Westhost Reviews 899

WestHost has been servicing for several years. However, recently we've run into issues where emails aren't forwarding to certain emails that are publicly available and having no know issues with usability. We've been working for several weeks to resolve the issue and they continue to state it is our problem. I've changed the forwarding address to several different emails and experience the same result. So every single other email system CAN'T be the problem! Frustrating.

Major system changeover created many trouble tickets. All were replied to or resolved in a timely manner.

This company provided great tech support for over 20 years up until a couple of months ago. They did a transition to new servers and the change has been nothing short of a disaster. Tech support was able to get my emails working after many hours on hold for chats, but the the dedicated IP service I was paying for simply was cancelled and access to the contents on one domain is still not available. I miss having a dependable hosting service and I'm not looking forward to having to change a provider. This is what happens when a hosting provider makes a major change without adequate testing of the change before implementation.

Super helpful and responsive in the last few days. Helped understanding on how new system work. Helped begin the process of updating info. Increased email forwarding capacity to support our site needs. Checked back to see if everything was working.

They used to provide acceptable service. Recently its just declined quickly. Now no longer acceptable even for a small business.

Their recent migration of clients to a new system basically crippled the way static IPs are supposed to work for a server and they support chat line is now always on a 4-7 hour hold before you get someone to help.

If I could give this service zero stars or negative five stars, I would. I have had no email service as a result of changes that they made that I neither requested nor wanted.
Anybody that is considering using these guys should read the five star ratings. Don't just look at the number of stars, read the comment. The commentary is zero star commentary that some desperate soul applied five stars to. It's like going to the doctor, waiting six hours in the waiting room, and then thanking him profusely for seeing you. That's a zero star experience, not a five star experience.
No one comes to the phone.
The live chat technical support required double authentication. So, while I had no email, in order to get help I needed to get an email and insert a code that was emailed to me. It was an incredibly poorly thought out (read:idiotic) requirement. After submitting a ticket on line (could not get live chat), the reponse came back asking for more information that they already had. I gave them pages of information and described all the problems, and they responded after 24 hours, with information I already had. Clearly, the platform transition has been a disaster for all customers. I took the time to read the five star reviews, and all should have been zero stars (not five). They all say (more or less) "my business is failing, they took weeks to respond to me, but when I finally got them on live chat, they fixed the problem." When they take days or weeks to fix a problem that they themselves brought upon us, that's not a five star rating, that's a zero star rating.

Support agent was excellent!

I've had a LOT of issues with the Westhost transition, and never received a response to my ticket that I created. This is incredibly frustrating.
But, once I finally got through to a chat agent (after more than 3 hours waiting…), "Daniel N" was incredibly responsive, helpful, informative, and addressed my concerns perfectly.

Westhost needs better processes around getting help - but should retain agents such as Daniel N, who are a huge benefit to your customers.

You can quickly get help from live chat (14 hours if you can stay logged on that long), or you can call their phone number (the line is dead).

They took down our server without warning or email, and then said we should fix it ourselves, because they changed the domain servers. Can't use cpanel either, since the account says the login I used just yesterday is invalid. I'm paid through December.

Update: Westhost is really just done as a company. They are done with answering phones or fixing sites they break. Don't even think about setting up with them if you want web hosting.

My guess is they'll be shut down in before the end of 2024.

Edit Sept 19, 2024: Wanted to make sure that they don't autobill me at the end of the year. I can't stop them, because their phone is still broken, and chat is completely eliminated, and my account logins all fail now. So I warned them via the email they provided below, and I'll likely have to dispute their charge every year until they are fully closed down.

No ability to send or receive emails for 10 days! Created a ticket, got a response, responded and then nothing!! Have since created 4 more tickets with no response! My business is in peril and there seems to be no way to get a human on the phone! Can't even sign in to Westhost, because they want to email me a code to my email that doesn't work!!! Very frustrating!

After 3 days with all my websites offline, unable to receive or send emails also can't access via ftp. Now Samson O help me and solve all my troubles.3 DAYS!

Samson and Nasir helped me to get my websites back online. I don't fault the techs for the decline at the company. It is probably the suits, useless upper management, and middle management that have ruined WestHost like most corporations.

Our website and email have been down during our peak season and is really having a detrimental affect on our profits.

We got through to billing, not the issue.

Tried live chat and got dropped several times. Called more than a dozen times without getting through after being on hold for an hour+.

We filed a ticket for repairs 4 days ago, no response.

Absolutely terrible or non existent tech support.

We already sent an email to client-escalations***uk2group.support
No reply there yet either.

revised upward.

Customer since ~2001, and have been pleased, except for this migration. -it didn't work completely and I can't get anyone on the phone! and that just ain't right.

Westhost Customer service has no one answering the phone any more, nor available in the phone menu. All tech support requests, as stated by the phone-menu-robot, must go through 'chat' or through a 'ticket'. 2026-05-25 to 2024-06-04. That has worked before for minor stuff, but it didn't help me with this.

Westhost has 'migrated' all their customers to another server farm. But not completely - some settings were not migrated, and the emailed instructions were not very clear to me, though the chat in which I participated resulted in a list of answered question and 'things to be done' that looked good at the time during the chat window.

In practice, since I am not an IT pro, I found much of it to be ambiguous, or at least to have been written in the chat in such a way that it was unclear once I opened both the old and new control panels and attempted to apply the settings. I had a lot of trouble getting the site to 're-appear' on the web, but it finally did.

