1&1 Internet Complaints
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&1 did respond to my inquiry by crediting my account for 1 month’s worth of hosting.
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…
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!!!
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
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..
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.
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.
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
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.
Join some facebook groups, I’m hoping I can sue these bastards
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!
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.
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.
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.
I have investigated 1&1 thoroughly and found their major tricks using PayPal. They are crooks and steal money deliberately as their main business. That’s why do not be surprised at anything they do. It is their profession! I will try to come back with details later.
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.
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.
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.
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 threaten people with a 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!
Thank you all for posting. I am looking for a web hosting company and found this 1 and 1 in PC Magazine and thought I’d check them out. from the sounds of it I think I’m better off leaving them alone. Just for the record are there any problems outside of billing? or any advantages to this company?
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.
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.
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.
Many of us have had issues with 1&1 Internet. It’s time we got together to do something about it. They usually get away with the small charges because most people pay to make it go away (and 1&1 is extremely persisent over a couple dollars).
I’ve started a facebook group to start gathering people together to share stories and tactics to resolve any alleged wrongdoings:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=104649439567617
Know what you are committing to. It is not going to be easy to CXL after the trial period for 1 YEAR! Their customer service is NO SERVICE and have and “attitude”. I signed up and never transferred OR used their web service and find I missed some “fine print” and locked into a year of NOTHING! Good Luck and WATCH OUT! Buyer Beware!
Dear Users,
Under having problems with this company, I’m thinking of opening my own forum to take, file and show all the complaints from 1&1 customers, to 1&1. And open up a fine service to help users to bring down these CROOKS. If you have any problems, please don’t hesitate to contact me at jarrod@noon-hosts.com. Also, If you have a habit to talk to me via instant chat, Enter that email address into MSN.
Kind Regards,
Jarrod Noonan.
You got off easy. Those scamming crooks are still harassing me over a cancelled account from 1.5 years ago. Worst internet host in the world, 1and1 internet, hands down. Would love to see a meteor fall out of the sky and obliterate their head office!!!
@Robert
Count me in. I would love to sue their them six ways to Sunday just to teach them a lesson!
I had many of the same problems. I researched the name of the president and sent him a registered letter explaining that the next step was small claims court. All accounts were immediately canceled.
@R Clark
Please post that info since it appears that is the ONLY way to get this resolved.
I have used several providers including 1&1 and customer service always seems to be a problem which I don’t understand as although these services are usually pretty cheap them labor involved for these companies has to be quite low too. I have not had any bad experiences with 1&1 but I haven’t needed them. However if you need support I have had good experience with Ipowers support
I have had the same billing issues that over 800 people on the BBB have complained about. I called the FTC and made a complaint on 1 & 1 Internet. I would encourage those of you that are having troubles with this company to do the same thing. If they have enough people call in with complaints they will do an investigation on this company. It would be great if everyone that has been posting about their problems with this company online instead took it directly to the FTC, we may get our issues resolved!!!!
I recently ordered a dedicated server with 1and1. I had the server for a month before they added on more and more charges which I realised I didn’t have the money to pay. I then contacted them via email asking for a cancellation as thier contract site would not work when I tryed. I was then told to phone the billing department which I did. I asked them to cancel my contract which they replyed had a minimum term which ended in 2013! I told them I need to cancel which they replyed is impossible. Next,I called up dedicated server support and explained my situation to them. This man was extremely helpful and cancelled the contract effective at the end of the momnth. I was told I would no longer have to pay any fees or invoices. This seemed not the case at the end of the month my control panel said my server was status ‘delete.’ I then recieved a inviice for the end of the month. I emailed 1and1 to tell them that I was told I would not recieve any more invoices or balance statements which they have not yet responded to. I phoned them up to explain all this and the billing department told me that they have now escaleted the claim so my invoice can be cancelled and that i would no longer have to pay anything, I will update here when anything new happens.
