1&1 Ionos
reviews and complaints

1and1.com hosts the website for americandreamhorses.com. The site has a listing for a Stable we used to operate that closed over 3 years ago. Our personal home phone number (a no-call list number) is listed on the site. I have repeatedly, over a long period of time, used the contact form on the site to ask that this listing with our personal information be removed, but have never received a response nor has the listing been removed. I recently contacted 1and1.com to obtain the contact for the site administrator so I could go the next level to try to make this happen. 1and1 refused to provide me with the information, and ultimately replied with this:
Dear Sir,

Please contact [protected]@1and1.com. Thanks.

--
Sincerely,
Security Team
1&1 Internet, Inc.
I used to work for a Technology company that did web hosting. I'm not an expert, but believe that 1and1 must legally remove my personal information from this site or shut it down until it is done by the responsible party.
At any rate, even if they aren't legally obligated, it is clear that they have no concern for the damage being done and aren't going to do the "right" thing. Note - "[protected]@1and1.com" e-mail is returned as non-deliverable.

Bottom Line - I strongly recommend that you steer clear of any relationship with 1and1.com and any sites they host. You may be risking the same situation we are in.

I have been using 1and1 for some time, about 5 years and for a majority of the time with them I have had very little issues. However the last 12 months have become a nightmare.
The last straw was their "new and improved control panel" which was introduced in the last few weeks. I have been unable to transfer any domains on my account as it produces a "500 page error" I have emailed every one I can and I am always replied to 2 or 3 days (And several emails) later. With the "im sorry but it is now fixed" message. Every time I get this email I try and it still does not work.

Their support is laughable, I had a cloud server with them which was working reasonably well for some time, then it started to dissapear from the internet and streaming or large file use was impossible as the ttl was very poor. I upgraded the cloud to more ram and cores, and it never came back up. Not wanting to loose my configuration I called support, it took them 5 days to rectify the issue of which by that time I had to move my clients to another server (Another hosting company) and refund my clients for their outage. I was never given a refund for my problems, it was incurred that the server was "badly programmed" by me which was the reaosn for the problem. !
I have in my latest domain transfer issue emailed 28 times (I refuse to call a 0845 at 1&1 because I would rather speak to a person that is able to log my fault and with email I gwet proff of their incompetance)

For the love of god never use 1and1 or any of their services. You would be better of having a print out of your website and wave it around the streets than to hope their systems could promote your bisuness using their servers !.

Btw, I would have given them a zero in the star rating but would only allow me a 1 as minimum !

Email extracts available on request

Gavin

I tried purchasing a number of domains from 1&1/1and1.com. They took my credit card information and the site said the transaction went through and then nothing— no response from this company. I called them a little later and the stupid, stupid girl on the other end of the line couldn't understand letters or spelling for anything. After about 15 minutes of spelling out one of the domain names, she finally got it right. She said that there's a 12-24 hour delay in getting domains registered. I've registered tons of domains with other companies, and it's always basically instant. I'll be going back to these other companies, but I wanted to try 1&1 after hearing about them and seeing ads all the time in maximum pc magazine. So much for that.

Well, after about 20 hours I called them again and the people must be out of the country since they can't understand the english alphabet. They said my order was on hold by their security team, and i'd have to check with them after the weekend to get more information.

Overall so far, i've talked to 3 different people there and I get the feeling this company is 99% scam. I've talked with hosting and domain companies a lot, and I could tell almost right off that these people were shady and using canned, nonsensical answers that were having us go in circles. I was able to register my domains elsewhere before they got their paws on them thankfully, but people should know that this company is bad, bad news!

They offer low costs hosting options, which is what initially attracted me to their service. If your needs are fairly basic, and you need only the most basic support, this might make 1&1 a good option. However, I quickly encountered a number of issues with their service, not the least of which was simply how they treated me as a customer.

When I first signed up, they took a strong password that I selected and silently truncated it. Rather than informing me that the password was too long (And you really shouldn't restrict password length that much as longer passwords are more secure) , they cut it short. This guaranteed that I could not know what my password was, and would have to get it reset. Their password reset feature was also poorly implemented as it sent me the original password (Truncated in this case) in an email. This should never be done. As they rightly pointed out, email is not really secure and someone could have intercepted that password. Imagine if I had given them the password I use for online banking.In general, it is a good practice not to even store the user's password on your servers, but to use a salted hash. A competent it professional should know how to implement these additional security precautions. Instead of emailing the password, they should have used a temporary reset code, valid for a short time, to limit the risk from having the email intercepted.

