oneandonesucks

oneandone proves they are as deaf as a post

2008-11-13T08:01:00.001-08:00

You know, as a customer, you take time, you send a carefully thought out (even if it is abusive) email and you expect a reply right? Remember that you have specifically identified, as a customer, that you do not want to receive canned messages. So what happens next? One and One send a canned message showing that in the Jurassic era not all corporations evolved into higher organisms with complex functions. Some simply by-passed that stage and became worms.

I am just so angry! I specifically in my email to them said:

1. I have canceled my contracts and just so I do not tax the three brain cells they collectively have I went into the trouble of giving them ALL the numbers of each.

2. You've charged me.

3. Refund the money

This is what came back:

Thank you for your email.

First of all please accept our apology for any inconvenience caused.

Please follow the instructions given below to cancel the contracts you

don't require.

PAYMENT FOR INVOICES -----------------------------------------------

If an invoice has been raised for domain names before you terminate it

will need to be settled even if you no longer require the domains. No

refund will be raised for domain names as they have automatically been

renewed under your name as they were still active at the time the

invoice is raised. Any unused hosting charges will be refunded but a

charge will stand from the date the invoice is raised until the date of

termination.

HOW TO CANCEL YOUR ENTIRE CONTRACT (including all domains and additional

features)

In order to process a cancellation we require you to follow our online

procedure.

Please go to http://contract.oneandone.co.uk and log in with your

customer id and password, when you are within here select the package

that you would like to close

1) Select the option CANCEL ENTIRE CONTRACT > Then select the OK button

2) Under the heading DETAILS OF THE SELECTED CONTRACT select the date

the contract will be terminated.

3) Under the heading DOMAIN NAME select the date the additional features

and domains will be removed.

4) Click OK to proceed with the cancellation request.

5) You will be given a summary of the your request on the PENULTIMATE

STEP page.

6) Click ok to continue.

PLEASE NOTE THAT THE CANCELLATION HAS NOT BEEN COMPLETED AT THIS POINT.

ACTIVATING YOUR CANCELLATION REQUEST - (link sent to the email address

in your control panel so please make sure the email address is valid).

At the end of the process you will receive an e-mail to the address

supplied on your control panel containing a specific website link. If

you do not receive an e-mail with this special cancellation confirmation

link, please contact our expert Support Team at support@1and1.co.uk.

To activate your cancellation request and complete the process you must

follow the link e-mailed to you.

PLEASE NOTE - The link can also be activated through your MESSAGE BOARD

in your control panel. You need to log into the specific contract to see

the message.

IMPORTANT INFORMATION

-------------------------------------------------------

Your cancellation will not be completed until you have activated your

request by accessing the website link and confirming the cancellation

request.

If you do not activate your cancellation request link WITHIN 7 days of

the link being sent, your request to cancel your package will be

discarded and your contract WILL REMAIN ACTIVE.!

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

Kind regards

Nushrath Mansoor

Billing Department

1&1 Internet Ltd.

Handy Billing tips - Here are a few additional tips that may help you

with your 1and1 experience.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS - Always check our F.A.Q ( faq.1and1.co.uk)

section of our website before contacting us. This could save you time.

CONFIRMATION OF TERMINATION - If canceling an item or contract please

ensure you receive confirmation your feature was cancelled, the

confirmation will be sent within 10 days of your request. If you do not

receive any form of confirmation please contact our support team. Your

feature may still be live and being charged.

CANCELLING DOMAINS- If you cancel/transfer all domains out of your

contract always ensure you cancel the contract also. The contract can

still be used even without a domain and so charges will still be

applied.

AUTO RENEW - Remember, to take the hassle out of running your account

1and1 automatically renew the domains/features unless you have informed

us in advance via the online tool.

We hope these additional tips have helped.

Obviously Nushrath Mansoor is doing his job. He pulled a canned message and sent it to me. The fault is not really his. It lies with the corporation that hired him and failed to train him.