I thought i would have a go with thier free trail website and hosting for a sub website we wanted to setup, we go to busy in jan so i cancelled the trial before the 30 days, had the same probelm trying to cancel on the website, but final got the billing dept to confirm the cancellation, then guess what we have just had a invoice for the next 3 months i have now emailed them back with the confirmation email but now i am concerned as many people are having issues with this company, my adivse would stay away its not worth the hassle. I will update
Hi guys,
I am thoroughly disgusted with 1and1. As a doctor and programmer I’d never treat my patients or customers like them. They blatantly lied to me before using them for hosting, telling me no matter when they upgrade their pHp, previously versions are supported. And as most programmers can rightly tell you, on any menial hosting service, you have the option to simply use htaccess and a command line to tell the host server to user a specific version. But not 1and1. These ingrates lied to me, and when they upgraded to php5, I had nearly a 1000 pages of code malfunction. They did nothing to help, answered emails with crap that had nothing to do with my issue. In effect, they suck, and I’ll be taking my business elsewhere in the future and advise the world NEVER to use this pathetic excuse of a hosting company. Spread the word.
I used this company for hosting various websites from 2002 to 2006. The service was abysmal and the customer service was a nightmare. Signing up was very easy but leaving was very, very difficult. I lost half of my clients due to slow loading sites, email accounts that didn’t work and poor response time to technical problems. I eventually cancelled my multiple accounts and moved all of my websites to another host. Even after leaving 1 and 1 continued to try to charge me and now I have an issue with my credit rating. Two years after leaving I got a letter from a collections company. I paid the balance after 3 weeks of trying to have it removed/contested. Now even though it has been paid the strike is still on my credit report. I didn’t owe the money as I had cancelled and received confirmation of cancellation. I also hadn’t been using the services yet I was still billed without communicating this with me and without access to the account I was being billed for.
I thought that my experience may have been unique but after reading hundreds of similar posts on websites and blogs I am now convinced that this company is scamming people. I have never taken time to fill out a BBB complaint but this company has motivated me to do something to fight back against us little people. I would love to have this strike removed from my credit but I doubt this will ever happen. My hope is that this company will be sued or shut down to prevent hundreds and thousands of other Americans from going through the Hell that I and others have endured by doing business with 1 and 1 Internet.
They sell you a domain name for $1 and a year and a day later they send invoice for $9.99 renewal but it’s sent too late on purpose. They claim they can’t refund or reduce the charge because they have already invoiced. A reputable company would give you notice that an item is coming up for renewal. 1&1 is not reputable, they are crooks. If I call my Discover Card to depute it what will happen?
It was probably in the fine print that the$1 was just for the first year. That’s a common, and very shady practice with some web hosting companies that also do domain name registration. Hostmonster did the same thing to me. I bought the package during a promotion, and then was charged a much higher price upon renewal. I was never aware of the higher price until my credit card was charged. Other companies will be much more upfront.
If you really feel that you have grounds to dispute the charge, I would recommend transferring the domain away from them first. They have a weird way of handling domains that can tie them up for longer than you would think if there is a problem.
I got out from 1and1 hosting. They were the worst decision I ever made in regards to webpages. I had to go to the BBB to get a refund and 1and1 tried to bill me back for the refunded amount month later. Horrible company.
1and1.com This is a fraudulent company and unformed. Not accredited by BBB (Better Business Bureau). Keep and not to delete your personal information and credit card. Billing is days after order with higher values than those agreed. Your domain can go in redemption period and finally you can los your domains.
I have had nothing but problems since signing on w/this company. I initially ordered the 1&1 Starter to allow at least three months to learn and design my website and decide if this was something that I could actually use long-term. I quickly found that I had a number of limitations and your staff recommended that I upgrade to the My Website Plus Pkg. At one point I actually had both because I had difficulty getting the first one cancelled even after several calls. I WAS NOT AWARE that I was going from a 3 month FREE trial program to a “locked in contract”. I have called numerous times w/problems navigating through the site, have had to call to have my account reimbursed for fees that should not have been charged and have yet to create a useable site using this program. I still have yet to receive a domain name change that I requested (beverlydwilliams-thoma.com to beverlythomas.org). I called to cancel the service because it is simply of no use to me and I don’t think that it’s fair that I be stuck in a one year contract for something that was falsely advertised and not even useable. The program simply does not do what it is advertised to do.
Submit a complaint to the BBB until resolved.
http://www.bbb.org/washington-dc-eastern-pa/business-reviews/internet-services/1-and-1-internet-inc-in-chesterbrook-pa-1040770/
I have had the exact same problems with 1 and 1. I cancelled my account last Oct and yet they still insist on billing me stating that I only cancelled my domain, not the package. What a bunch of crap. I cancelled the entire service. I do not recommend this company to anyone.