After almost a month and over a dozen emails to support and billing, my recent hosting problem was finally resolved. No fanfare, or even an email letting me know that it had been taken care of. I just went to one of my problem sites, and no more errors.
Two days before that, I received this email from complaints@1and1.com:
Thank you for contacting us.
As a gesture of goodwill, I have refunded the account regarding this
matter.If you have any further questions please do not hesitate to contact us.
That’s great, however the statement “I have refunded the account” is not true, because I haven’t received a refund. We’ll see if they follow through, or even return my email inquiry.
The point of this post, though, is to share the email address complaints@1and1.com. I wasn’t aware of it until now. If I had been, I’m sure I’d already be blacklisted.
#1 by Bottlecap Napkin - April 13th, 2008 at 12:46
1&1 did respond to my inquiry by crediting my account for 1 month’s worth of hosting.
#2 by Anonymous - June 5th, 2008 at 09:32
I am glad you got your issue resolved and credit applied to your account. Are you still with them? Other than this issue have they been pretty good? I like their prices and features alot…
#3 by Bottlecap Napkin - June 5th, 2008 at 09:51
They do have good features and prices, however there are 3 reasons I would not recommend getting involved with this company:
1) Their customer support is outsourced and not helpful.
2) As with my problem, they are not responsive in a reasonable amount of time. If I would have had clients on the webspace, I would have been forced to move their websites to another host at my cost.
3) 1 and 1 makes it very, very difficult to cancel their services once you sign up. I tried to unlock my domains, and even having faxed them confirmation, which they require, it’s been a month and all of my domains are still “in process” and I am unable to do anything with them. If you try to cancel services by simply not paying (cancel credit card, etc.) they will turn you over to a collection agency.
In short, I’d recommend staying away from 1&1 Internet. Try WestHost.
#4 by Anonymous - June 5th, 2008 at 12:32
I thought I canceled my site after 1 month but little did I know(small print)it requires fax notification. Just got phone call from NCO collection agency request $74.94 plus $18.95 interest for services rendered even thou the site was down. Stay away from these people even the collection agency thinks they’re scam artists.
#5 by Anonymous - August 8th, 2008 at 20:09
I am going to sue this 1&1 lousy Company. They have my credit card number on hold, been billing the past 2 years, and now send me a collection notice thru some NCO Collection company about an Invoice that they never sent me, and something I dont have a clue about.
#6 by mackdoggy1 - September 9th, 2008 at 13:17
After signing up for a website with http://www.1and1.com, I saw right away I did not like it and I cancelled in less than 24hrs w/o building or publishing a site(They have a 90 day money back guarantee). At first they acknowledged cancellation, then about a week later I got an email saying they tried to charge my credit card and it was denied(I stopped my card from paying them anything as soon as I cancelled). I replied, explaining the cancellation and reminded them they had confirmed it. Several times over next 3 wks they sent the same exact email about not being able to charge my credit card and I kept replying to them. It was like they were not reading my replies. Finally, I just quit replying to them. Now they have turned my account over to a collection agency and have hurt my credit, and they still will not respond to my attempts to contact them except with a canned message that does not make sense. Be very careful dealing with this company, there are many better hosting companies out there, no need to deal with one that will mess your credit up through no fault of your own.
They also advertise a very good price, but as you go through the site builing wizard, they try to sell you add-ons on every page. If you took them, it would make 1&1 the most expensive hosts on the market. Total rip-off. Try Hostmonster, great price, I paid 3yrs advance 4.95/mo total, great features,great customer service.I think it is about 6.95/mo if you pay month at a time. Still a great price. Unlimited domains on same account, I have 2 different websites on my 4.95/mo account now.
#7 by Anonymous - September 26th, 2008 at 15:57
I will start by saying that outsourcing is going to hurt all companies that do it. The have below standard employees with little to no knowledge of there product. Very poor communication skills and not to mention the phone connections are always full of static. As for 1 and 1 the company, the have no business hosting sites, they should just start some email scam, it’s more there speed. I have had a host of billing issues as well as technical issues. My fault!! You get what you pay for!!! I have learned my lesson and highly recommend you stay away from them.
Try checking out iPowerweb (they only outsource support after hours for now that is) Much, Much smarter people and NO billing issues!!!
#8 by Anonymous - October 3rd, 2008 at 18:45
I got burnt by this company too. ordered a VPS from them and after 9 hours of nothing , no order number or anything I called support and was told it takes 7 working days to to setup a VPS.I asked the support guy who could barely speak english why it takes that long to setup a VPS which most compines can do in less than a hour.He basicly told me I was full of you know what and that for each VPS they have to order a new server box.While I was on the phone with this idiot I went on line and ordered a new VPS from another provider and by the time I got off the phone with the 1and1 tech support my VPS with the other provider was up.