If the telephone number would actually connect site owners, for whom IT/www backend is not the primary skillset, to a human being by voice, the experience would have taken about 15 minutes and worked the first time after the usual DNS propagation, rather than hit and miss and several hours of waiting and trying again to get it right (2 days)

If the option to actually speak to a tech support person by voice was eliminated, that was a business mistake of Westhost part. It's just poor service and at least the boon of leaving a callback number would be -something-.

The terseness of a text-chat conversation does not carry the full meaning intended unless extended much farther to include every clarification with each instruction. It cannot do an efficient job except for one-on-one with another IT professional. For those in other fields who incidentally have a web site (LOL other professionals and small business, hobbyists, etc), voice is much faster to get to the root of any trouble, since most people speak much faster than they can type. Therefore, it was not satisfactory.

So, for general uptime, cost, unlimited data, etc.. I give 4 stars.
Not 5 -> Because no one will answer the darn phone. <-
But otherwise it's a good hosting company.

Today I finally received a resolution to my problem. from Samson Oyinlande. However it took me 5 days to get here. Countless emails attempted chats- where I was kept on hold for over an hour each time and then disconnected.There is a customer service number but it only leads you to chat. Which is non functional. The poor customer service has led me to let go of my West Host account. I've been there of 14 years. Again, Samson did finally solved things for me. and I thanked him for his help.
Eva Weiss

Migration issues with no support! Our site was migrated last Monday, and I thought Westhost would update the DNS records since I don't use a third party for that. I started receiving emails from Westhost saying I needed to update my DNS records, so I submitted a ticket asking if I really needed to do this myself. No response until Friday, and before they replied they had updated the DNS records. Unfortunately since our website had been pointing to the old host all week, none of our updated data (from Monday through Friday morning) was in the migrated database! Now I have no way to get back to my old data (or at least I don't know how to get back to it) and supposedly we lose access after 7 days after the migration. I'm praying that they aren't going to delete my old database before they get around to responding to me. I've submitted 3 tickets asking them to refresh my database and NO RESPONSE! So everything we do is ON HOLD now because I don't want to update anything on the new system. So we are unable to conduct our usually business at this point. That's 3 days down so far, absolutely NO SUPPORT.

In addition, all my email did not get migrated. I'm missing at least two (most recent) years worth, plus missing folder, identities, etc. UNACCEPTABLE. I've lost two nights sleep over this. I'm furious. Wish I could give them a ZERO RATING.

I am being generous with two stars. I have been with Westhost over 20 years and until the recent email migration, with a new owner, I received excellent service. This migration was either very poorly planned and/or very poorly implemented. Customer service has almost completely disappeared. I was finally able to contact support and got one domain's emails up but the second domain still has no email functionality. I also suspect that the dedicated IP address, I am paying for, is no longer in place. After waiting up to 11 hours at a time to get chat support, being number 1 in the queue, only to have the chat screen close, I am truly frustrated. Logged in to chat again today (third day) and was number 25 in the queue. Sent an email to their corporate office for assistance, and you guessed it, they just opened another trouble ticket. Their view of escalation.

I will likely get the the following response to my review.
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Hello! Thank you for letting us know about your experience and I'm sorry you've not received a solution to your issue.
Please reach out to us directly on 'client-escalations @uk2group.support' so we can discuss this and help with a way forward.
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Don't bother! It really isn't an escalation. Nobody at Westhost is going to go to far out of their way to assist you. With, apparently, only one person assisting in the chat arena you have a LONG wait ahead of you. The only real resolution is to move your domain to another provider. I really hope I won't have to do that.

Updated 5-30-24 - See what I mean about the escalation process. I have now spent over 45 hours on the chat function and I get cut off when I reach number 1 in the queue. On 5-30 14+ hours. Dropped to 1 star.
Updated 5-31-24 - I think I found the secret to getting chat help. Tried calling at 2am Arizona time and actually got Benjamin. 5 days and over 45 hours watching the chat screen and with the last call it only took 5 minutes to correct all my email problems, starting at #6 in the queue. Gonna take it back to two stars.
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Update 7/13/24

This company provided great tech support for over 20 years up until a couple of months ago. They did a transition to new servers and the change has been nothing short of a disaster. Tech support was able to get my emails working after many hours on hold for chats, but the the dedicated IP service I was paying for simply was cancelled and access to the contents on one domain is still not available. I miss having a dependable hosting service and I'm not looking forward to having to change a provider. This is what happens when a hosting provider makes a major change without adequate testing of the change before implementation.

Horrible. They don’t answer the phone +1 (801) 666-3158 and can’t renew my domain

Straight to the point and helpful support!

As the other reviews have stated, Westhost used to be a great company. I've been with them for 23 years. Their recent email migration screwed everything up. There was no way to contact anyone. I spent nearly 5 weeks sending emails that went unanswered. Occasionally I would get a reply, I would supply the requested information, then nothing. Finally I was able to get to a REAL PERSON in Westhost's billing department. In less than 5 minutes she had me up and running again (she also had the prettiest English accent). When I was able to get into my account and check my email I found that Westhost tech support had been sending their support emails to the EMAIL ACCOUNT I COULDN'T ACCESS!!!! What a bunch of sh!t.