CATALOG hosting

URL: www.catalog.com
Description: Cheap reseller solutions, offers great support and very reliable servers. Prices start at $25.00

Reviews (28):


 AW
Reviewer: daniel   2006-04-22
liek the other reviews have said they put around $35 for a domain reg and tey n charge ya $52 whats all thata bout

 2 months into it, bad
Reviewer: Ronald   2006-02-17
This is a very bad scam, after the first month when i wanted to leave they forced paiment onto me and then, the very next day try to sell me upgrades.

 very good
Reviewer: Anonymous   2006-02-17
i like it, theyre very good 4/5

 Helpful
Reviewer: tom   2006-02-17
i find their staff helpful. 3/5

 WHERES MY LIVE SUPPORT!!
Reviewer: Anonymous   2006-02-16
A scam! No live support, free? wtf!

 My hosting doesnt work
Reviewer: Anonymous   2006-02-16
My hosting doesnt work, how can i get a refund?

 Total Scam!
Reviewer:    2006-02-13
Please, do not invest into this. Its a scam, usually webhosts are WYSIWUG but they lie. As said before ^ their service is non-existant

 Bad, really bad
Reviewer:    2006-02-13
They claim to be good but there is no live support, i waited days for help, my account was renewed once or twice charging me both times, meaning i paid more then i should of. They clamed that this was a fault of my own.

 Expect problems with FrontPage
Reviewer: D. Faust   2006-02-08
My biggest complaint about catalog.com is their billing methodology. They start notifying you 3 months before your year is up that your domain is about to expire. At 2 months, they send you an OVERDUE notice. I don't get this and I don't appreciate it! They want to automatically apply the fee to your credit card 2 months before it is due; I no longer allow them to use my credit card but, rather, pay through PayPal or send a check. If you use FrontPage, expect problems on their Unix servers. They cannot handle large files for numerous extensions so the server "times out" all the time and I can never automatically, correctly publish. I have to send one file at a time.

 Unhappy
Reviewer: Cheryl   2006-02-08
I have never launched a lawsuit before, but I am very concerned. I "domain-locked" the following 3 URL's www.sunshinebabysitting.com www.orlando-convention.com www.keyscitynews.com and I have done a huge advertising campaign to promote all three sites as well as submitteded them through a professional web-submission program After difficulty with catalog.com and their inabiltiy to assist me in technical support matters within a reasonable time as well as try to answer any questions I may have had regarding a hosting plan that would suit my needs, I decided to transfer to another hosting company only to learn I cant do this within a reasonable amount of time, due to their inability to unlock my domain so it's server names can be changed. I have since uploaded my websites to the new hosting company, who is currently hosting those sites, but due to the problem with catalog.com, I am still being directed to www.catalog.com which is destroying my business.... it has taken over a week to resolve this issue with catalog.com. In the meantime... all my URL's are directed to www.catalog.com This is not fair... what gives them the right to use my domain names to advertise their services while my domains are being propogated to another hosting company?! Thank you. Cheryl

 Catalog.com has always offered reliable and economical hosting plans
Reviewer: Anonymous   2006-02-08
Catalog.com has always offered reliable and economical hosting plans, but now they've leaped into the free web hosting arena with an outstanding new offering. If you register your domain name with them for $35 they will provide bannerless free web hosting.

 Completely Unacceptable
Reviewer: Anonymous   2006-02-01
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.

 It's not FREE, no Live Support!!!
Reviewer: Matt Royalty   2006-02-01
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.

 pay to restore site
Reviewer: Anonymous   2006-02-01
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.

 Not recommended
Reviewer: Kris Borer   2006-02-01
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)

 Terrible service
Reviewer: Anonymous   2006-02-01
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.

 Unbelievable
Reviewer:    2006-02-01
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.

 stay away from catalog.com
Reviewer:    2006-02-01
Unreliable, email is flaky at best, service is non-existant, and they scam their customers.

 Criminals!
Reviewer: Adam   2006-02-01
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.

 Reality Check
Reviewer: Mike   2006-02-01
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.

 Awful!!
Reviewer: Sean   2006-02-01
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.

 Doubtful
Reviewer:    2006-02-01
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.

 This is a scam!
Reviewer:    2006-02-01
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.

 Worthless Charlatons
Reviewer: Norm   2006-02-01
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...

 Worst company.... EVER
Reviewer: Erik   2006-02-01
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.

 Outrageous behavior by catalog.com
Reviewer: Dave   2006-02-01
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

 BAIT AND SWITCH!!
Reviewer: Osman Parvez   2006-02-01
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.

 They wont let you go + NoTech support
Reviewer: Juan P. Marroquin   2006-02-01
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.