Emails to sales , billing or support went unanswerd and the VPS magicly popped up two hours latter.I called Billing and spent 1 hour total on the phone getting that VPS cancled I also had a small starter web site with them which I cancled with in the 90 days and it also took a ton of emails to get it shut down. Funny thing is this happend on Sunday /Monday and today Friday I get a respones from sales saying that from what they can see the order was cancled so I should contact billing.
Two words STAY away from this company they outsource support , will not respond to emails.
The big thing that I noticed is durning the day when you get someone from the states you get really bad HIP HOP music while being on hold makes me wonder if its a buch of kids running things
And to add insult to injury I just a a email to confirm that I will be charged for another 6 months of the starter package becuse I terminated early. I was on day 80 of the 90 day money back warranty
#9 by dan - October 8th, 2008 at 08:03
1and1 is a joke. they are thieves.. i would actually feel better getting mugged on hte street at knifepoint then I do giving any money to these people.
they tried to charge my domain renewals on an expired credit card.. and when that failed, instead of taking my domains offline like every other registrar, they left my domains online for 3 more months and sent me to NCO collection.
I had no clue there was a problem billing my card because my domains never went down..
#10 by DingleHopper - October 13th, 2008 at 09:59
I also got burnt. Canceled my services well before the due date. They still charged my account. And are refunding a credit. They said that they cannot stop payment on an invoice once the invoice has been issued.
They also do not allow you to remove your credit card from their system. So if you have received and invoice you WILL be paying for it. And you MAY receive a credit afterward. I will not be using this company again. I do not like charges to my account occurring out of my control.
#11 by Don - November 3rd, 2008 at 19:43
I too got burned by 1and1, a little over 1 month of my 90 day guarantee period for a VPS account, I wanted to cancel. I read through their support docs on their website and I was referred to the cancel.1and1.com url. I did as instructed, received 3 emails (which is standard protocol) and on the final email, got a confirmation of my cancellation. Didn’t get billed for 3 months so i’m thinking i’m okay, then around a month ago, i started receiving Plesk Admin emails, i’m thinking its nothing, then after a month i still keep on receiving it, i then checked my credit card only to find out that I’m getting billed. I emailed customer support and i was told that when i cancel, i am just cancelling the service, I will still get charged till the end of my contract. I decided to email billing@1and1.com. And the response I get this time is that I should have contacted billing for me to cancel and get a full refund. I swear i didn’t see that anywhere in the terms and conditions when i signed up. So i checked their website’s terms and conditions again. And I didn’t see anything about having to contact billing to be able to get the refund. Its absurd that 1and1 should put a cancellation URL and point everyone that wants to cancel to it then not put into effect the cancellation and later tell people that they should have called the billing department. Two different support people, two different replies. Its a ripoff.
#12 by Michael - November 8th, 2008 at 07:14
They are ripping me off too. I am going after them through PA attorney General. Maybe we can get together and file a class action lawsuit. If anyone else is interested contact me at alterdstate1@gmail.com
#13 by Anonymous - November 15th, 2008 at 15:37
I agree! I’ve used many hosting services over the years, including 1and1, and it’s quite bad.
Funny, they spend millions in advertising money, but they don’t know how to run a web hosting service. A lot of hosting services are just a bunch of marketing guys. There are many better services out there with much better features and service.
You would think that whomever is providing funding to 1and1 would fire their CEO and get things fixed. Otherwise, I think they’ll go bust. In fact, I predict it soon.
So, avoid them if you can! Hopefully more people will see your posting.
#14 by Evan - April 9th, 2009 at 11:22
Join some facebook groups, I’m hoping I can sue these bastards
#15 by JIM INGERSOLL - PRESIDENT-CEO JDI SERVICES, LLC - April 16th, 2009 at 20:55
I have been an owner in the collections business for 10 years. Therefore, if anyone has any issues with 1and1 in collections there is exact law in place that they have to remove errant information once proven. If they do not it is a fine of $1,000.00 per offense when they have refused to delete the derrogatory information. I too am currently having issues with the company. Currently, ALL of my websites are down, which means my business is down, because of THEIR errant incompetence. However, I have filed a complaint with Internic (Governing organization for the entire worlds registered domains and distribution thereof).
Pressing on! They crossed the wrong person!
#16 by John - May 5th, 2009 at 06:25
I had an even better experience. I never heard of these guys or did business with them. Then I get two notices in the mail that they have turned my account over to a collection agency.
#17 by Jeremiah - June 7th, 2009 at 09:17
We have had a terrible experience with 1and1. We would like to sign on with any lawsuits against them, so please contact us at kirstenlyons@gmail.com. Without attempting to contact us via phone or mail they sent us to collections. They apparently sent us some email’s requesting payment, but with all of the spam they send out, they were lost with the rest of the junk we get from them. Sending us to collections was unethical, and in my view is tantamount to extortion. There was no way for us to contest it, NCO didn’t care and 1 and 1 wouldn’t drop the ridiculous charges even though we contested it within 30 days of receiving the notice as the paperwork noted. What really upsets me is that they made absolutely no attempt to contact us outside of sending a few emails before sending us to collections.
