Things to Avoid: JustHost

If you’ve visited my site at all during the last week: 1.  It may have been hacked.  2.  It may not have been here.  3.  It might have been under maintenance.  Here is the story.

It all began when the CEO of GoDaddy killed an elephant.

Anyone who has ever looked at the GoDaddy website, or seen a commercial for them, is aware of their penchant for using OMGSEXAYBROADS in bikinis.  The ads, depending on where you stand, either border on sexist or fall completely into it.  Either way, it’s tasteless, tacky, and when the CEO bragged about killing an elephant in a video that made headlines, well, that was just the last straw.

Why am I telling you about GoDaddy in a review for JustHost?  Because beautyfrugalista (the domain name) was purchased through GoDaddy, and it was their actions that led me to transfer over to JustHost.  I didn’t want to fight with GoDaddy over the domain name – they had previously told me I couldn’t transfer it because it was purchased through Google and masked, which is a complete load of B.S., but I didn’t want to fight over it and was not overly attached to the domain name anyhow.  They can keep it.

I read reviews on several different web hosts and decided to give JustHost a try.  I liked the money back guarantee they offered, the price was good, and I appreciated the ability to pay month-to-month rather than up-front.  I never like paying a huge chunk of cash to a new web host until I’m sure of their service, even if it means paying more in the long run.  This has turned out to be a good thing, but I’ll get to that in a minute.

I signed up for service on the evening of April 5th.  Everything went through quickly and the site was set up during the wee hours of the morning.  However, less than 24 hours later, the site was hacked and every post had links to Cialis, some of which broke image files as they seemed randomly placed.  I figured it was my fault somehow, so I uninstalled WordPress, deleted the SQL databases, scanned my computer for viruses and malware, changed my passwords, reinstalled WordPress, and restored the site.  That took several hours but I had the site back online by the evening of the 7th- only to be hacked a second time in the early morning hours of the 8th.

I figured the security hole that let the hackers in the first time was still there, so I followed the disinfection process again and set about securing my site from the hackers.  I created .htaccess files, locked down code, checked CHMOD, installed some recommended security plugins, and talked to some security experts and a cyberpunk who all mentioned it could be my host’s fault as well.  The site was up and functional again on Friday evening, and I passed a blissful hacker-free weekend.  I began to think everything was over when I woke up on Monday to find I had been hacked a third time.  Still unsure if the hacking was my fault or something to do with the server, on the advice of some security experts, I left the site as it was.  The experts told me that even if it was my fault, the host’s security team should be able to tell me where the vulnerability was.  So I contacted JustHost…

… who told me my site had not been hacked.

What follows is the actual chat transcript, after I had verified my info and mentioned what I had done to secure my site:

peter: Amanda, for your kind information,,Have you hosted anything that contain adult material ?
Amanda: Never. I run a blog about makeup.
peter: Is it regarding karmicdreaming.net ?
Amanda: yes. you can see the hack, I’ve left the links there.
peter: Rightnow your site doesn’t seems to be hacked
peter: IT is working very fine from our end
Amanda: look again. there are cialis and viagra ads littered throughout the site.
Amanda: example: My musical collect online cialis ion is vast and varied, f
Amanda: ate to have herbal alternative viagra many animal com
Amanda: all of those are links to some other site that I didn’t include
Amanda: this is the third time in less than a week that this has happened
Amanda: i have spent countless hours cleaning up these hacks and restoring my site. my visitors are frustrated and so am I.
peter: Your blog doesn’t seems to be hacked
Amanda: unbelievable. are you unable to SEE all the prescription drug links???
Amanda: please give me the telephone number for your customer support department.

So I called, waited on hold for 20 minutes, and finally reached someone in India, who said, yes, she could see the links, but my site being hacked was not their responsibility.  I asked to be directed to their security department but they refused.  I asked if there was any way I could contact security, like email, and was told that security does not deal with sites that have been hacked.  I became so frustrated that I said, “Just cancel my account and refund my money.”  The agent said they would be happy to refund my money if I canceled.  Of course, to cancel, I would have to email someone.  It couldn’t be done over the phone.

I emailed, included all details of why I was canceling- being hacked 3 times in 6 days, non-existent customer service- and received this reply:

No, I don’t want three months of being hacked repeatedly.  Since I could get no help with my issue, why would I stay?  And why should I get help only after saying I would be canceling?  Fuck that.  No.  I continued to follow the procedure to cancel the service, which lead me to a web page which offered a free year of hosting, plus all the additional addons, like SEO and site submission, privacy managers, etc, which cost about a total of $400, free for a year, if only I’d stay and be hacked some more.  What an amazing deal!   So I canceled the service, and emailed JustHost again to get refunded.  They replied:

I hate these people so, so much.  I replied again reminding them of their “money back guarantee”, the fact that I was not going to allow them to keep my money when they did not provide the service that I paid for, etc etc etc, and received this:

The “refund” was for less than 1/3 of what I paid.  I am disputing the rest of the charges with Paypal.

Of course, when I had first googled JustHost, I saw glowing reviews.  After my experience, I googled “JustHost hacked” and found TONS of people experienced the same problems I had.

Moral of the story:

• When looking for a new host, Google the word “hacked” with the host’s name and see what comes up.
• JustHost does not honor their agreements.
• JustHost has the worst customer service imaginable.
• JustHost can suck it.

Am I going to be hacked again?  Possibly.  I still don’t know WHY I was hacked.  However, I’ve been making and hosting websites since the early 90′s and have never once been hacked before this experience.  I could wake up tomorrow and find this site selling Viagra again, but at least I am more confident that my new host, Host Gator, will help me out if it does happen.