1and1 Sucks: 1&1 Will Rip You Off
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 thereofYour 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
This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 22nd, 2006 at 9:16 pm and is tagged with server account, stopgap, server resources, server host, hosting server, host provider, server systems, server products, stopover, server system, server load, system administrators, quality of service, 1and1, hosting services, email, images. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback.
on March 23rd, 2006 at 10:40 am
Why did they kill the site?
on March 24th, 2006 at 4:00 am
That wasn’t so great of them, no. Like you said - they should have warned you first - they suerly should have known about this “problem” before they moved the site!?
I had wondered what had happened to the site a bit back. It’s pretty impressive just how popular this site is - nice one. Nice clean new theme by the way.
on March 27th, 2006 at 6:39 am
Wait — you went from 1&1 to DreamHost and DH pulled the plug a day or two after you switched over, walloping their servers?
Those DH guys are responsive! I’m glad I’m hosting some stuff over there.
on March 27th, 2006 at 10:20 am
Yes–although Dreamhost is still hosting me. We’re working out ways to minimize CPU, and they’ve been very good about it.
on March 28th, 2006 at 1:23 am
Those 1and1 people are just ********, not thinking before they do anything.
“oh, this sites consumes much CPU. We should shut it off!” “Yah, let’s do that!”
on March 28th, 2006 at 11:27 am
Yup, the DH guys track sar for CPU usage reporting, makes it easy to find places on your site that are eating more CPU than they should, which helps them keep any one customer from monopolizing the shared hosting resources, etc.
I know DH has had their issues (my friend Joe Grossberg has had his blog hosted at DH go dark when they had DNS issues recently) but everyone has their issues. How well they operate the other 99% of the time when they’re up, that’s what I find really valuable.
Sorry to hear you had to learn about 1&1 the hard way. That always sucks.
on April 3rd, 2006 at 3:16 pm
Sorry to tell you but you’re nightmare has only just begun. You may *think* you’ve just cancelled your account, but they’ll find a way to throw some charges on your card within the next year.
There is simply no such thing as ‘cancelling’ a 1and1 account. Once you are a customer THEY OWN YOU.
Keep us posted as to when the charges start re-appearing on your credit card.
on April 4th, 2006 at 12:43 pm
Yeah I’ve had my share of problems with 1&1 to. I’ve had the free preview pkg for a while and saw they were offering free private whois on domains, so I decide to switch to them for my registrar (DNS is still hosted at Zoneedit, but since thye got bought out I’m considering changing this to…) anyway… The transfert takes about a week and *yay* private whois. Finally, this should stop some spam!… but not for long… Two days later the private whois is gone! So I contact them to learn (about 3 days later when they finally reply) that apparently the private whois is not offered with the free preview pkg. So basically what they are telling me is that if I had created ANOTHER account (so more resources on their side) I would have had the private whois!!!
I e-mailed them a few times back and forth trying to explain how ridiculous that was, but to no avail… On a side note, who the heck has Ruby installed but not Rails?! I’m considering changing to DH soon… Anyone knows if they offer private whois, I couldn’t find it on their site…
on April 4th, 2006 at 1:29 pm
My bad, I found my answer about the private whois from the DH wiki:
“At this time there is no way to keep contact info for DreamHost-registered domains private.”
wiki.dreamhost.com/index.php/Domain_Registration
:(
on April 7th, 2006 at 5:00 am
Yeah 1&1 has a terrible responce time when it comes to e-mails… when i say terrible i mean 4 days+ When my subscription runs out i will be moving to a coming that actually understands what customer service is
on May 2nd, 2006 at 11:02 pm
Dreamhost just gave users private whois on 5.1.06.
on May 4th, 2006 at 9:20 am
Very much like yourself, I am currently going through the exact same thing with 1and1. Not only have they locked my site, I have been trying to get my files back from them. I have had absolutly no luck thus far. I stopped paying them for awhile, only to recieve the standard letter from some collection company. They didn’t even have the guts to contact me themselves regarding the payments. I have since paid the outstanding balance and after requesting the user name/password to get on my site and retrieve my files, I still have had no luck!!!! I just want to get my files and cancel my account with 1and1
Advice for those shopping for an internet hosting company DON’T GO WITH 1and1!!!!!!!!
J.
on May 14th, 2006 at 9:54 am
Hi, ho wdo I transfer my domains away from them? sucks man, i have tons of domains with them…
on May 16th, 2006 at 1:11 pm
“Don’t go with 1&1″ Strongly agree…
The worst customer service anywhere (Someone please prove me wrong on this) For some reason all my sites are down at the moment, phoned the helpline which plays a message saying all the linux servers are down, doesn’t give a reason or when they will be back up. Twats.
I want to move all my sites to a different host, but they’ve got me tied down as i’m using databases etc. and it will be a pain to move. But im trying, and do should any 1&1 users reading this!!!
on May 22nd, 2006 at 2:55 am
I have hosted a few sites on 1and1. I have had a great expierence with them. I now have a dedicated server with them. Also have two top 100,000 ranked site on alexa hosted on that server.
9/10 for 1and1 (only problem is that alot of the tech support guys dont speak english that well)
If you are technical person then 1and1 is the way to go. If you dont know anything then 1and1 is the wrong choice.
on May 23rd, 2006 at 10:15 pm
Good site, just came upon it while searching for 1&1 info…interesting referring keywords I bet
So, I was thinking about going with 1&1, but maybe not such a good idea after reading this page. Dreamhost looks good, but are they really *that* good and stable? I don’t see an address on their site, just a PMB address, which is just a mailbox at some mail store - are they reliable? Thanks for any suggestions.
on June 1st, 2006 at 11:44 pm
yeeesh. I just bought a 6 mo. shared hosting package from 1and1, and it’s decent… haven’t tried much on it yet, but seeing this is quite disconcerting…
I had been using BuildtoLearn, but they’ve been going down a lot lately, and I saw the 2.99 a mo. with a free domain (and then 5 free .info’s on top of that) and couldn’t resist…
Who knows how it’ll go… I have yet to really look into transferring my wordpress blog over. And I just realized the other day just how MUCH I was taking CPanel for granted… the 1and1 interface is pretty crappy, and doesn’t give you much direct access/control to the nuts and bolts of things (server log reporting, blah blah).
Ah well, we shall see.
on June 11th, 2006 at 1:37 pm
1and1 are really poor!
Ive got a dedicated server with them and it just looses the internet, get about 98% uptime which is C**P!
Their support is full of monkeys that dont have a clue about anything, you can never talk to anyone with a brain!
Mind does anyone have brains there?
Noone seems to be able to help, its everyone esles fault!
on June 28th, 2006 at 3:38 pm
These guys are the F8cking worst ever !!
Scam artists at its best, because they didnt recieve my fax which is part if their requirement to cancel, i get charged 3 months in advance .
on top of that, because I was under the impressiong that it was “CANCELED”, I get a notice 6 months later that I owe them money with late fee, by a collection agency
So because they didnt recieve this mysterious fax which I have copies of the transmission , they wont waive the late fee and pretty much told me Im SOL
DO NOT USE 1and1 at all, absolutely the worst hosting ever !
on June 29th, 2006 at 4:27 am
I did a site for a client and after looking after it for them for a year transferred ownership from myself to the customer. Imagine my surprise when I got an invoice/statement from 1&1 6 months later for this customer!
Apparently they transfer the account to the new person but keep your credit card details! Utter crooks - I am leaving them forever, not just because of this but due to their non extent customer services and arrogant attitude.
on June 29th, 2006 at 11:59 am
1&1 ARE CROOKS!
