Can a company degrade a service I paid for in advance without offering a pro-rata refund?

powerful_Rogue

                           

Bradden

I think the main landing page is misleading: 

https://www.123-reg.co.uk/domain-names/

Everything you need

Every domain comes with free email forwarding and a 1-page website included as standard

From what I understand from the OP you can only have email forwarding if you pay for a mailbox in addition.. I would challenge the use of "included as standard". 

If nothing else works you could complain to the ASA about their website.

powerful_Rogue

Bradden said:

I think the main landing page is misleading: 

https://www.123-reg.co.uk/domain-names/

Everything you need

Every domain comes with free email forwarding and a 1-page website included as standard

From what I understand from the OP you can only have email forwarding if you pay for a mailbox in addition.. I would challenge the use of "included as standard". 

If nothing else works you could complain to the ASA about their website.

Depends if what you understood is correct. Until the OP hears back from his ticket, no-one knows.

olliebean

So this is what they've said:

The forwarding feature won’t be removed, but once the migration will take place, in order to have email forwarding, you’ll need to purchase an email package.

This is how the service will be affected, instead of using those free email forwarders, you’ll need to get an email package to have those.

No worries, because you will get notified 7 days prior to when the change will take place.

And the email package doesn't include the catch-all forwarding that I need. So I would say, even allowing for the email package being free for 12 months, this counts as a degradation of the service I paid for. (Not to mention exceedingly misleading - at best - that they are still advertising it as including "free email forwarding".)

eskbanker

To the best of my knowledge, there isn't really a 'degradation of service' concept in consumer rights terms, but the Consumer Rights Act does entitle the customer to an 'appropriate price reduction' (which can be 100%) in the event that "the service does not conform to the contract":

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2015/15/part/1/chapter/4/enacted

Obviously such legislative provisions have to be fairly generic, so need to be interpreted in the context of any given contract and service - as I understand it, you're effectively asserting that the entire service would be useless to you in its adjusted form, but that doesn't necessarily mean that a 100% refund (for the rest of its term) would be seen as a proportionate measure in terms of the relative scale of the services defined by the contract.  Ultimately it looks like you'll need to negotiate with the provider, rather than having a rock solid legal case for a refund IMHO....

olliebean

I drew their attention to the fact that they are still advertising that "free email forwarding" is included, and received the following:

Thank you for the update, I have forwarded your feedback.

We are working on removing this from our website.

QuidCollector

This change will be affecting a large amount of people and seems to be the classic "we'll make a cynical business decision to extract more money but tell the poor schmuck customers we are doing it for their benefit as we are so kind, lolz".

The information they've given as how all this works for customers is awful - misleading and unclear. Catch-all forwarding has been a basic thing that's included with domains with 123-reg since I'd imagine they started and I know other people that also use it. For people who just wanted a domain or two with a low email turnover, that was the thing to do, and email is at least if not more important than the website. It's very simple to do from an IT level and was easy to do 20 years ago, they are clearly CHOOSING to remove it for business reasons. As is stated above, 123-reg are selling domains right now advertising that forwarding is included, but this is being removed in a month or less forcing people to buy email hosting. So that sounds like false advertising. Their help on the subject is confusing as they still have the help for the old systems (they have 2) around so anyone looking around will find information that is out of date and the new information is rubbish. It's a total mess and they will make a lot of customers very angry, and they are right to be angry!

Their handling is so bad I'd imagine there are many users out there who don't understand what's coming their way yet and the backlash now is only the tip of the iceberg of what is to come.

For people affected, the option I'd recommend is to buy email hosting with someone else and set up 123-reg to point emails at them, that should be simple enough. There is no need to have the email hosted at 123-reg and morally I'd find it repugnant to give them my money for this and reward them.

You can get it CHEAPER than 123-reg from people who make it their BUSINESS to do email well and I'd imagine it's a much better service. God knows 123-reg are clunky enough. I've a shortlist myself, not sure if I should post any in case that's considered "advertising" but I'll maybe say if asked - there are various comparisons out there. At least one I'm thinking of has a free version I'll have a play with.

Bradden

QuidCollector said:

I've a shortlist myself, not sure if I should post any in case that's considered "advertising" but I'll maybe say if asked - there are various comparisons out there. At least one I'm thinking of has a free version I'll have a play with.

I'm currently with Hover but it's due for renewal shortly.. I'd love a copy of your list please.

QuidCollector

Hi, my "shortlist" is a mess and specific to me but I'll see

One thing (again trying to work out what 123-reg offers and how it works is something Sherlock Holmes would stuggle with, their site is just awful) is that from what I can see, and I might be wrong, 123-reg make you buy email mailboxes for each domain you might have with them whic is a ridiculous cost. With a 3rd party, some/many of them allow you to have multiple domains pointed at them so you just need one new email account for them all, not a load of them (complete with the $$$ and hassle) at 123-reg. People might have a .com and a .co.uk etc never mind other domains.

QuidCollector

.. it is quite incredible looking at the screeds of fantastic reviews of 123-reg on trustpilot, that over and over they seem to follow a template along lines of "Great service I was really helped out today by [insert name]". Over and over it's variations on a theme: a great 5 star review that is naming someone from the company. It's statistically quite wierd unless something is causing this. Looking at the reviews it's pretty hard NOT to find a 5 star review that does not name someone from 123-reg in this way. I'm looking for example at 10 consecutive reviews that are exactly like that! .. Just something I've noticed, if you are bored go look.