Well I have an additional tip of my own: If I can help it you will never get another customer again!!!

One and one continues to prove it's a crap hosting provider who steals your money

2008-11-13T03:38:00.000-08:00

For those who need a recap on 1&1 practices which directly contravene ICANN regulations it goes something like this:

1. The insist they have your valid account details on record
2. They charge you automatically in advance for packages, domain name renewal etc
3. The moment you do not want a particular domain renewed it's not sufficient to let payment lapse with them because they will take down domains you have already paid for in advance and are using
4. They will send threatening collection letters and threaten litigation

Now I know all this so I cancelled a contract I had with them, moved everything to another contract still with them (but NOT FOR LONG!) and asked them to not take payment (they did) so I asked them for a refund. Bearing in mind they take your site down within ten days of non-payment, they appear to either not understand, not acknowledge or refuse to refund (or maybe all three).

My latest message sent today was:

"Hi. I really do not understand why I need to resort to abusive, threatening language in order to get a response that resembles rudimentary customer service.

On the 20.09.08 you sent me invoice No 751XXXXXX for Contract No 15XXXXX. I emailed you through the secure form you provide online on the 13.10.08 with the following message:

“Hi. I have three packages with you. Their contract numbers are: 15XXXXX, 87XXXXX, 27XXXXX..

Contract number 15XXXXX currently contains the domain xxxxxxxxxx.com. It shouldn't as this domain was transferred out of 1&1 registry almost a year ago. Please cancel this contract and issue a refund.

Contract number 8776445 contains a subdomain that's never been used. Please cancel this contract also and issue a refund.

The only contract that should remain is: Contract number: 27XXXXX.

Please confirm that Contracts No: 15XXXXX, 87XXXXX have been canceled as requested and a refund has been issued.

I look forward to hearing from you.

With thanks,

David”

I heard from you about as much as I’d have heard if I had spoken to a brick which exemplifies the level of customer service you currently provide.

You disregarded my request went ahead and took payment for packages I no longer needed and was not using. On the 27.10.08 I cancelled them myself. I then emailed you using your online form asking you to action a refund.

To date I have not seen a refund. So this will also go to the file that has already been sent to the Office of Fair Trading. I do wonder what exactly it’s going to take to get a response. Do I need to get my solicitor involved? Do I have to sue you for damages, loss of time, personal stress?

There comes a time when the time/cost differential no longer matters.

So let’s hope this gets a response sans the usual canned garbage you habitually attach in the mistaken assumption that it shows professionalism.

David"

Going on their past performance I am not really holding my breath and the attention this Blog is getting is probably saving many others from suffering the same way with these guys. Running a website and working online is stressful enough without needing to get into a tangle with your hosting providers every time something like this happens.

If you come across this please do two things: first never go anywhere near them. Second forward this to all your friends and relatives. 1&1 does not deserve to be in business.

1&1 service sucks and they steal money

2008-10-30T06:05:00.000-07:00

It is never a light matter to accuse a company of stealing money. But by definition taking money which does not belong to them for a service which they do not have to deliver, amounts to stealing.

Let's take things from the beginning a little. On the 13th of October, being in the process of finally closing down and transferring websites off 1&1 (or oneandone) I asked them to amalgamate three packages into one and close the accounts down.

1&1, in the interests of exemplary customer service have a new procedure in place. All communication takes place through an email form on their website which gives you the option to contact 'Billing', 'Accounts', 'Invoicing' or 'Technical Support' - my guess is that this arrangement gives them the opportunity to divert all emails they receive to Dorothy in Cansas who will deal with each one when she gets back from her trip down the yellow-brick road.

As you guess once you click the form and send off your message there is no acknowledgment, no reply and no record of you having contacted them. I kinda got wise to that over a year ago when I finally decided I had had my fill of them and started (and admittedly slow and tedious process) to reduce the sites I have with them and take them elsewhere. So I now keep a dated text file copy of every communication I have with them.

