Steve Barker

Unfortunately, our stay at this villa was badly affected by a number of serious maintenance problems, particularly the water supply.

The biggest issue by far was the water. At first, we assumed the occasional interruptions were simply part of staying in Spain during a very hot summer, but the problem became progressively worse. Every day the water would randomly stop, making it impossible to reliably shower, wash dishes or even use the toilets.

Some members of our group went days without a proper shower simply because they happened to be out when the water temporarily returned.

During the final two days, the situation became completely unacceptable. We had virtually no running water for almost 48 hours. Workmen came to try to repair the problem, but unfortunately the situation became worse afterwards. As it was then the weekend, nobody returned to fix it.

For the final part of our holiday we could not shower properly, flush the toilets normally or wash dishes. We ended up having to carry buckets of swimming pool water into the villa to flush the toilets and wash ourselves. At times, we also had to walk approximately 500 metres to the Butterfly Bar just to use a functioning toilet.

This was particularly unacceptable because my parents are both over 80 years old, and we also had two young children staying with us.

There were also several other significant problems:

• The electricity to the entire villa went off on three separate nights. We eventually worked out ourselves how to reset the fuse box.

• One bedroom air-conditioning unit started leaking water directly onto/around an electrical plug socket. To be fair, the host did arrange for this particular problem to be repaired.

• The electricity failures also stopped the swimming pool pump and filtration system. When this happened, dirt and debris from inside the filtration ducts appeared to seep back into the swimming pool. The pool contained leaves, twigs, dirt and even a live toad amongst the debris.

• The induction hob had shattered/cracked glass, which made us uncomfortable using it and gave the impression that it was unsafe.

• There is a bench/viewpoint overlooking the beach which should have been a lovely place to sit, but the entire area was swarming with thousands of ants. Within seconds they would climb over your shoes, feet and legs, so the area was effectively unusable.

We have video evidence showing the water problems. These were uploaded to YouTube so they could also be provided to Booking.com:

Search Youtube for:
- NO WATER 1 - Villa Atardecer by Interhome, Torrox Spain
- Villa Atardecer by Interhome, Torrox Spain - No Water 5AM leaving

The first video shows that there was no running water throughout the villa. The second was recorded on the morning when some members of our group were leaving, after we had already been dealing with the water problem for around 48 hours.

One of our guests also recorded video of the debris and live toad in the swimming pool after the filtration system stopped working.

What makes this particularly frustrating is that the villa itself could be a lovely property. There are many positive aspects to it, but they were completely overshadowed by the lack of maintenance and the basic services repeatedly failing.

For accommodation of this type and price, having reliable running water, electricity, functioning air-conditioning and a properly maintained swimming pool should be the absolute minimum.

Spending the end of our family holiday washing and flushing toilets with buckets of swimming pool water was certainly not what we expected.

Overall, we were extremely disappointed with the experience and do not feel the accommodation represented acceptable value for money in the condition in which we experienced it.

I bought almost £200 of clother from sports Direct on 21/08/25 and paid extra for "NEXT DAY DELIVERY" after 6 days my parcel had not arrived, and I had to leave UK (working abroad). I changed my address to a locker so a friend might be able to collect my delivery. After an even longer wait Evri sent me a message to say "Your parcel does not fit the locker' - amazing work. Now I have no idea where my items are.. and its been almost a month. I tried contacting Evri - no help (completely useless), and tried contacting Sports Direct. I waited in the 'Web chat' Queue and then got this message below to say i waited too long so they will cut me off and I can wait again - basically you can wait 30 mins then their chat system boots you out so you have to start all over again. Amazing if you live abraod and don't want to spend time calling them and spending a fortune. What's even more amazing is I was telling this story to my friends at work, and one of them is also in exactly the same situtation and has lost his items.. he ordered On trainers, and never got them.

"Please be aware; that the maximum queue time will be reached in 5 minutes time.

If we can’t connect you by that point, then we will need to disconnect you from this queue and ask you to try again.

