Warning - 1&1 Internet

JohalaReewi

Have been with 1and1 for years. The only problem I found was that there is no cancel option on the main account portal, you have to type in a special address. Luckily, staff tell you if you ask and google can always find it so not a major problem. Looking at the OPs other posts, they do seem to have a thing against 1and1.

moonrakerz

This is not my first post so I think I can comment without too much fear of being accused of "spamming".

Have been with 1 & 1 for many years - never had a hint of a problem with them - excellent company !

PS: OP has made 5 posts: 4 bleating about 1 & 1 and one advertising a "green" energy supplier ! draw your own conclusions

SallyForth_2

I just googled 1&1 Best to see what happens.

Whitewillow_2

I had an account with 1and1 and I had an awful experience - they told me I had a 'month free' in which i could cancel at any time, and with no penalty, however, I decided to cancel immediatly as the service they were offering was not the service they advertised. They told me they would cancel the account (after several emails being sent back and forth) but still tried taking the direct debit. When the direct debit was refused, i assumed it was automated on their service and did not take any further action as I had an email stating they had cancelled my service a month before, I had cancelled the direct debit, so all was ok, i thought. Then I got letters threatening legal action, and it took a total of 5 emails to their accounts dept for them to actually realise that they had made a mistake! It was only when i threatened with action from trading standards they actually started to listen.
But Im sure for my one bad story, there are very many good ones.

devolution

Joelleski wrote: »

I must admit, I've never had a problem with them, they've been hosting a couple of domains for me for 2 years or so now, and I've found them rather helpful ... sorry to hear you've had a bad service.

There are quite a lot of people that have had problems (of course, people tend to post a report when something goes wrong, rather than right). However, from my own projections, I would say perhaps 10-25% of their customer base has had some problems. So this is not an insignificant number of people.

montyrebel wrote: »

probably an ex employee having a wee rant

Sorry to disappoint you, just someone who likes to look out for the underdog (ie: people who don't have much experience with the intricacies and technicalities of domains, and sadly in this case, the law).

bap98189 wrote: »

What exactly does an Internet Consultant do?

Really? Then I am sure your solicitor will have advised you not to write about them in a public forum until after the case has been heard. Also I think you may want to ask him/her about the way our legal system works.

Well searching for that, do you really expect any good results to come back? Search for any large company and the word worst and you will find plenty of disgruntled posts in forums, blogs etc.

Personally I have a couple of websites and domains registered through 1&1 Internet and have never had cause to complain. However, I am sure that other people will have had problems with them, as is the case for any company with a huge customer base. Would you care to post some specifics about why you think they are operating illegally?

Internet Consultant - a catch all title to describe someone who does all kinds of varied things online, eg: creating websites, brokering websites, buying and selling domain names, advising companies on marketing issues, creating and researching all manner of Internet related projects and fields.
IE - someone who has a really good understanding of the many various facets - legal, technical, financial etc. of online channels and mediums.

I didn't need a solicitor as I'm quite well aware of UK law and how it relates to Internet based transactions etc., and the technicalities of this case.
Suffice to say, getting a solicitor who is also a techie and understands the issues at hand (with regards to the domains) would be like finding a needle in a haystack. And probably would cost somewhere around £1,000 an hour.