This is the latest message I sent them:

"Hi. On the 27th I sent you a detailed message regarding invoicing and payment. I had also contacted you on the 13th. I am not inclined to repeat either because my time is precious and you just simply waste it. I assume you have some way of tracking all this, though it would not surprise me to find out you haven't.

The gist of it is your 48 hours are up. You have failed to contact me, acknowledge the email or take any form of corrective action.

So now we go public, get the Office of Fair Trading involved plus a few computer publications.

David"

What they have done is:

Ignored the original message, done nothing about the packages which I needed to close and have taken money for their renewal.
Ignored the second message, not issued a refund and ignored my request for a response
Seriously annoyed me

While of the three cardinal sins committed the third, is probably the least, for 1&1 it has become a major problem because an annoyed customer suddenly stops worrying about cost and time and really wants to be vindicated.

This brings us nicely to the end of this post. 1&1 are dishonest, unscrupulous and do not deserve to be in business. Unlike most vitriolic posts on them (and yes there are thousands on the web) I have kept meticulous records of conduct which redefines the words 'customer' and 'service' to bring new lows.

So this is so not over yet.

One and one (1&1) continues to offer poor service and grab your money

2008-10-27T02:56:00.000-07:00

It's been some time since I started all this out of sheer desperation over poor service and so far apart from some pathetic attempts to respond to all this bad publicity they are getting by obviously paid-up (and I suspect Indian-based) posts which attempt to portray them in a better light they have got no better.

I used to have over 100 sites with them and I am now down to just a six and will soon transfer these as well. I am also in the process of consolidating the packages I had with them down to just one (from over five) and in the process of doing this I have had the misfortune (because that's the only way to describe it) to have to contact their billing department.

My first contact over two weeks ago explained that I had consolidated three packages into one and they can now be canceled and a refund issued and that there was now just one package with them.

Today, 27th October, I woke up to find that they had totally disregarded this message and had taken payment for the two packages effectively renewing them for another six months against my express instructions.

This is my latest message to them:

Hi, On the 13th October 2008 (exactly two weeks ago) I sent the following message:

"Hi. I have three packages with you. Their contract numbers are: XXXXX69, XXXXX45, XXXXX78.

Contract number XXXXX69 currently contains the domain XXXXXXX.com. It shouldn't as this domain was transferred out of 1&1 registry almost a year ago. Please cancel this contract and issue a refund.

Contract number XXXXX45 contains a subdomain that's never been used. Please cancel this contract also and issue a refund.

The only contract that should remain is: Contract number: XXXXX78.

Please confirm that Contracts No: XXXXX69, XXXXX45 have been canceled as requested and a refund has been issued.

I look forward to hearing from you.

With thanks,

David"

These changes have been effected yet you have just gone ahead and taken payment today for packages which are no longer in effect and have issued no refund.

Corporate inertia can only go so far towards what amounts to misuse of access to a client's account. In addition in the package No: XXXXX69 there still appears the domain amerlandent.com which was transferred out of 1 & 1 registry over a year ago and over which we already have had some correspondence.

I think it is deplorable that I need to spend time and effort contacting you over what should be a straightforward matter and I am so incensed over this that unless you respond intelligibly within the next 48 hours I will simply make the facts public.

I look forward to your reply.

David

I understand that they handle hundreds of thousands of sites and thousands of customers (and they do not deserve to) and there can sometimes be some Corporate inertia so let's look at exactly what's happened here:

1. They ignored or at least never acknowledged, specific instructions to issue a refund for two packages which were now being closed (and I gave them the exact reference numbers).

2. They went ahead and took payment for those packages in question despite my express instruction.

3. They have not issued a refund yet.

4. One of the packages still contains and shows as active a domain name that was transferred out of their registry over a year ago and for which they attempted to take payment (!!!!!) earlier this year.

