web hosting trial problem people

goodbuyer1

hello

I started a 1 month hosting trial with this company, 1and1.co.uk
I was not aware of the really bad reputation they have, you can see
many bad customer reviews at http://webhostinggeeks.com/user-reviews/1and1/

I am having the same sort of problem that many other people are having:
it's very hard to cancel with these people and as a result they go
over their trial period and get charged.

I think I have mistakenly opened two accounts as with one of them
I was having technical problems. (I thought I would get charged
only for one as none of the accounts have anything that
the other doesn't have. Therefore it makes no sense to
charge the same customer twice, which they did, just because
the customer mistakenly opened
two accounts under the same name, same bank details, address etc.)

I decided to close my account with them, but at the time I
wasn't even aware I had opened two.

To cancel, they require you to go to great lenghts,
waste time on the phone getting transferred from a number to the other,
etc, and finally they require a password or they won't cancel you.

This whole exercise was very hard to pull off

Long story short, I phoned and cancelled, even recorded the conversation.

I had paid by paypal, so I just stopped the suscription.

They sent me a bill through the email a week later. I emailed them
and wrote that I had cancelled. They wrote back that they 'could not
find my cancellation'.
They asked me for a 'reference number'. I didn't have one
since I wasn't given one when I cancelled.

I insisted and wrote that I had recorded the conversation.

About a week later, they sent me two bills for £ 43 each.

I also noticed that on the bills, the account number that I had
cancelled by phone, has been changed to another account number.

Needless to say, I am hating these people. I have never
been in a situation like that before as I usually pay
my bills on time.

I have now received a remainder with a note that if I don't
pay, I might be sent to a debt collection agency and
£ 15 will be added to the unpaid balance, etc

What I find outrageous is that not only they made
it so hard to cancel, they even reopened an account
I had cancelled, and/ or changed the account number.

To recap:

1. they make it very hard to cancel. I tried to do that
by email, by phone, etc, and I didn't succeed.

2. I have received two bills for two different accounts,
even though on the phone it appeared I had cancelled
at least one of them.

As I have no intention to pay up, I need to know
what might the the repercussions of this:

1. will my credit scoring be affected if I don't pay?
2. will they have to take me to Court first?
3. can I cancel in some other way regulated by law,
e.g. writing them a request of immediate cancellation
through recorded mail?

What else can I do? Anything else I should know if I don't pay?

Thanks

droopsnoot

On the occasions I had to cancel anything I went through the "contracts" web page as I found that much faster than trying to do it on the phone. Each thing I cancelled was cancelled, though that was typically domains and the like, rather than complete accounts. was there a reason you didn't do it that way?

This is always the problem with trial periods where you have to give payment details "up front" and then remember to cancel. It's OK as long as it's easy to cancel later on.

goodbuyer1

droopsnoot wrote: »

On the occasions I had to cancel anything I went through the "contracts" web page as I found that much faster than trying to do it on the phone. It's OK as long as it's easy to cancel later on.

That's the whole point. As I wrote elsewhere, they make it very hard to cancel. They ask you to follow a link and to cancel online, but when you do, a message appears and ask you to cancel by phone. I could not cancel anything online. I phoned and cancelled and then got back to square one, at which point I just gave up. No one wants to waste valuable time going around in circles