Read Big Dan's Story (from Big Dan's Corner)

1and1 SUCKS!

By Big Dan | Published February 21, 2008 | In Hosting

1&1 is the worst online company I have ever had to deal with. The sad part of it is I already knew this and still signed up a for another hosting account with them. It all started with me wanting to conserve some resources on the VPS where I host my DJ Forum. Figuring I’d move my blog (bandwidth eater), parked domains, and a few other sites to an another host so I decided to start a new hosting account with DreamHost for this purpose. I’ve had history with DreamHost too but overall they’re a decent host and work with their customers.
Long story short I had issues with DreamHost it took them over a week to get my domain email working properly, I was getting frustrated so two days ago I opened a new hosting account with 1&1 at an introductory price. This hosting plan was supposed to be an upgrade to my current account where I have about 50 domains registered. Here’s where the first thing went wrong, they added a new contract to my account instead of upgrading my current contract. Okay no problem so I’ll just add the domains as additional hosted domains since they’re already registered at 1and1. The hosting plan came with 100 “add-on” domains, these are domains that are registered elsewhere but hosted at 1and1. I go to add the first domain registered at 1and1 that I want to host on another 1and1 contract under the same customer number (confused yet? Yeah that’s 1&1′s plan all along.) Their control panel won’t let me select host as additional domain it will only let me move it to the new hosting package. Okay that’s fine since I plan on keeping both contracts active. I select move it to this package, now I’m hit with a little check box that I have to check “I understand that my credit card will be charged for this item”. Huh? Wait..What? I already own the domain, why would you charge me to move it? No other registrar does that. Apparently 1&1 wants to charge me a full year’s registration fee to move the domain to another account I own and then not extend the domain’s expiration date by another year. What the fuck? in plain English. So, I cancel that.
Two letters to their “support” department trying to get them to merge the two contracts goes on unanswered. A third letter demanding cancellation of the hosting package gets the standard canned response, directing me to go to cancel.1and1.com. I’ve been through this cancellation process before, it’s convoluted and deliberately confusing. Having been through this before it’s a breeze for the seasoned 1and1 run around professional. I select the hosting contract and hit cancel entire package. Please check your email for a confirmation link, okay I get the confirmation link click it. Easy enough right?
Nope I get your package will be canceled February 19, 2009. Huh? Now I realize to get the promotional price that I had to lock into a time commitment, 1 year. Not a problem but I’m well with their 90 day money back guarantee period it should of been deactivated and canceled on the spot. An email to support explaining the whole situation gets a canned response to contact the billing department. Which I just wrote, I’ll update when I get a response.
As I write this my bank account has been debited $6 on 4 separate occasions from 1&1. $6 dollars is their ghost charge, they charge it and then put the money back to confirm funds availability. Let’s not mention the fact that every other company on the planet only debits a few cents or at most $1 to confirm the card is chargeable. 1&1 has seen fit to confirm my card 4 times, thus tieing up $24 that I could be putting to good use else where like DreamHost.
If it weren’t for my VPS’s host name being tied into a domain registered with 1&1, I would take a hit and loose 50 domains and cancel my entire account with 1&1 they’re just plain bad business people.
Coming soon: A tutorial on canceling 1&1 products. 

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by Elliot Back from his Internet & Tech Blog

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1and1 Sucks: 1&1 Will Rip You Off

Posted in Blogging, Computers & Technology, Milestones by Elliott Back on March 22nd, 2006.

As you can imagine, I’ve been having some trouble with 1and1. They nixed by site by placing some kind of “lock” on it. When I get that straightened out, I should be able to recover my images. Until then, I have an old backup of the images. I’m slowing restoring my other sites. What’s weird, though, is that I can’t get SSH access to my account.
Please ignore the mess–a new theme is coming soon. This is just a stopover stopgap method.
Update
Here is the email they sent me three days after locking my Business Hosting account:

