Most of the web hosting scams occur in new companies that are just recently launched. These companies usually will advertise their services on a forum and they will try to offer discounts to entice customers. They advertise their services on the forums because they are looking to grow their customer base. New web hosting companies don’t have many customer reviews so it is hard to determine whether they are reliable. You should avoid these web hosting companies no matter how cheap they are offering for their web hosting services.
If they are offering their web hosting at cheap price, it must be that they have reduced the quality in certain aspect for example slow customer support or slow uptime. Many new companies will close down in a few months. If it close down, you won’t be able to access your control panel and you will lose the hosting fee that you have paid to the company who has disappeared. There are also some established web hosting companies that lie about the promises they made.
The only way to identify web hosting scams is to do research on the web for customer complaints by using various search terms. You will have to visit a number of forums and reviews sites to read the customers reviews. You have to keep in mind that some positive customer reviews may be paid so they are not honest reviews. Usually, a reliable web hosting company will have a majority percentage of positive reviews and some negative reviews. Reading reviews can help you to determine whether the company can be trusted as most scam companies won’t offer refund even if they put a guarantee. So, spending time to do research on a web hosting company is worthwhile if you don’t want to waste your money.
If you are looking for a reliable web hosting to host your website, it is recommended that you visit the top reviews site to get an idea on the top web hosting companies in the industry. You can do research on each of the web hosting companies listed in the top reviews site including background, year of establishment, types of plans, and pricing. You should visit the website of the web hosting company and navigate around to see if it is user friendly.
It is very important that the web hosting company is providing at least one method for the customers to contact the customer support department. It is best if they offer 3 or more methods such as email, telephone, live chat, ticket and forum to reach out to the customer representative. Having a 24/7 customer support is very important especially if you are running an online business and you need an issue of the hosting addressed immediately.
A good web hosting company will offer money back guarantee and uptime guarantee. The money back guarantee usually last for 30 days to 90 days and it can be used as a trial period for you to test the web hosting service. You can get a full refund of your money from them if you feel that their hosting is not suitable for your website if you terminate the account within the money back guarantee period. For the uptime guarantee, customers are usually compensated if the server uptime is not up to the promised level. For example, if the server uptime is 99.90% and the server is 97% uptime, they will offer compensation by extending your hosting.