When I reported the issues with their handling of passwords and password resets, I received this reply:

"dear customer,

Thank you for contacting us.

If you have any suggestions regarding your system, you are welcome to post it on forum.1and1.com. For complaints, please send an email to [protected]@1and1.com.

If you have any further questions please do not hesitate to contact us. "

I had very clearly explained the issues (And how to fix them) and it should have been forwarded to someone who could fix it, and I should have received a follow up explaining how the issues were being addressed. It should be obvious that a public forum is not the place to discuss security issues. The reply suggests they were too lazy to think about who should fix the problem, and may not have even really read the email, since they aren't sure whether I was "suggesting" or "complaining".

I further encountered issues with their server configuration. Ordinarily, the multiviews feature of apache allows you to use links to / page and if you have implemented it with php, apache will find / page. Php and use it when the link to / page is clicked. The advantage of this is that if, in the future, you decide to use python for this page instead, you replace / page. Php with / page. Py and the links to / page are unaffected (See "cool uris don't change", by tim berners-lee ). However, on 1&1's servers, this didn't work for scripts. So the link to / page would work for / page. Html, but not for / page. Php or / page. Py, etc.

In trying to resolve this issue, I found the first line of support was not competent to handle this sort of thing, in fact, they seemed to have a hard time understanding the issue. After carefully explaining the issue in detail, I was asked for screenshots. After illustrating the issue step by step with screenshots, and carefully explaining what was occurring versus what I wanted and why, I was told that I needed to add the ". Php" extension to my links. Of course, I had already explained that this was what I specifically wanted to avoid, why I wanted to avoid this, and how it ordinarily should work (As it did on my server at home). All together it took five emails before the issue was escalated to a higher level of technical support and eight days to get a reply from them. They were able to propose a work around using mod_rewrite, but this had been a lot of trouble for what should have been a relatively simple problem, and the delay in getting competent support was unacceptable in my opinion. If this had been an active business site (And it was supposed to be a business class hosting package) , this would have certainly been unacceptable.

I eventually decided that I would be better off doing the hosting myself and just keeping the domain names registered with 1&1. I told them when I asked about this option that I believed that there should be no extra cost for the downgrade, based on what I had already paid for the initial package. I was given instructions on how to perform the downgrade via their web interface. The web interface clearly stated the cost of changing the package was "$0.00". However, I soon received an invoice for an additional charge. When I wrote about this, the reply I received bordered on being rude. It gave an explanation of the invoice and concluded with, "thus, the invoice is valid and is non-refundable. " it failed to address the complaint that I had been explicitly told in
Advance there would be no charge, and didn't even have the manners to throw in a "sorry for the misunderstanding. "

The lack of basic customer service and courtesy was a bigger issue for me than any of the technical issues. When I decided to leave their service entirely, I explained all of these issues to them, essentially offering them another chance to make it right and win me back as a customer. They didn't care enough to reply. They simply don't value their customers that much. I could not recommend their service to a friend, or to anyone, really. I might mention them as a low-cost option for someone with relatively basic needs, but with caveats about their poor customer service.

My daughter bought an internet 'package' from 1 and 1 in October 2008 (for an online retail business). This 'package' included a domain name. However, within a matter of days she decided that the 'package' wasn't apropriate and she arranged with 1and1 to switch to a different 'package' with a different domain name. The 1and1 staff member who dealt with this transfer advised her that payments (present and future) for the original domain name would be transferred to the new domain name.

However, the staff member apparently didn't log this transfer onto my daughter's account, so she has been continually billed for the unused/unwanted/defunct domain name. One would imagine that this would be an easy issue to resolve: not so! Unfortunately 1 and 1 are notoriously difficult to communicate with. They employ staff in an Asian call-centre who have a very poor grasp of the English language, and once they become 'confused' by what is being said to them they simply hang up. Writing to 1and1's London-based HQ results in non-replies.

1and1 have now transferred the alleged debt to a company called Arvato Finance Services Ltd (based in Hull, UK) I spoke to a member of their staff yesterday - I explained that the blame for on-going issue with regard to 'unpaid' bills for the original domain name lie squarely with the 1and1 staff member who obviously failed to log details of the transfer of billing from the first name to the second.

The Arvato debt collector refused to accept this fact. He said 1and1 had not provided them with information about the switch from the original domain name to the current one - so as far as they (Arvato) are concerned, my daughter still has two 'live' domain names - and she has failed to keep up the payments for one of them!

