UPDATE January 2010 – It appears that Hostazar has major issues with failing servers, poor or non existent support and broken links and bouncing email accounts and we cannot in good conscience recommend them at this time. If a Hostazar representative would like to add anything or offer some explanations we welcome a response.
Links to the site have been removed from this page as of January 18 2010. Customer complaints below suggest that Hostazar has, to all intents and purposes closed its doors and left its customers hanging. It seems likely that the website will eventually disappear altogether! (See links and comments below).
After discovering the connections to a man named Rob Benwell we did a quick check online and the following sites may be helpful to visitors although not good news at all if you have paid money for hosting services.
Rob Benwell – scammer or entrepreneur?
Rob Benwell – scamming to the bank at Scam.com
Rob Benwell – RipOffReport.com
Hostazar is part of the R5 Ltd group of websites based in the Digital Media Centre in South Yorkshire, UK, although it has servers based in data-centres around the world.
Possibly Related Posts:
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January 3rd, 2009 at 2:43 am
I have recently purchased a package with hostazar and 4 days later my site is still not up. I tried to contact them and they said they have 24 hour support but 2 days have passed and not a word from them.
January 4th, 2009 at 1:33 am
Hi Jemina,
I hope you get things resolved – please come back and let our readers know how things progress and once you are up and running a review of your experiences would be appreciated.
April 26th, 2009 at 10:44 am
Same thing happened to me, I definitely won’t recommend this hosting company: really sucks.
What people are expecting is often a live support!!! just that simple. Or, at least 24/7 support considering their clients are from around the world.
They don’t even have a technical support hotline! (or I didn’t see it?)
I am still waiting for my ticket to be resolved. Or will they respond to my ticket? If not, how can I reach them other than opening another no-respond ticket?
My issue there is I installed Word Press, I don’t know if my site is up or not because I don’t even know where is my homepage. Presumably once I installed WordPress, there should be some default page that I can access instantly, right?
Can anyone tell me what should I do? there must be a really simple fix.
Thanks.
Crystal Signature’s last blog post..How to Make Hemp Jewelry
April 28th, 2009 at 12:37 am
@Crystal
Although your comment is not a review as such, your concerns are obviously valid and it is true that first impressions count! I hope that the support issue gets resolved for you.
If you have installed Wordpress and yopur domain name has propogated you should indeed be able to access your site by typing in the URL of your blog.
To get to the admin area of Wordpress you should use yourdomain.com/wp-admin if you installed it in the root.
Hope this helps and please come back and let us know the outcome of your dealings with the company as so far the feedback is not encouraging.
April 28th, 2009 at 11:13 am
I have switched to Bluehost, my issue is still unresolved, no one contacted me or respond to my ticket, I am so disappointed with those liars.
Crystal Signature’s last blog post..How to Make Hemp Jewelry
April 29th, 2009 at 4:49 am
Hi sorry for not coming back earlier than I should.
Well, what happened was I submitted a dispute to paypal saying that the transaction was not delivered accordingly something like that. And the next day, I got my site up and the owner of the hosting site was saying they were having problems over the xmas blahblahblah..
maybe you should do the same @crystal.
April 29th, 2009 at 2:08 pm
@Jemina,
Thanks for letting us know the outcome and glad to hear you got your problem resolved. I hope that since then you have not had any problems.
@Crystal
Although you are obviously and rightfully annoyed and disappointed, without any real detail about what caused the problem or what the outcome was aside from you choosing to go with another host leaves it difficult to comment in any meaningful way.
I’m sure that Bluehost will prove to be a good choice however, as they host plenty of blogs and are well thought of. Good luck with the new blog.
May 1st, 2009 at 12:21 pm
I just signed up for a Hostazar plan and then was immediately unable to log on to the CPanel. Horrendously poor interface and if the hosting is what the folks on this page say, well, I’m outta there. Should have checked here before giving them $39.95 for the year. I’m cancelling now.
January 13th, 2010 at 9:21 am
Hi,
I’ve been searching around to see if I can find anything on Hostazar. So excuse me commenting on here. I have two separate blogs hosted on two separate packages. Both are down. They won’t reply to my support tickets and trying to phone them you only get an answer phone. I’d stay well away from these people.(I even purchase their courses on Blogging To The Bank and the support on that was hopeless.
I suppose I’ll have to get hosting elsewhere!?