I had a hosting and an Exchange account with them. The Exchange account was sooooo slow it wasn’t worth anything. So I emailed them to cancel the account. They emailed me back with instructions to cancel on their website, which I did. Now, I found a collection on my credit report by NCO Financials on behalf of 1&1. UNBELEIVABLE. I am calling Attorney General Elliot Spitzer’s office tomorrow, and I recommend each and every one of you to call your Attorney General’s office. THEY MUST BE STOPPED!
on June 29th, 2006 at 1:47 pm
1and1.com is BY FAR some of the worst service I have ever received.
I signed up for their WebsiteBuilder Plus package because the site listed a 60 day money-back guarantee if you are unhappy with the program. No loss to me, so I decide to try it out. After less than 2 days, I really dislike the program, so I cancel it. This week (a month later) I get a charge on my credit card from them for over $30 for 3 months of WebsiteBuilder.
I email them and am told it turns out I didn’t cancel the package properly the first time around. Then I say that I will cancel it, but want assurance that the charge will be reimbursed as per their guarantee. They email back and tell me that the WebsiteBuilder is non-refundable, and that the site lists that only hosting is refundable, and that I was confused. No refund, in other words.
I email them saying I will be transfering my domain names (a dozen of so) when they are up for renewal next year and that they will no longer be getting any of my business. I tell them I will also be cancelling my affiliate account, and will be calling my credit card company to get the WebsiteBuilder charge charged back.
So I get this snarky email back from the billing department telling me how to go about cancelling everything with them…
Dear _____ _______, (Cust: XXXXXXXXX)
Thank you for contacting us.
Your account has not been cancelled. We have received 2 previous
cancellation requests , one for Norton AntiVirus, and one for WebSite
Builder Plus, but to this date have not received a cancellation request
for your entire package. To cancel your packge, please go to
cancel.1and1.com, and cancel your services.
If you have any further questions do not hesitate to contact us.
–
Sincerely
Ian Morris
Billing Department
1&1 Internet Inc.
What a bunch of jerks. I will never give them another DIME. Steer clear. The service here is beyond horrible!
on July 5th, 2006 at 1:30 am
[…] Elliot Back: 1and1 Sucks […]
on July 11th, 2006 at 12:47 pm
I got the NCO on my credit report too!! I cannot believe they can do such. I never gave them my social security number, yet they somehow got it!!
I called NCO and told them they have my SS without my permission and will bring this up as fraud to the feds and anywhere I can and they removed the $30 line of my credit, but this needs to be addressed - its rather scary what 1 and 1 does for $30!!
I would be scared to owe them over $100 - they might send Toni Soprano on you.
on July 22nd, 2006 at 10:37 pm
Wow, that sucks they both have shafted ya. But I guess the good news is that you get a ton of traffic to your site! I don’t use 1and1 for hosting but I buy all my domains through them.
on August 2nd, 2006 at 9:23 pm
try out webhostingbuzz.com i heard that they are very good
on August 9th, 2006 at 11:22 am
I have just taken up the reins of a website that was hosted upon a 1&1 shared server. The site had been disastrously amended by a user on an IP address within 1&1’s ownner’s domain space , that is Schlund + Partner.
A very worrying situation security and trust wise with 1&1.co.uk, their technical support is outsourced to somewhere in Asia I think and thus far have failed to acknowledge that a commercial client has suffered loss of online business due to 1&1’s (or Schlund’s) failure.
on August 10th, 2006 at 2:03 pm
Well I never hosted with these bozons and they have given me a million headaches. Somebody registered a phishing web site using my name and address (but not my phone #, and the email addy on the WHOIS contact info was in China). I only found out because DROA tried to trick me into “renewing” the domain name. I contacted both 1and1 and their scummy German parent company, Schlund (it should be called “Schund” that would be more accurate) and they ignored me. Several months later 1and1 tried to put a charge on my credit card. When I notified my credit card company they canceled the card and issued me a new one. So what does 1and1 do? Send a DEBT COLLECTION AGENCY after me! That was when I got mad. I called their billing dept and was told that I would have to prove to them I never ordered service. I told them that if they cannot figure out that a mismatched name and address and email addy in China add up to fraud, they do not deserve to be in business. I filed a complaint with the Pennsylvania attorney general www.attorneygeneral.gov/complaints.aspx?id=451 and suddenly the same jerks who could not be bothered to give me the time of day could not move fast enough to fax a collection of lies to the Attorney General’s office saying that they had taken care of it PRIOR to them getting the complaint. The AG’s office wrote me and said that unless I responded, they would consider it closed. HORSE PUCKY! The bozons went ahead and renewed the domain for another year! Plus I do not know if the debt collection agency put a black mark on my creidt file or not. So I replied in detail. Let them chew on that!
Take it from me, the crooks at 1and1 Internet will blow YOU off, but they will NOT blow off the PA AG! If you think you have been done wrong, file a complaint!
on August 12th, 2006 at 7:50 pm
Hi,
I own my own website and I have created one for an organization. My website runs on a company server in Toronto and I have no complaints about them at all (9thsphere).
The organization I designed the website for on the other hand, is registered under 1&1, and it makes me bounce of the walls. Everything is payed for, have to ID and the password, I have yet to find a way to actually log into the account to start uploading files. I’ve sent emails, I’ve read their FAQ’s etc. It just doesn’t want to log in. It basically makes me want to hit them on the head. I hope they reply before Christmas!
on August 14th, 2006 at 4:53 pm
no matter how you post here and say such a hosting service sucks it will only bring you heartaches
especially 1&1 !!! it has millions of customers!
the only or much people with problems are from US
who thinks they are smart *** guys but in reality they are totally idiots! brainless!
thousands of post, millions of cases will not help or pull down a company any company for that matter who is already well established!
on August 23rd, 2006 at 4:18 pm
they screwed me over so I click on their google adwords
on September 9th, 2006 at 4:27 pm
DH is just as bad. I’m planning on leaving them to go to 1and1. Someone new. DH is horrendous, and they’ll also shut down your site without telling you prior!!!!1 :X
on September 22nd, 2006 at 9:27 pm
I’ve never really had any problem with 1&1, except when I tried analyzing my logs. Now common sense would tell you that for each domain or subdomain, you ought to use either a different log structure for each, or different log files.
I contacted them and tried getting them to see reason but they maintained that that was the way things were done around them. I’ve got a site — www.zatechcorp.com and some subdomains.
In my log file, ‘/’ could refer to a request coming in for www.zatechcorp.com/, azuka.zatechcorp.com/ or any of my other four subdomains. How the heck am I supposed to know which is which?
I’m delaying transferring for a while because I’ve read quite a lot about 1&! transfer woes. I’ll just wait it out till the end of this year, then make the move to Bluehost — I think they’re pretty solid.
on September 23rd, 2006 at 1:20 am
I tried to use 1&1 as a registrar and couldn’t! Seriously! The first time I tried to transfer a domain name fron another registrar so I followed the procedure and the final screen read that I would get an email with login instructions within 24 hour. Two days later and nothing, so I called them and they told me that my application was flagged so it discarded it. I think they should have sent me an email or something.
Feeling a little concerned about their service I decided to try them out by registering a name. I went through the process again and saw the final screen that said that I would get an email within 24 hours. Well, the next day the email came, but it didn’t have login instructions. Instead it said that my identity cold not be verified so they wanted me to fax my ID to them. I don’t know about you but I am not faxing my ID to a domain registrar! Who do they think they are?