So our dispute is on-going. 1and1 have now stated that they are no longer dealing with 'the case' - they have transferred the entire matter over to Arvato - and unfortunately Arvato are unwilling to examine our evidence. (Actually, they like to portray themselves as a bunch of 'heavies' - they've already threatened to send 'agents' around to my house to confront me over the £25.56p debt!)

My advice to anyone considering doing business with 1and1 Internet Ltd is to keep a record of all dealings with them - phone calls, emails, letters - because at some point in the future you will need to refer to them as 'evidence'!

I had website that was transferred from another hosting service to 1 and 1. Upon the year it was time for the company to renew the web domnain name, which they refused. I contacted the old company, they refused becaused they were not hosting it, and I contacted tucows, who owned it and they refused to register the domain naem to me. I went through a circus between the 3 for several months and I finally requested in writing to cancel the account and services.

I didn't hear anything until I started receiving collection action from nco financial who started harrassing me even when I faxed them a copy of an emails where I cancelled the services.

I then called supervisor "damien" at 1 and 1, who then found my record and claimed that I had altered my request to cancel the services and so forth. Let's just say that I wasn't the happiest person.

I then sent emails to everyone I could think of at 1 and 1, some got bounced back, some did not. Some valid email address includes [protected]@1and1.com, [protected]@1and1.com, [protected]@1and1.com. And I sent one overseases wher they were based out of.

I also filed compalints with the attorney generals office in pa and the better business bureau against not only the practices of 1 and 1, but also their collections and such.

I finally received an email from 1 and 1 indicating the following:
We understand that your your customer id #xxxxxxxxxaccount was passed to nco financial, the collection agency that we use.

We had transferred your domain (Xxxxxxxxx.Org) to another registrar. This domain was transferred from our system and is now currently registered and hosted with the service of your choosing.

However, the hosting service (Business linux hosting) and the second domain in your account (Xxxxxxxxxxx) have remained unchanged in your customer id #xxxxxxxx account. Neither of these services were altered or cancelled through our online cancellation service. If you had gone to http://cancel.1and1.com with your customer id and password, you can cancel any individual services on your account or cancel your service entirely.

Both the business linux hosting and the xxxxxxxxx.Net domain name remain active and billing under your customer id.

Although, we have since read through your complaint and understand that you wish to cancel these services immediately. As such, I have set this customer id #xxxxxxxxx account to cancel with immediate effect.In this, you will not be any further billed or invoiced for either of these services.

As well, we are removing your outstanding balance with nco financial. We are removing your account from collections.In addition. Nco financial will remove you from any list that they have. There will be no more money owed to either 1&1 or nco financial regarding this customer id #xxxxxxxxxaccount.

We apologize for any confusion caused throughout this process.

Thank you.

Joseph quinn
Complaints department
1&1 internet inc.
Http://www.1and1.com

When you have the complaint don't give up and don't give in until you get what you need done. The corporate office is in pa for the us and they are based outside of the us...In the end it was the better business bureau who ended up communciating with the company an who alerted me of the action that 1and 1 took to resolve the complaint by cancling the account and removing any "outstanding balance" that they were attempting to collect after.

Lesson learned, contact the better business bureau regarding any on line business to see if they are credible and if they have any complaints filed with them. You will save yourself alot of harrassments and disruption for doing this.

I have used 4 other domain registration providers with no complaints before came across 1&1 recently. I looked up their price and thought they should be ok just for domain registrations. On their ads they say they give a free e-mail account when you order a domain name. I ordered 2 names but was only able to set up the first one for the first domain name. When I called their tech support I was told that the free e-mail allowance was "contract based". That is, you will get only one e-mail account regardless of how many domain names you order, if they are all ordered at the same time. I asked the tech support if I had ordered the second one seperately would I get another free e-mail account and she said yes.

I went back to their web site and checked the terms and conditions, there is no mention of such "contract based" thing.

I see a law suit coming.

Stay away from these idiots - they won't even get your name right!

An it employee from my company was terminated. He stole and registered our company's website domains under his own name. My company paid for the website with a company credit card. When confronted with returning the website into my company's name - the ex-employee refused.

When 1and1 was requested to turn over the website into our company name - 1and1 refused.

These people are worthless - they would rather side with a two-bit thief rather than investigate and take the appropriate action that was warranted for a medium sized business.

When asked to speak with their owner / ceo - their customer service reps. Refused!

Stay away from these idiots - you have been warned!

