Web design & hosting forum: Avoid 1&1 hosting service

This was by far the worst hosting experience on all levels I have ever had. I wouldn't recommend this service to my worst enemy. They make it nearly impossible to cancel, play games with you and then talk down to you. No empathy what so ever and seem to get pleasure out of billing you for the contract term even if you haven't logged on after the trial period. Worst Hosting service by far! I have a dozen emails showing that one hand doesn't know what the other is doing. They seem to really get a kick out of upsetting you and doing nothing at all to try and correct your bad experiences. Worst Company by far! I even filed a complaint with the FTC concerning their games and threats to hurt my credit. DO NOT EVEN THINK ABOUT SIGNING UP, you will not have an easy time cancelling and even then they try and milk you for every penny they can get without even giving any service. I would give NO stars if it was possible. I found the most disturbing thing about the whole experience is that I signed up on a 30 day trial... accessed the service maybe a total of a couple hours because it never worked like it should have and their Customer Service and Billing "Reps" have no Empathy or even seem to care about trying to understand .almost in a smart cocky way even their "Supervisor" lacked any real customer service skills in calming me down. They even played games and sent me to the UK site to reset my password. The fact that they seem to get so much pleasure from me being upset boggles my mind... who wants their customers to be upset more than they were when they called. I would stay far far away from 1 and 1 at any cost. They can't even bill me the whole contract amount to make it easier for me ...they like to drag things out as much as possible. They also seem to not care what customers think at all .. especially those tricked into thinking they needed to buy it by another company like "myonlinemoneysystem" type scams. They know what they are doing and they don't care... like I said, wouldn't recommend to my worst enemy!

I too don't know why the support is asking our personal password for 1and1 domain control panel. Beware!!! Don't even think to give your password to them. If there is any argument going on, then they can easily use your personal password and delete your entire account and sell your domain to someone else!
Even if you transfer your domain, cancel your entire account/contract from cancel.1and1.com. Otherwise, they will keep on charging for your non-existing domain!!!!
So, be careful with these cheaters....
1and1 is the synonym for 'cheating'....BEWARE!!!

I used a credit card as payment, and because I closed a business, I closed the cc account. 1and1 kept billing the same cc # for months after service was discontinued. Because the cc account was closed, I could not receive service from the credit provider. The paradox is that when you sign up, you pay for 1and1 services not yet received (eg. if you want to receive service for the upcoming year, you pay ahead of time), but when they have your information they bill you for services that are often not wanted, and my case (and many, many others) discontinued services. It is essentially a predatory business practice, and a class action suit should be filed.

First off, I do my own hosting through a Hostgator reseller account and have 161 hosted accounts. I set up a test site on a windows server last January. The programmer I was working with asked me to set it up with 1&1 because he was familiar with there control panel. The project ended up being cancelled so I sent 1&1 an email cancelling it. They say they sent me an email saying I can't cancel by email, but I never received such an email. Now they say they are turning me over to collections for $14.95! I say this is really bad business! I would never treat my own clients this way and it seems 1&1 would rather collect money than be reasonable with their customers. 1&1, you suck, and I'm still not paying you, so go ahead and pay your collections people! Also, their form won't even allow me to copy this comment.

Same thing as many others....you try to cancel your account only to find out it's still active and you're still being billed. I cancelled my account on 10/30/2008 only to receive an email just now indicating my account will auto renew 2013???? AFter 30 minutes on the phone with tech support, I hear the tech support person say "are you not hearing what i'm saying? you're account is still open, what do you want to do??" Really? I just want to cancel my account and keep it that way. Their product is outdated and difficult to use compared to others. DO NOT waste your time - there are much better deals out there with much better companies

It took two months to have them shut down a web site. Then one day out of the blue I couldn't access my account nor my email, probably because I had cancelled the credit card. Three months later I received a number of calls from a credit agency at home and work saying i was behind on my payment. After navigating through the credit agency i was sent to 1and1 "customer service". They sent me to complaints@1and1.com- an email address.

Apparently when I shut down the web site account, I didn't shut down my email server account first. The paradox is, I didn't realize I had to do this in a certain order, and as a result I couldn't shut down my email server because I couldn't access my main account. This is a never-ending, no-win situation.

DO NOT GIVE THEM ANY CREDIT CARD INFORMATION. (Which essentially means don't give them your business). Apparently they bill directly through a credit agency. This means zero customer service when it comes to billing. I am still waiting to hear what "complaints" has to say. I am only hoping they stop the billing, because I am afraid it will go on long after I am dead.

Avoid this company like the flu. They suck you in and bleed you dry. And if you cancel they continue to charge you. Then they send you to collections and you are stuck paying them even more money. If you have a complaint they make you contact them through email. They will not talk to you on the phone in that department. I called to speak to customer service and they said they could not help me. They did verify that i did cancel in the appropriate time. Then when i tried to talk to them they hung up on me. This is the worst company out there with the worst customer service. They never did help me get my website up and running. They are terrible at support. Never returned calls. All I can say is avoid them you will be sorry!!!

Most of the posts are a few years old so I wanted to add a post from 2013. I agree with these posts. Nothing has changed at 1and1.com since 2005 - when the existing comments were posted. 1and1's business practices lack integrity and are unethical. They make it very difficult for a person to cancel their account, even after the person has canceled. They say they record all phone conversations for 'quality assurance', which is a bunch of bull kaka. Whose benefit do those recorded calls serve if a customer calls and cancels their account a dozen times? Unless the customer recorded their own call, 1and1 isn't about to cough up the evidence (from these recorded calls) that the client tried repeatedly to cancel their account. When you try to do it online, their web ap displays an Error404 on submit. SO bad. These guys are schisters - you would think there's a law against their business practices? I hope people who lost money on their CC, complain to the CC company to recoup those funds. This company doesn't deserve the right to process credit card payments.