Bloggers help please! Sink 1and1 in Google.
View all posts by Paul Anthony
1and1 internet the hosting company from hell.
Please God whatever you do, don’t invest your hard earned cash with these jokers. *Apparently* on an old expired domain, I signed up for a 24 month contract (complete rubbish), and I’m now (having been referred to a credit agency to have my credit rating spat on) am now paying for a non existent service. They also refuse to talk to me at all. As a small “getting my own back” I’ve also asked for all of my personal data to be provided under the Data Protection Act, and if they refuse to comply with that within the (40 days), I’ll be going to the data commissioner.
So here’s the plea.
If you can drop this post a link, in any way shape or form please link to this with the link text 1and1…I plan on asking the blog community nicely to help me out with this, maybe some of those social networking guys can do something to..add to your del.icio.us or Digg it or stumble it. You get the picture. Have a gander at the below email…
2008/6/24 <billing@1and1.co.uk>:
Dear Paul Anthony,Thank you for your email.
The reason why your package is still active is because you went for one
of our special offers
and one of the stipulations of that offer that is
that you enter into a 2 year contract so the earliest that can be
canceled is May 12, 2009 which is what the termination is set to now per
the terms & conditions associated with the discount offer.
We can not issue a new invoice for the full amount due on your account.
You have to continue to pay every 6 months when the invoices are
produced until May 12, 2009.There is a balance of £42.23 due on your account at this time.
Ok, whatever I’ll pay when you can satisfy the above requests.
If you have any further questions do not hesitate to contact us.
Yeah, please answer the above questions marked ONE and TWO for clarity.
Surprise surprise, nothing back after this request…I have countless other emails, including a copied and pasted terms and conditions as a RESPONSE from them when I asked for evidence for this particular special offer that I signed up from - having written a physical letter. Emails dont work, Letters dont work, Maybe Google bombing will. So as I say, anything you can do to stick it to the man is appreciated. Hell, If it saves one customer from making the wrong hosting decision this post is worth it.
Also worth mentioning a few other sites here with the same sort of issues.
http://www.simonjones.info/1and1internet/
http://serial-box.net/2008/06/1and1-conclusion/
http://www.acorndomains.co.uk/domain-name-scams/32706-aravato-finance-1and1.html
http://www.chrisbeach.co.uk/view/tech/avoid_oneandone_internet
Grumbletext
1and1 internet
http://www.clintlenard.com/2007/10/28/what-the-hell-does-icann-do/
1&1
http://wwwangrypeople.co.uk/2008/03/03/1and1-web-hosting-sucks/
Jun 29th 2008
Unfortunately if you don’t have a lot of money and a lot of time I suggest you just pay the collection agency and move on. check out my website that I linked above on my name.. I experienced roughly the exact same thing as you.
1and1 will not budge on their terms of service even they they directly violate ICANN
they attempted to renew mydomain names on an expired credit card then made me pay a collection agency for money I didnt owe them yet (following years registration) before they let me transfer to another registrar which is a violation of ICANN TOS.
Jun 29th 2008
Thanks for your comments Dan, I’d love to move on, draw a line under them - I do plan on paying them. Problem is though, they won’t even issue an Invoice for the remaining outstanding on my account…stating that they can’t do that, and that I should just renew my cc inside the control panel; Needless to say I dont trust much their ability to properly cancel the account, come May 2009, they’ll probably still be taking money from my account, the whole thing came to light upon cancelling a lost debit card, I hadn’t noticed they were still charging me. So all in all they will get their money..but at what cost, with the bad publicity. Thanks for the link at your site.
Jun 29th 2008
they are assholes. once theyve sent you to collections they wont even talk to you until they receive notification from NCO that you have paid.
If i was a rich man with lots of extra free time I would take this to the next level legally… but I dont lol and its not worth my time for the 3 domains I *had* with 1and1 which have now been transferred.
good luck!
Jul 13th 2008
I find that complaining to companies is often fruitless these days. However, recording bad service and publishing this material on the web has thus far always brought a swift resolution. I’ve recorded bad customer service phone calls by 1and1, British Airways, United Airlines, Virgin Trains, Village leisure, and even the vehicle tax office in the UK. Thus far all these complaint websites with the reocrded calls have resulted in the company backing down.
In fact, my recent success (BA) resulted in them not only refunding me £60 but adding a huge case of expensive wine to that. This, I should add, is in the hope I’ll remove the site, which I will after the same time has elapsed between the start of the complaint and the time it took for them to settle the matter.
My 1and1 site…
http://www.simonjones.info/1and1internet/
Nov 11th 2008
Same issues… Love the approach you are all taking.
The problem starts in the choice of the Philippines for their call centre: No one there really speaks English properly nor understands the written word; if the 1and1 automated work flow process thingumy does not work, then you are right up the creek.
Complaints do not know what “high priority” “urgent” either mean.
Billing: “our systems are down [11.30am GMT] please call back in half an hour” - like we have time to be chasing answers.
Support: No shared language; the irony is that they are likely very talented linguistically, if only by force of circumstance
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_the_Philippines
whereas the current generation in the UK are getting a poorer English language education than ever before.
So, what of ICANN? Do they listen to complaints?
Well, so far, NO. But I will let you know if I get them licked. It seems that their accreditation system is designed to approve registrars, but lacks a route for removal of those that infringe, hence all the shenanigans about various awful registrar situations in recent years.
Maybe we should all pay by credit card, and call the credit card company when these companies fail to play fair… but this only works for sums over £100 in the UK.
Blogging looks to be the way to go.