1&1 is the worst online company I have ever had to deal with. The sad part of it is I already knew this and still signed up a for another hosting account with them. It all started with me wanting to conserve some resources on the VPS where I host my DJ Forum. Figuring I’d move my blog (bandwidth eater), parked domains, and a few other sites to an another host so I decided to start a new hosting account with DreamHost for this purpose. I’ve had history with DreamHost too but overall they’re a decent host and work with their customers.
Long story short I had issues with DreamHost it took them over a week to get my domain email working properly, I was getting frustrated so two days ago I opened a new hosting account with 1&1 at an introductory price. This hosting plan was supposed to be an upgrade to my current account where I have about 50 domains registered. Here’s where the first thing went wrong, they added a new contract to my account instead of upgrading my current contract. Okay no problem so I’ll just add the domains as additional hosted domains since they’re already registered at 1and1. The hosting plan came with 100 “add-on” domains, these are domains that are registered elsewhere but hosted at 1and1. I go to add the first domain registered at 1and1 that I want to host on another 1and1 contract under the same customer number (confused yet? Yeah that’s 1&1′s plan all along.) Their control panel won’t let me select host as additional domain it will only let me move it to the new hosting package. Okay that’s fine since I plan on keeping both contracts active. I select move it to this package, now I’m hit with a little check box that I have to check “I understand that my credit card will be charged for this item”. Huh? Wait..What? I already own the domain, why would you charge me to move it? No other registrar does that. Apparently 1&1 wants to charge me a full year’s registration fee to move the domain to another account I own and then not extend the domain’s expiration date by another year. What the fuck? in plain English. So, I cancel that.
Two letters to their “support” department trying to get them to merge the two contracts goes on unanswered. A third letter demanding cancellation of the hosting package gets the standard canned response, directing me to go to cancel.1and1.com. I’ve been through this cancellation process before, it’s convoluted and deliberately confusing. Having been through this before it’s a breeze for the seasoned 1and1 run around professional. I select the hosting contract and hit cancel entire package. Please check your email for a confirmation link, okay I get the confirmation link click it. Easy enough right?
Nope I get your package will be canceled February 19, 2009. Huh? Now I realize to get the promotional price that I had to lock into a time commitment, 1 year. Not a problem but I’m well with their 90 day money back guarantee period it should of been deactivated and canceled on the spot. An email to support explaining the whole situation gets a canned response to contact the billing department. Which I just wrote, I’ll update when I get a response.
As I write this my bank account has been debited $6 on 4 separate occasions from 1&1. $6 dollars is their ghost charge, they charge it and then put the money back to confirm funds availability. Let’s not mention the fact that every other company on the planet only debits a few cents or at most $1 to confirm the card is chargeable. 1&1 has seen fit to confirm my card 4 times, thus tieing up $24 that I could be putting to good use else where like DreamHost.
If it weren’t for my VPS’s host name being tied into a domain registered with 1&1, I would take a hit and loose 50 domains and cancel my entire account with 1&1 they’re just plain bad business people.
Coming soon: A tutorial on canceling 1&1 products.
Rotten, filthy, duplicitous bastards. They deserve to be drowned in monkey vomit. I contracted for a year’s service, never received the promised SW package. Got sick of chasing them down, didn’t bother canceling, credit card expired a year later…… I then get a letter from a collections agency 6 months later – 1and1 never sent me a letter, when the FOLLOWING YEAR’s renewal fee didn’t go through on the expired credit card they sent my account over to a collections agency without ever attempting to contact me. Hate them.
They pulled the “pay again to transfer domains between accounts” on me as well. I lost several pre-paid years worth of hosting on some of the names.
Damn nasty trick for a company that claims to be the biggest and best in Europe.
I have slowly been transferring all my domains (40+) out to another company. 1 and 1 leave transferred domains in your account under a different status…
GUESS WHAT: They still have been randomly charging me annual renewals for domains transferred out to other hosts! They have done this no less than 6 times so far and I have had to fight for a refund each time. Today I received an invoice including renewal of a domain transferred out over a year ago!!!
This has to be happening all over the place but people are probaly not noticing.
BEWARE EVERYONE: 1and1 are scum and should be reported!
[...] was moving to DreamHost. GoDaddy makes it super easy to update multiple domains at once. Meanwhile 1&1 sucks, you have to update each domain individually, I supposed this is to deter you from moving away from [...]
I’m having a lot of problems with 1&1 right now. Before ever once calling, or in some other way contacting me, they sent my account to NCO financial and are charging me a late fee (those ruddy bastards).
Right now I’m trying to battle them on this, and in the meantime (until they stop b*tching), I’m gonna be looking at other companies, like GoDaddy, DreamHost, et al. Please let me know of anything that may help.
Thanks for having this here entry.