Balance this against the fact that if you do not pay on time (because your credit card details have expired or you simply do not want a domain) they take offline all the sites you have with them (not just the one you are not renewing). Consider that when this happens they are unable to take payment against future use as they always charge in advance and you begin to see that my tone here is incredibly restrained.

If you come across this post help spread the word. Working online is tough enough without having to battle against your hosting provider. What makes all this incredibly sad is that 1&1 when they started out where a breath of fresh air. Incredibly responsive, cost-effective with excellent customer service.

Now they are just cost-effective but because they have the money to advertise heavily they still dupe people in signing up with them.

Well, they do not deserve to and the web is powerful precisely because it allows us, the individual users, to voice our opinion and have some weight beyond a bad company's advertising budget.

So spread the word amongst your networks and whatever you do, never use 1&1 on either side of the Atlantic as a hosting provider!

1&1 - Customer service and customer responsibility that lowers the bar to new depths

2007-08-29T14:38:00.001-07:00

Sites get hacked all the time. When it happens it's a disaster. You need to do two things quickly: 1. Get the site back up and running. 2. Determine how the hacker got in and block the entry point.

If you need files to be restored you need the assistance of the server admin and fast. If you need to determine access points your need the assistance of the server admin.

Ok, with 1 & 1 you can forget that. The technical support is in India. They work off a screen. You could teach a 6 year old to prattle what they read. The server admin is in Germany. Not quite sure what he is doing.

To cut a long story short in July we had a hack attack. I reviewed the log files and I could see that the FTP ID used came from a former coder based in Eastern Europe. Thing is the moment we cut him loose we changed all passwords, deleted his FTP ID and made sure there were no loose ends.

Ok, according to the log files (and they are plain enough to see) he got in through his old and deleted FTP ID on the 1&1 servers.

The fact that it took more than a week to restore the deleted files is a subject we shall address later, mainly because the very memory of the tense and extremely angry hours (yep hours!) I spent on the phone listening to the Indian Tech support team read off a screen bring back the kind of ire that starts small wars, so for now I am cooling off.

The more interesting question is how the hack attack happened in the first place. 1&1 like to cover their ass. The first thing they ask you to do is forward the log files which chart who logged on your server and how, to their legal department. They do nothing that you can see to speed anything up.

Then their Tech team waits and waits and eventually you get back a canned reply (yep, they are HUGE on them) about how server security is your responsibility and you have a security breach in your company because someone used the master account to log in.

That in itself would be a serious allegation and one a worried, stressed out customer is not likely to appreciate even if it were true. You notice here I said the coder was based in Eastern Europe (which I let them know about) which means remote access only, therefore no access to any paperwork or physical contact with our PCs, no way to compromise our security and no Trojans either as we scan our PCs daily.

It went back and forth as few times, each time with me detailing what I just said in no uncertain terms (I have stopped trying to be professional with this outfit).

The reply comes back just yesterday (quality work takes time!):

I do not believe that your account was compromised through a security
flaw in our systems. I have already escalated a case to the
administrators in Germany and they replied that this user attempted to
login and failed. Maintaining your security is your responsibility, it
is our company policy that if you get hacked by something you did you
have to deal with it. I monitor the log files of the shared hosting
accounts on occasion, but dealing with this is your responsibility.

--
Sincerely,
Michael Lazin
Customer Compliance Operative
1&1 Internet Inc.

Yep! Exactly. Obviously Michael also decided to not bother being professional with me - no 'Dear Customer,' No niceties and no canned reply, which is probably why he could not be professional.

So you see he says that his counterpart in Germany tells him the FTP ID in question attempted to login and failed. I have to deal with the hacker. Ok, that's what I am doing but the point is on our end we did everything humanly possible to make sure that nothing like this happened. We changed master account passwords (the coder never had them in the first place), we changed FTP details, we deleted his FTP ID we did, everything in short, except what we should have done and did after we got hacked which was change hosting provider.

