Joshua,
I appreciate your honesty, your apology and your forthcoming explanation of what occurred, in spite of the fact that I had already figured it out on my own. I do take comfort in knowing that this has given your organization the opportunity to improve on the processes that not only led up to this issue but that will help support personnel efficiently identify the cause, after the fact. You have acknowledged the gap between what happened and support personnel identifying the issue through log files or some other process. I think if you are able to truly close that gap, it will help HostGator serve their customers better and go a long way to alleviate the frustration a customer might experience in the future when something like this crops up again.
With all that being said, I wish your compensation offer had come without strings. I'm uneasy about agreeing to sweeping this under the table in exchange for 4 months free service. While I realize you could simply erase it and hide it without my consent, that would be something that you would have to live with. While I can accept your apology on behalf of HostGator, and I can say that we are well on our way to mending our business relationship, I cannot agree to hiding/erasing the post in exchange for free service. I do not think this would be fair to HG, myself or your customers. I am sure if you search your heart, you would come to the same conclusion. I would feel like I took a bribe. As you admit, everything that I wrote in that review was factual. It happened pretty much as I posted. In retrospect, I wish I had been less emotional, more professional. But all in all, it was factual.
So, in closing. Thanks for your sincere apology and explanation. I do whole-heartedly accept it. But if your offer of 4 months free service is truly for my frustration, as you say, then it should not be contingent on hiding the factual post chronicling my experience. Don't you agree? For that reason, I cannot, in good conscience, accept it. I do however plan on sticking with Hostgator. You have, all in all, been a good host.
I would certainly be willing to write a follow up to the post and say that you have taken care of my complaint to my satisfaction. And that will not be contingent on anything you do. As a matter of fact, I will do that right now. Furthermore, you have done very well in diffusing my anger over this, through your well written response. In light of this, I will refrain from posting about this on the WHT forums, as I previously said I had planned to do. I can’t very well do that now that you have been so forthcoming.
The only thing that made this response less than 100% perfect was the request for me to allow the HG post to be removed in exchange for free service.
Thanks again Josh for your honest reply and for taking the time to thoroughly investigate what happened. I truly appreciate it