1&1 Hosting - Advice required

MrBox

Hi, first of all sorry if I've posted this on the incorrect board, I wasn't sure where it would fit.

I am just looking for some advice on how to proceed in a situation where I am dissatisfied, but am sure I've been stitched up legally with complex T&C's.

Basically, just over a year ago I purchased three cheap domain names from 1&1 Internet hosting and domains for a project I was involved with. These were all 1 year domain leases and as the project wasn't envisioned to go beyond that I thought no more of it. The project came and went and the websites (hosted elsewhere, not with 1&1) were shut down.

I hadn't thought much about the domains, presuming they would be suspended/cancelled once they reach their lease ends, knowing I hadn't recorded any payment details for them. I also moved home during the course of the year so both my bank details and address were not updated with 1&1 and I used an email address that wasn't my primary address as it was associated with the web project.

Fast forward to November 30th 2017 and I get a invoice to my previous address saying I needed to play it or action would be taken for the two year renewal of these domain names. So it seems that they had automatically applied an auto renewal system to my account, billing me for domains for the following 2 years, which I didn't need.

Fair enough, I understand some people may want this but my thoughts (based on previous experiences) is that upon payment being rejected, the renewal is cancelled. So I called them and explained the situation, I didn't want the domains and I hadn't received any correspondence except the postal one which was sent to an old address.

At that point I was told the service was cancelled and it had been done via the control panel so that was the end of it. I couldn't log into the web service after the phone call any longer so I presumed it had all been taken care of.

Fast forward again to this week when I received a letter from a debt recovery agency who have contacted me for the recovery of the payment plus fees. So after several totally unhelpful and very frustrating calls (at my expense - probably exceeding the costs of the three domails!) I was basically told I had to pay for these domains because they had issued an invoice for the advanced renewal of them. The only notifications I actually received was an email 6 days prior to the renewal that went into my junk mail filter of a secondary email account and a letter sent to an old postal address after their imposed renewal date.

Top and bottom of this is I feel them implementing an advanced charge for an automatic renewal of services beyond the agreed service/product period without presented it clearly to their customers is very shady indeed and something this company has been doing regularly for years, based on my research.

The company hasn't done a good job of assisting me or advising me and have quickly resorted to aggressive bullying tactics, as well as adding "admin fees" to their already unwanted services.

Is there something that can be done about it?


Cheers in advance.

bearcat16

How much is your time worth? You’ve already expended effort and time to try to save how much?

I’d just pay the £60. You forgot to switch off the auto-renew, it’s not a big deal.

And I’m not surprised their customer service tech wouldn’t concede that it was “a trap”. More like standard practice.

Honestly I got to the end of that long story and thought we were talking about a sum in the hundreds or thousands! Life’s too short.

Browntoa

And they email way in advance of auto renewal

waamo

It is in their terms and conditions when you sign up that they auto renew. The reason being imagine if you had a business and you didn’t see an email reminding you to pay. How upset would you be at losing your website and potential thousands in income?

The same could apply to consumers. Imagine your store of sentimental photos vanishing because you forgot to renew.

mr_munchem

It is pretty standard for hosting and domains to auto renew with these providers. I’m very surprised in fact that none of the prior providers you’ve had experience with haven’t done this!

MrBox

Just an update for the sake of anyone else who has the same problem with 1&1 as it seems there are many;


For anyone else who has this issue, there is a brilliant thread up on another board here called
"1&1 internet persuing me via debt collection agency Arvato" by a chap called JacobsDadUK.
LINK TO IT IS HERE - https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/3630553

It is full of great advice and discusses how 1&1 are in breach of The Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999 act and Principles for use of Continuous Payment Authority here in the UK. Their automatic renewal and billing system has caught many people out as it is only laid out in small print and not clearly presented to the customer.



Thank you for the posts here too

ow much is your time worth? You’ve already expended effort and time to try to save how much?

I’d just pay the £60. You forgot to switch off the auto-renew, it’s not a big deal.

And I’m not surprised their customer service tech wouldn’t concede that it was “a trap”. More like standard practice.

