ 3.5GB ___________________ 400GB
POP3 mailboxes _______ 50 ______________________ 2500
Monthly cost __________ $10.95 ___________________ $6.95

[areidmtm]

a mistake anyone could make.

Anyone could have made that mistake. BUT the part that I don't understand is that he said that he KNEW he wanted to register with bluehost.com.


I knew I wanted to register the domain at BLUEHOST.COM.

But instead of just going to bluehost.com he googled it and went to some other bluehost.

That is just asking to be taken advantage of

[Early Out]

BUT the part that I don't understand is that he said that he KNEW he wanted to register with bluehost.com.

But instead of just going to bluehost.com he googled it and went to some other bluehost.
I also found that mystifying. "I want to see the news on cnn.com. So, I'll Google for 'cnn news online.'" Huh?

[areidmtm]

"I want to see the news on cnn.com. So, I'll Google for 'cnn news online.'" Huh?

See that is exactly what I'm talking about

[Degsey69]

I had a quick look at bluehost.net, there is now an option page for choice of language.

Anybody can make a mistake, hands up those who have not, no hands up I see.

The logo is ripped off from bluehost.com and I would suggest that a letter from yoyr attorneys might get it changed. Hugary is in the European Union and theiir companies are much more liable then previously.

Had I wandered into that site by mistake and saw the bluehost.com logo and prices in do;;ars and not euro's I would have probaly done the same.:)

[KVN]

Does it really matter?

iFloop - thanks for alerting us to bluehost.net & .com.

As mentioned before, the answer to your question is that nothing can be done. I suggest you follow Himself's advice with godaddy. They will probably want money for you to 'transfer' your domain to a more reputable host - it sucks, but that's the way the web is these days. And rest assured, we have ALL screwed up with something similar in the past (if you reckon you haven't... your days are numbered :) )

I apologise if you did not receive more sympathetic responses - but it's a message board dude, don't let it get under your skin.

there.. now my conscience is clear
(and I still think their animated FavIcon is cool)