Richie D
January 13th, 2010 at 10:50 am
Hi Richard,
Thanks for taking the time to leave us your comment – no need to apologize, that’s what we’re here for
I don’t know what kind of blogs you are running but if they are business or marketing related you may want to take a look at MKHosting who we highly recommend, having just moved all our domains to them.
We posted a full review on these pages here:
http://www.thecaymanhost.com/web-hosting-articles/mk-hosting-marketing-services-reviewed
January 13th, 2010 at 10:07 pm
We are experiencing the same thing with our website. There are issues with sites being down with Hostazar. They have been down since the weekend (9th January 2010) and the we have submitted tickets without response. I have contacted R5ltd that owns them. No response either. This is the worst service I have seen in a long time. I think this company is scam!
January 13th, 2010 at 10:23 pm
Hi Peter,
Thanks for the information.
Hostazar seem to be plagued with problems but hopefully these reviews will warn potential customers before they commit to signing up.
We removed them from the main directory a while ago in view of all the poor feedback but wanted to keep the customer reviews and comments available for reference.
January 13th, 2010 at 10:26 pm
Thanks for your reply. As a quick aside, the address support@r5ltd.co.uk bounces back as it is unable to receive more mail.
Clearly, nobody is minding that shop.
Thanks for this forum…it will be helpful…I am moving to hostgator.
January 13th, 2010 at 10:34 pm
When a hosting company’s email account is bouncing back as over quota I would say that is about as big a red flag as you can get
Good luck with Hostgator – you can’t go too far wrong there.
January 15th, 2010 at 12:27 pm
Hello,
This is THE worst web hosting company I have ever seen. Last september, I purchase a domain name and the starter pack. Everything went ok until recently: I cannot access my admin account, my billing account and the client area. Nothing works anymore. On top of that, I send them 3 emails… no answer, not even a confirmation they received my emails!!!
Frankly, I am furious. They are paid in full and in due time and they don’t even answer you? Bravo!
Now, I will have to go elsewhere and start all over again.
January 15th, 2010 at 2:29 pm
Hi Anie,
Sorry to hear yet another tale of woe regarding this company.
I hope you had full backups of your data as it sounds as though Hostazar definitely have some serious problems judging by the most recent comments and influx of customers looking for answers to the site’s apparent status.
caymanhost´s last blog ..Free Marketing Blog & Article Directory
January 17th, 2010 at 11:13 am
Thanks for the posts and for this forum – I was about to sign up with hostazar as they were recommended because of how easy it is to link with wordpress – In this market you can’t afford to have your site going doing. I’m going to use hostgator instead-thanks again for the review
January 17th, 2010 at 11:55 am
Hi Daniel,
You’re welcome, glad it helped you in your buying decision. If you join through our link it helps to keep the site running
I’m actually surprised that no-one from Hostazar has been by to make any comment on all the unhappy customers who have left feedback here.
January 18th, 2010 at 10:38 am
Where can you register a complaint for this company?
I too am getting bounce back emails.
I called their office number only to get a receptionist who said Rob does not come into his office anymore. He does not pick up his emails and she is not sure he is in business anymore. She said don’t bother emailing.
The number they have listed to call is a for an office he rents and she just answers the phone, but is not involved with the company and cannot resolve issues. She is just a message service. She said she is VERY busy with complaints. She was very nice, but could do nothing but email him again for me.
Don’t waste your time on an international phone call. This guy is scamming everyone!
January 18th, 2010 at 11:05 am
@Deb,
Thanks for sharing the information. From the sound of it I suspect your fears and allegations are well founded.
As to where you can complain, or even how much good it would do I’m afraid I have no suggestions – it would appear that the individual you mention, Rob Benwell of Blogging To The Bank, has not only blogged there but laughed all the way doing so.
January 19th, 2010 at 6:25 pm
I had a “blog to the bank” website on Hostazar, and it went down for over a week.
During that time I found out they had no telephone support and they didn’t respond to the trouble tickets I opened.
So I just started leaving comments at all the “blogging to the bank” websites I could google. Anysite that advertised Hostazar, I left a comment, exposing the fact that there was no telephone number to complain to.
After a couple of days, my website is back up.
I copied all my posts, which I should have done before, now I’ll wait to see if they get themselves a telephone number and resolve their issues.
A word of explanation would have helped. Even now a mass email with an explanation would help. Maybe we’ll get that soon.
My confidence is pretty well shaken here with both Hostazar and Rob Benwell
January 19th, 2010 at 6:38 pm
@Randy
Thanks for stopping by.