If the 'hole' in our defences had been through scripts we were implementing in our dynamic websites those holes would still remain in the new hosting service. We are monitoring it and they are not there.

It was Sherlock Holmes who said that after you discount the impossible whatever remains however improbable must be true. Ok, incredibly enough using this deduction we reach the conclusion that one and one are crap!

No, seriously now, the only thing that was required to guarantee the security of our site was a change in hosting providers. We have been dealing with sites and site security for about seven years so we know a few things so Michael's assurance that he occasionally checks the log files is good enough for us to speed up our efforts in transferring the few remaining sites we have with 1&1 off them!

1&1 - tips to dealing with them

2007-08-17T06:34:00.000-07:00

Ok, I know it's been more than 48 hours and I get a response from the Billing Department and this time there is a name and contact details:

Thank you for your email.

Just to confirm that the invoice for the domain name XXXX.com has
been cancelled.

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

Kind regards
Faraz Zia
Billing Department
1&1 Internet Ltd.

Handy Billing tips - Here are a few additional tips that may help you
with your 1and1 experience.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS - Always check our F.A.Q ( faq.1and1.co.uk)
section of our website before contacting us. This could save you time.

CONFIRMATION OF TERMINATION - If canceling an item or contract please
ensure you receive confirmation your feature was cancelled, the
confirmation will be sent within 10 days of your request. If you do not
receive any form of confirmation please contact our support team. Your
feature may still be live and being charged.

CANCELLING DOMAINS- If you cancel/transfer all domains out of your
contract always ensure you cancel the contract also. The contract can
still be used even without a domain and so charges will still be
applied.

AUTO RENEW - Remember, to take the hassle out of running your account
1and1 automatically renew the domains/features unless you have informed
us in advance via the online tool.

We hope these additional tips have helped.

Registered at Cardiff, Company number 3953678 - VAT No GB 752539027
Aquasulis House, 10-14 Bath Road, Slough, Berkshire, SL1 3SA, United
Kingdom

You can also contact us via phone at 0870 24 11 247
from 9am till 5pm Monday to Friday.

You notice the handy, 'helpful' tips in dealing with 1&1 which help with my "1and1 experience". I think they are brilliant!

Here are mine: FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS - these were put together by imbeciles who knew they would not be expected to do more than impress pre-schoolers in the under 3s age group. They state the obviosu are often out of date and do nothingmore than frustrate the customer.

CONFIRMATION OF TERMINATION - Apply this to the entire company if possible. 1and1 do not deserve to be in business.

CANCELLING DOMAINS - Cancel all domains you have with them and start transferring your wesbites to a hosting company that really knows how to treat its customers.

AUTO RENEW - NEVER EVER Auto renew anything with them!!!!

Better still never even go near them, so if you are reading this and are a client, bad luck, I sympathise and I am weaning my sites off them. If you are thinking of becoming a client of theirs, DON'T!!!!

1&1 gets progressively worse

2007-08-15T08:05:00.000-07:00

When you have a hosting company you expect it to do a few things right even if it cuts back on technical support (by the response time I guess they are high school students or part timers) and outsources its customer handling staff to India (where they work off a screen).

This leaves billing. After all it's your money and they have access to it in terms of charging you and if this goes wrong then what the hell are they doing?

A month ago I moved a domain from 1&1 changing registrar. So imagine my surprise when I get an email almost a month later with an invoice attached with their usual non-sensical parrot-speak (because, let's face it, the only conclusion I can logically draw is that they have all had group lobotomies at a cut-rate place) which passes for customer service at 1&1.

Dear [Customer],

Please find attached your invoice dated 12.08.2007.
The invoice appears as an electronic pdf document:
This pdf invoice can be read with Acrobat Reader. If you don't have this, it can be downloaded, free of charge, from the Adobe web site at:
http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html

Just double-click on the appropriate file to retrieve your invoice and produce a hardcopy.
If you have any billing questions, please contact the 1&1 billing department by following the URL below:
https://admin.1and1.co.uk

Here you will be prompted to enter your domain name and password in order to log on to your protected configuration area. Then simply select your contract and click 'Help & Contact', and the billing team will then deal with your enquiry as quickly as possible. It's that simple!