Recently we have noticed that your web site(s)is consuming a disproportionate amount of server resources. Due to this, we have had to move your account off of the shared hosting server to an auxilliary server host. We will now request that you consider purchasing a Managed or Dedicated Server in order to continue hosting services with 1&1 Internet.
Your account was moved based on a decision made by the system administrators in order to improve the quality of service to the rest of our clients on the shared hosting server you were previously hosted on. Your account’s resource needs
were exceeding the capacity of that server to capably host the other accounts, thus it had to be moved to mitigate the server load. Though we could move your site back to the original shared hosting server, it is not recommended. Your account activity has showed that it deserves its own server to better suite its performance needs.
Please visit 1and1.com to review the server products we offer. You will have one(1) month to make a decision and migrate your account over to 1&1 server or another host provider. You can choose to return your account back to the shared server systems if you wish, provided that you take steps to reduce the load generated by your websites. If the account has to be moved off the
shared server system again you will only have the option of purchasing a dedicated server account to continue hosting with 1&1 Internet.

As I have received over 44,000 hits on this single website today (there are others, although they are still down), it makes sense that I might be overloading their poor shared server. However, they should at least have called or emailed me before taking any action that would impact the state of my website! If I do get a dedicated server in the future, it won’t be their’s.
Update 2
OK, dreamhost says I’m using about 940 cpu minutes a day, which is about 20 times more than I should be. Looks like I’ll need dedicated hosting soon, unless WP-cache really does drop my CPU usage by the 53x it claims. Here’s a graph of traffic impact, for the bored:

Update 3
As I really want them to return my files, I’ve sent the following snarky email to the 1and1 admins:

Dear 1and1 admins,
This is the third email I’ve sent you regarding this issue, three days from your initial notification, which was sent to me at least two days late after you locked my 1and1 account. I need immediate access to all of my files via SSH. Traffic has been redirected via DNS to another hosting provider, so no 1and1 resources will continue to be consumed at their former prodigious rate. As you specified below:
> You can choose to return your account back to the shared server systems if you wish, provided that you take steps to reduce the load generated by your websites.
Now that I have taken those steps, you must immediately:
1) Restore access to my business hosting account for elliottback.com
2) Notify me in writing thereof
Your response time and attention to customer service issues is terrible. If you do not restore access to my account and files in a reasonable amount of time, I may have to pursue legal or other non-desirable actions for your business.

Update 4
I called them last night, and a guy said he’d give me an update before the end of his shift. Admins are apparently scarce on weekends. Guess what? No update.
Update 5
Somehow I’ve got access again. Once I rip all my files, I’m going to cancel. Images should start working again in another hour or so. I’ve got a lot (100s of mb) to transfer, so it will be just a bit more!
Here are some more resources for people considering 1and1:

• 1&1 Internet is the devil
• DRAMATIC ACTION WAS REQUIRED
• 1&1, oneandone, 1and1, one and one, sucks!
• Why 1and1.com sucks?
• When 1 & 1 makes 3

Read more here

Why You Should Never Use 1and1.com Hosting

by Webmaster Tips website

I have a so-called "1&1 Premier Professional Package" hosting package on 1and1.com hosting. It's supposed to be equivalent to their so-called "Developer" hosting package.
Tonight's experience was the last straw and I'm going to give you a few reasons why you should never use 1and1.com for hosting.
I've had many problems with 1and1.com's tech support over the years. Tonight's issue was that the .htaccess file rules were not working on 1and1.
I was trying to remove the file extensions from PHP files so that a URL like http://example.com/about would execute the file http://example.com/about.php.
This is the code that works perfectly on my localhost and on Dreamhost, but that sends 404 errors on 1&1 hosting:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ $1.php [L]
I spent an hour on the phone with a 1&1 tech support staff who had difficulty even finding the correct directory on the Web server. For a while he was telling me that there was no .htaccess file (because he was looking in the wrong place).
I told him that 1and1 has an unusual server configuration and that .htaccess rules like AddType application/x-httpd-php .html don't work on 1&1. (You have to use the unusual AddType x-mapp-php4 .html.)
So I called them just wanting to know how they had modified their servers so that the standard mod_rewrite code above wasn't working.
To keep the story short (the phone call was over an hour long), I will just cut to the conclusion: he told me that I needed to link to about.php and to reconfigure my .htaccess file.
It sounded like he was just repeating what his boss was telling him without really understanding what he was saying. He kept saying that I was linking to "a folder called about" when I needed to link to about.php. I tried to explain that /about is a file, not a "folder" — it does not have a trailing slash... and that I didn't want .php file extensions because I was going to later upgrade to a CMS (Drupal) that doesn't have .php file extensions.
He wouldn't put me on the phone with a manager and said "this is a scripting issue, not a server issue". He said that 1and1.com servers could read any .htaccess file. I started to explain the issue about how 1and1 can't read AddType application/x-httpd-php .html and that I had to call them to get a workaround, but after a little more arguing we got cut off.
1and1.com cannot read any .htaccess file. The following .htaccess code works on my laptop's localhost Apache as well as on Dreamhost, but creates 404 errors on 1&1 — Options -MultiViews creates 500 errors:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ $1.php [L]

