Complaints and Abuse Reporting
Making a complaint
We want every customer to get a high standard of service. If something’s gone wrong, tell us and we’ll put it right as quickly as we can. Your feedback also helps us improve.
How to contact us
- Support ticket: open a complaint ticket at pacwebhosting.uk/complaints. This is the quickest route and gives us a written record.
- Phone: 0333 123 8000, during UK office hours.
- Post: Complaints, PAC WEBHOSTING LTD, Suite 2 Albion House, 2 Etruria Office Village, Forge Lane, Etruria, Stoke-on-Trent, ST1 5RQ. This is a postal address only, and we don’t receive visitors.
Please tell us your name, the account or domain concerned, what went wrong and what you’d like us to do.
What happens next
| Stage | What we do | Timescale |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Front-line resolution | The support team member handling your complaint tries to resolve it with you straight away | Most complaints are resolved here |
| 2. Acknowledgement | If it can’t be resolved straight away, we confirm we’ve received it and tell you who’s handling it | Within 3 Business Days |
| 3. Escalation to a Director | If you’re not happy with the first response, reply to your ticket and ask for it to be escalated. A Director will review your complaint, and can call you back if you’d prefer to talk it through | Within 5 Business Days of your request |
| 4. Final response | We send a written final response explaining what we found and what we’ll do | Within 20 Business Days of your complaint. If we need longer, we’ll tell you why and when to expect it |
If you’re still unhappy
- Personal data complaints: if your complaint is about how we’ve handled your personal information, you can also complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office at ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint or on 0303 123 1113. We’d appreciate the chance to put it right first: email [email protected].
- Consumers: you can get free, independent advice from the Citizens Advice consumer service on 0808 223 1133, or at citizensadvice.org.uk. You can also go to the small claims court.
- Domain disputes: disputes about who should own a .uk domain are handled by Nominet’s Dispute Resolution Service. For other extensions, the UDRP applies.
Reporting abuse
We take abuse of our network seriously. If you think a website, email or server we host is being used for any of the following, please tell us:
- spam or phishing
- malware or hacking
- fraud
- copyright infringement
- illegal content
- any other breach of our Terms of Service
You don’t need to be a customer to report abuse.
How to report it
Open a ticket with our Abuse team at pacwebhosting.uk/abuse, or email [email protected] (this opens a ticket automatically). Please include:
- the website address, IP address or email address involved
- what’s happening and when you noticed it
- evidence, such as full email headers for spam or phishing, URLs, or screenshots
- your contact details, if you’d like to hear back
If you need to send log files or personal data, please don’t include them in an email to abuse@. Open a ticket at pacwebhosting.uk/abuse, or wait for our reply to your email, and add them to the ticket on our website. Ticket messages can only be read on our secure website, and email notifications don’t include the content.
Child sexual abuse material: don’t send it to us. Report it to the Internet Watch Foundation at report.iwf.org.uk. If someone is in immediate danger, call 999.
What happens next
| Priority | Examples | Our target |
|---|---|---|
| Urgent | Active phishing, malware distribution, attacks on other networks, illegal content | Acted on the same day, including taking the content offline if needed |
| Standard | Spam, copyright complaints, terms breaches | Reviewed within 1 Business Day |
We’ll investigate and, where appropriate:
- contact our customer and ask them to fix the problem within a set time
- suspend the affected service, or remove the content, if there’s a risk of harm or the problem isn’t fixed
- keep you updated, within the limits of data protection law. We may not be able to tell you exactly what action we’ve taken against a customer
We don’t tell our customer who made a report unless you agree, or the law requires it.
Copyright and legal notices
If you believe content we host infringes your copyright or other rights, or is unlawful, open an Abuse ticket and include:
- your name and contact details, and who you represent
- the exact URL(s) of the content
- the work or right you say is infringed, and why
- a statement that the information in your notice is accurate and that you’re the rights holder or authorised to act for them
We’re a hosting provider. We don’t create, control or edit what our customers publish, and we don’t check it.
Clearly unlawful content. Once we get a valid notice, we act promptly. Where content is clearly unlawful on the face of it, such as illegal material, we remove or disable access to it.
Where it isn’t clear-cut. Most notices aren’t. If two businesses have similar websites and each says the content is theirs, we can’t tell who’s right. We’ll pass your notice to our customer and give them up to 10 Business Days to respond. If they agree, or don’t respond, we’ll ask them to remove the content and may disable access to it. If they dispute your claim, the content stays in place and it’s for you and them to resolve, as explained below.
Disputed claims, such as trade marks and passing off. We can’t decide disputes between you and our customer. Claims like these depend on questions such as goodwill, misrepresentation and damage, which only a court or a dispute resolution body can decide. So we won’t suspend a website on the strength of an allegation alone, as that could leave us liable to our own customer. We will pass your notice to our customer so you can take it up with them, and we’ll comply with any court order.
Domain name disputes. For .uk domains, you can use Nominet’s Dispute Resolution Service. For most other domains, the UDRP applies.
Customer details. We don’t share our customers’ details with third parties making a complaint. We’ll only disclose them where the law requires it, such as a court order, in line with our obligations under the UK GDPR.
Notices that are incomplete or clearly unfounded may be rejected.
Requests from police and authorities
We cooperate with UK law enforcement and regulators. We only disclose customer information when there’s a valid legal basis, such as a court order, a request under the Investigatory Powers Act 2016, or a request under the UK GDPR crime-prevention exemption. Requests should be emailed to [email protected] from an official email address and give the legal basis and a reference.
Related policies
Last updated: 28 September 2026
