Catalog.com - Reviews at Web Hosting Ratings

At first, catalog was fine. However, they eventually began automatically renewing my membership and charging my credit card without my permission! I attempted many times to cancel this service and have received no real live response. Recently I received the same e-mail saying that I am set up for automatic renewal in the middle of next month and there seems to be nothing I can do about this. How can this website commandeer your credit card and provide no means of opting out. This is outrageous.

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It's not FREE, no Live Support!!! - Review by Matt Royalty submitted on August 20, 2003

Customer's web site: N/A

Length of time hosted by this company: over 3 years

Date when last hosted by this company (as of August 20, 2003): Current customer

Plan used: Free

Customer service rating: 1 out of 10

Technical quality rating: 1 out of 10

Cost rating: 1 out of 10

Overall rating: 2 out of 10

I was with Catalog for about 4 years and now they don't have any live support, which in the past was worth the extra money to have. Now I'm switching to a new company that give 200MB of space, 4GB of transfer, Free Scripts, and tons of extras all for under $35/yr.

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pay to restore site - Review by Anonymous submitted on August 12, 2003

Customer's web site: N/A

Length of time hosted by this company: 1 year - 3 years

Date when last hosted by this company (as of August 12, 2003): Current customer

Plan used: N/A

Customer service rating: 1 out of 10

Technical quality rating: 3 out of 10

Cost rating: 5 out of 10

Overall rating: 2 out of 10

Changed domain registration from catalog to another company. Hosting was to stay at catalog. They removed my site and then wanted $35 to restore my site. No response for days from support dept, email for business has been down, as well as site for days.

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Not recommended - Review by Kris Borer submitted on August 8, 2003

Customer's web site: www.failedactorsclub.org

Length of time hosted by this company: 1 year - 3 years

Date when last hosted by this company (as of August 8, 2003): Current customer

Plan used: the "free" webhosting plan

Customer service rating: 6 out of 10

Technical quality rating: 3 out of 10

Cost rating: 4 out of 10

Overall rating: 3 out of 10

I don't recommend this service if you're looking to host a small, or low traffic site, which is what I had. I've had occasional problems with my site going down, the worst was for over a week. Also, their site isn't very helpful, though their customer service is good enough. My main complaint was that they advertised "free web hosting forever" and then proceeded to add an additional $20 yearly fee a few months after I signed up. Pay a little more for a decent webhosting service, seriously. The reason I'm on this site is to find a place to transfer to (after the two years I paid for up front runs out)

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Terrible service - Review by Anonymous submitted on April 2, 2003

Customer's web site: www.starrlabs.com

Length of time hosted by this company: over 3 years

Date when last hosted by this company (as of April 2, 2003): Current customer

Plan used: What they call Classic and now their Basic plan

Customer service rating: 1 out of 10

Technical quality rating: 5 out of 10

Cost rating: 1 out of 10

Overall rating: 2 out of 10

They used to have acceptable service and I've been with them for 6 years. We recently switched from a Classic service to the Basic service,their current offering that has more available services.

Aside from the hidden charges such as a "Club" fee that accompanies "free hosting" their tech support has disappeared. They promised 24/7 telephone support so expect to spend several hours, perhaps weekly, on hold. They prefer email support so expect to see a lot of this "This is an auto-generated response. You will NOT receive a reply to your email." Their techs are polite and bright, but they each have a (sometimes radically) different solution to a given problem. Often a convincing solution to a technical question doesn't work at all and is followed up with a completely different explanation. Depends on who you talk to. It's taken two months for them to get my username and password working costently. It still doesn't work and now they've accidentally locked our site to all visitors. We've spent three hours on hold today alone and have sent several of their special "customer care tickets" to no avail. I don't mind being over-charged, but the service that was once ok has become absolutely the worst! They also need more songs on their music-on-hold loop. I've memorized all of them by now.