If it was me I’d be concerned too – I’d also be making a full backup of my work, as soon as I was able to, and shopping around for a new host.
February 11th, 2010 at 11:03 am
Interestingly hostazar is now for sale by it’s owner on flippa:
http://flippa.com/auctions/84570/Hosting-Site-For-Sale—33k-Revenue—No-Reserve
February 11th, 2010 at 11:34 am
Hi Chris,
Thanks for the information. I’m guessing that none of my commentators will be putting in a bid
At the time of writing it’s going for $2400.00 with a projected annual revenue of $100k, up from $33k.
March 28th, 2010 at 3:48 am
I was caught up in the same issues in late 2009 and early 2010. One day, I couldn’t find my website anywhere. I finally figured that Hostazar’s servers were down and sent many urgent tickets to them with zero response. The site was gone for about two weeks. I have visitors to my blog that like to return frequently. It is difficult to assess the damage from server problems that are not immediately rectified by the Host. It seemed as if no one was “minding the store.” If I ever get my site back ( it’s gone again at the end of March 2010,) I will promptly eliminate the advertisement of “Blogging to the Bank” and Hostazar, and switch my hosting service as quickly as I can. This is no way to run a business.
March 28th, 2010 at 5:57 pm
Hi William.
I would have to say that anyone who “runs” a hosting business in such a manner deserves to go out of business. Maybe if the domain sells it will be taken over by someone who understands how to run a hosting company but I wouldn’t hold my breath. Downtime like you have experienced is a killer for any website. If you have backups of your data I’d certainly find a new home a.s.a.p.
The untold damage you allude to is very real – once your site goes offline and stays that way for a period of time the search engines stop coming, you end up getting de-indexed and it can take a while to recover all that you have worked for. It’s worth paying a little more if you get the support and service you need as opposed to paying a “take the money and run” type operation which this seems to be.
March 30th, 2010 at 2:15 pm
Hi,
I’ve had two blogs hosted by Hostazar – both are down hence me searching around the web for some answers. Well it seems I found them here!
I had trouble with them towards the end of last year and they seemed to have solved it – until now.
I now need to know how difficult it would be to switch to another host and whether I’ve lost everything on both blogs? I was getting daily backups from Wordpress emailed me, but I’m no techie so I haven’t a clue if it is recoverable!?
Any help appreciated.
Best wishes,
Richard
March 30th, 2010 at 3:26 pm
Hi Richard,
Sorry to hear of your problems – if you have full backups of your sites and databases, it should not be too difficult to move them to another hosting company.
Many people are reluctant to move hosts because of perceived technical issues and problems but if you find a good host and talk to them prior to buying a plan, explaining what you want to do and asking them for help, they should be only too pleased to accommodate you. Once you have a new hosting account you should be able to upload your backups to their servers, or, if you are not confident in your ability to do this, ask them if they can help out – if you can give their tech support access to your files they should be able to get things up and running.
All you need to do then is get your domains pointing to the new DNS so that they can once again be viewed on the web. Again, a good host will often take care of this for a new customer if you ask them to help you. Provided you can give them the existing details of your domains – ie. who you registered them with etc.
When I last moved my domains, the new host took care of everything on my behalf from backing up my sites, installing them on their servers and changing the DNS for each one. All I had to do was give them access to my Cpanel accounts and my domain name registrar accounts. Obviously, if your hosting control panel is inaccessible, they won’t be able to log in either, but if you have recent backups, you should not have lost too much data.
I was impressed with the way my last move was handled and their were no glitches at all. As your sites are presumably currently down, the quicker you move them, the quicker people will be able to access them once again and the less the effect on your existing search engine rankings etc.
April 4th, 2010 at 7:54 am
Hi
This is a question in reply to Richard D’s comments on March 30th, 2010.
Just this week I have not been able to access my site with Hostazar. They are not answering tickets or e-mails and neither is the Blogging to the Bank support team.
Unfortunately I haven’t backed up the site. If I move to another host etc can they access my cpanel and move all the files or is my site “lost”?
April 4th, 2010 at 1:03 pm
Hi Teresa,
If you have not backed up your site and the server is down, there is nothing you can do until it comes back online again and the same goes for anyone else trying to access your site, your admin areas etc. In order to move your data to another hosting company you need to have access to it first.
Unless or until the server is back up, there is nothing anyone can do. I know this is not what you want to hear but always make regular backups of your sites, whoever you host with because when these situations arise those backups are the difference between losing everything or just having to deal with some inconvenience and frustration. I hope that your problem will be resolved – if and when you can get back online, download those backups as a first priority and remember to make regular backups in the future.