This ridiculous company doesn't contact you when there is a problem with billing. Instead, they lock your account and forward it to a disreputable collection agency that fails to identify who they are looking to speak to and frequently makes hang-up calls. When I contacted 1and1 today to try and resolve the billing problem, noting the $18.95 late fee they have added, they told me they cannot process the payment and that I have to call nco financial services. What a bloody joke - nco financial services wants an $8 processing fee for over the phone credit card transactions. I am taking my complaint to the bbb.

I started out with 1&1 around 5 months ago. Recently I found a company offering better rates so I went to cancel my service. I removed my billing information from their site and then called support. They cancelled my service. When the renewal time rolled around (Last week) , lo-and-behold I get charged my normal monthly fee. I thought, "well, maybe it was a mistake. " so I called them and after being told that there would be a refund within 2 business days, they hang up on me. Its now been 6 days and I have yet to receive my apparent refund. This morning I called in and asked to speak to a manager, I was on hold for 10 minutes before someone picked up and asked what my problem was, when I explained the story, the manager said that they do not give refunds and hung up on me.

Stay far far away from 1&1, they steal your money and are horrible with their customer support.

1and1 internet is the worse provider in the u. S. There services is overpriced compared to the other providers listed on google.com, the owner of the company has no control over his employees.

Further more they do not understand the concept of running a business and they are incompetent when it comes to running their billing systems.

There customer service sucks.

1&1 has a terrible negative billing / deceptive practices structure that makes it impossible to transfer out your domain. They obscure information on how to transfer away, they make the cacel.1and1.com site deceptive and confusing to intentionally obscure the process, and then lay out traps to cancel your policy in a way that they can then charge you $40 to reinstate the domain.

In my case, I paid for a domain (with 2 months remaining) and attempted to transfer away, but the domain remained 'locked'. I also requested to cancel the account. The domain transfer failed and they would not undo the cancellation (even though it says you can for up to 3 days). Now, they want to charge $40 to reinstate a domain I already paid for, and then charge me again for the domain registration.

Forget about customer service — they’re useless. Stay away at all costs — once you’re in their grip they’ll never let you go without fees and underhanded techniques to trap you.

I recently used 1and1.com to purchase around 60 domains. After 10 months I realized that 1and1.com is a scam and essentially tries to suck secretly charge customers these renewal fees. I took the appropriate steps to try and cancel. First I tried canceling online but received (and still receive) a server error. Next I called numerous time... no luck. Then I began emailing them so that it would be in writing and they still refused to delete my account from their system. After 2 months of bothering them to delete me, I finally was forced to get a new debit card to ensure they could not charge me.

Fast forward to 10 months later. I just received almost 60 letters in the mail from the collections agency stating that I owe 1and1 all of these renewal fees... a letter for each domain.

I am now disputing this, but this whole ordeal and the hassle involved with keeping track of 60 disputes is sickening, meanwhile I'm deeply worried that my credit score will be destroyed.

1and1.com needs to be investigated and shutdown for their business practices. They take advantage of their customers and bully them around with collections agencies if you don't comply.

I have four domains listed with 1&1. Normally when the term expires your domain reverts back to the hosting company or becomes available. NOT SO with 1&1!
Next thing I know I get a letter from a collections agency for $17, 98 plus $8 "convenience fee"!
I can expect a similar letter for each domain I have with 1&1.
I called them and complained, to no avail. I requested authorization codes to transfer the domains which they sent immediately. However, they also blocked my abillity to unblock my domains. I only found that out when I received a message from GODADDY that they were unable to complete the transfer. According to technical support only "billing" would be able to unblock these domains. This would appear to be an incredibly unethical manner of doing business! I'd be embarrased to be working for such a company.

Needless to say that in my opinion and experience they are a very bad company to deal with.
SHOP SOMEWHERE ELSE!

So I bought two websites, one for me and one for my wife. After a year’s time I found I had no time to even create them let alone maintain them so I wanted to cancel. In good faith I went to the website and searched for the cancellation area, well hidden of course! As a matter of fact they have an entire website dedicated just to cancellations, which tips you off as to how complex this becomes... I submitted the cancellation, saw a cancellation email come into my inbox and moved on. Then I started getting these emails about unable to bill my card, so I think great because I don't want you to I cancelled! Next thing I know I get a letter from a collections agency! Yes, for a measly $29 they submit me to a collections agency for a package I thought I had cancelled! So of course I call them and explain my utter desertification with this and they just tell me "sorry, we sent you an email...". So come to find out there is this elaborate process of cancelling different portions of your package and if you don't get it right... well they will charge you, charge you late fees and submit you to a collections agency until you get it right! So ended up paying even more money now to the collections agency, which I had to do of course, then I have to go back to 1&1 to "properly" cancel my package, then being the generous and gracious company that they are, they will refund the un-used portion of my package. All that to say, SHOP SOMEWHERE ELSE! There are plenty of good companies out there who don't want to screw you over $29! Happy trails!