Please note that 1&1 does not charge for sub-domains.
These are listed only for customer convenience.

Kind regards
1&1 Billing Team
www.1and1.co.uk
P.S.:
If you chose to order 1&1's free software bundle with your 1&1 package, the shipping costs will be debited from your credit card, together with the amount due for your 1&1 package. Both amounts will be shown as a total transaction on your credit card statement. You will receive the invoice for the shipping costs with the software.

Notice the "1&1 Billing Team" moniker they are using a sign of one of two things (or maybe in their case both) that they are trained chimps and unable to use names, or that each email sent out is the laborious, collective work of the entire 1&1 Billing Department which means that they are all held accountable for mistakes or maybe none of them is because no one is sure who pressed the 'send mail' button exactly (the old Firing Squad trick).

I was so incessed by yet another 1&1 cock up to what is fast becoming a catalogue, rather than a list of errors and mishandlings (it does fill this Blog space nicely at least), I spent, yet again, my time firing up an email to them:

Hi. You just sent me invoice 7254XXX5 where you detail proposed charges for the next twelve months in advance for domain name www.XXXXX.XX which has been transferred to another registrar for over a month now and for which (seeing how you get paid in advance) you need to issue a credit note. Why is it that EVERY TIME I deal with you I discover ingrained institutionalised incompetence on an epic scale?

I do not expect to see a charge made for this domain. If a charge is levied I will take this matter up way beyond the next level of response because I am so fed up dealing with your incompetense. What exactly does it take to attain even a rudimentary level of customer service? Your complaints email address is a joke as no emails get acknowledged and NONE get answered and your billing has become ridiculous as it seems to reside in a land divorced from internet activities and any connection with what goes on in your clients' control panels and the company's database.

Acknowledge the amount you have refunded. Plus the fact that no charge will be made for this domain.

David

As you probabluy guess three days later and no reply. No charge either and I keep on checking because if one is made I am going to go to my lawyer as well as the banking ombudsman.

On the 15th I sent them this message:

Hi. On the 12th August 2007 - That's three working days ago, I sent you a very precise message regarding invoice 7254XXX5 which, in true customers-can-go-to-hell 1&1 style, has gone unacknowledged and unanswered.

Is there any point at all to anyone using these contact boxes to contact you? Are you really so overworked that you cannot answer or even acknowledge (beyond the autoresponder with its 24-48 hour message) emails? Or is it simply a case of such gross incompetence that your general behaviour and treatment of your customer base is going to create a new low in services which, in due course, will be one of the attributed causes to the demise of your company?

I would really be interested to know.

David

Ok, now all I need to do is hold my breath and face certain death by asphyxiation while they answer.

There's more with them.

I will keep you posted.

David

Leave your sense at home if you are dealing with one and one

2007-08-09T10:06:00.000-07:00

Ok,

The message just came back (please note the time difference).

Yes, I understand but what I am trying to say the recipient email
address does not exist.
If you are getting a bounce back message please forward it to us for
further investigation.
If you have any further questions please do not hesitate to contact us.
--
Sincerely,
Socrates Rallos
Technical Support
1&1 Internet

Great! I never mentioned a 'bounce back' and the email address and passwords appear active and functioning on the 1&1 control panel (why do they have it if it doesn't work?).

Useless!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

1&1 email service sucks

2007-08-09T09:24:00.000-07:00

Problems with the service never stop. We are in the process of actually transferring 60+ sites from their servers. No easy task, especially with the sites being live,the clients trading from them, relying on the email service etc etc etc.

The easiest solution by far (we rather naively thought) is to repoint the sites to the new hosting, take the content across, reset the email addresses when the DNS updates and then transfer them.

