Problem Making a Payment to HostGator

[KellyCdB]

I have a blog hosted with HostGator, for which I make a monthly payment. I make the payment manually each month, I do not have a billing agreement. 

Each month when I pay, HG sends me an email saying the payment is due. I go to their billing portal, sign in, and then have to choose my payment option - there are three option, each on a separate tab. 

I click on the tab for "Pay with PayPal".  The window this tab opens has two check boxes - one for making a one time payment, or one for starting a billing agreement. 

However, recently, when I click the tab, I see that window and then about 1 second later, it switches to a different window that ONLY has the billing agreement option. 

HostGator support is telling me this is a PayPal issue, but I have a hard time believing that since it's happening on their site before I sign into PayPal.

Does anyone have any advice? Experience with this problem before? Is it in fact a PayPal issue and I'm just crazy for thinking it's not? 

[Quagmire]

KellyCdB
"Finally, I reloaded the page - went to the "enter a credit card" tab and checked the "T&S" box in that tab. THEN I switched over to the PayPal tab... lo and behold, the button worked, and I was able to make a payment with PP"

I have since tried that.

Yes, the button is now active, but when it went to Paypal it didn't go to the normal payments page, but to the same Make Agreement where the only option is to withdraw money directly from my Bank account.

Why? I have enough USD in my Paypal account.

It's so annoying and extremely frustrating.

[KellyCdB]

It's a bit confusing the way it's written - but the money will come out of your PayPal balance. They're just verifying and letting you know that if there's not enough money in your balance to cover the payment, they'll be taking it out of your bank account. 

[Quagmire]

Hi KellyCdB,

Thankj you for getting back to me. I spent over an hour today on Hostgator Chat. I did mention about why can they not take out from the account directly, and they never mentioned what you said. I wish I had known earlier as I had to pay using someone else's card. It has cost me more due to the low value of the pound, conversion costs and an added cost put on by my bank.

It is very poorly written. It does read like they're going to take directly from linked bank account.

It's also very poor of Hostgator in not informing people in advance. Not to shock or confuse people on the day of payment.

Why they had to take the one-off payments is anyone's guess, but it was a bloody stupid decision.

I've been given an email address to write to and will express my concerns to them. You never know, they may reinstall it.

Take care.