OK. Here’s a follow up on the story that I’ve been writing about for several days about FatCow Hosting, and their misleading advertising and unhelpful staffing. Despite two chats, quite a few emails … and their seeming unwillingness to recognize, nevermind amend, their dubious claims about the value of their hosting deal. This is a form of false advertising, and something that they are just unwilling to deal with.

Here is the reply that I received from Benedict Reyes who represents the FatCow Moo Crew.

Hello Kenneth,

Thank you for contacting Support.

We apologize for any inconvenience this has caused you. When a customer signs up for a new hosting account, the hosting price would be $66 which is given as an offer and will be valid only for one year. The hosting price will be changed to a normal value of $88 after the completion of first year. Just for your reference, I’ve copied a statement which signifies the above mentioned rate.

Statement: ‘$66 sale price for first year only. Plan renews at regular rate of $88/year’.

If you have any further questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us. We are available 24×7.

Sincerely,

Benedict Reyes
FatCow Moo Crew

I simply replied to this email but I don’t expect any further replies because two chats and four emails later the ambiguous language is unchanged on the website. There isn’t even any recognition that this is a problem… Why do I bother? I’m not sure, any more. Originally, I wanted to host with them one or two of my smaller sites… but that ain’t gonna happen unless they can prove that they are able to make something happen. Here’s my reply:

Dear Benedict,

Thanks for your replies. I appreciate your situation, and I agree that your offer is reasonable and generous. The only problem lies in the fact that your website doesn’t state THIS OFFER clearly or accurately, as I wrote last time. If it were a simple inaccuracy on your website, that would be easy enough to change.

But the fact that your website states unambiguously five times that $66 per year or $66 yearly or $66/year is enough to convince me that FATCOW is either unwilling to update their website or unable to do so. Please clarify the language on your website so that it means $66 in the first year in EACH of the instances I have already highlighted.

You may wish to follow this discussion on my blog. I would like to be able to report to my readers that you were responsive to prospective (and confused) customers but so far you have only been responsive repetitive.

Yours sincerely.
Kenneth

Who knows? Oh, well. Can they do anything about the advertising? That is the $22 question.