Complaints Procedure

Complaints and tickets are different things

Raising a ticket asks us to repair something. Raising a complaint tells us we made a mess of something already. We want both, and we work both, though they follow separate paths, and the path described here is the complaint one.

No form is needed here, and neither is the word "complaint". Just say that we got something wrong: that is enough to start the process, and hearing it straight from you suits us far better than finding out through a review posted a fortnight afterwards.

1. Start with whoever handled it originally

Answer on the ticket that is already open, or start a fresh one from the client area. Where no ticket ever existed in the first place, email info@hosting-cheap.com or use the contact page.

You get an acknowledgement within one working day and a real answer within five. Where five days is not realistic, because something needs digging out of logs or a supplier has to reply first, you will still hear from us inside those five days, told what remains outstanding and when the rest of it is coming.

2. Next: somebody with no prior involvement

Unhappy with the reply? Ask for it to be escalated, naming the part of our answer you disagree with. From there it goes to somebody who had no hand in it the first time round.

That review is answered within ten working days and lays out what got examined, what came to light, what will change because of it, and where nothing changes, the reason for that. Plain words will tell you it is our final position, instead of leaving you to piece that together for yourself.

3. Third: outside us

A final answer from us shuts no doors. Which route you take next depends entirely on the subject:

• Personal data. The public can take a complaint straight to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk, and no agreement from us is required. See GDPR and your data rights.
• A domain name. Dispute processes belong to whichever registry operates the extension, which means Nominet for .uk, and ICANN's UDRP covers most others. Who owns a particular name is decided by them, never by us.
• A payment. A dispute goes to whoever processed the card. Come to us first and the answer arrives sooner, since a chargeback grinds on for weeks and freezes the account for the whole time it is running.
• Anything else. The courts of England and Wales, which is where the terms of service put jurisdiction. Consumers keep every single statutory right they have, and nothing written there takes any of them away.

4. Details that help us reply properly

• which service, which domain or which invoice number is involved;
• the dates, plus any ticket numbers still open;
• what you expected to happen, set beside what actually did;
• what you would count as putting it right, since answering that saves more time than any other item on this list.

5. Where a complaint goes afterwards

Every complaint is logged along with its outcome, then read back for patterns. If the cause turns out to be something we explained badly, the page in question gets rewritten instead of apologised for. Records sit against the account for six years, matching the retention periods set out in the privacy policy.

6. When another hosted site is the problem

Where the complaint you have concerns somebody else's website instead of us, report abuse is the way in. Copyright follows a separate one in the copyright and takedown policy.

7. The company

Hosting-Cheap is a trading name belonging to Bohzo Ltd, a company registered in England and Wales under Company No. 15031604. Registered office: The Workspace Basildon, 7 High Pavement, Basildon, England, SS14 1EA. Complaints to info@hosting-cheap.com.