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Unbelievable - Review by Anonymous submitted on March 9, 2003

Customer's web site: N/A

Length of time hosted by this company: over 3 years

Date when last hosted by this company (as of March 9, 2003): Current customer

Plan used: Classic, then a free plan ($35/year for the domain)

Customer service rating: 1 out of 10

Technical quality rating: 4 out of 10

Cost rating: 1 out of 10

Overall rating: 1 out of 10

E-mail has never been that reliable, but for the past 3 days there has been no POP access (still available via web interface).

And now in additional to the total lack of e-mail support, the web support link doesn't connect, and I can't even access the site admin panel.

They tried to bill my credit card even for sites I told them not to renew. Fortunately I was one step ahead of them -- I cancelled the card first!

Stay away from these people. They were somewhat adequate in the past, but they appear to have melted down.

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stay away from catalog.com - Review by submitted on March 5, 2003

Customer's web site: N/A

Length of time hosted by this company: 3 months - 1 year

Date when last hosted by this company (as of March 5, 2003): Less than 3 months ago

Plan used: N/A

Customer service rating: 1 out of 10

Technical quality rating: 1 out of 10

Cost rating: 1 out of 10

Overall rating: 1 out of 10

Unreliable, email is flaky at best, service is non-existant, and they scam their customers.

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Criminals! - Review by Adam submitted on February 22, 2003

Customer's web site: www.slipfault.com

Length of time hosted by this company: 3 months - 1 year

Date when last hosted by this company (as of February 22, 2003): Current customer

Plan used: $35 domain registration/ free hosting for 1 year

Customer service rating: 1 out of 10

Technical quality rating: 4 out of 10

Cost rating: 2 out of 10

Overall rating: 1 out of 10

Signed up for $35 domain registration and "free" hosting.

One month later I was billed $24.95 for the hosting club.

Currently being ignored by customer no service about throughput fees billed on my credit card.

Don't waste your time with these CRIMINALS.

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Reality Check - Review by submitted on February 4, 2003

Customer's web site: www.phototracks.net

Length of time hosted by this company: 3 months - 1 year

Date when last hosted by this company (as of February 4, 2003): Current customer

Plan used: N/A

Customer service rating: N/A

Technical quality rating: 8 out of 10

Cost rating: 8 out of 10

Overall rating: 8 out of 10

If you think Catlog.com is expensive it's time for a reality check. You get what you pay for. Trust me - Catalog.com is pretty cheap compared to some of the other services you will find and so far I have found the service very stable. There are loopholes in all web host pricing. Regarding the free services people are talking about -get real...most force you to place banner ads on your pages and usually suffer from serious conectvitiy issues and are down half the time. You are given free service because you are nothing but an advertisement for the company. Complaining about having to pay $25-$45 for a years worth of banner free web hosting with space allocation is rediculous. Some services charge $10-$15 a month for minimal service.

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Awful!! - Review by Sean submitted on January 10, 2003

Customer's web site: Submitted but not made public

Length of time hosted by this company: 1 year - 3 years

Date when last hosted by this company (as of January 10, 2003): Less than 3 months ago

Plan used: Basic

Customer service rating: 1 out of 10

Technical quality rating: 1 out of 10

Cost rating: 1 out of 10

Overall rating: 1 out of 10

Their support is a joke. But worse, around the end of last year they decided they would just up and change their billing plan. It started out as free hosting for life as long as you kept your registration with them. They decided to add a "Club Membership" fee and charged everyone of their customers CC's $24.95. It took us about 5 hours totaled hold time to ask them what the charge was for. Obviously they feel they can charge your credit card whatever they like with no consequence.

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Doubtful - Review by Anonymous submitted on December 25, 2002

Customer's web site: www.bookreader.org

Length of time hosted by this company: 1 year - 3 years

Date when last hosted by this company (as of December 25, 2002): 1 year - 3 years ago

Plan used: free

Customer service rating: 5 out of 10

Technical quality rating: 5 out of 10

Cost rating: 3 out of 10

Overall rating: 4 out of 10

Started out OK then when down hill the last 4 months. Their span filtering system is no good. It caused my mail to a booksellers group to bounce and I got shut down off by the bookseller group. Took weeks and much trouble to resolve. Then the same thing happend with mail sent to yahoogroups, their filter rejected it and and lost ability to communicate with important contacts. Same problem reoccured repeatedly and my third catalog.com precipated shut-down by yahoogroups is unresolved as of the moment.

