Bluehost
Reviews and Complaints

Escalation Case #s
S-243****
S-243****
I have spent the last *15 days* trying a VERY simple operation - a Domain Name transfer to Square Space. Again, that's 10+ Hours with Customer Service and 7+ Days of wait time.
I am typing this as I am STILL ON THE PHONE with Supervisor "Jeff".
Here is a brief summary of this nightmare in the hope that it will save someone else valuable time and headaches:
(I tried to work with these customer service reps.

I GAVE UP trying to transfer to Square Space and just tried to get them to switcht the domain to another Bluehost account. They couldn't even do this.)
1. Jen = promised it would be done.
2. Gleran - promised Carl would call me and assured me the domain would be transferred.

Carl never called me and the domain name was not transferred.
3. Supervisor Carl Joseph - was supposed to call me and never did. The following day we spoke on the phone for an hour and he assured me he has expedited the case and it would be done within 24 hours. Carl expedited my case at the lowest priority so it wasn't seen until after the EPP code and transfer time expired, making it fail when trying to transfer to Squarespace.

He could not understand the problem at all. This is why I had my client set up a Bluehost account to hopefully simplify things. This still hasn't worked. The notes he left on the expedited case ticket were unintelligible and did not even provide the name of the account where the domain was supposed to go.
4.

Angel - Nice, but no help. Her hands were tied as there is no direction communication between front end and back end support.
5. Jay - Nice, but refused to directly reconnect me with Jeff after we got disconnected. This caused a time sensitive authorization code to expire and we had to start the process over again.

Another ~30 minutes wasted.
6. Sushanth K (Domain Administration Team) - Sent me an email telling me the ERROR WAS ON THERE END because the domain remained LOCKED after I had manually unlocked it and several other customer support agents had verified it was unlocked.
7. Supervisor "Jeffrey" or "Jeff" - We spent around 2 hours on the phone with me. He was more helpful than anyone else I spoke with, but he still could not grasp very basic English and a description of transferring a domain.

When I needed to put him on hold to retrieve an Authentication Code at his request, he never came back to the phone. I could hear people laughing and talking in the background, but he would not answer. Because this code is time sensitive, this forced us to waste another 30 minutes of me trying to get back in touch with Jeff to repeat the process. A complete nightmare.
My calls (4 total) today (November 16) started at 6:36pm and lasted 8:12pm.

The worst part is I am told it could still take another 3 days to complete the transfer. In other words, at the time of me writing this, I have zero confidence we have made any progress at all and it is a complete waste of time and massive inconvenience to my customer.
Jeff has said he has raised the expedited ticket to the highest priority and will take ownership of the problem. He will contact me when there is an update.
I initiated my first transfer attempt on November 1 and it's November 16th and there is zero progress to show.
11/17/23 - UPDATE
NO PROGRESS AFTER 16 DAYs
AUTH CODE / EPP CODE is showing up with a 4 Day lag. Requests made by Bluehost reps from Nov 11th-14th are showing up to my email.
Escalated tickets are on a 3-4 day lag.

Correspondence between the front end team and back end team is nonexistent. Shushanth, the Domain Admin on the backend, asks me through email the exact same questions Jeff, Supervisor on the front end, and half a dozen other reps ask you over the phone.
I've even asked them to repeat the problem and solution back to me over the phone to ensure they understand - all we are doing is transferring a domain from one Bluehost account to another.

They say they understand and promise it will be done. They are all "very sorry".
And then you log in the next day to see if something's changed, and NOTHING HAS HAPPENED.
I've been with this company for 15 years and never experienced this level of incompetence!

To be fair, this will be detailed. My 3 year renewal came up at the end of 2023.

I renewed and decided I was going to add a 2nd website, so I upgraded my plan to include a new website, for another 3 years. When it came time to launch my website, Bluehost support could not install Wordpress correctly. I honestly do not know why. I dealt with this issue for 3 weeks; they escalated it 3 times.

It was never resolved and I gave up. I called support and told them I wanted to remove my second website and downgrade my hosting back to my original plan because they cannot seem to install Wordpress, so I cannot access or launch a new website. I made it VERY clear that I was keeping my original hosting plan and my main website would remain. There was no misunderstanding.

Well, the next day I find out that support person deleted my ENTIRE hosting plan.

This action deleted my primary website. This is a website I built over 3 years and held my company information, portfolio, etc.

I called immediately, and wanted my website restored, my hosting plan should never have been deleted. Unbelievably, I was told that if I wanted my site restored I would have to buy a new hosting plan.

I believe this is called extortion. Unbelievably unethical!

I had no choice but to buy into another plan for a year. I was told that my site would be restored in 48 hours.

It has been more than a week now. I got an email the other day saying they were going to need business documents that reflected matching information.

Keep in mind, my contact information on Bluehost has never changed, it is clear that my website was deleted but now they want documentation? Ok.

I sent them State and Federal documents.

Then I get an email that said, they were able to verify the address, but since the business name in Bluehost was different, i would need to send additional documents to restore it.

Under business name in their account, it says OPTIONAL.

When I opened my account I put the same name that my website domain would go by to fill the space. They didn't seem to need any documentation at that time as they certainly didn't ask for it. My business became an LLC in 2023.

I have lost money every day because of them. They made this absolutely unacceptable mistake, yet want to make me jump through hoops to get back content that I own, which they deleted.

I did not start a new Bluehost account, the username, start date, all of it is the same and is exactly where my website was hosted.