I think I’ll skip 1&1. They make it too hard to sign up. I guess I have to stick to that other company with the egotistical dude.
on October 11th, 2006 at 8:03 am
IMPORTANT Please read….How to get you own back on 1and1!
Run a search on top search engine like Google, Yahoo, Ask Jeeves
Search for the terms “1 and1″ or “web hosting 1and 1″.
When you see the 1 and 1 sponsored advert, click on their ad, which would cost 1 and 1 up to £2
If we all do this, we would in max out their online advertising costs and thus they would not recieve new customers.
Please post this in similar forums.
For immediate redemption get searching, and click on those 1and1 ads.
on October 11th, 2006 at 9:12 pm
I’m so glad I’m not the only one who doesn’t like 1and1. I called to cancel my account in January, and thought they had taken care of it. Then in August I start getting collection notices. I called the company to complain. I don’t understand if I called to cancel why isn’t the damn account cancelled by now. And, better yet why didn’t they try to reach me for payment before sending me to a collection agency. The people who work in customer service act like robots. They’re cold, unfriendly, and have no solid info to offer. The people at the collection agency were more helpful then they were. I still don’t understand why you have to jump through hoops to cancel the service when it sucks anyway. All in all I think they offer terrible service, and I’d never use them again.
on October 21st, 2006 at 7:18 am
I totally agree with Des. I had a similar situation earlier this year. 1and1 had instructed a debt collection agency threatening me with court action without any prior notice that my account was over due.
My ‘overdue’ balance was 10.45 yet they sent me collection notices for 20.45 which is absurd! I called them many times only to find that I have wasted time and money waiting for some one to deal with my query. Unable to get an answer initially via email or phone, I foolishly paid this balance to get the collection agency off my back to find that I had not been overdue. This is such a ridiculous situation.
I would never use this company again. This example has only reiterated how bad their communication, management and procedures are.
on October 29th, 2006 at 1:46 am
1and1 is one of many oversellers on the market and is by far one of the worst. Most of their support is in the Philippines and can only reformat accounts, do yourself a favor and chose a reliable hosting provider.
- www.thehostguru.com
on November 18th, 2006 at 2:11 pm
I have several small websites hosted on 1and1. For the most part all is well. There is, however, a security problem with windows hosting. It is not possible to set a file permission to write/modify but not read. That is equivalent to chmod 622 on unix. The reason is to store information obtained from a form in a password protected file. It one time that was possible on their windows server, now it isn’t and complaining to them doesn’t seem to help. The solution, of course, was to move that website to a linux server and reprogram my .asp as .php.
on November 23rd, 2006 at 9:52 pm
I’ve had my 1&1 account since July 2006, and I’m definitely renewing. I have NEVER had a problem with them, and all my support queries were solved within 8 hours.
Everyone has their experiences, and mine continues to be excellent!
on November 24th, 2006 at 7:10 pm
Well, I would love to thank you guys for the advice, I was about to get a deal with 1&1 when I came across this site. I am currently hosted with NetFirms. PLEASE DON’T EVER MAKE THAT MISTAKE, DO NOT GET NetFirms either. That is probably the worst Host provider ever seen. My site goes offline EVERYDAY including Server errors “EVERY SINGLE DAY” plus connections time out
grrrrrrrr…. Anyways back to topic. I’m glad I hit this place. 1&1 is History dor me too. So many people can’t be wrong when they say the have issues, Although I don’t believe it is so bad as the issues I have with my current Host… Still trying to find a Provider able to understand what customer support + fare service is….
on November 28th, 2006 at 5:30 pm
Yeah, I am waiting for my dedicated server…no support at all..
on December 11th, 2006 at 12:09 pm
If you want some really good web hosting go to www.greenlush.com go to the contact form and write a nice note and explain what 1and1 did to you, and maybe we might be so kind enough to give you a few months free.
on December 13th, 2006 at 4:47 pm
1and1 is a terrible host. Dreamhost rocks!
on December 18th, 2006 at 3:06 am
GoDaddy.com has some amazing offers. We are running a site that gets around 17 million hits a month on a dedicated server through them, and have had nothing but amazing service and support. Its like GoDaddy is a hosting god, our server has been down once in its time there. It has had numbers of DOS attacks and scripts hit it. If you need to install something and don’t know how? Ha, screw FAQ’s, call GoDaddy and a server admin will do it for you. Its absolutely amazing.
on December 21st, 2006 at 11:56 pm
………………………..1and1 SCAMING…………………………
If I knew 1and1 was that weak, I would not hesitate to not sign up with them. They charged me an extra $29.97 for website buider plus and cancel my account and package and account 2 days after i signed up with them. What kind of company tricked customers like this. Even that I told them not to proceed with the transaction, they charged anyway and caused an overdraft in my checking account. And they also denied to refund any of the $29.97 that they charged for 3 months even that my account is inactive after 2 days. They did not care about the overdraft fees either and left me stucked with $160, all of it for me to pay the bank back. Their customer service really sucks. 1and1 is a scam.
on January 5th, 2007 at 9:41 pm
They suck big time. Their email is the lousiest!! Spam filter is a joke.
Support is farce. They have a set of monkeys sittingin Philippines who just know how to say 2 things - Sorry and our admin is looking - you are better off breaking your head agains a stone. And even to do that you wait MINIMUM 30 minutes. Technical problems happen, but what makes difference is response and fixing them to a clients satisfaction. In this - 1and1.com are the worst….I mean the worst possible one can be. I am a web developer - referred them so many clients - but no consideration. I deal with other hosting companies - they have decency to call back and inform or resolve issues - with 1and1 - forget it!!
Sites go down for 24 - 48 hours - Nothing is done.
They DO NOT CARE!!
RUN AWAY FROM THEM - WHILE YOU CAN!!
on January 27th, 2007 at 5:46 pm
Do you have names of the CEO of 1and1.com…… they suck
on January 29th, 2007 at 12:49 pm
Several months ago, I deleted the external domain at 1and1.com. I canceled the account and disables their ability to chargr my credit card anymore. I stopped using the associated email and went about my way. I have been charged every month since. This is what I think happened; When I canceled my account, they were supposed to send an email confirming the cancellation, when that happened, I think a trigger was pulled that put me in a neverending billing cycle. I’ve recently reactivated my domain and I am now getting billed for no service. You are right about customer service, there is none. If you are thinking about using this company, please reconsider!
on February 2nd, 2007 at 6:03 pm
Well, now a word on their domain name services.
Just finished paying their $40.00 redemption fee to get back a domain that they expired. What a run around!
Well my bills say Feb/03 and today is Feb/02. Seems to me it should have expired tomorrow!
on February 5th, 2007 at 12:48 am
1and1, I’m done!
I’ve had it with them. I purchased a package with them around the first of Dec. 2006 (two months ago!) so I could build a website for my new daughter who was due in a week. I spent the whole week building the base of the site. Nice simple platform! Finally December 7 comes and Aimee is born. I uploaded a **** load of pictures, we kept her name a secret and sent everyone an email once I got the pictures in that same night. Within 3 days I had 150 hits and 30 notes in my guestbook. 4 days later and one week after she was born, the site goes down. Not only did it go down but it stayed down for 2 days. Nobody could see it. Finally Sunday morning I woke up, and the site was back up. But my counter was down to almost nothing which is no big deal. But the big deal was that 18 of the 30 notes in my guestbook were gone. I called and bitched like I had been for the past few days and they said they would fix the problem. Never happened! Those shmucks sent me an email describing the problem, then the next day they said everything was fixed with my site, but never was. A week later, site goes down again! Site comes up a day later, now I am down to 1 note in my guestbook! Now I’m about to flip! The same day my cousin in Florida, whose daughter I named Aimee after, writes a note in my guest book, within 2 hours, it disappeared. He was so happy to see his late daughter’s name used again in the family. His daughter died in a car accident in Florida just about a year before Aimee was born.
