How to know if your web host is a scam?

Web hosting is a huge industry with a turnover of hundreds of millions of dollars worldwide. This kind of business is bound to attract scammers who are out to make some easy money.


Due to the online nature of the business, it is hard to see the physical presence of the company. Most hosting companies only exist on the internet and are based on just a bunch of servers rented in data centers.
To attract customers, these companies tend to offer features that are too unrealistic for the price they charge.
For example, the most popular way to scam novice customers is to offer unlimited bandwidth and disk space. Practically, that is impossible.


Such scam businesses may initially provide services as promised, but as soon as their servers begin to fill up, they have no choice but to close the business and run away with their customer's money.
They may also shut down business after a few months of operation and inform their customers without refunding their advance payment amount.


But scammers do not always cut and run from their business, they may continue to do business for a long time while not listening to complaints from their customers. They rip off one customer after another and stay in business until they become known for scamming.


Some big companies like Hostgator, Dreamhost, Bluehost etc. also offer such unrealistic services and this is what makes customers believe in the smaller companies that offer such services.

Typical characteristics of scam hosts:

- No contact information on website.
- No information or very generic information about the company. Real web hosts are proud to tell their location, history and company overview to their customers.
- Offering great services for a very low price e.g. unlimited disk space, bandwidth and other such features.
- Offering too many features for free as add-ons.
- Promising unrealistic support options.
- Providing little or no support information on website.
- use dubious methods for payment.

In addition to the above mentioned points, it is always a wise thing to do to search for reviews of your chosen web hosting company. A company without any reviews is as good as scam!