1and1 sucks – Part 1

Dear Internet Users – Do not ever sign up for hosting with 1and1 ….. following will be a copy of my email to their complaint department, as I have spent a good chunk of time this week talking to non-English speaking incompetent customer reps.  I am angry now.  I also googled the hosting company and found some other very interesting rants.  The links are at the bottom of this post.  Now I must go back up everything on coffeebration as I feel there is a good chance that my threats and bashing of my host may cause my account to be suspended.

 

To Whom It May Concern:
My name is Jessica ***** and I have been a paying customer with 1&1 for nearly a year with the MS Home Package.  I signed up for the Professional Preview Package in 2003 and have been using that package to host my website.  My desire has been to transfer two domains: ***** and coffeebration.com over to the Home Package because I do not have a need for two packages.  I was told that this would take 24 hours to complete.  I initiated the transfer of xxxxx.com on December 30th and received a confirmation email:
 

From: 1&1 Internet Team [mailto: [email protected]]
Sent: Saturday, December 30, 2006 7:41 PM
To: Jess *****
Subject: Domain transfer request
 

Customer ID: xxxxxx
Dear Jess *****,
Your domain xxxxx.net
is being transferred to the requested package xxxxxx..
Please allow up to 24 hours for all changes to take effect. You will not be able to modify any domain settings during this time.
Once the transfer is complete, you can upload your backup files and recreate subdomains and e-mail addresses in the package that you are transferring to.
Sincerely,
Your 1&1 Internet Team

 

The email clearly states to allow UP to 24 hours and you can see it was received on Saturday, December 30.  Today is Friday, January 5th.  Tomorrow will be one week and this transfer has not been completed yet.
I have called your customer service 3 times now and each experience has been very unsatisfactory. 

The first call was made on Tuesday, January 2nd.  I explained the situation and the rep told me that I needed to wait up to 48 hours, not 24.  I responded that it had been nearly 72 hours since Saturday at 7:41 pm when I received the confirmation email.  He argued that it had not yet been 48 hours and insisted that it was January 1.  I am not sure what schedule he is on but I felt very frustrated.

The second call was made on Wednesday, January 3rd.  The rep said I needed to authorize the transfer with my previous host.  I said that 1and1 is my previous host and for several minutes it seemed he was confused and seemed unable to understand that I was transferring from one contract to another.  I was placed on hold for several minutes and was told by the rep that the case was being escalated.  I gave the rep an email address so that an admin could contact me and update me on the status.  He told me I would receive an email shortly with an approximate time frame in which this issue would be resolved.  It is now Friday evening and I have not yet received anything from your team.

I did not call on Thursday because I had hoped that two calls would get this resolved, however Friday rolled around and still nothing.  The domain is still ‘applying’ and I have not received that email yet.  So, I called today for the last time.  This was the absolute worst conversation I have ever had.  I explained the situation again, what steps I have already taken, and kindly asked if I could speak to someone who could give me a reason, explain why it has been over five days, or at least let me know when I can access this domain.  Again I was placed on hold for several minutes.  The rep came back and said that the case was being elevated and send to ‘admin’ so they could resolve the matter.  The rep said that the domain was now in my HOME package but the “thing” still had to process and transfer over.  I asked “what thing” and I felt that the response was not even in English.  This rep said “um” and “thing” so many times that I felt that continuing the conversation was pointless.  I asked if I could give him my email address so someone could update me and he said “thank you ma’am, goodbye”.  I am not sure your reps understand the language I am speaking.  I am very frustrated.
I am a paying customer and I cannot seem to get in contact with anyone who is competent to resolve this matter.  All I want is a reason, the steps that will be taken, and someone to please follow-up with me.  Instead all I am told is that my “thing” is being sent to an admin and that I must continue to wait for an unspecified amount of time. 

I have read some very BAD reviews of 1and1 – and that some people have recorded customer service conversations and put them online.  I am not surprised.  Before I read those articles I was actually thinking to myself that I really wish I would have recorded those conversations because a lot of people would be stunned that customer service could actually be that bad.  To have reps argue what day of the year it is, to have them say ‘thing’ over and over again and clearly have no clue what they are talking about.  I think I will be looking into another hosting company as soon as I can back up everything I have.  And if I do not get a reply and this is not resolved before the end of the weekend I might get really bored and have to find a project with my tape recorder.
 

Regards,
Jessica *****

Thank You for reading my rant. 
Others who hate 1and1:
1and1 Internet is the Devil
Dramatic Action was Required
And there are plenty more, but my head hurts now. 

4 Responses to “1and1 sucks – Part 1”

  1. Julie says:

    I love reading customer service rants! I hope they resolve it.

    Let me just take this time to talk about how much I LOOOVE my hosting company, seriously. They are Total Choice Hosting, and anytime I have ever had a problem or question, it has been resolved in less than 1 hour. They are staffed pretty much around the clock and will talk to you by phone or email, and they also have a really helpful forum site with very active admins.

    The only thing that ever took more than an hour to process was when I bought a second account and transferred eatitandloveit.com from the same on my personal page is on to a new one. And it really wasn’t their fault – I just had to wait a few days for the name to propagate (is that the right “lingo?”) to the new location, and then someone walked me through how to transfer my databases, and voila!

    Note that this company is NOT Freeservers, who I had a serious, annoying problem with, when they sent me a printed out copy of my website in the mail with dates on it circled that I had made posts. That was freaky getting a printout of my own website in the mail! Those dirty jerks are out of my life forever though.

    Total Choice Hosting forever! They are affordable, awesome, and have really nice tools! Haha, I said “tools.”

  2. Jess says:

    GREAT! I’m signing up. Yeah, didn’t freeservers charge your credit card and then send copies of your website to them and you? That is seriously messed up. I read on several other forums that 1and1 makes it impossible to cancel your account. People have said they called several times to cancel but the company kept charging their credit cards. Then someone said that they got a new credit card with a different number because they kept charging them, so they sent their bills to a collection agency! Ughh.

  3. Alex says:

    1&1 are BULLIES!!!

    I signed up to the 1&1 Professional Preview Package in 2004 – which allowed me 3 years free hosting – ‘great’, I thought. However, I guess it’s true what they say – ‘there’s no such thing as a free lunch’.

    I didn’t receive a reminder warning and consequently my website suddenly disappeared and my connected email address ceased working. They locked my account and told me that the only way that my website and email address would work again is if I paid to “upgrade my account”.

    I’ve phone and I’ve emailed my complaints, but all I got was a trite “all we can do is apologize” response.

    They’ve withdrawn the money for my domain name registration from my card. However, I can’t even forward my domain name because they’ve put a lock on that too! So what have I paid for? I might as well have signed up to a protection racket!

  4. Jamie says:

    Just to say I love 1and1, I have a Business package with them and service is fab, the support and billing team are very good, far enough the support is in the Phillipines and USA but they still speak english so thats all good.

    People, I do reccomend 1and1, jsut make sure you read all instructions properly and you cant go wrong