Here is a copy of the emails from 1and1:
As you are probably aware, 1&1 experienced a major problem with the server your website is hosted on in the last few days.
I am writing you today to personally apologize for the prolonged downtime which you experienced. Please allow me to explain what happened and what measures we have already added to prevent something like this from happening again in the future.
- On Thursday 12/14/06 the RAID system of the server had a major filesystem problem. All attempts to fully repair the filesystem unfortunately failed.
- When restoring the data from our backup system we encountered some performance issues which greatly reduced the speed of the restore operation.
The machine is now up and running again with all the data available to us through backups restored.
As a result of this incident we made changes to our communication and reaction policies to make sure you will be better informed in the future.
Considering the amount of time our services were unavailable to you, we will credit one (1) month’s hosting to your account in the next few days, which will result in the date of your next bill being pushed back one (1) month. Please note that any additional items, such as domains will continue their normal billing cycle.
We thank you for your understanding and your patience. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us anytime.
Sincerely
Sebastian Moser
Director
Customer Services
1&1 Internet Inc.
1-877-435-7281
Now, when I originally called about the problem, they told me they were servicing the server. Not that they were having problems with it. Now here is the "all problems are fixed" email:
Thank you for contacting us.
The webdatabase has been restored from a backup off the server. Please
check this information within the control panel.
Thanks for your patience and have a nice day.
If you have any further questions please do not hesitate to contact us.
–
Sincerely,
Tristan Curtin
Technical Support
1&1 Internet
If you get 1and1, you will have no fun! They never even bothered to email me to let me know the site was down, not once. Not even after they told me they set up a better response. I would say my site has been down at least once a week, including yesterday morning since all this started happening.
I am done with 1and1! They can kiss my A$$. Not the left side, not the right side, but right smack dab in the middle!
Off to "Go Daddy"!
on February 8th, 2007 at 10:42 am
Amazing. Type in any host and you find complaints. I have 8 existing accounts and countless other that I have cancelled. Never the first minutes trouble. I have transfered domains to 1&1. I have transfered domains away from 1&1. I use their hosting, their DNS services and never a minutes trouble. They even emailed me ahead of time to let me know they were updating the php on my server. Last MAJOR host I used did it without warning and broke all my my zend optimized PHP across (at that time) 6 domains. Some of you need to take some responsibility for your own actions or lack there of and drop the victims mentality.
1&1 of course is not a perfect hosting company. Neither are any of the others. For instance, their WebMail application is the worst I have seen, iPowerWeb uses vDeck. I found it to be one of the best WebMail clients I have used.
If you find a host that does not have a website dedicated to how bad it is, then chances are you are dealing with a second tier company with a subscriber base so small as to be insignificant. Wal-Mart sucks, we all still shop there.
on February 11th, 2007 at 3:56 am
you should run your own host guys if you dont want downtimes, if you will encounter downtimes in your server you can just easy shout to yourselves..
on February 13th, 2007 at 8:33 pm
Valueweb host is very good. You can find a lot of reviews about Valueweb on the website www.hothosting.info/en. Also, Valueweb is trusted by many of its customers. Obviously, there can not be a very perfect host, since these hosts are of many different features.
The clients should buy a host which meets their needs perfectly. For example, if a person has some experiences with Linux, he or she may choose the host which supports ssh so that it can achieve its perfect performances. Moreover, the e-shop host users can choose a kind production which could provides more after-services.
Go to www.hothosting.info/en and have a look, there must be some suitable methods for you in choosing the right hosts. You will know more about the web hosting!Enjoy!
on February 15th, 2007 at 7:54 pm
I have read all the complaining idiotic rubbish on this thread. How can you nerds be so naive that you do not realise that in order to rip off an ISP company , you have to be better than you think you are. You are getting what you pay for. No more, no less. And, you are **** at making your case.
I use 1and1 and I get exactly what I pay for,– without any problem at all. I get the odd hiccup, but as I play to the rules, I get EXCELLENT support, and never any query about closing, opening or amending contracts. Wake up, people, you are out of your depth. Instead of complaining I would suggest that you post a properly researched solution to your "IQ50" accusations, so that managers at 1and1 can see what you are on about.
The point I make is that they are still in business, and you have problems; doesn’t that tell you something?
on February 16th, 2007 at 12:09 pm
idiotic rubbish on this thread ?
Yea ! Someone obviously was not locked out of his account yet , and his 173 domains where not taken off the Internet at 1and1internet ‘ s whim.
Someone was not threatened to be taken to collection irrelevant of the 100 percent customer satisfaction Guarantee or 90 day money back guarantees.The problems start at the root and degenerates all the way in every direction. Check the T&C , idiodic? Mr. English let me tell you you waived your "Clams " 2.1.7 .That is the only part of the 1and1 contract I can relate to as not being quite idiotic, I believe it is factual.My clams would be in their pocket had i not cancelled my credit card
http;//1and1hosing.com
on February 16th, 2007 at 1:11 pm
1and1hosing.com is not the best and is perhaps **** as to making my case. However my filed complaints to ICANN
Internic, The Attorney General of Pennsylvannia, The Federal Trade Commissions have some credibility as I already won one case out of two. I will grant you
that booting 1and1 Internet out of America is a huge challenge and it has to be done through the appropriate channels. Many of the links which I have are simply to express my views on Guestapo tactics and vent my frustrations about my own particular case.
The not so idiotic issue , is to protect the integrity of the bill of rights , the observance of fair trade and business practice rules as set out in the constitution of The United States of America.
In conclusion , If this was only a bit of hot air. The Better Business Bureau , would not have 1and1 Internet ‘ s record listed as UNSATISFACTORY , and 1and 1 would not have all sorts of people reporting them to all differnent agencies claiming they have been robbed , bankraid.com would not be in existence .
Re : 1and1classactions.com
Whether you read it or not in 1and1 Internet’s contract , I have not waived my "CLAMS" (like oysters)2.1.7 - and I have not waived my rights to trial by jury , nor to class actions. I have waived nothing , and 1and 1 will not be held unaccountable for eternity as they so seem to claim.
1and1 I asked you politely where are my 173 domains.
1and1complaints.com
1and1classaction.com
The constitution does protect everyone even if they are not articulate. Being **** at making a case Mr English is a prerogative they can afford it comes with the 100 percent satisfaction guarantee.
If your happy and you know it clap your hands!
Moi , je suis Le Blogue et 1&1 , ils ont pris mes noms Francais lienfr.com C’est a moi and it will not work. 1fax.biz
on February 16th, 2007 at 2:23 pm
You wouldn’t believe how happy I am to see your post. I thought I was the only one, I have also had problems with ssh access and they have shown me terrible customer service.