Also, small tacked on charges make there "free" service more expensive then the new one I'm not switching to.

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This is a scam! - Review by Anonymous submitted on October 14, 2002

Customer's web site: Submitted but not made public

Length of time hosted by this company: less than a month

Date when last hosted by this company (as of October 14, 2002): Current customer

Plan used: basic plan $35/year no webhosting fee

Customer service rating: 1 out of 10

Technical quality rating: N/A

Cost rating: 1 out of 10

Overall rating: 1 out of 10

As other reviewers have stated, Catalog.com advertised domain registration for $35.00 with free web hosting. Then, they turn around and change the cost to effectively be $54.90. No way to email or post a complaint on-line. I was on the phone with them for an hour to contact a rep, but never got through. Don't trust them!

They have since changed their website, so at least now they are up front about the cost of their services. Still I think their way of doing business is dishonest and disgraceful.

Luckily, I hadn't built my site yet, so I have disputed the charge with my credit card company.

Advice: Find another provider and email C-Net who recommend catalog.com as a cheap basic web hosting company.

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Worthless Charlatons - Review by Norm submitted on October 6, 2002

Customer's web site: N/A

Length of time hosted by this company: 1 month - 3 months

Date when last hosted by this company (as of October 6, 2002): Current customer

Plan used: N/A

Customer service rating: 1 out of 10

Technical quality rating: 1 out of 10

Cost rating: 1 out of 10

Overall rating: 1 out of 10

I signed up for the original "free" web hosting that included $45 domain registration charges, for a year.

Now, after about 1 month of service I get a charge of $24.95 for joining the "web hosting club".

Never was I consulted or notified about the change. When I finally got an answer from catalog.com they say I must either pay this(and get 1 extra crappy email account that I don't even want), or cancel(meaning I get to keep the domain name for the rest of the year, but no hosting from them!)

I have never seen such blatant false advertising, it's an absolute disgrace. They have my $45 dollars and don't want to provide the proper(and advertised!) service...

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Worst company.... EVER - Review by submitted on October 4, 2002

Customer's web site: www.audiolizard.com

Length of time hosted by this company: 3 months - 1 year

Date when last hosted by this company (as of October 4, 2002): Current customer

Plan used: Free Hosting Plan

Customer service rating: 1 out of 10

Technical quality rating: 4 out of 10

Cost rating: 4 out of 10

Overall rating: 1 out of 10

I first signed on with catalog.com in November, 2001 based on c|net's glowing review. I thought I was getting a good deal - $35 for a year of domain registration and "free" hosting. I was satisfied for a while. I was kind of disappointed in their amateurish web-based admin tools and web-based email, but they were "free", so I couldn't complain. When I had a tech support issue, I did not get a response within the time period they guarantee. And the response I did get wasn't helpful, so I had to submit my questions a second time with no luck either. Then the BIG CHANGE came. They ran out of venture capital funding and decided to restructure their pricing retroactively even for people who already paid for their services. So now I'm being charged $24.95 as a "free hosting club membership fee" which is an oxymoron if I've ever heard one. They've attempted to charge this fee to my credit card 3 times without my consent and with notice a day AFTER they charged the fee. Fortunately, my credit card is really a debit card, and I've closed the account that it is tied to. But they keep trying to charge me, and they keep sending me email about it. I have sent them email repeatedly explaining the situation and my dissatisfaction, but my email is either ingored or bounced. They no longer have any email support, and when I tried to contact them by phone, the first time I got no where and couldn't reach a human being. Today I tried again, and after I waited on hold for 30 minutes, I explained the situation. The rep said if I don't pay the new fee, they will close my account. When I explained that I already paid for this service with the understanding that hosting is free, he hung up on me. I suspect they are receiving a lot of these calls, and I doubt that what they are doing is even legal. This is one of the worst companies I have ever dealt with, and I encourage everybody to avoid catalog.com.