If you don't have much time available at the moment to continue waiting, you can exit this queue by typing ' end chat '"

Then

"Sadly, you have now reached the maximum wait time for our chat service. To avoid any further inconvenience and delays we have now closed this chat. Given the exceptionally busy period; we would recommend that you either - try chatting with us in a while; or if your query is not urgent, please try one our other contact channels. Thank you for contacting us today."

I have been a huge advocate of Namecheap and have moved loads of people over to use them (previous host had a very complicated system) - but for the first time im really annoyed! It seems they added some extra services to my account that I have never even heard of - Relate Reviews Pro and Relate Social Pro. They have been quietly taking $30 / month off me for the last 12 months. I never used any of these services, and they are tucked away in a 'subscriptions' page that I never knew existed. I have all my namecheap emails filtered to remind me of renewal / expiry etc.. but somehow the billing notifications about these services never show up in my inbox - I just happeded to see one while searching for something else. I spoke to live chat.. but it took me an hour an didnt manage to get to talk to whoever could offer me a refund. I used to love Namecheap (been with them for over 8 years) - but $30 / month for nothing is crazy!! This is my personal account I also have a business account shared with my business partner, and my wife has an account. Shame on Namecheap.. really dissapointed!

Its been 10 days... no contact as promised!
------------

UPDATE 26/10/25
REFUND WAS NOT GIVEN AS PROMISED. THEY REFUNDED 6x SMALL PAYMENTS WHICH IS NOTHING NEAR THE VALUE THEY PROMISED ME BY EMAIL (EDIT- it is exactly half the amount).

Hi..
I am showing your operator the email where a refund below was promised via email:

"$59.28 for your Relate Social Pro subscription to the payment source. Also, we have refunded the amount of $113.28"

And the refund that i recieved.. which is only half this amount! - Around $86! - I sent credit card statement to you.

Its great you promised a refund "as an exception" - but not so great you only gave me half :-(

Currently being ignored by "Suzy Q" on live chat..
Now "Dmytro D" is with me.
Now been swapped to "Sherlin S."

These are the refunds i received. The date is "transation date" - "posting date is 08-SEPT-25"

04-SEP-25 - NAME-CHEAP.COM* BTJ1IC PHOENIX REF.NO.24000775248100019405775 – USD 18.88

04-SEP-25 - NAME-CHEAP.COM* PWMTQW PHOENIX REF.NO.24000775248100019186250 – USD 18.88

04-SEP-25 - NAME-CHEAP.COM* SWGSBL PHOENIX REF.NO.24000775248100019346276 – USD 18.88

04-SEP-25 - NAME-CHEAP.COM* NAME-CHEAP.COM* HO0DDF PHOENIX REF.NO.24000775248100019413829 – USD 9.88

04-SEP-25 - NAME-CHEAP.COM* NAME-CHEAP.COM* 219CFD PHOENIX REF.NO.24000775248100019424107 – USD 9.88

04-SEP-25 - NAME-CHEAP.COM* NAME-CHEAP.COM* DYSO0F PHOENIX REF.NO.24000775248100019274452 – USD 9.88

Total: USD 86.28!! (Exactly half the amount)
-------
PROMISED REFUND IS: $172.56
OUTSTANDING: $86.28!

"$59.28 for your Relate Social Pro subscription to the payment source. Also, we have refunded the amount of $113.28"

Namecheap are tyying quite hard to find transaction numbers for me. Operator just confirmed there should be 12x refunds.. but they only gave me 11x reference number (and 6x actual refunds).

I now have to check with my bank.
Apparently the refunds didnt get credited by my bank - lets see. I'll be checking with the bank.

Now spent around 4 hours chasing this!!

PS.Namecheao I haven't used any full names on my review so I haven't broken any Trust pilot rules. Plus. Pretty sure also they are not really names

Paid for "next day delivery" as I was leaving on a flight abroad. Delivery took 6 days so I missed my parcel.. also Evri managed to have my parcel returned (so family member couldn't collect it) as they couldn't fit it in delivery box. Morons. Terrible service.. just use royal.mail!!