Of course, very few people do actually post positively about their experiences these days ~ but people are more than eager to note down their negative experiences, so this could skew the data.
However, there are just too many reports, including from internet experts like myself. (I will try and post in some links to the UK's main internet forum with many many instances and examples.)

~~~~~~
OK - some clarficiation of the issues at hand (although they don't relate to every customer and situation, a large number of people have been affected):

1. One and One Internet are charging people's credit cards and accounts for services THEY HAVE NOT EVEN ORDERED. = fraud
2. They are CANCELLING ALREADY PAID SERVICES, meaning customers have lost out on a service they have paid for.
3. They are CHARGING FOR CUSTOMER-CANCELLED SERVICES (ie customer specifically cancels a website or domain, but they continue to charge nonetheless, even after phone calls and letters), in some cases even sending these false charges to collection agencies. =fraud
4. Other issues that vary from customer to customer...

I will try and post some links in a subsequent post to give you an idea of the magnitude of the situation.

devolution

Sorry, as I'm still classed as a new user, it won't let me post full urls, so you'll have to copy and paste into your browser these links...

This first link is to a blog of mine, which I set-up in part to my experiences with 1&1, to document dodgy online scams etc.: WorstOfTheWeb.net (there are a lot of links to other people's experiences from the 1&1 post on there).

The following threads are from the UK's leading Internet & Domains forum (most of the people on here are seasoned Internet experts also, with many years of experience with online projects & transactions etc.):
acorndomains.co.uk/domain-name-registrars/58457-1and1-yet-again.html
acorndomains.co.uk/domain-name-registrars/57708-1-1-invoices.html
acorndomains.co.uk/domain-name-scams/32706-aravato-finance-1and1.html?highlight=1and1
acorndomains.co.uk/domain-name-scams/52165-someone-trying-steal-my-domain.html
acorndomains.co.uk/domain-name-registrars/45973-1and1-jokers.html?highlight=1and1
acorndomains.co.uk/domain-name-registrars/25062-1and1-co-uk.html
acorndomains.co.uk/domain-name-registrars/22732-1and1-what-do-you-think.html

m_13

I'm sure you could find numerous people who will complain about any domain registrar. I've been a customer of 1and1 for over 6 years and run multiple domains through them and whilst I've had minor technical problems nothing has been related to billing or domain name renewal.

Posting links to one forum (registered less than 5 years ago) which are 'UK Domain Name traders, buyers and sellers' hardly supports your case. I have very little sympathy with domain traders who rarely have to give the domains back to somebody who actually might use it for themselves. My little sympathy has reduced to nothing when I spot that the the forum seems to specialise in helping speculators buy domain names that are registered and being used by one company but which they've forgotten to renew. No doubt the original company whose traffic and brand were using the domain name up until renewal have to pay a premium price to the speculator to retrieve it. Hardly an honest business (even if not illegal)!

I see you have posted the following at the forum:

The court-case is still proceeding - naturally, they filed a Counterclaim, but I am confident my case is pretty much water-tight...

Next hearing is in October, so should know by then...

But it seems a class action might be the next step - yep guys, the UK now can perform class action lawsuits...
And my family's retained solicitor just happens to be one of the best for this kind of thing, so I'll be contacting them sometime....

I can see in the same thread that people who have not cancelled their domains in their 1and1 control panel after transferring them away from 1and1 are surprised that 1and1 are then trying to renew them! Another thread (which you've linked to) complains about new invoices being received with attached credit notes due to the VAT change and the person who started the thread has had to post that they hadn't spotted the credit note! Whilst I haven't appreciated receiving one invoice and credit note pair per domain name, this is obviously how their billing system works and if you were passing the charge on to individual companies would actually make it simpler.

In the same forum I can see many, many complaints for other hosts/registrars who I have heard are shocking too.

If you are having a hearing this month then trying to bring bad publicity to the person you are suing seems madness!

Reggie_Rebel

devolution wrote: »

However, from my own projections, I would say perhaps 10-25% of their customer base has had some problems. So this is not an insignificant number of people.

Can you give us some idea of how you arrived at this figure?

devolution

OK...
Here's some more reviews -- found by just typing "1and1 reviews" into Google:
hostingcomments.com/web-hosting-reviews/1and1/reviews.html (2 positive vs. 17 negative)
reviewcentre.com/reviews151391.html (1.1 out of 5 based on 54 reviews)

I could go on, but is there not a pattern here?
These reviews are not from what you claim to be 'greedy thieves' for whom you have no sympathy - these are for the most part regular consumers, who don't understand much about the technicalities of domains etc., and god help them when they have a problem with billing or losing their services...

I'm not sure why you seem to want to defend 1and1 - perhaps because you had a good experience with them; but the issue at hand, is to help out the great numbers of people who haven't, and to stop this kind of rubbish happening in the future.

My only wish is to get JUSTICE brought and a SHODDY OPERATION held accountable and be forced to give better service and support to their customers. If half the customers in McDonalds got their burgers ripped away from them half way through their meal, do you think they'd still be in business?
Or if they started to find McDonalds had taken money from their credit card for meals they hadn't purchased? If this continued on routinely for a few years, I think they'd be closed down...

To be honest, I have better things to do with my time than to complain or argue, but I have a desire to help people out, particularly those who are being unwittingly ripped off. Is this not the spirit of this site?

And here are snippets from some actual reviews from the sites I mentioned above - regular, small customers - these are the people I'm most concerned about are being screwed over:

We are a small animal charity and have been with 1and1 for 3 years, but recently, their tech support has evaporated and appear not to understand our problems - We use their newsletter tool to to send our lifeline newsletters each month which worked for several years, but that has now changed and regardless of how we try to fix it, almost all of our newsletters are now treated as spam, including 1and1! We were told to try another database and new outgoing email address, which we did ( and took a month to change it all over) only to have same problem. 1and1 then said they need a software re-write, and another month later, lo and behold, it still does not work and I am afraid to say as we are still chasing the problem, all we get are rather silly emails asking (again) what the problems is and ask us (again) to send relevant headers. When I write to complaints, I just don't get a reply. We then tried to send (via 1and1) a simple email instead of a newsletter (no pictures etc) and from different addresses, but again all were treated as SPAM by filters, and it looks as though 1and 1 are being now blacklisted by other ISPs. Sorry to say, we have had enough of this and are going elsewhere, and would suggest if you want more than a simple email system and domain name, you should do the same and go elsewhere - By the way, we cannot obtain a telephone number to complain to their main office nor any email addresses for their directors. If anyone has similar problems, and have any success with their directors, please let us know as we would still like to make our views, and losses ! known to those that matter, if they care.

Just dire at setting up a webspace - every aspect uses their own terminology, FAQ pages lack links to what is being discussed and no return-to link main site. Uploading a page using web-explorer system works fine, until try viewing the file and nothing exists at my domain. I think I'm quiet computer savi, but have given up after several hours.

terrible.

absolutely dire, beyond hope

billing dept at 1and1.co.uk simply do not listen and repeat the same inappropraite excuses

for several months I have tried to pay the bill. they invoiced me for something I don't think is due, and asked them for a statement/copy of the order to show the amount was due. they simply said the amount was due. no proof, (they said they couldn't supply any !!! lol), but I had to pay

I repeated I wouldn't pay without proof, and wouldn't pay by plastic/automatic debit (I can't trust someone who can't supply proof) and so needed their bank details

their bank details are obviously top secret because 4 months later they still won't provide them, nor any proof!

despite 8 emails asking for bank details, none are forthcoming - they simply ignore the request and waffle about something else. never actually refuse to provide them, but never explain why they won't, despite being asked directly why they won't provide the details.

you cannot take seriously any company that can't supply proof of an account, and won't allow you to pay directly.

they have now passed details to a debt collection agency, and now say they CAN'T deal with the account and I must pay the collector!

if the matter wasn't so serious it would be comical.

Don't deal with them don't even consider buying anything from them, you are likely to be asked to pay for things they can't prove you owe and then pass your details to a debt collector when you refuse to pay.

some regulator should close them down.

I am now working to transfer my business websites elsewhere, and if they won't cooperate in that (which the won't), I'll simply lose the domain names and get fresh ones, it;s not worth the hassle of trying to talk sense to them