Past Problems With 1and1.com Hosting

Terrible Customer Service

This isn't the first serious issue I've had with 1and1.com. I remember calling them once to ask them why I couldn't download their free software anymore, and the supposed "tech support" told me that it was impossible that I had ever downloaded it. I told him that it had been offered for free when I signed up and that I had downloaded it before. He told me I had to send them money to get it shipped by CD. By the end of the conversation he was angrily telling me that it was impossible for me to have ever downloaded their software. Basically calling me a liar.

Tech Support Without Technical Knowledge

Other times I've called their "tech support" and had to talk with people that didn't have much of a tech background and who didn't know what they were talking about. Like the guy above who told me /about is a "folder" and that I needed to link to /about.php.

"Too Many FTP Connections"

Any Web host that bans your IP for editing more than one file at a time over FTP is crap. GoDaddy.com and 1and1.com are the only two hosting companies that consistently ban my IP for doing this.
I like to edit more than one live file over FTP/sFTP at a time — perhaps a PHP file and a CSS file at the same time. If you try to do that with 1and1.com (or GoDaddy) you are likely to get your IP address temporarily banned.
Site5, Bluehost, and other hosting companies don't have that problem. Every cheap host has problems of one kind or another, but 1and1 is really one of the worst hosting companies that I've used in 5 years of building Web sites.
Do you have a 1and1.com horror story? Please add a comment below.
UPDATE: A few minutes after I posted this I deleted 4 files over sFTP with Konqueror and then tried to rename two files and 1and1.com banned my IP address for too many FTP connections!

UPDATE: I'm now going through another 1and1.com incident where my server has been down for over 36 hours. I don't host large sites there, but still have a few mini sites there that I didn't move yet. I highly recommend avoiding 1and1 hosting.

read more here

From Pleasanton Web Design

After almost a month and over a dozen emails to support and billing, my recent hosting problem was finally resolved. No fanfare, or even an email letting me know that it had been taken care of. I just went to one of my problem sites, and no more errors.
Two days before that, I received this email from complaints@1and1.com:

Thank you for contacting us.
As a gesture of goodwill, I have refunded the account regarding this
matter.
If you have any further questions please do not hesitate to contact us.

That’s great, however the statement “I have refunded the account” is not true, because I haven’t received a refund. We’ll see if they follow through, or even return my email inquiry.
The point of this post, though, is to share the email address complaints@1and1.com. I wasn’t aware of it until now. If I had been, I’m sure I’d already be blacklisted.


read a further 30 comments from other unhappy users that were sent in reply to this post here

A complaint from another Web Designer (with some impressive clients!)

