JustHost review: My unbiased opinion of JustHost web hosting

Overall rating: sadface

Note: This review is of my JustHost experience from early 2010. They may have changed some of their (dodgy) business practices since then.

Earlier this year (2010), I decided to host a website of mine with JustHost. The main reasons I decided on them were: the pricing is very reasonable, and I wanted to try out a different hosting provider. I was (and still am) hosting my websites with Hostmonster, and have had no trouble with Hostmonster's hosting, pricing or support at all. They've actually been pretty good all round.

So I clicked on the 'Special Promo - Sign Up Now' button (which I'm pretty sure is a perpetual thing, so the promotion surely can't be all that special if it's always offered.. Anyway, I went on through, and for some reason decided to close the page before completing the transaction. However, the JustHost site definitely did NOT want me to leave, and each time I tried to exit, would bring up another popup box with a 'better' offer. Eventually it offered me some huge discount, like 80% or something. Despite smacking of 'too good to be true'ness, that sounded great. The figure it quoted me was indeed an eighty percent reduction of the original price. Fortunately, despite my excitement at what appeared to be the cheapest 'unlimited' hosting on the planet, I managed to keep a cool head, take a deep breath and look a little closer. After a moment I realised it was now actually giving me the price in British Pounds, while before it had been in American Dollars. Those sneaky snakes were offering me pretty much the same price, while saying it was cheaper. What a great example of false advertising. I just wish I'd kept a screenshot of it...

I managed to navigate back to the best price offered before the currency conversion, and against my better judgment, went for it. Six months of hosting for about four bucks a month.
Now, my experience from this point until my hosting period was to expire was pretty good. I actually ended up transferring the site and domain name over to Hostmonster after a couple of months because it was easier to deal with all my sites together. No problems there, transferring the domain name and everything was problem free, unlike some registrars - godaddy, I'm looking in your direction, bud.

I actually ended up forgetting all about my justhost account until it was about to automatically renew itself. I wasn't aware that it would do this, and I'm sure I did not intentionally select any automatic renewal option. (Perhaps I should read the fine print in future. It probably was in (tiny writing) there somewere when I signed up. My bad.) They sent me an email with an invoice attached about a week before the renewal date, saying they would charge me about $40. I freaked out a little, not because I couldn't afford it, but because I had no idea this might happen. I went to their site asap and tried to cancel my account. Unfortunately it seemed there was no way to do so, or it had been well hidden. Either that or I'm just blind. Fortunately for me, the credit card I had used to sign up expired about a month beforehand so they couldn't charge me even though they had my credit card details. I didn't bother telling them about this, and figured my account would expire once they realised they couldn't charge me.
The justhost team have made me very aware that my account will be suspended, by way of no less than eight emails. Twice they have offered me a 20% discount on the renewal price, and now a 50% discount, with two days to go until suspension. I can't wait to see what happens next...