1 and 1 hosting has the WORST customer service and tech support. I purchased a domain and hosting plan from them under my name, then my plan was to transfer ownership to my client after the project was completed. I have faxed the transfer form several times and they have not completed the transfer yet. It’s been several months now and they said they cannot give me a timeline. What kind of crappy service is that?!?… It’s a simple transfer of ownership! Additionally, the website has been down on numerous occassions. I understand this happens once in a while but it happens too much with 1 and 1 and I will never use them or recommend them to anyone.
I’d like to file a class action lawsuit against this company. Anyone with me?
1and1 is ruining people’s credit if people let their subscription expire. That’s crazy! I have plenty of hosting accounts on the internet, so I am very familiar with hosting policies. When a subscription expires, and your card is expired, your prepay doesn’t go through. That then cancels the account.
But I guess 1and1 finds that it’s profitable to send people to the NCO collection agency if they don’t prepay for the next term without clicking the ‘cancel’ button, which is not even available on your control panel!
Anyone else think this is an unfair business practice? I think we should contact the Abbey Spanier law firm and file a class action lawsuit!
I’ve been having the same problems. It all started for me after I canceled two domains I registered with them. I contacted support to reverse the cancellation since I requested the domains to cancel at the end of the billing cycle. They instructed me to reverse the cancellation on my own on their cancellation site. Well, the cancellation site would allow me to or even provide the option to reverse the cancellation so I emailed them back and they told me that they could reverse the cancellation but I would have to renew the domain contract and give up the remaining time left on the domains. I told him it would be a breach of contract for them to do that but they still declined. So I transferred all of my domains to another registrar. After the transfer was completed they charged my CC the renewal fee for two of the domains I transferred AFTER the transfer was complete!!! So frustrating.
They provide no way to cancel your account or remove your CC information. I’m want to do a charge back, but now that I’m reading that they will send it to collections I’m not sure. Any suggestions?
I like the law suite idea. 1and1 is very shady. I hope I can get my money back, but I’m not getting my hopes up.
I spoke to a 1and 1 technical services rep in April 2009 to cancel my account. I was led to believe that the account was canceled. I received no other communication. On Dec. 14, 2009 I received a collection letter from their NCO financial systems stating that I owed 1 and 1 $23.94 and $18.95. I called 1and1, they said my account was not fully closed, only the domain was canceled- not the hosting. I told them I had requested both (and why would I still host if the domain was canceled). Then they told me they sent me ONE email in October to let me know that I owed money. I did not receive this email. They did not send an invoice by mail, call me (they have my phone number) or attempt to contact me in any other way. The 1and1 sales representative acknowledged that I did cancel my domain in April, but hosting was not canceled. I said that when I communicated with Tech Services, I was led to believe that both had been canceled. Next she said that if I paid the collection company, then they would pro-rate back my refund based on the cancelation date. However, I still would have to pay the $18.95 late fee. Then they transferred me to NCO to make the payment over the phone, I found out that I had to pay another $8 to pay via credit card over the phone to ensure that the bill would not be reported to the credit agencies. I had been told by 1and1 that I would not be reported to the credit bureauy and that I had 30 days to pay this bill. 1and1 mislead me again & it cost me a total of $50.89.
THIS IS A CALL TO THE WHOLE INTERNET – 1AND1 CONTINUES THEIR FRAUDULENT ACTIVITIES WITH THE TACIT ACCEPTANCE OF ICANN. EVERYONE, LETS FLOOD ICANN WITH DEMANDS TO REVOKE 1AND1′S REGISTRAR STATUS. In my case, the put my account into collections, damaging my credit, without a single note of warning. My account was hooked up to PayPal, which was well funded, but I needed to “update my paypal permission” or something, which I already did a few months back, and which they DIDN’T give me any notice for.
Same exact thing happened to me. Never sent any notice that my credit card on file was not up to date. They emailed ONE crappy PDF invoice that went straight to my junk mail. Made NO other attempts in good faith to contact me, then suddenly bam, two collection notices, inlcuding one for the arbitrary 18.95 late fee. CROOKS. Called their customer support and i’m having a hard time remembering dealing with a company that was so flippant, unhelpful, and just downright rude.
Yeah I’m still moving away from 1&1 slowly but surely. They’re definetly some shady business people.
Have had loads of issues with 1and1, even though I was frustrated i remained polite to the rep and they still put the phone down on me! Its more like “we’ll take your money but wont give you anything in return” anyone considering 1and1.co.uk should run a mile!
@1&1 Class Action Law Suit
I am very interested in pursing class action against 1and1 internet. I’m willing to put money into it as well. I have spent over a year documenting their business practices include untold disputes with the credit card company (all of which I won). This is the WORST company I have EVER dealt with.. I’d like to uncover a relationship between them and NCO Financial, thier collection agency. It almost seems as if they’re in on things together (and they’re both located in the same area). I’m also contacting the FTC to file formal complaints as well as attorney’s general in the states in which I do business with 1&1. It’s time for them to be help accountale for their practices.
Watch an honest review of 1and1.com. They destroyed my company in just under a month and laughed about it. I cannot believe how websites their are dedicated so opposed to 1and1.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEZw31SRUk0
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