To whom it may concern
I find myself compelled to write and complain about yet another problem with 1&1 and their treatment of customers. Having been a 1&1 client for several years and having recommended 1&1 to several other friends and colleagues, I find myself more and more disillusioned with the way in which 1&1 treats it's customers. Your services are good and fairly priced when they work - but your customer service is appalling and I won't be recommending you to anyone else in the future.
Today I logged into my admin control panel in order to retrieve the passwords for my MySQL database as I needed them for an installation for a client. I went to the MySQL admin page as I have done time and time again to retrieve not only my password, but also the database name and other information. After about 15 seconds of scratching my head I realised that the password was nowhere to be found. I looked through several pages of the control panel to see if all of my passwords had been moved into one location, but I was unable to find anything. I then checked my FTP settings page in the control panel and to my dismay discovered this password had disappeared as well.
I presumed the passwords have been moved somewhere else - and decided to check the 1&1 FAQ in order to find them. Several search terms later there was still no mention at all of where I may find my passwords - the passwords I'm trying to gain access to having already entered my master account password into the 'secure' admin control panel. After wasting over 10 minutes of my time trying to find the password to services I am paying for I decided to call support.
Unusually, I got through to support very quickly. But as ever the line quality was awful and I could barely hear the customer service staff on the other end of the phone. I wonder why "The World's No.1" (to quote your website) can't even provide decent quality phone support? Why are you using inadequate VOIP services to pipe my call to uninterested operators in the USA, is my custom worth this little to you?
Whilst battling to hear what the customer services operator was saying I was told that due to a change in security policy, I am no long allowed access to my passwords - passwords for the services I am paying you for! I asked when this new 'policy' was implemented as never before had I been told I wasn't allowed to access passwords to a service I was paying for. "It changed last month" I was told. I then enquired why, as a paying customer I hadn't been informed of this change beforehand? The response? "Well, we've had lots of people complaints about this". Hardly the answer I was looking for. But hardly a surprise either given 1&1's track record. Following this comment I asked where I could send a complaint as quite frankly this kind of service is an insult.
Firstly, I would like to know why I am being refused access to password for a service I am paying for?
I have already entered my email address and password in order to gain access to these additional passwords in the control panel and I see this as more than enough to prove my credentials and gain access to a service I am paying for. To be told I cannot access these passwords and the only solution is to create new ones is not acceptable. I have scripts and applications on client's websites using both FTP and MySQL to access to my 1&1 account and you expect me to create new passwords and then manually reconfigure all of these scripts all because 1&1 decided to change their security policy, without having the common courtesy to give me any warning? If I ran my business like this I'd have no clients.
I was also told by the customer service operator to create new password and "write them down somewhere so I don't forget them". How is this more secure than accessing them through an encrypted website? This goes against all basic password security advice!
Secondly, I would like to know why I wasn't informed of the policy change that means I can no longer access my passwords? Why was I not notified by email, letter, or telephone and given the chance to make a record of all of my passwords before they were hidden from me?
Thirdly, I would still like to be given access to my current passwords so that I can now make a record of them. What can be done about this? Changing them all and the knock-on affect of having to edit the multiple sites that access them will cause me a considerable inconvenience and I would like to know what 1&1 will do about this, particularly seeing as the change was made without any notice.
I have wondered why the sudden change in security policy. Perhaps the 1&1 control panel isn't so secure after all? Perhaps 1&1 don't want to be liable for passwords being stolen and customers websites being affected? Perhaps in making this change you can now shift blame to customers - "We don't have access to your passwords any more, they are your responsibility so breaches aren't our fault." And yet, 1&1 is still happy to store my credit card and billing details in the very same 'secure' control panel?
I'm sure I will receive the bog standard 'sorry' response, along with some excuse about how this security policy change is in the interest of customers. But what is not in my interest in any way, shape, or form is the way 1&1 have dealt with this matter.
Regards,
James Clarke

read more here

Find out what happened to one experienced web analyst...

1and1 dispute continues

Filed under: Opinion, web hosting; Tagged as: 1&1, 1&1 Internet, 1and1, complaints, poor customer service, web hosting

