1and1 could really use a complete overhaul of their domain control panel, billing system, and customer service department. I am glad this latest 1and1 fiasco ended well. I still plan on writing a How-To on canceling services with 1and1 and will eventually pull all of my domains away from them.

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.