Easy. Right?

Wrong.

After waiting for more than a week for two sites to update we got tired of it, decided to move on to transferring a couple of others and because the clients needed their email we repointed the sites back to 1&1 servers by choosing THE ONLY option on their control panel which says 1 & 1 servers.

You think that's simple. But no. The email addresses prompty failed with a 550 return message which translates to 'user not found'. We checked the email addresses (they exist), we chedked the passwords to access them (they matched).

So an email was fired off to the ridiculous customer service of an internet hosting company that deserves to go out of business:

Hi. On package XXXXX8 I have the domain rXXXXXXXe.com which I
have tried to repoint since Saturday night. Although repointing of DNS
servers takes a few hours at the most with the incredibly efficient
ultra-fast, customer-friendly service of 1 & 1 it takes the better part
of a week if you are lucky. Because the client could no longer wait I
reversed the domain (for now) back to the 1&1 servers. Trying to email
the client we receive a 550 5.1.1. error message (user unknown).
> The email addresses still exist and the passwords match and the
control panel at no time has indicated a DNS or an MX change.
> Can you please check to see WHY we are getting this message and it'd
better not be a canned response. The whole idea of using the 1&1 control
panel is that it is responsive and this IS NOT the case at the moment.
> David

I know the tone is a little frustrated but dealing with them was nightmare. Frustration doe snot even begin to describe how you feel after having had one problem with them, never mind a series of them.

In case you thought I was doing them an injustice in the content of my message here comes the reply like 10 minutes later by some employee who thinks he is being fantastically efficient by sending me this reply:

Thank you for contacting us.
With the error mesage you receive, " 550 5.1.1. error message (user
unknown).", you need to ask the recipient as this message indicates that
the email address is non existent.
If you have any further questions please do not hesitate to contact us.
--
Sincerely,
Socrates Rallos
Technical Support
1&1 Internet

This guy's namesake was a philosopher. It could be true in this case, and Socrates is too busy pondering existential dilemmas to actually spend TWO minutes to read the entire text of my message (then again maybe he did and I am doing him an injustice - the problem might be he just could not understand it).

So I fired back:

Socrates,

Did you ACTUALLY read my question? Did you UNDERSTAND the information I spent MY VALUABLE time typing in there? I have access to the control panel. The email address exists and a password check proves it matches. So how about actually ANSWERING what I asked in a way that makes sense? Or do you just want to prove me right when I say you guys are useless?

David

For the reply you have to wait because this is happening in real time and I am waiting too!

Complaints procedure: one and one has dispensed with that

2007-07-25T12:37:00.001-07:00

Here's a tip for an easy life: If you work online and don't want ever to have to deal with customer complaints just route each one you receive directly into your email bin.

:) Problem solved, see?

Let's look at some specifics. 1&1 have a policy in place (read the fine print) where if you miss a payment (bear in mind they are being taken in advance not in arrears) even on a domain name you decide you no longer need and have therefore decided to let go, they lock all your accounts, even the ones that are paid up and are up to date.

Yep, great system I know. powered by the same kind of logic that gives canned replies to individual customer emails (because we, the customers, are all stupid anyway and just send in the same kind of message, right?).

Ok, in one of the accounts the payment, for whatever reason had not gone through. I did not notice and was locked out of some 50 domains I host with them, all but one in credit.

I queried that in a complaint email which gave me the following response:

Thank you for your email. Just to confirm that we attempted to debit the credit card on the account on 12.03.07. Payment was declined. We are not given a reason for the decline as there are too many possible outcomes, Even if the card is valid it is possible there are other errors with the bank, our system , the connection , the payment, security measures that may lead to the payment not being accepted.