I recently wrote about my problems with tiscali customer service, followed by 1and1 and this problem rumbles on:
I was interested to read a web page on someone else’s battles with 1and1 http://www.simonjones.info/1and1internet/, which appear to be similar to my own!
It appears that 1and1 have a POLICY of not bothering to reply to their customers as my e-mail to complaints@1and1.co.uk has also been ignored. I am now sending them a letter by normal post, in an attempt to stir them into some response! The irony is that I am quite happy to pay them any amount owed; all I want is an itemised bill showing what it is I am being asked to pay for!!!
My letter is shown below & is pretty self-explanatory:
I’m writing in connection with the appalling customer service I have (not) received from you.
I originally contacted your billing team after receiving a letter from a debt collection agency (Arvato Finance), for an amount that I had no knowledge of owing.
Since this initial letter, I have repeatedly asked for an itemised statement of account, so that I understand what it is I am paying for.
I asked for my account to be closed on 8th February 2009 after being a customer of yours for a number of years, because I was having more & more trouble with my account; domains were being suspended for too much traffic & I was told I had to have a dedicated server! I was also being told I was spamming people using the newsletter tool (which I wasn’t) & in the end, I felt it better to move all my domains to a new web host (where I have had NO problems).
Although I was closing the account, I did not expect complete access to be withdrawn immediately, as the cancellation page said that the contract would be ended on 22nd February. As a result, I was unable to access my mailing lists & lost all records relating to who was still subscribed etc. Despite asking your support teams if I could have access to the account, just to download the addresses held in my newsletter tool & to check the final balance, I was told it was not possible because the account was closed. That was it; no other help or information was offered! One of your customer service team did ask what I meant by “accessing my mailing list details”, I replied, but never got any response!
As far as I was aware, my payments were being made by direct debit throughout the whole of the time I was a customer, so I therefore had no idea of whether there was a balance due & never received a closing statement of account. I wrote a number of times asking for an itemised bill to be sent to me, but the only response I got was an e-mail telling me that I owed £187.03. I don’t know of any other business that just tells people they owe an amount & expect them to pay it, without sending a final statement/bill, so I again, requested this to be sent to me.
The next thing I know, a letter demanding £178.59 (plus £15 costs) arrives from Arvato! Naturally, I queried this, as the amount is different from what I was previously told & to be honest, I expected a reply from you with an account, not a threatening demand for payment with costs.
Since then, I have repeatedly asked for an itemised account, explaining what the charges are in respect of, which I would then be happy to pay. I am not prepared to just hand over nearly £200 (bearing in mind the actual amount quoted has changed 3 times without any explanation), not knowing what the charges are for.
I was originally receiving responses to my e-mails from Idil Ahmed, which were usually one line answers, totally unhelpful & completely ignored my requests for a broken down, itemised account, as well as my requests for the matter to be dealt with by a manager, or someone else who COULD provide what I believe I am entitled to receive, BEFORE involving a debt collection agency!
All the e-mails to Arvato were answered simply saying that I should query the balance with you, although one stated that you had told them my account was not closed, even though it was! I have been quoted three different figures & you tell your debt collectors that my account is not closed – hardly competent!
All I want is a closing account statement/invoice, which shows how much I am being charged & what the charges relate to. I do not see why this should be such a problem to provide, but it seems to be beyond the abilities of Mr Ahmed, which is why I asked for the case to be passed to his manager.
However, all I was given was your complaints@1and1.co.uk e-mail address, which I wrote to on 8th May. I have NEVER received any reply from this address & today received a further e-mail from Arvato, which stated:
“I have received information back from 1&1, stating that the account was cancelled on the 22nd February 2009. However your invoices were raised in January and beginning of February, therefore as stated in 1&1 terms and conditions the account an acount has to be cancelled 14 days prior to an invoice being raised, therefore the full balance of £193.59 is due.”
IS the balance of £178.59 up to the period 22/02/09? Even though I could not access my account, all my records & mailing list from 8th February, I am EXPECTED to pay up to 22nd February? I understand if I had to give you 14 days notice of cancellation, but why then was my account closed from 8th February? It made things very inconvenient for me & I had to pay a couple of hundred pounds to re-clean my mailing list, because you wouldn’t let me access them.
All I have been asking for is an itemised statement for my records, showing the charges & what period they are for. However, you seem completely incapable or unwilling to provide this! I now think the reason you can’t is that you messed up by closing my account too early & now can’t produce an accurate bill!!!!
As a former debt recovery manager, I would not have expected any customer to pay an amount which they had not been sent a bill for and I would be able to produce a copy of that bill should they query it, or state it had not been received. I believe this is simply good practice & do not understand why your staff, or your billing system, is unable to do this.
I can provide copies of all the e-mails that have been going back & forth for the last 4 months & would be perfectly prepared to provide them to a court, should you deem it necessary to go that far! I do hope that this will not be necessary & you can provide me with a closing account, which will show that I am being charged legitimate charges for hosting services that I am liable for. Upon receipt, I will make immediate payment!
I have said this constantly throughout the last 3-4 months, but it seems that your customer services people have a set routine of answers & cannot deviate from these in any way! Usually, they just stop replying & as stated previously, I have not received ANY response from you following my e-mail to your complaints address! However, having viewed other people’s similar problems on the internet, it appears that it is your POLICY to just ignore your customers, if any enquiry is slightly out of the ordinary!
I hope you will now be able to deal with this complaint, provide a closing, itemised statement, which I will then pay. I do not really want this to go any further, in what is really a very simple request, which you seem unable or unwilling to meet. However, I am prepared to stand my ground & will not be bullied into paying you amounts of money that you (for all I know) have plucked out of thin air!
I look forward to your response (finally) to this complaint.