Honestly I got to the end of that long story and thought we were talking about a sum in the hundreds or thousands! Life’s too short.

Nah,money is not the point just doesnt fly for me - if they do this to every one of their customers and they all just roll over and pay, well then its no wonder they get away with it. Sorry mate, you might have money to waste but £60 for a couple of 99p domains I don't want/need now are another pair of football boots for my kid.

And they email way in advance of auto renewal"

Yes they do. I went back and checked. It was in my junk mail filter 6 days before the renewal date... that's really helpful of them. What happens if I was away working or sick?

It is pretty standard for hosting and domains to auto renew with these providers. I’m very surprised in fact that none of the prior providers you’ve had experience with haven’t done this!

It is in their terms and conditions when you sign up that they auto renew. The reason being imagine if you had a business and you didn’t see an email reminding you to pay. How upset would you be at losing your website and potential thousands in income?

It's basically a service that only favours 1&1 and no, its not standard practice - auto renewals for domains is nothing new granted, but standard practice is that if payment in advance is refused/not collected, the service is then dropped/suspended - not handed to a debt recovery service and sought even if it's not needed!

As I said (i understand its a very long read) in the OP, i know this first hand as a colleague has actually lost on of our work domains by payment being refused on an automatic renewal system from another provider. I don't have a problem with auto renewal services for things, but It should always be ultimately up to the customer if they want/need a service - not an obligation forced upon you without your knowledge and that you are pursued for even if payment is not made by an enforced deadline. If you lose a domain then you have no one to blame but yourself.

MrBox

Success - 1&1 have backed down when challenged based on the information and advice given in the link in my post above.

MrBox

hmmm, something very wrong here - the MASSIVE thread I linked and referred to has now been removed by admins here.

That's shocking as there were loads of people having problems with this company and there were so many useful posts and bits of advice - I hope MSE haven't caved from pressure from 1&1! I suspect this may be the case though as I had made a review about 1&1 urging customers do their research before using this company and said it was worth searching this forum for other customers' experiences.... then all of a sudden the thread is removed here, interesting.

For anyone reading this, dont be put off by the responses here and relevant threads being removed from the forum - 1&1 are wrong for doing this and they are doing it repeatedly to all their customers and getting away with it because of the relatively low fees and the types of attitudes displayed by some people on this tread. When challenged with an informed argument they back down as they're not acting in accordance to UK legislation and trading standards guidelines. There was at least one thread here that over seven pages of people in the same boat complaining about this and and advising on what to do next. This has been deleted (probably at the request of 1&1 who were also posting there, but it doesn't mean you have to roll over for them.

00ec25

MrBox wrote: »

hmmm, something very wrong here - the MASSIVE thread I linked and referred to has now been removed by admins here.

don't get too carried away with conspiracies.

MSE had a "massive" hacking/spamming attack over the weekend and introduced emergency measures on the forum which, according to their own posts, included removing some threads and greatly restricting user access. Whether everything will be reinstated remains to be seen.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5784866

garichd

MrBox wrote: »

hmmm, something very wrong here - the MASSIVE thread I linked and referred to has now been removed by admins here.

That's shocking as there were loads of people having problems with this company and there were so many useful posts and bits of advice - I hope MSE haven't caved from pressure from 1&1! I suspect this may be the case though as I had made a review about 1&1 urging customers do their research before using this company and said it was worth searching this forum for other customers' experiences.... then all of a sudden the thread is removed here, interesting.

For anyone reading this, dont be put off by the responses here and relevant threads being removed from the forum - 1&1 are wrong for doing this and they are doing it repeatedly to all their customers and getting away with it because of the relatively low fees and the types of attitudes displayed by some people on this tread. When challenged with an informed argument they back down as they're not acting in accordance to UK legislation and trading standards guidelines. There was at least one thread here that over seven pages of people in the same boat complaining about this and and advising on what to do next. This has been deleted (probably at the request of 1&1 who were also posting there, but it doesn't mean you have to roll over for them.

I am exactly in the same boat. Can you please let me know how you contacted 1&1 and what information you used to get 1&1 to back down.

It will be great If you can share the copy of email you sent to 1&1.