I received a letter from NCO financial services stating that a debt of $41.94 and $18.95 is due to 1&1 Internet services. First of all I have not used this service in more than 1 year. I was sent a form in the mail for a renewal of the account that said to renew the account all I needed to do was to return the information. I did not return the information so I assumed that the account had expired and was closed. I NEVER received a call from this company about a renewal of my account and that a debt was due and was going to be sent to a collection agency. The amount due is a renewal fee and I did not renew this account and did not use the account so the amount due is a unfair charge owed and I would greatly appreciate it if you drop the charges owed. Any further action taken on my behalf will go to the Better Business bureau. Account# k10122925

There are so many choices for webhosting and web domains. Do NOT make the mistake that I did and utilize 1 and 1.
Run away, and run fast. This company sent my name/account to collections without my knowledge. I did not ask, nor did I want my account to renew. Their service was so poor. I did not update the credit card they had on file for my account because I expected that my domain would expire on the expiration date (through which I was paid in full). No, they charged me anyway, for a service that I did not want. They then assessed late fees. Then, althought they say they 'made a call to the phone number on file' they went ahead and sent my account to collections! I then had to deal with one of the worst collection agencies ever, pay for a service (plus late fees) that I did not authorize, nor want AND I also had to pay the collection agency a 'service fee.' I contacted 1 and 1 to explain that I was unaware that my account was being charged, although I did not renew and they blamed me for not getting their calls.

I encourage you to avoid this company at all costs.

I had a domain with 1&1 which I cancelled with them. They did not cancell it and continued to charge me. Emailing the domain which I assumed had been cancelled and was no longer using, to advise me of the bills. They have now passed it on to a debt collection agency for £11. I have advised them I will not be paying this and expect to have the debt written off, also requesting it to be passed on to their Director of Customer Services / Compalints.
This is the most recent reply from them:
I know the previous response might not have been the response that you
were looking for. However, this is the response we need to give. This
is a situation where the account was left delinquent for some time and
that caused our automated system to pass this account to collections.
Despite these actions not grasping your attention, these were honest
efforts to contact you. As an internet company, email is our preferred
use of contact. Furthermore, when the account is further delinquent, we
suspend the service. We have give ample time and notice for this
account. There is nothing we can do at this point. I am sorry.

If you have any further questions please do not hesitate to contact us.

--
Sincerely,

John Keefer
Customer Service
1&1 Internet Limited

This is the reply Ihave sent:

You still have not even tried to resolve this complaint. this is a
complaint with yourself which you need to deal with and judging by the
following web sites I am not alone with this problem.

http://www.simonjones.info/1and1internet/

http://www.chrisbeach.co.uk/view/tech/avoid_oneandone_internet

http://www.grumbletext.co.uk/vt.php?t=1242

http://www.deanmarshall.co.uk/deans-blog/it-rants/70-1and1-web-hosting-bad-technical-support-and-customer-service.html

http://www.complaintsboard.com/byurl/1and1.com.html

http://elliottback.com/wp/1and1-sucks/

This list goes on and on.

This seems to be a reoccuring issue you have with many which needs to
be resolved. The account was closed with you and not used. You then
continued to charge me, and as I was no longer using it, assuming it
had been closed, was not aware.
This is not acceptable by any means.
I have requested for this to be passed on to the Director of Customer
Services/Complaints (I assume this is the same in your company) and I
expect it to be.
I will start loggin this on the above websites, maybe then you will
take some appropriate action.
James Dennis

those people are big time crooks...
I've chosen for a trial (30 days free of charge) day Website Builder Plus. After 2 weeks I tried cancel it myself, it was impossible to do it on my own... so I contacted them via email. They instructed me to call them (every call is over 10 min with every simple things, call center is in Philipines and their 'English' is almost impossible to understand, and it's over 2 pounds for every single call; not mobile though!)
I called them and gentleman confirmed cancellation, said I won't be charged. I asked for a confirmation email, he promised to do so, and I never got it. Week later those [protected]@@@@@s sent me an invoice for over 17 pounds ! I am in the middle of struggle, but be aware !

1 and 1 is a phony company and their practices are unlawful.
keep away of them