Unlike you I only receive a measely 700 hits a day so I dont think it has anything to do with my traffic. I am a beginer and it could be my fault on the ssh issue, but it has been over 3 days and they haven’t contacted me. I had another technical problem a few months ago when they I first started, and they also took 3 days to respond, and only after I threatened to cancel service.
on February 21st, 2007 at 6:14 am
Hello all. I was looking to vent how horrible NETFIRMS is and I find another host to avoid. I am a newbie but starting out should not be impossible and I am glad I am not going to host with Netfirms anymore. Their own incompetance saved me that misery. Getting real information is worse than looking for a needle in a hay stack. NETFIRMS SUCKS AND I WILL AVOID 1 AND 1.
on February 24th, 2007 at 9:54 am
I am a Grandmother of two boys. I work full time and needed to make extra income. I signed up for a eshop with 1and1, I have had issues ever since. I am not computer savvy and lost my search and back buttons and a friend has found errors in the search engine. They respond to me, find someone with script knowledge to help me! They are horrible. How can they mistreat people like this. They make you pay for six months because they know what they are doing. Even if you get a refund they have made money off of the interest on your money! What a clever way to screw Grandma! I am so depressed over this because I have invested a bit of money getting an offline credit card processing co and such. They ignore my emails and when they do respond they ask a stupid question that really has nothing to do with my site like, what package are you reffering too? idoits I have a hosting that I got be mistake because it did not work for me and it is inactive. If they had looked into my problem they would have seen that I said eshop! I think I will cut my losses and cry in my soup:(
on March 4th, 2007 at 11:02 am
They did the exact same thing to me, I was no where near my limit and they just shut me down
Now I can’t even backup my files because ftp isn’t working
the worst hosting on the plant by far, their quotas mean nothing
on March 5th, 2007 at 11:13 am
Hi,
I just read your rants regarding 1 & 1 internet services. I’m trying to prepare myself for possibly having similar problems . I’m working on having a backup plan, but in order for that plan to work I still need to be able to forward my domain if they shut me down for using too much load. When they shut you down, did you still have the ability to log-in to your control panel and forward you domains ? Or did they shut that off also ?
Thanks, any help is appreciated.
Best, Mike
defeedme@gmail.com
on March 6th, 2007 at 7:19 am
webmail 1&1 is **** i agree with you i could not even log on after i had strted an acount.
on March 6th, 2007 at 7:20 am
the website is rubbish they should be closed down for good.
on March 7th, 2007 at 1:10 am
Why not keep your cool and use The EASY BUTTON
1and1easybutton.com
on March 12th, 2007 at 3:27 pm
Great. They didn’t prepare for the new Daylight Savings Time changes in North America and now their server times in North America are all off by an hour.
on March 17th, 2007 at 10:21 pm
1and1 SCAMS -
Just received an e-mail from 1and1 , wanting me to sign up to GOOGLE adwords under their umbrella . (www.google.com/1and1 )
Is Google demeaning themselves to that extent ? Imagine being linked to 1and1 ( YUCK ! , PUKE ! )
1and1 Internet is a company with an unsatisfactory report from The Better Business Bureau . 1and1 ripped me off , and have the nerve to contact me , to capitalize from me through Google after robbing me . To me they are lower than the lowest and are now trying to pull new stunts.( PS, Once your free clicks are gone, if you want out and you do not give notice , 1and1 will cash In and you will pay ! )
Watch entrapment due to small print:: :
*Terms: Promotional credit must be applied to a new AdWords account within 15 days of creating the account and is valid only for new Google AdWords customers with self-managed signup accounts. Advertisers will be charged for advertising that exceeds the promotional credit. Advertisers will need to suspend their ads if they do not wish to receive additional charges beyond the free credit amount. Subject to ad approval, valid registration and acceptance of the Google AdWords Program standard terms and conditions. The promotional credit is non-transferable and may not be sold or bartered. Offer may be revoked at any time for any reason by Google Inc. One promotional credit per customer. Advertisers with self-managed signup accounts are subject to a $5 activation fee. Offer valid only for sign ups through the URL provided for the promotion. Expires 03/31/2007.
Google and AdWords are trademarks of Google, Inc. and are registered in the US and other countries.
Your 12 digit promo code must be entered into the designated field under “Billing Preferences” in the “My Account” section of your AdWords account - which you will be able to access after you set up your Google AdWords account.
DOES GOOGLE NOT SEARCH 1nad1 complaints at Google ?
(PLEASE TAKE NOTICE: I did not receive the infomation herein from Google, but from 1and1 Internet . )
.Copy being sent to Google and C/C to be posted at
1and1mail.blogspot.com
on March 22nd, 2007 at 10:38 am
Hi,
I’m on the phone right now to them as I got charged £10 for norton internet security which i hadn’t even used!!!!
10 mins on tne phone and still waiting!!!!
what complete jerks
on March 28th, 2007 at 2:47 am
1&1 Don’t want new customers
Nine days ago I ordered a 1&1 hosting package with two domains in the name of a Ltd Company.
1&1 wanted a faxed proof of address which we sent immediately. But as a Ltd. Company, the address is already on the Companies House Register (which I can’t fake). I can easily fake a utilities bill - just scan it in, change the name and address and send it to 1&1!
I have emailed several times, and spent a few pounds on their premium rate helpline.
In the last 9 days they have:
- not registered the .com domain (leaving it for someone else to register)
- not registered the .co.uk domain (leaving it for someone else to register)
- not set up an account
In short, if they treat a new customer like this, how will they treat an existing customer?
I’m outa here!
The problem is, where do I go? Godaddy?
on March 28th, 2007 at 4:50 am
UPDATE
Within 20 minutes of placing an order with GoDaddy, I now have my 2 domains and hosting space along with email.
And it cost less than 1&1!
Why I ordered with 1&1 in the first place, I’ll never know…
on March 31st, 2007 at 2:11 am
I ordered a dedicated server 2 weeks ago and I still haven’t got it. They say there is a technical problem with the setup and it will be resolved. It hasn’t been resolved in a long time. I sent several mails to complaints@1and1.com and no response. I will let you know how long it takes for them to set it up. Their FAQ says 24-48 hours for set up. Don’t believe it. It looks like 4 weeks or longer.
on April 3rd, 2007 at 10:08 am
they indeed are bad. to much load in db’s/box.
on April 4th, 2007 at 4:51 pm
Every 3 months they put their **** on my credit. Its like cancer — .. sadly it always comes back. Hope someone shuts them down once for all.
on April 5th, 2007 at 3:06 pm
I guess we need to keep away from them and tell as many people as we can to do the same.
on April 10th, 2007 at 8:59 am
Uber - do you work for 1&1 ? If you dont and you really get such service you surely are a minority.
on April 19th, 2007 at 5:29 pm
THANK YOU! I was going to sign up with them. to you and all else who state they have fradulent and un-ethical practices thank you. I guess value-price shopping isnt enough.
on April 22nd, 2007 at 6:09 pm
I have tried 1and1 for 6 weeks, the dedicated server i used with them crashed and was not backed up, everything i had on the server was lost and before i new it i had 50 people comeplaing about their page not coming up. it took me over 5 long days to back onto a new server with newwebdomain.com. 1and1 sucks, they did nothing to help me. the support did nothing about the problem, i emailed and was told it was my fault telling me a had to many pages. since i have switched to newwebdomain.com i have had great service they really helped me out a lot and the support was great. see for your self Newwebdomain.com get you the results you expect.
on June 12th, 2007 at 2:02 pm
Man, I was looking for a VPS solution and stumbled on this site.
Glad I didn’t go with 1and1. I have some friend here at the office that love it but they don’t really use it that much.