Bluehost made me pay them extra in order to get my website back, after they are the ones who completely messed up, and it is still NOT restored.

How they are in business leaves my mind blown. Horrible, horrible tech support, unethical business practices, their platform is completely faulty ( I have attempted to update information over 30 times, i'm not exaggerating, and their platform never updates it).

I have done this through trying to talk directly with support, through chat with support, through email with support.

An awful and absolute joke of a company that should never be permitted to host anyones business accounts. Please do yourself a favor and choose a hosting company that knows what they are doing.

I've been with BlueHost since 2008. When I first signed up with them, they seemed like the best thing ever - unlimited everything at a very reasonable price.

It was easy to get my site up and running and no trouble to add additional ones later. Starting around 2021-ish, I started seeing a noticeable decline in the quality of their services. Wordpress installs were getting broken, annoying little things like this. Then, I wanted to update my account address to match to my current one, and the site wouldn't let me do it!

It was like whatever they're running for their management just wasn't working correctly. Around this same time, I wasn't even able to log in for a day or two. Everything seems like their current iteration of their account management software is a broken mess. The final straw was when they said they would be changing the terms of the hosting package that I had for the past dozen years.

They said they were going to make it "more in line with current norms" or some such garbage. Long story short is that it would become more expensive and give me less features. Whereas I had previously had unlimited websites, now it was saying I would only have two! Mind you, I already had four websites installed, so I'm not sure what was to become of two of them, or were they going to tack on an extra fee?

Or what? Nothing explained. Now, I am in the midst of attempting to transfer one of my domain names out to Namecheap, and I've now asked for the auth code twice and asked to have it unlocked and neither has happened. In the meantime, now all my other domains are locked as well, and the button to request the auth codes for them has been deactivated...hmmm...could it be they see I'm leaving them and trying to hinder me?

I've already shut off all auto-renews and found a much better hosting service.

The last step for me to finally be rid of them is to get these domain names transferred. They're truly and awful company to deal with and I wouldn't recommend them even to my enemy.

My dissatisfaction with Blue Host is at the highest level of unprofessionalism I have dealt with in 23 years in business and 45 years in the work force. If it were possible, I would give them ZERO Stars.

Despite being a customer of Blue Host for only 3 months and paying for 3 Years of Domain Management and Website, they deactivated my account and e-mail service over $24.00 Chargeback.

The chargeback was for an unauthorized charge to my credit card that they would not reverse and I disputed with my credit card company under the scam, Security. I won the case with my credit card company and they shut down my domain name without a warning I own the domain name for 23 years and they are just Hosting. and effectively shutting down my business. The impact is immeasurable.

I am mostly disgusted as they are powerless to reactivate without the Billing department???If you can believe it.

So we sit and spin while they do NOTHING.

I will be suing them for however long it takes for them to right this wrong. We cannot even have another host at this point as they HOLD EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO SWITCH!!!And they make that inaccessible.

They have been aggravating to no end and no one at the help desk or the supervisors have names as they just mumble in foreign languages. My state of frustration and disappointment is at an all-time high. I am running a multimillion-dollar company and despite the severity of the situation, the company has shown a complete lack of initiative or concern, taking no meaningful action to address the issue at hand.

The support team and agents, regrettably, have proven to be utterly inadequate and incompetent in their roles.

They demonstrate a disheartening inability to actively listen to customers' concerns or perform their duties with the required level of incompetence. They resort to creating tickets that are addressed at their leisure, with little to no tangible results. It is disheartening to witness such an unprofessional approach to customer support.

The consequences of their negligence extend far beyond mere financial losses. I have suffered significant monetary setbacks and detrimental effects on my business.

The loss of databases, folders, and emails due to their actions has had an irreversible impact.

To exacerbate matters, they refuse to rectify the situation or take responsibility for their actions. It is clear that Bluehost's deliberate actions are causing harm not only to me but also to my business and clientele. The loss of my clients' information is a severe blow, and legal action is going to be taken

I can no longer tolerate this situation, as it has had a profoundly negative impact on my business. I deeply regret the detrimental impact this ordeal has had on my business, resulting in substantial financial losses and hampering its growth.

In light of these circumstances, I emphatically advise anyone considering their services to steer clear of this company.

Their actions have proven to be detrimental, causing significant harm to businesses and individuals alike. Exercise caution and avoid the distressing consequences that working with a predatory company like Blue host.

As soon as they reactivate my account, I will be getting out of there as fast as possible. I will be suing them for damages depending on how many days they shut me down. Anyone choosing to work with this company is a damn fool.

Including me. NEWSFLASH. As soon as Im reinstated, I will start the ball rolling. Then I will request a refund for the 30 unused months.

If they refuse, I will contact my credit card company and they CAN CHARGE THAT BACK TOO.

24 DOLLARS! That they stole from me caused this. Caused severe hardship for me and my customers Stay far away.

They are basically criminals and hijack your domain. A customer lost for life.

I have been with Bluehost for almost 10 years and last Friday afternoon I reported that many of my domains assigned to my server were not working when they had always worked. ****Clearly a DNS problem caused by Bluehost.*****

I have been talking to their customer service and I always receive the same response: it has been escalated but it is not resolved and today the admins sent me an email telling me that they have solved only 1 domain of all those affected.

Meanwhile I have to suffer the anger of my more than 30 clients because their website does not work.

Regrettable and with non-repairable damage.