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Outrageous behavior by catalog.com - Review by Dave submitted on October 2, 2002

Customer's web site: N/A

Length of time hosted by this company: 3 months - 1 year

Date when last hosted by this company (as of October 2, 2002): Current customer

Plan used: 5 year domain with free hosting

Customer service rating: 1 out of 10

Technical quality rating: 6 out of 10

Cost rating: 1 out of 10

Overall rating: 1 out of 10

Greetings!

Is it just me or did anyone else found catalog.com's "change of policy" outrageous?

last November I paid $250.00 for 5 years domain registration which included "FREE hosting forever" (for as long as the domain was registered-renewed). Now catalog.com announced a "policy change" that requires the users to be a "club member" for an additional $24.95 a year. While many users I assume have paid this rediculeus fee in fear of discontinued service, I am sure some of you do not agree with this and here is why you would not:

When we've registered the domains they included free hosting which legally means $0.00 no more no less! We and catalog.com have agreed to a contract which must be fulfilled in original terms. Now if you do not pay the membership fee your hosting will be discontinued even though you have not broken any part of the contract. Catalog.com can't just "introduce" an additional fee (club membership or whatever else you want to call it) for the product that you have already purchased. What if theannounced membership fee was not $24.95 but $100 or $1000?" would you still pay it?

The point is that all users should strongly complain about this and dispute the charges with their banks for this ANAUTHORIZED charge. If catalog.com discontinues the plans than we should all take them to court! I know that $24.95 is not much but look what's really happening here. Most of us have paid $35.00 a year for domain registration. is it cheap? no it's very expensive, you can register a domain for less than $8.00 a year. We did register because the product included a value in a form of hosting which made it look like a good deal. Now add the setup fee for say CGI-BIN $50.00 and CGI-BIN option $50.00 plus the "club membership" fee of $24.95 the total: $159.95 which translates into $13.33 montly fee. I am sure that catalog.com's conduct is not just outrageous but is also illegal!

Please see the FTC guidelines for use of term Free:
http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/guides/free.htm

You can file a compaint against Catalog.com at (I did):
http://www.ftc.gov/ftc/consumer.htm

If they will receive enough complaints they will investigate!

Here is the report of the Better Business Bureau regarding the Catalog.com and you will see that there have been unresolved complaints (I assume for the same reasons):
http://www.dallas.bbb.org/commonrep...compid=23004638

I would like to hear all of your thoughts regarding this and try to do something. They can't just get away with this like that!

I have obvoiusly contacted catalog.com proir to writing this, but the customer service rep was totally ignorant to my complaint, refused to put me through her supervisor and said we do not have choice but to discontinue the service. This is not an option for the service we have already paid for! she did not want to know.

Your support is appreciated.

Dave
P.S. Please participate in a poll I have setup to see what other people think about catalog.com
The online poll can be found at:
http://Bulletin.Catalog.Com//showthread.php?s=&threadid=139

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BAIT AND SWITCH!! - Review by submitted on September 17, 2002

Customer's web site: nyafs.org

Length of time hosted by this company: 1 month - 3 months

Date when last hosted by this company (as of September 17, 2002): Current customer

Plan used: Basic Plan

Customer service rating: 1 out of 10

Technical quality rating: 5 out of 10

Cost rating: 1 out of 10

Overall rating: 1 out of 10

1. I signed up for the $35.00 deal based on Cnet ratings. Three months later they smack with a $24.95 "hosting club" membership fee, in effect making the cost of their service $59.95/year a 72% increase in their published rates.

2. emails to their customer service result in autoresponses that do not resolve the problem

3. I called (long distance) and waited a long time to speak with very polite customer service rep Christy (employee #834). She a) admitted the price increase was not part of the orgininal service contract b) indicated that there was no supervisor or anybody else to speak with. c)would not arrange a pro-rated refund d)could offer no other solution other than to cancel service with no refund which was not acceptable. e) indicated that there were "500 other people" waiting on hold who probably had the same complaint.