Now I need a good VPS solution (or dedicated server).
cbmeeks
www.eblarg.com
on July 5th, 2007 at 8:48 pm
I cancelled my 1&1 after two years of headaches and 18 months later I had credit collectors calling me. Never again and will never recommend.
PS they never collected either
on July 6th, 2007 at 4:37 am
Latest email
Do Haveafarto sound like 1&1 to you?
Dear Sir
Reference number: 935033329491
Through the last week we have been carrying out further investigations as to your account.
1&1 today have confirmed that your account has never been cancelled and the balance is still outstanding.
This balance will need to be paid to ourselves.
You can contact us on telephone number 0870 1258809.
Regards
Arvato Finance
arvato finance services Limited
The Hall
Lairgate
Beverley
HU17 8HL
United Kingdom
www.arvatofinance.co.uk
collections@arvatofinance.co.uk
Tel: 0870 1258809
Fax:01482 883572
They were told not to use the email paul.mason14@ntlworld.com anyone may send an email there and it will bounce back mailer:daemon because I shut it down because of the spam and I had informed 1&1 months before I shut down the account.
On another subject do 1&1 sell of customers telephone numbers?
Since I stopped trading with 1&1 and reported an issue with TPAS I haven’t received one caller about insurance or mobile phones… odd innit!
Bring it on boys
Bring it on!!
on July 6th, 2007 at 4:40 am
Sorry that should had been TPS boys and girls
1&1 smell like *****
on July 6th, 2007 at 3:22 pm
They deleted my domain without notifying me (the auto-renewal failed, with no indication at all of a pending balance or billing failure when I logged into the account, let alone an email) and after a week and a half of telling me they’d put it back up without any additional hassle now that I’d paid the renewal fee they asked me to send in the redemption forms and the 40 dollar fee because the techies had deleted the record. Once I had did that they told me I still had a negative balance, when I called their billing department the billing department told me there was no balance, and that it’d be up in 1-3 days. 4 days later I call to find out why it wasn’t up yet and we run through the negative balance thing again, they confirm again that the balance is settled, and then explain that they won’t redeem the domain and that, get this, they don’t know why.
“Email complaints”, they tell me.
After about three weeks of jumping through hoops and getting jerked around on 1-3 business day increments they can’t even fulfill their own ICANN required redemption policy and jack my domain for their sedo parking scam. They’re a bunch of pirates.
on July 8th, 2007 at 5:02 am
I have been with 1and1 for 8 years and never had a problem.
on July 26th, 2007 at 6:01 am
I’ve been with them for 3 years and all has been good for the most part. The only thing is the occassional outage. Oh yeah, plus don’t use their email system.
on August 14th, 2007 at 3:18 am
I have had problems with 1and1 recently, also. They have managed to screw up a domain name I recently registered with them for over a month. It is a month after I registered, and the DNS still doesn’t work. I never had problems with 1and1 before this. Regarding hosting… I am smart enough not to buy my hosting from 1and1– I use Dreamhost, and that works fine for my low-traffic sites.
on August 15th, 2007 at 10:23 am
I have had a horrendous experience with 1and1. I have been a client of their since 1999 - have given them increased business at one point hosting with them over 100 domains and recommended them to my clients. By blogspot - an activity which takes time - has been born out of my sheer frustration with them. They are so incredibly inept, customer unfriendly and downright incompetent that I am in the process of taking my sites, one by one, off them and hosting them with United Hosting (they are high traffic sites). 1and1 deserve to go out of business!
on August 28th, 2007 at 4:20 am
I bought a website about a month ago, spent a heap of money on it then i went to 1&1 to change the registrars details. Instead of just changing the details they change the hosting location to there empty page, not knowing what the dns was for the site im going to have hassle.
thats about 10 emails back and forth with no answer they have not took not of the old DNS just changed it.
i wont be using this company again
on September 1st, 2007 at 4:49 am
After comparing 1&1 hosting to Newwebdomain.com/hosting i have found the domain control center of newwebdomain to be mush easer to use. I also do not like 1&1 for their Customer Support it sucks. newwebdomain walked me threw the whole process and it was very easy to understand.
best of all there’s no set up fee and no annual commitment required with newebdomain.com yes newebdomain cost only $1 more for hosting but I got a free $20 google adWords credit, and a $50 microsoft adCenter with my purchase so my hosting was free you cant beat that!!
on September 2nd, 2007 at 7:06 am
I’ve used 1and1 for over 3 years. I have about 60 domain names and host 20 sites using their Business package - these sites are all very low traffic (100 hits/month) basic HTML. I’ve found the domain registration system fairly straigtforward and not had any problems with that. The basic shared hosting for simple sites has worked well and given good response times. I’ve also found the FTP access works well and their are easily accessible stats to print out for my clients.
However I tried to host a Joomla site with them last year (hence why I upgraded to the Business account in the first place) - again a low traffic site with less than 200 hits/day. The response time was terrible (up to 30 seconds per page), so I hosted this elsewhere. Response time for a shared service from another host provider was better, but the problem can be the latency for the first page called up (ie if no one has been accessing the site, then its got to load all the modules and refresh the cache etc - if another page is called up/another user can access the next page in less than a second) - strangely the busier a site, the faster the response time can be for new visitors.
So I then bought a dedicated server, falling for 1and1’s value server, in order to radically reduce the latency. This was an unmitigated disaster from two points of view:
a) I suspect that servers go into a sleep mode if not used for a while to save power etc (this makes sense). So initial latency for that first page seemed to go up to 15 seconds from a cold start - thats the only reason I can think of anyway.
b) There were several technical faults with the server which meant I could not access any of the files on it, the control panel was not able to operate on it at all, and of course the website was offline. This happened 3 times, and the last time lasted 3 days despite emailing 1and1’s dedicated 24×7 line. I still don’t think they figured out what the problem was (likely a duff server or ethernet port connection). I ended up paying for 2 months service plus domain transfer fees between my two packages.
Recently I have tried to run a joomla site again on the Business hosting package and found the performance pretty reasonable. They limit the size of database to 100MB and traffic to 40GB/month which seems reasonable. I plan to try this option again for a low traffic site and see how it goes. This may be because they are policing the use of high traffic sites like yours on a very low cost shared basis. Frankly, if you are getting 40K hits/day then really you should expect to pay a bit more than someone getting 40.
I have emailed and called 1and1 tech support a few times over the last years. Apart from the problem with the dedicated server, I’ve got a response in about a day. I am fairly knowledgable, and thus ask clear questions with as limited a response as possible.
So to sum up, I think you get what you pay for. This is a very low cost, mass market provider with standard systems that work well when used in that way. They do not provide good customer service, so don’t expect either to be walked through simple basics of setting up a eCommerce site or get detailed analysis of why your PHP4 isn’t working. If you just want somewhere basic to register domains and host simple sites then they are low cost.
The ISP I used to host my high traffic database sites was webmasters. I have found their tech support amazingly rapid (typically 5-10mins email turnaround) and competent - e.g. they figured out a permissions issue for me (2nd line support) within 24 hours. However, you do need to a buy a separate hosting account (at 180 dollars/year min) per domain - I found their documentation on this very confusing - they do allow add-on domains but these must either redirect to a subdirectory or forward to the main domain. They typically share 300 domains per server for the standard accounts, and you can upgrade to a VPS with 6 domains sharing at a higher price or a dedicated server if your traffic demands it.
So basically you get what you pay for.
on September 4th, 2007 at 2:49 pm
It’s funny, they won’t remove someone despite reports of copyright infringement (which is the problem affecting me at the moment) and yet they removed you without warning. I think they’ve got their priorities cocked up.
