If I have a fault among many is that I am a loyal customer. And I will remain so till one of two things happen: Your product/service drops in quality and you do squat to fist it. Or you decide to screw me.

HostGator did both.

I started this blog with a small mom & pop type Webhost who got scared after the back-then assholes of Century Arms sent them a threatening note for a post I did about their shoddy work and shoddier customer service. I went to HostGator because they offered an affordable service and I figured a big company would not be so easily intimidated by Drunken Monkeys pretending to be gunsmiths.
But the blog grew in visitors, not that many, but I started to get blocked by HG because the traffic I was getting went above the resources for my particular account. Fine OK, it is the price of “success” and you have to pay it. On their own recommendation,    I got their 3 year Optimized WordPress Package which they assured me was enough to deal with anything that may come up in the future. It gave me unlimited bandwith and unlimited memory so I did not have to do shit butt write and upload pretty pictures.

And then we started to get the effing 500 Error messages.

I contacted them and it seems I was using too many resources which lead to automatic slow-downs  & restrictions. So to fix that I did what they wanted, bought extra shit that was supposed to help me with, eliminated many a plugin that may have been screwing with the system, basically pared down the site till it looked like Charlie Brown’s Christmas Tree.  But it did not help.

More of the dreaded 500 kept showing up, tech services were contacted and then they started to hint I may need to move to a dedicated service where none of this would ever happen again! (heard that shit before.) I checked thei9r plans and I simply could not afford what they were asking, nor I could ask you guys to help me with that. Then we had a couple or more days were visits to the blog just blew the regular roof and I noticed the funniest of things: No 500 Error at all.  But then during a lower than usual visits days, the error was back,; this crap did not make sense and their only answer was to upgrade. That was the day I posted about quitting but AWA (Anonymous Webhost Angel) stepped up and offered his services.

So I did what HostGator wanted me to do: I upgraded my webhost.. but not with them.

It is not cheap, but it is not the testicle cutting amount that HostGator was demanding. And it comes with something I was not used to: Real Fricking Human Support. AWA not only did help me move over with the least amount of trouble, but went through the site figuring out what was going on and correcting stuff, making a more leaner, faster and effective site and all while dealing with me and my lack of properly following instructions.

I already got great feedback from some of you about noticing the difference and do thank AWA for that. I know I can feel it on this side of the blog and specially the lack of the 500 error message.

Yesterday was the last day of migrations and it was the email accounts. Apparently 12 years of emails do not migrate easy or fast specially with me screwing shit up. Finally last night we were done, the shackles from HostGator removed and I contacted them to let them know I was cancelling and I wanted a refund for the remaining time   left on my account. The reply was a very formal “Fuck you, you did not read the small print. Yes there was a money back guarantee, but it only lasts the first 45 days so we are keeping the moola. Love and kisses. Signed Escalated Support. PS: We are keeping your slot open till end of contract in case you want to come back to us, begging like a dog. After that, we will delete everything you made.”

So the money back guarantee died sometime 5 years ago and I am now officially out of $300 that I had planned to use for the extended payments of the new webhost.

So the blog will continue, this time on my server which won’t be tweaked by greedy assholes and be subjected by restrictions based on BS or politics. And I get to bombard you guys with my crap while you wait for J. Kb. to dish out the good stuff.

One last thing: I have told AWA to come up with a logo and contact info so I can advertise his services in the blog. He deserves more clients and I am planning he gets a couple through us. So, if you have the need for hosting services, stay put or email me so I can pass you the info.

OK.  Rant Off. Back to my coffee.

PS: Eff HostGator… it needed to be said again.