Is Your Website Maintenance Plan a Scam? How to Tell

Here's the fastest test there is. Email your maintenance company and ask for two things: last month's update log, and a live restore of your most recent backup to prove it works. A provider actually doing the work can produce both in minutes. If you get excuses, delays, or a change of subject, you have your answer.

Most maintenance "scams" aren't dramatic fraud. They're plans that charge you every month while quietly doing little or nothing, betting you'll never check. The good news is that checking is easy.

The two-part request that settles it

Copy this into an email to your provider. It's polite, reasonable, and revealing.

1. 1"Can you send me the update log for last month?" A record of what software was updated and when. Any real maintenance service keeps this and can forward it right away.
2. 2"Can you show me a test restore of my latest backup?" Proof that backups exist, are recent, and actually work. A provider doing this properly restores to a staging copy and shows you it came back clean.

Both of these are normal client requests. Neither is an ambush. The reason they work is that you can't fake them after the fact: either the work has been happening and the records exist, or it hasn't and they don't.

The other red flags

Beyond that one test, these patterns tend to travel with plans that aren't doing much:

• No reports, ever. You've never once received a summary of what was done. Real maintenance leaves a paper trail.
• Vague answers about backups. They can't tell you where backups are stored or how often they run.
• Your domain is in their name. A provider holding your domain is keeping you from leaving. Check who owns it.
• You can't reach a person. Requests vanish into a queue and come back weeks later, or never.
• The site is visibly falling behind. Slow load, an SSL warning, or an outdated look, while you're paying for upkeep.

What you can verify on your own

You don't have to take anyone's word for the basics. A few of these take two minutes:

1. 1Check SSL. Look for the padlock and "https" in your address bar. A warning or a missing padlock on a maintained site is a bad sign.
2. 2Check who owns your domain. A public WHOIS lookup shows the registered owner. It should be you or your business, not the provider.
3. 3Run a free checkup. An outside scan tells you if the software and speed look neglected.
4. 4Test your own contact form. Submit it and confirm the message actually arrives. Silent form failure is exactly what maintenance is supposed to catch.

If your own quick checks disagree with what you're paying for, that gap is the story. For the questions to ask a replacement provider, see the questions to ask before hiring a maintenance company.

If you need to move to someone honest

If the two-part test came back with excuses, it's probably time to switch. Before you do, make sure your domain, hosting, and logins are in your name so you can leave cleanly. Then find a provider who reports plainly and answers questions without flinching.

Our maintenance plans start at $99 a month, and we'll hand you an update log and prove a backup restores on request, because that's just what doing the work looks like. You can talk to a real person at (425) 314-1415. If you'd rather stay where you are, keep your current provider and just hold them to the same standard.