Oh well, I’m boycotting them now and moving all my domains to a new provider. Their loss, not mine!
on September 6th, 2007 at 9:45 am
Setting here waiting for 1and1 support so thought I would see what others thought of 1and1. I have a half dozen different shared web hosts and 1and1 is the worst.
I hate their webpanel - it’s difficult to navigate and makes no sense to me. Plus, it’s horribly slow.
I called today because my account was locked because of credit card problem. Got the cc problem resolved and wanted to call 1and1 billing. I couldn’t find a phone number for billing. They do have a billing email, but I wanted to talk to someone so get my site back up. So, I called the only number I could find - support. After about 10 minutes of holding, they said they could not help me (had a hard time understanding him, he didn’t speak great English) and gave me the billing number - couldn’t transfer me. So, I call billing and hold for another 10-15 minutes and get the problem taken care of. I ask the billing person why their billing number is not on their website - he says, in a condescending way, that it IS on the contact page. I can’t find it.
I have 3 more months to get everything moved off of 1and1. There are a lot of quality web hosts out there, I would not go with 1and1.
on September 6th, 2007 at 9:01 pm
i had that same problem with the control panel when i was working on www.shoprocco.com
on September 15th, 2007 at 5:46 pm
I have been using this company 1and1 for quite some time. They have been moving their customer service to phillipines. I wish to register my frustration with 1and1 support. A ticket was created on friday morning in which our mailboxes were locked, and I responded back immediately. Yet the mailboxes are still locked. and when I called on friday around 4 pm. the department was already close. Is this really 24×7 customer support. What am I suppoed to do now… I am at the mercy of 1and1 and its policies… We realy lost a lot of bbusiness… and due to 1and1 lousy customer support (phillipines is very irritating, coz they don’t even understand and are so limited) of 1and1 we now have unsatisfied customers…
We have been a long time 1and1 customer, and wish to bring our frustration and agonies…
We need to be heard….
on September 17th, 2007 at 9:50 am
I have been trying for months to cancel domain names with 1and1. I have been on their ‘contract’ site and set them all to cancel, but for the last SIX MONTHS it has said ‘request being processed’. If I e-mail them, they tell me to call them (on an 0870 number of course). When I call them, the line goes dead after waiting for a few minutes.
Bottom line: If you register domain names with them, they make it very difficult for you to cancel. They charge your card, and if you try and stop the payments, they send threatening letters. They are crooks, plain and simple. Other domain name providers let you cancel by simply clicking a link. Go to 123-reg.co.uk instead.
on September 21st, 2007 at 9:41 pm
One and one have the worst customer service you can get.
With there phillipine accent and noisy pone line it is difficult to understand them.
They are simply reading quick answer without giving you the information you need. Now five day of downtime. I am now escalated at the administration level … wow it is the third time this week.
Don’t subsribe with them, it is a waste of time and money.
on September 22nd, 2007 at 11:51 pm
I have been with 1 & 1 .com since 2004 and I have two websites with lots of pages on them. Both of them are high traffic websites and we have never had any serious problems with them. I believe one of our websites went down once for three days because they had a bug in their system which happens to all of them.
We do have some problems occasionally with their 24/7 Support System but if we get a person who has no idea of what we are talking about then we just hang up and call back until we reach one that can help us. Many of them have actually put what we needed on or fixed the problem them selves and if not they talk us through it.
We have unlimited pages and we can’t beat the price anywhere and we have around 40.000 hits a day on one and 25,000 hits on the other. I think some of you just have mo idea of what you are doing or how to handle things appropriately. We have always received good service and help and have never been overcharged.
Deborah Shrira
on September 28th, 2007 at 6:31 am
Yeah, my experience with 1and1 is similar to Deborah’s. I think that no service is perfect (and I’m not saying anyone’s suggesting that). For me email support is usually replied to either the same day or the day after. Phone support is horrid (Because it ain’t free and can take a while), but again, the phone support on my broadband service is the same, yet the service is great.
I don’t think that 1and1 is the most newb friendly service (if it’s not in the the faq or help sections, your only hope is google or technical support, but when I’ve asked tech support for help on stuff via email, they’ve be able to provide it.), it’s more a service for the competent/comfortable technology person.
I think if you really want to benefit from a service like 1and1 (and any other for that matter), there probably 3 main things:
1. Know what you need and what your getting (and what your not getting).
2. Expect there are gonna bee problems
3. Don’t be surprised that for some things your gonna have to learn it yourself (either through books, school, google or other media), this one is pretty unavoidable (As far as I remember, 1and1 never promise there gonna do/teach you everything out the box,)
I think if you want a less do it yourself approach you have to use something like website builder plus or homestead or some other more template driven/hand holding service like these.
One things for sure, even with some of the best and most well known services in the world, there’s always a few horror stories. This is especially true when you have a company with hundred of thousands to millions customers. Look at the amount of xbox’s that went dead or the amount of sky plus boxes that failed and had many problems or the ntl service now owned by virgin media that caused many customers to lose all the sky stations or how many customers in the uk that are overcharged by big electricity or phone companies! All these examples are big well known brands and companies, yet with some major problems and customers with equally horrible and wrong experiences. Unfortunately, nothing is perfect in a fallen world friends…
on September 28th, 2007 at 5:27 pm
I set-up BankRaid a few years ago to highlight my battle with 1&1. A couple of years down the road and it all became too much too handle - and too costly as well. Too many folk ‘out there’ were writing to me asking for help. So, now I’m taking a different tack. I cannot afford to be so charitable and need some recompense for all my efforts. I’m proposing an alternative way forward. As it appears that 1&1 are virtually beyond the law, inasmuch that regulating agencies (both government and on the internet) seem reluctant to help the consumer, I thought I’d set up my own hosting company and try and attract customers - hopefully many from 1&1! Just seems that this is the only way to go. Please visit www.bankraid.com and see how life can be so much better!
on October 1st, 2007 at 4:46 pm
webfusion.co.uk do very good servers, been with them for over 2years now, all other hosts have closed me down for high cpu usage as i run a cgi based chat script.
on October 2nd, 2007 at 11:19 pm
i only work with people who are willing to help you and 1&1 is not very good at that
www.newweblink.com
on October 4th, 2007 at 4:18 pm
I never had a problem with 1&1, but my sites are at worst a couple hundred megs apiece of static HTML. It seems that the general advice here is true: don’t buy a lame shared server package and expect that you can host your big fat memory-leaking PHP scripts right on top of it. If I ever need a dedicated server, I’ll just get a T1 and roll my own.
on October 10th, 2007 at 1:10 pm
I completely agree that 1 and 1 is completely unprofessional. I have been a client for 6 years and THAT IS IT. TODAY WAS THE LAST STRAW. I WOULD ENCOURAGE ANYONE THAT WANTS TO OPERATE A PROFESSIONAL INTERNET BUSINESS TO GO ELSEWHERE.
WITHIN 48 HOURS WE ARE GONE.
on October 18th, 2007 at 9:55 am
[…] Here. And here. And here. And here. And here. And here. And here. And here. « 1and1 Sucks! | […]
on October 22nd, 2007 at 1:50 pm
Got my CC info leaked from 1&1 and used by a hacker to pay for hosting. 99% confidence with proof.
Tried to tell them that there seems to be a problem with either hacking or internal leakage. Guess what - they said we will pass it to the admin. I expected a 5 star fire alarm.
