Hi I am using HostGator service since August 2009. But I rarely login to cPanel & billing site as my site is based on Wordpress so no need to go there all the time. Today I was about to renew hosting with them for next 3 more years but to my shock I was not able to login to billing system. Even Forgot password option was not working as it was saying that there no such email address in our database. Immediately I contacted them via Live chat & this were my findings - -- Few days back they changed there billing system to new one (some update) -- My ID in there system was "david****@gmail.com" I have never created such ID in my life & have never changed my ID with them. -- Support guy immediately raised a ticket with there security team. -- My complete contact information is wrong in their database - Name, email etc. After few hours I got a reply for my ticket saying "Hello, I apologize for the inconvenience. It appears that the customer information listed in this account was imported from our old billing system to the new "as is". Unfortunately, there are no logs available from the old billing system showing a specific date or time the change occurred. Likewise, I was unable to locate a ticket or other request related to this account specific to making changes to the contact information. I will now be forwarding this ticket to our developers for further review. In the meantime, I am issuing a one month credit for your account."" Now does that seems to be database replication error...?
Yeah, go on, knock yourself out. You suffered no harm, your sites are still working with no problems, and nothing has really gone wrong with anything except your contact details are incorrect, and you want to sue them. For what, exactly? They've given you an extra months credit. Be grateful. If I were Hostgator, we'd come accross the problem where we don't know why it occurred, told you we were going to investigate it and get back to you, then found you'd been posting on public forums that there was a security breach (and you don't really KNOW that) before we'd got back to you, I would close your account down immediately, and then, if the mood took me, could show harm was done, and set my solicitor upon you. You many now need legal advice, not for you suing them, but for your stupid actions and defamation of them. Making accusations without proof. Dumb Dumb Dumb. And there lies the problem. How did they know you were really who you said you were. How do you know the details were actually changed by someone and not an import error? What harm did you suffer? What security breach actually occurred...how do you know it was a security breach and not just a simple mistake? Take a deep breath, calm down, and be a bit more rational.
What are your damages? To bring a lawsuit, you have to have damages. Now if they created an account for somebody else, allowed someone else access to your account, and somebody say, stole proprietary information or your personal information (and opened a credit card using your information, for example) because of their negligence, yes, you have some damages and can sue their pants off. So far, they gave you a free month. You can simply move on to somewhere else to show your frustration.
If you can access to your web site - do backup first of all and then start your own investigation of the situation. Backup is #1 priority should be for you now.
I think its temporary billing related mistake. And he did not encounter any loss for that. It will be fixed by his providers asap.