Thanks for the reply.. but I was leaving UK as I live abroad.. now I have to deal with non delivery for something I already paid for from the other side of the word.. PLUS I paid extra for this mess! Useless.

terrible interface. All your dmains are inside individual contracts and everything is referred to by contract number.. so annying. I have been with them for over 10 years.. but slowly moved to other services. 3 domains left and I will them also. I really do not like ths company. Had a domai drop into redemption - which is my fault.. but the renewal fee of $90 is crazy. Other companies (which im sure i cant name here charge a lot less). Im gone.

It's taken more than 2 weeks to deliver to a local store. It took so long I've actually left the country (working abroad) now I am worried my family can't collect as it says "only you" can collect in the order. Useless!!

My parents are HUGE fans of John Lewis.. so much so that they drove to Leeds Victoria Gate from Sheffield, and stayed overnight in a hotel to go shopping in JL Leeds for a Macbook Air laptop. Unfortunately... they got ripped off by John Lewis staff. They bought an M1 Macbook Air, picked it up on the morning they were leaving Leeds and took it home to Sheffield. My Dad is 79 years old, and not great with technology. He was totally confused about how to charge the laptop. It turns out the box was open when he bought it (no cellophane covering the white apple box), and there was no charger, UK plug, or USB-C cable in the box. They went to John Lewis as they think there is a great guarantee, but it's not much use if you are sold 'returned / display items / opened boxes'. My mum is in tears as she has been waiting to buy this since last Christmas (I did say to them buy direct from Apple!).. but they trust(ed) John Lewis.

I have several Hostgator accounts (not linked), but I will be moving them ALL elsewhere once the current billing period is over. Hostgator are not worth dealing with anymore. I have just lost one of my clients (worth $2000) due to them taking my server offline for nearly 2 weeks. They say I am using too many resources on a shared account, and I am happy to make any adjustments they ask, but once I make changes customer support takes days to check, and then they decide that there is a NEW problem (oh.. now you are using too many IMAP idle processes - wasn't previously mentioned!! Oh, another site is now a problem..). So each time I make changes I have to wait and wait and wait, and HostGator do not seem to care that this is destroying my client's businesses. One of my clients has now given up, and will be not renewing their contract with me. Previously I was running a site with 40,000+ hits a month on a shared Hostgator server.. no issues, now I can't even host a handful of low traffic sites. They tout EVERYTHING UNLIMITED, but please be aware that if you host 3 or 4 sites that get a little bit of traffic and have email accounts... Hostgator will make your life hell if you have a little spike in traffic. AND YES Hostgator, I already have a VPS (with Liquid web) for my higher volume sites. I am aware shared hosting is not 'UNLIMITED' but Hostgator is definitely becoming more and more limited.. and their support is becoming slower and slower..

Been using Nord for 4 years, and just wanted to leave a positive review before renewing again. My only small suggestion would be to make the Android TV app a bit easier to use. You have to do a search for a server numner instead of them being available to select.. It would also be great if you can make iPlayer work on Nvidia Shield (it works on Firestick, but not Shield).

If your site get hacked.. they charge $37.50 to 'check how it happened' - not fix it. If you want to restore from backup they charge $25 to restore. I used to love hostgator, now I'm getting sick of them. Live chat takes forever to get a person online. They have a business model where your site getting hacked is a good thing for them. When they were an Independent company they used to actually help - I was hacked once before and the admin looked through files with me, and restored for free. That was great.. now the first thing I'm greeted with is a price list. I have 3x hosting packages with hostgator, and 1x hosting with another host (Wired Tree), and I'm thinking of shifting it all to Wired Tree.

Suddenly they decide that I cannot use a wordpress plugin that backs up my important files each month.. I have been a customer for 8 years and have always done this! They advertise 'unlimited' webspace, but this is not the case... they are making customers pay for backups (as they only back up the first so many 'inodes' (files) in your account. if you go over your 'inode' allowace (which of course you wil) there is no backup unless you pay. - This is not a 'Backup of a Backup' - as I do not have any other backups on my account.