April 7th, 2010 at 7:59 pm
In view of all the complaints I’ve been keeping an eye on this situation and today I did a quick search – the internet is full of posts entitled “Hostazar – My Number 1 Choice When it comes to Hosting Your Blog”.
This is obviously a cut and paste ad provided to affiliates, a not uncommon marketing ruse, where affiliates are encouraged to use the same ad copy as hundreds or thousands of others. The lazy ones will do so.
Not only does this demonstrate an idle blogger but also a lazy and dishonest affiliate. Of course, most of these links now lead to error pages as Hostazar sites seem to be offline still. Others that lead to free blogs hosted on Blogger and the like are just laughable as the “affiliate” clearly does not use a hosting service, let alone the one he/she is recommending.
I’m afraid Hostazar and its owner are a big fail and anyone unfortunate enough to have become a customer would seem to have been abandoned. My advice remains the same – find a new host as these problems do not seem likely to be resolved any time soon.
Having said that it looks as though someone just paid $17k for the website
http://flippa.com/auctions/84570/bids
- can only hope they know how to run a hosting company and deliver customer service – let us know
caymanhost´s last blog ..Wordpress Plugins In The News
April 8th, 2010 at 8:32 am
In my continuing effort to resolve the Hostazar dilemma, I intentionally made a new payment to hostazar and then promptly cancelled it, opening a dispute via paypal for “non-delivery of service.”
Someone from Hostazar wrote back that the hosting account was activated, to which, I replied: ” You may have activated my account, but you still have not answered any of my 12 support tickets and my web site is still not visible on the Internet.”
Recently someone again wrote back that my tickets would be answered if I went to the account control panel and entered my tickets there. I replied:”I have done that repeatedly, that is why there are 13 support tickets ( now there are 14.) There is an error message ‘cannot connect to data base.’ Perhaps this is why you are not seeing my support tickets. Please look into this. How can I resolve anything if I cannot communicate with Hostazar?”
The person responding to my Paypal dispute comments is from the “Internet Business Company LLC” not “Hostazar.” When I entered this into Google I got this:
Oops! Internet Explorer could not find Internet Business Company, LLC
At the same time I contacted a UK consumer watch group explaining my problem with Hostazar. They outlined my rights as consumer and suggested two places to contact if you suspect the business, Hostazar in this case, has gone out of business. These phone numbers are;
“…..we would recommend contacting either Companies House (on 0303 1234 500) or the Insolvency Service (on 0207 637 1110) to find out if liquidators have been appointed yet and how to make a claim….”
If anyone having a web site with Hostazar would like to register a complaint with Consumer Direct, you can do so by contacting them:
Tel: 08454 04 05 06
Web: http://www.consumerdirect.gov.uk
Open: 8:00am to 6:30pm Monday to Friday, 9:00am to 1:00pm Saturday
I hope this will help.
William Corey
April 8th, 2010 at 10:11 am
Hi William,
Thanks for your feedback – it’s a roundabout way to get some answers but a good idea – I guess the potential of trouble with Paypal is something they would wish to avoid.
Not sure they have gone out of business but it would appear the domain has been sold to someone new so perhaps it is the new owners who are responding to you – my guess is that they probably have no idea of the extent of the problems they have inherited. Then again, I could be wrong – it would be nice if someone from Hostazar would drop by and post some updates for their frustrated customers – maybe they haven’t heard of Google alerts but this thread is drawing a lot of traffic now so you’d think they might be aware of it.
May 14th, 2010 at 5:14 pm
The latest communication from Hostazar, which I am assuming is under new ownership. This was sent out to their affiliates today.
Hello Maurice,
There was some fraud attempt & some customers in the period were charged by paypal address *************@hotmail.co.uk
This is FRAUD address & not our address. Please check your invoice between 1st February to todate. If you paid to above address please complaint at paypal about fraud order & seek refund. Then pay to our paypal email address i.e. ***************@gmail.com
Please make payment & confirm with us by opening support ticket.
We are suspending the accounts of the customers which have paid to fraud email address & not to us (complaint has been already filed against the fraud person & authorities are checking the fraud). To avoid any inconveneince to your account please take above step at the earliest.
Thanks & looking forward to searve you better.
Regards
Webmaster @ hostazar.com
caymanhost´s last blog ..Page.ly Review | Wordpress Hosting Service