They did not even ask for any details. Did not hear anything back. So, if YOUR credit card was used without your authorization, check if this is a card you using for paying for 1&1 services.
on November 8th, 2007 at 7:49 pm
1and1 are low-end service providers who make money by quantity, not quality.
I was using them to hold two domain names for me at the “bargain” price of $5.99 each. Payment was annually from my credit card. When my card was updated earlier this year to its new expiry date, they send me an e-mail regarding one of my accounts, asking for the updated info. I did that. However, the e-mail(s) that they claim to have sent for the other account, I never received.
Long story short, they promptly forwarded my “delinquent” account to collections - a $5.99 amount (which collections bumped up to $18.95). My conversations with 1and1 “support” got nowhere, and apparently to them it is worth sending a client’s $5.99 bill to collections, rather than having repeat business from them.
I am cancelling my accounts with them today, and transferring to Bluehost, with whom I’ve never had a problem and who actually listens to client’s concerns.
1and1 = cheap ********.
on November 24th, 2007 at 9:27 pm
i’m glad to see everyone said bad things about 1and1, they really do suck! I called them and no one speaks english. the book they give you to down load isn’t even close to what the site says. The work I do is with the goverment and I plan to have them investigate the company. Call the BBB about them, they get sick of hereing about 1and1.
on November 26th, 2007 at 3:32 pm
Hello ,
I got scammed too. As a loyal customer who bought hundreds of domains from 1and done, they make it hard for you to cancel within 3 business days.
1 and done’s control panel is very slow in processing which makes it very hard to cancel within 3 business days. I’ve called customer service bunch of times to resolve the situation but no response from them.
I called FTC and reported the company to the government for breaking the law. Why breaking the law? There is a law called right of rescission 3 day period. Consumer have a free look for 3 days and may return product within 3 days without questioning.
My advice is to find a company who provides 5 day free look, not 3 days and make sure they have responsive customer service..
on December 14th, 2007 at 11:43 am
The above does not suprise me - 1 and 1 have just charged me a years fees because I did not cancel my web site for the second year. I never even used this site. This is how freindly this company is. Loads of people must get caught like this and they know it. I will never use them again.
on December 15th, 2007 at 3:01 pm
LOL I was just going to register a new domain and maybe hosting at 1and1 I wont now.
Thanks for saving me a hassle
on December 23rd, 2007 at 5:58 pm
Never use netfirms either! I used them for a few months and noticed their servers frequently went down. When I tried to download e-mails, I was often denied access. The only solution was wait and wait. The tech support sucks big time, extremely slow. So if you are out looking for a new hosting company, don’t get hear netfirms!
on December 31st, 2007 at 1:17 pm
IMO, the hosting is actually good. what is **** to me is their tech support! not even familiar with simple php. holy cow!
on January 1st, 2008 at 3:54 am
LET THOSE STUPID IDIOTS TO READ THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS BEFORE THEY SIGN UP SO THAT THEY WILL KNOW WHAT THEY ARE DEALING WITH…. AND WHAT SCOPE WE SUPPORT.
on January 3rd, 2008 at 11:43 pm
Well I have several websites and domain registered through 1and1. I am getting ready to switch them all over to another hosting company. They keep charging me at 10 months for my domain names. Shorting me 2 months. When I want to cancel something it will tell me that it is cancelled but I still get a charge. I spend half my day on the phone with someone who can’t understand what I am saying trying to get charges taken off my account. Big waste of my time.
on January 4th, 2008 at 9:12 am
You hear a lot of bad things about these guys. But they’ve worked fine for me, only domains. The interface is very easy and fast to navigate compared to Go Daddy IMO. Support answers quite quickly, 1 hour or so to day. So I don’t have a reason to complain.
on January 5th, 2008 at 2:29 am
I’ve had a few domains with 1and1 for a few years and never had any issues. I liked their free privacy guard option to hide your contact info on the WHOIS lookup while having it be legit and I’d even used to recommend them. However, two days ago I got a call from a debt collection company asking me to call them. I telephone them back to find out they say I owe 1and1 $25. This had me a bit confused as I don’t know why I’d owe them $25 and this was the first I heard of it. It turns out when they attempted to bill one of my auto-renewing domains for $5.99 my credit card was expired. I mean I’d only had their services for close to 3 years without updating my card.. something one could easily not notice off the bat. They sent one e-mail to me with the subject line “K####### Reminder” (###### represents my customer number apparently) that said my credit card had been declined. This looks like Spam and I never read it. Did they call me, send a follow up e-mail or an e-mail with a normal or urgent subject line, send me a mail via U.S. Postal mail, or even put anything in the 1and1 admin panel message center? The answer is NO. They just wait a month and turned me over to a collection place and tacked on $18.99.
Absolutely despicable customer service and piss-poor notification. There is a responsibility of the customer of course..but this I find truly appalling and outrageous. I highly encourage anyone to stay away from a garbage company that treats customers like this.
on January 7th, 2008 at 11:10 am
Today my account was locked saying I hadnt paid my bill since november,
granted my card did decline in november but I had updated my billing details
My server went offline and i called the billing department who said I would need to speak
to the debt collections agency which I wasnt happy with, i asked for a supervisor which they again said was not aloud and I would have to write in.
So i threatened all sorts of action and they put me through to Mrs Khan in there legal department
I told her about my issues, and she tried to fob me off saying that I would need to deal with the debt
collections agency, which again i wasnt happy with, so i told her i was willing to pay and would only pay 1and1.
She told me this was impossible, so I told her that again this was a load of rubbish that and they had the capabilities
to take payment if she would take the initiative to try and fix this problem, she told me she would call me back in 30mins
Half hour later she calls me back and takes my payment (wait i thought this was impossible?!) and gives me 3 free months hosting on all my servers.
The good thing was… she called me forgetting to withold her direct line… +441753490524
I hope this helps anyone else who has problems with 1and1 at the moment.
on January 8th, 2008 at 7:20 pm
My dedicated server is completely down right now, so I call tech support and the message tells me that there is a high call volume and to avoid an extended wait I should call back another time. NP, I think, I’ll wait. Speakerphone is my friend, no biggie.
Then the call hangs up on me. Huh? I call back thinking it must be some sort of mistake and get the same deal, hangs up right up on me.
To avoid an extended wait please call back another time. Click.
What unbelievably terrible service.
on January 9th, 2008 at 12:00 pm
1and1 are the worst hosting company I have come across…. My 8 servers are down right now due to a network outage. This will be the fourth time that I know of. No need to call, the call volume is so high the call does not go through…. The best part is when they finally answer and I ask what happened they say “Nothing was wrong, it must have been your server.” It’s so amazing that they assume no one is technical and can’t determine what happened.
So now I sit and wait for my servers to come back online….
Did I mention that their tech support is based somewhere in the philippines and they have NO clue about anything….
on January 13th, 2008 at 2:11 am
I currently use 1and1.com. I have been very happy with them. The ease of setting up my site was great compared to others. I do agree their spam protection is a joke. But their prices are cheap as hell and you can’t beat their prices on domains. Also, it’s true that their cust service guys are hard to understand. I am now getting ready to upgrade my sites to joomla, so I am looking at other hosting companies because I am not sure how the control panel that works easy for my basic sites will work for joomla. Hope this comment helps. fundysdotcom
on January 16th, 2008 at 12:03 pm
1and1’s tech support is the worst I have ever encountered in my 10 years operating online business’. These idiots barely speak english, are difficult to understand and are nothing more than phone reps hired to give you the runaround & **** you around.
My serve