#18 by admin - June 8th, 2009 at 11:00
I have certainly experienced the problem that goes along with all of their emails being filtered as SPAM. I had exactly the same problem when I first started using them.
As is true with a lot of people, I use email all the time, and NEVER have problems with good emails being caught in my SPAM filter. But all email from 1&1 will if you don’t put them on your whitelist. The problem is that 1) you don’t expect you would need to do this with such a large Internet provider. Aren’t such things as email technology their specialty? 2) at the time when I was first using them, their subject line and from address looked like SPAM. I could only tell it was from 1&1 after I opened it.
Having said that, I don’t know if suing them over such issues is worth the trouble, unless there is a very significant loss involved. Warning others not to get involved with them is a good idea. The substandard quality of their services, and the fact that they treat their customers like dirt will eventually lead to their demise.
#19 by Anstrum - July 6th, 2009 at 18:28
Like others on this thread I was also sent to collections (without my knowledge) for a pre-paid account that I was rung through the ringer when trying to cancel. Instead of just closing my account when I canceled the account, they sent me to collections. I found out about the collection over a year later when I was trying to qualify for a mortgage. My credit was spotless and my FICO was above 800 prior to this issue. Needless to say this sunk my FICO into the 500’s and lenders now don’t want to touch me because I have this $30 collection on my credit history. I’ve spent over two weeks on the phone and writing letters and emails with 1and1 and NCO (the credit agency) trying to resolve the issue with no luck. I’m now working with an attorney to try to get this resolved.
BE WARNED before doing business with 1and1. 1and1 makes it extremely difficult to close your accounts and when you do close your account, they refer you to collections. Please consider that by doing business with 1and1 your credit will be forever affected which makes it impossible for you to ever by a car, house, or get any type of a loan because of their extremely aggressive policies. 1and1customer support is overly rigid and unhelpful, their policies are absurd and anti-consumer, and they’ve trained their customer service representatives justify their actions and to hide behind onerous fine print and T&C’s.
#20 by Glenn - July 16th, 2009 at 06:37
Glad I stumbled upon this site - I am having the same issues of poor customer service and their CSR’s not knowing their products or services. When I received the billing notice of renewal prior to renewal, I stated that I no longer wanted their services I responded back to them to cancel the account. I ended up 6 months later getting a collection notice from NCO. I am disputing the issue with documentation of their emails to me and my responses to them.
If anyone has been successful in getting the issue resolved or filing complaints with an attorney general - please let me know glenn@adelta.com.
Thanks.
#21 by John - August 7th, 2009 at 07:56
Please stay away from these guys at 1&1. I have had the same billing experience as described in several other posts. Supposedly renewal of domains was unsuccessful on card/bank acct, NO contract from them at all, & then collection agency letter.
I would love to join a class action suit against 1&1 and NCO.
#22 by Robert - October 27th, 2009 at 01:56
They’re crooks! I switched to a different host. When I did so I had my current web master on the phone with me via a 3 way call. My current web master told them that I would no longer be needing there services. Guess what? I continued to be billed. No less than 5 times trying to resolve this matter and not being allowed to talk to a supervisor I am still getting bills and late fees. What part of no longer needing your services does these people not understand? Anyway, I am up for getting in on a class action suit if anyone else is interested. The CSR’s get you so damn mad you want to reach through the phone and choke them. Oh, and when I had that 3 way call aforementioned, my gawd, my current webmaster, who is quite knowledgeable had such a hard time communicating with them due to a language barrier it was downright frustrating. I went to the point of shutting my account down, because of their dishonesty and practices.
#23 by Robert - October 28th, 2009 at 11:57
It’s amazing that when you call sales the phone line is crystal clear and yet when you call cancellations you get a static filled call where everything has to be repeated twice..adding to confusion. Imagine that! I am down to getting one last domain name transferred out from under them. I am wondering what kind of hidden fees and scams await. I just want the nightmare over with. I go with GoDaddy for my current stuff and don’t have any problems whatsoever. Explanations are clear to understand and my wishes are carried out to the letter. I just don’t get how 2 companies can be so grossly different. Can you imagine having to work for these guys? Their employees (some of which are the problem) must be miserable taking the complaints they do.
#24 by Vanessa - November 3rd, 2009 at 16:51
This was the worst mistake using this company. I have NEVER been taken to a creditor before in my life. My card on file was cancelled due to my purse and card being stolen. Once I received a new card and got an email from them to update my card, I did. They now say I never did and when I logged on… it was an updated card that they didn’t bother checking to see if it was updated. In addition, they send me to NCO creditor for $29.99. WOW! These creditors charge $8 and 1and1.com sent me ANOTHER bill for $18.99 with no wording of what this is for. After contacting them, emails from various persons said 1. for creditor fee (huh, that was $8 and NCO said that wasn’t right). 2. Another guy email me saying it was for a late fee. Ha! $18.95 is nothing but the principle of them doing this….I am fighting this. I did make sure I cancelled my account. If you don’t, you will get charged until you do.