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They wont let you go + NoTech support - Review by submitted on September 15, 2002

Customer's web site: psicologiaparaninos.com

Length of time hosted by this company: 1 year - 3 years

Date when last hosted by this company (as of September 15, 2002): Current customer

Plan used: Free hosting $35

Customer service rating: 1 out of 10

Technical quality rating: 9 out of 10

Cost rating: 5 out of 10

Overall rating: 3 out of 10

I got hooked with this company more than 2 years ago, hosting 3 websites.

When I had questions and sent emails, they almost never replied, and took forever. I'd say only about 25% of the emails I sent got responded.

I needed to close the websites after the first year but again I got no response. They charged me for the next year of hosting and never replied to my begging to stop the service. I had to block my credit card for them to stop hosting me.

Today I still have one website being hosted and not being able to stop it because they will shut it down until the end of the billing period, which is almost a year from now.

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Don't Trust Them! - Review by Michele submitted on August 23, 2002

Customer's web site: Submitted but not made public

Length of time hosted by this company: 3 months - 1 year

Date when last hosted by this company (as of August 23, 2002): Current customer

Plan used: Free - So hey Say!

Customer service rating: N/A

Technical quality rating: N/A

Cost rating: N/A

Overall rating: 1 out of 10

I purchased a domain and signed up for free web hosting in January 2002. I was pleased with catalog.com until they went too far in changing their policies. As a previous reviewer stated, they recently changed their Free Web Hosting plan. They claim web hosting is still free. Except, now, everyone has to pay a "membership fee" of $24.95 effective immediately. If you don't pay the fee - oops, we can't host you anymore.

Don't believe their "Free Hosting Forever".

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Switch and Bait - Review by J. Coleman submitted on August 17, 2002

Customer's web site: Submitted but not made public

Length of time hosted by this company: 3 months - 1 year

Date when last hosted by this company (as of August 17, 2002): Current customer

Plan used: The supposed "free".

Customer service rating: 3 out of 10

Technical quality rating: 8 out of 10

Cost rating: 1 out of 10

Overall rating: 1 out of 10

A year ago, advertised free with "free" phone support. 6 months ago, started charging for phone support. Last week, service is no longer free: charging 30 a year and justifying with additional mail box. My early letter to the CEO was never replied to. Regardless of what CNET says, THIS SERVICE IS HIGHLY OVERRATED!!

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FREE, reliable, and quick. - Review by submitted on April 23, 2002

Customer's web site: www.micciche.com

Length of time hosted by this company: 1 year - 3 years

Date when last hosted by this company (as of April 23, 2002): Current customer

Plan used: Free Unix Hosting

Customer service rating: 9 out of 10

Technical quality rating: 9 out of 10

Cost rating: 10 out of 10

Overall rating: 9 out of 10

Catalog.com is a great host, they set me up within a few days with some trouble transferring my domain. Their support was polite and somewhat quickly solved the issues. My website has never been down and the performance is as goos if not better than paid hosting. You only get one email address and their upgraded plans are expensive. They were great for what I need, but I'm looking for more features and am looking here for a great host, if I can't find one, I'll keep Catalog.com. SUPERB FREE SERVICE!!!

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Free Hosting - Review by Mike Marshall submitted on April 8, 2002

Customer's web site: www.misterbits.com

Length of time hosted by this company: 1 year - 3 years

Date when last hosted by this company (as of April 8, 2002): 1 year - 3 years ago

Plan used: Free Hosting

Customer service rating: 7 out of 10

Technical quality rating: 8 out of 10

Cost rating: 8 out of 10

Overall rating: 8 out of 10

Although $35 domain name charges are used to offset "free" hosting, the service/features are fairly comprehensive and suffice for most small sites. Phone tech support is being scaled back, however, and not all emails support requests have gotten responses.

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the free plan comes with spamming - Review by Billy submitted on March 17, 2002

Customer's web site: N/A

Length of time hosted by this company: 3 months - 1 year

Date when last hosted by this company (as of March 17, 2002): Current customer

Plan used: free (pay only domain name)

Customer service rating: N/A

Technical quality rating: 6 out of 10

Cost rating: 6 out of 10

Overall rating: 6 out of 10

the free plan comes with spamming on your mailbox. other than that it's ok.

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