Read more here

Read Chris Beach's story...

avoid 1&1 internet

I've just moved web hosts - which, for 20 domains and 13 websites, is a complicated and expensive process. Let me explain what made me want to move...

I'd been with my old host, 1&1 Internet for over three years and had become more and more frustrated with them. They couldn't solve, or even explain, regular outages in service and serious problems with their managed server configuration. It all came to a head in June, after two months of wasted time chasing their support team. I wanted to speak to a manager but was denied by their outsourced phone crew. I was told I should complain to complaints@1&1.co.uk, so I wrote the following email on 21/06/06. It was only acknowledged (see below) after I emailed again on 27/08/06, two months later.

Good afternoon,

I'd like to raise a complaint about 1&1 support, who have made no positive progress correcting issues with the configuration of a managed server for the last two months. I have sent thirteen emails this month alone, supplying information about the issues and helping where possible.. and chasing where necessary. On occasion, my requests have been unanswered by 1&1 for a week or more.

My "professional" package hosts thirteen websites, two of which are commercially important to me. One of them (brittenhouse.com) is the front-end for an information and messaging system running live on LCD screens throughout a block of flats in Chelsea. Outages on this site (now a regular occurrence) are extremely visible and problematic. Another of my sites is a nightlife community website which I am currently expanding to include a payment system. However, outages are affecting the functionality, and, most importantly, the credibility of this system.

I have been a customer of 1&1 for the last three years, and begun suffering serious problems this year. The database has been regularly refusing connections from the application server; the database server has been repeatedly and inexplicably shutting down (sometimes at peak traffic time, and sometimes in the early hours of the morning, under negligible load); simple queries on small tables (in the order of hundreds of rows) were taking more than a second to execute, slowing page loads to a crawl.

These issues were visibly disrupting my sites so I contacted 1&1, who unfortunately made no progress with the case until the end of May when they took "steps to speed up the queries and lessen the load on the server."

This had no positive effect whatsoever, so I emailed again, and received a reply on Friday 2nd June to say my database would be moved. Such a move would require configuration changes on my side in order to keep the sites operational. I emailed back to say that I would be free to make the configuration change that day but did not receive a reply by the end of the day. Therefore I called up oneandone phone support in the evening, who hadn't a clue about what was going on, but said they would attach a note on my account and that the move would occur over the weekend. I stayed in that weekend, in readiness to make the configuration change. I heard nothing back, and the database was not moved. I emailed again on Monday, and there was no reply until Tuesday afternoon, when I was finally told the new configuration details.

Had the move fixed the issues? No. Not even slightly (the shutdowns, connection issues and appalling query performance remained). Worst of all, a new intermittent problem had been introduced. The sites now frequently suffered errors: "Host '212.227.127.135' is not allowed to connect to this MySQL server." Clearly, there was a MySQL, IP or DNS configuration issue on 1&1's side. In all this time no one has explained why the database servers are being shut down.

After repeated email exchanges which have continued since the database move, 1&1 technicians have made absolutely no progress solving ANY of these issues (I have also had to explain to the latest support technician that he is looking at the wrong database, and I've still not heard back from him after a week). Instead of explaining the technical issues or resolving them, 1&1 support have recommended that I upgrade to a dedicated server to host my sites.

The reason given is that my sites have "outgrown" my current package. I'm not convinced. My database is just a few megabytes in size, and there is no reason why queries should be taking up to a second to run. More tellingly, errors such as the one described above is clearly caused by configuration and NOT by load.

Despite my doubts about 1&1's technical support, I am tempted to move to a dedicated server because it will give me more control over my configuration and hopefully the move to a fresh server will negate the issues, or allow me to solve them myself. The leap in cost is from £18.79/month to £69/month, which is a lot of money for me to have to pay, but my domain/subdomain/email configuration is comprehensive and it would be time-consuming to transfer them to another hosting company. I have already wasted enough of my time trying to help 1&1 resolve these issues and now I'm fed up and I want results.

