I’m very proud to announce that Hostgator has made a $100,000 donation to MD Anderson which is one of the world leaders in cancer treatment and research. They have truly been a pleasure to work with. Working with MD has given many of our employees that warm fuzzy feeling inside that you should have when you are helping people.
I would also like to announce that I feel used, abused, and completely violated on a $25,000 donation hostgator made to One laptop per child. OLPC has a mission to develop cheap laptops for children to educate and express themselves on.
Maybe I’m being a drama queen so please come to your own conclusion based on the following experience…….
It all started with a $25,000 donation being made on their site and the following email being sent shortly after:
December 30th 2007
“Hello,
I’m the owner of hostgator.com and I just wanted to shoot off an email
to let you know I have just donated $25,000 via google checkout on my
amex. We get dozens of fraud orders a day so the purpose of this email
is to let you know it’s legit. I’m currently on xmas vacation in the
bahamas in the wyndham so the ip isn’t going to match my american address.
Please let me know if you have any questions or if any further
verification is needed. Thank you, and keep up the good fight!!
Sincerely,
Brent Oxley ”
Their Response 11 days later January 11th 2008
“Dear Donor,
In order for me to locate and track your donation, can you please provide me
with your complete address, reference number and the name used at the time
of donation. This will allow me to access the correct donation and locate
your laptop.
Thank you for your interest in One Laptop Per Child.
OLPC
Donor Services”

My Reply January 11th 2008
“Are you serious?
Our company name is hostgator.com
My name is Brent Oxley
How many $25,000 donations do you receive? Please spend the minute that
it would take to look up the donation. Thank you.”
(we received automated email back instantly confirming they did receive our email)

Twenty days later and we still have not had a follow up response or anyone in the company making any type of contact with us other then what’s listed above!!!
OPLC has been getting slammed recently after Intel left the group January 3rd of this year. There are many critics that argue the money can be spent better on libraries, food, water, etc. You can read up more on OLPC on wikipedia. Even with all the negative publicity I and many of our customers believed it to be a worthy cause that deserved our help.
Based on our experience it’s quite obvious OLPC is being mismanaged to the point of failure. I now feel our donation would have been put to better use had we mailed 25,000 one dollar bills for the children to use as toilet paper.