I'm emailing to express my despair at the FUTILITY in contacting 1&1 about the configuration of their managed servers. I hope that you will take my concerns on board and that the situation will improve in the future. I would like this email to be acknowledged, at the very least.

Sincerely,

Chris Beach

My experience with 1&1 has been incredibly frustrating, and I can see from a brief Google search that I'm not the only unsatisfied customer (see [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10]).

During my two-month wait for a reply from 1&1, I decided to move over to a new hosting company. I chose Interhost's Linux VPS (virtual private server) 50 package, which offered a very comprehensive set of features and root access to a Linux host. I called the support number before I signed up, and got straight through to a knowledgeable guy who was clearly in direct contact with the system. No more clueless outsourcers, thank god. My subsequent email queries to Interhost were answered within a few hours. It was great to finally have a robust application server and database. Note (updated 04/01/2008) that Interhost has sadly declined somewhat.

Updated 01/08/2006: this just in from 1&1:
Thank you for contacting us. First let me offer my apologies for you not receiving a response to your complaint, unfortunately this was a result of a break down in communication on our part. The service you received was below any acceptable level and the time taken for a resolution for your database issues was well over our desired time frame. Unfortunately the cause of the issue was hard to locate due to its intermittent nature and the time needed to find a solution exceeded our usual resolution time

We apologise for any inconvenience that this may have caused you and that as a result of this issue you moved you're hosting to a new provider. You first reported an the issue you were experiencing on 20th Feb 2006, so as a gesture of goodwill we will be refunding your card with all fees paid after the first time you reported this issue (20th Feb 2006). This means you will receive the following refund...

Read more here

Read about Simon Jones' experience

1AND1 INTERNET IS A CHEAP WEB HOSTING COMPANY, BUT AS WITH MANY CHEAP THINGS, IF YOU USE THEM YOU'LL FIND OUT SOONER OR LATER THAT THEY ARE IN FACT... RUBBISH!

It's a sorry state of affairs when a call to a customer service call centre feels like as rewarding and fruitful as a bare knuckle bar fight. But it's a situation that many of us are all to familiar with. So called 'off shore' call centre's and phone drones who tell us that "management are not customer facing" are pretty much part of the standard armour that companies use to keep the average Joe from speaking with anyone capable of providing us with some real, heaven forbid, customer service!

In 2005 had reason to take up a complaint with 1and1 internet over a domain name that they automatically renewed, despite my attempts to request they do not do so. The auto-renew, in August, cost £10.45 which though it won't break my bank, is annoying nonetheless, however due to the fact that the debit card details 1and1 had on record were out of date, the payment for the auto-renew was declined, yet the domain was itself renewed.

A few weeks later 1and1 'locked' my account and stopped all services running across various domain names I had on this particular account. I did make several phone calls to 1and1 to discuss the matter. Each time I asked to speak with a manager but on every occasion call centre staff told me in various different ways that management don't speak with customers, ever!

1and1 insisted the auto-renew was valid and they were under no circumstances prepared to show any latitude or understanding in this case whatsoever. I explained that should 1and1 choose to pursue the matter I would simply move all of my domains away from them and close other 1and1 accounts that I administrate. The operator I then said this would "hardly affect 1and1 now would it?"

In october 1and1 passed the disputed debt to BFS finance for collection. I spoke with BFS and advised them that this was a disputed debt, they in turn advised me to call 1and1. I did email 1and1 internet on Monday 24th of October (2005). I decided once more to try and speak with someone in management on the telephone, however the debacle only went from bad to worse at this stage. In a series of telephone calls to 1and1's abysmal customer call centre, I was repeatedly given wrong information, fobbed off, lied to, cut off and generally ignored.

When I eventually got to speak with Mr Daniel Bromley who I was informed was a manager, I found that he was in actual fact merely a lowly billing team leader incapable of using any discretion or customer service latitude in order to save the account and the face of 1and1 internet. In fact Mr Bromley adopted a fairly aggressive attitude and, like other before him, tried to push the issue to another department.

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