As we are an internet company we do send emails to customers to inform them there has been a problem. As an extra measure of customers service we also send a letter as emails addresses may not be in use or customers may not have their computer working.We sent an email on 12.03.07 to xxx@breathe.co.uk. Can you confirm if this email address is a valid email of yours,

If not please email complaints@1and1.co.uk and we will investigate further. A letter was also sent on 27.03.07 to warn you of the impending lock. The letter was sent out before the lock was in place and so the fact you have not seen the letter until a later date is actually of relevance.

Our system is automated and when a payment is declined the reminders are triggered and the customer notified, if we are not contacted the account is locked to avoid any further debts being incurred. The customer is given around 14 days to resolve the matter before the account is locked. You updated /re entered your card details on 06.04.07 and the account was unlocked 08.04.07. We aim to respond to emails within a 24 hrs time frame, As the billing department do not operate on weekends and bank holidays the reply time for your case was longer. Our average reply time is actually less than 24 hrs for the billing department so far this year.

Although we are closed weekends and bank holidays we always notify customers in advance so they can contact us. If you wish to raise a formal complaint please contact omplaints@1and1.co.uk. The system we have in place is set for all customers whether you are a journalist or not and we apologise if your account was locked and this caused any inconvenience.

In future if there is any problem with the account all contracts will be locked so please bear this in mind. There does not seem to have been an error on the system , as a gesture of goodwill however we have added 2 months freehosting to your Home contract xxxxxxxxx.

PLEASE NOTE. For your convenience we also list the answers to many frequently asked questions on our website. Please check here before emailing us as it may save you time.All billing questions are to be found at www.faq.1and1.co.uk under the contract and billing section.

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

Kind regards

Daniel Bromley

Yep, I know. You read this and it translates: we will take your money and if you do not want to give it to us and have decided you do not want a domain and have forgotten our cancellation procedure or have simply missed a payment through any kind of reason not entirely related to you, we will lock you out of accounts for which you are paying and that's it.

I did send a formal complaint to the complaints email (laugh all you want - either they are cortically challenged or their computer system is out of synch with the rest of the company because the email address they had on record was about 10 years' old!).

My email read:

Daniel

Thank you for your email and the points you raise and for your gesture of goodwill. The XXXXXX@breathe.co.uk email address has not been active for at least four years. My details are kept up to date on the system and this raises two questions: 1. Why are your records not up to date? 2. Given the fact that so many reasons could lead to a decline of payment why did no one check to see if other payments were being taken out (which they were - like specifically on the 24th and 26th March 2007) and re-attempt it? Even had I seen your letter I would have just checked my account and seeing how payments were coming out in favour of 1&1 I would have naturally assumed that all was ok. I appreciate you are now dealing with this as best as you can.

I will not try and make your job any harder than it is by being unreasonable provided you can, in turn, explain these points logically to me and reassure me that at least something positive may come from this through a review perhaps of current procedures (or even flagging it up as a point which needs to be improved in your system).

I look forward to your reply.

With thanks

David

Ok, I was nice and polite and at that stage actually thought I would get a reply which makes me a total fool.

Nine days later not even so much as an acknowledgement. Either the complaints' department was labouring under one mighty backlog or they thought that silence wa answer enough.

At that point I fired off this email to them:

Obviously customer service, logic and common sense are such valuable commodities with 1&1 that you have decide they no longer apply. I attach the dialogue I have had with Daniel on the 11th of April. I guess nine days is sufficient time to wait for a reply.

I assume none is forthcoming so this is escalating to a formal complaint and if you think I was angry with you before I am now infuriated by the "sweep it under the carpet and it'll go away approach" .Emails are part of the public domain so this is excellent copy on the bureaucratic brainlessness of a company which used to be excellent.

Fail to respond adequately and you can explain to your boss why 1&1 are getting bad publicity in all the computer magazines you advertise so heavily in.

David

My customary politeness had deserted me by then and I was fuming. Like most I was labouring under the usual pressure of work, life and now I had to deal with this!!!

Now, you would think that some bright spark at 1&1 would have had the sense to reply even if to say 'sorry, we'll get to you. we are busy'.

Sense and logic are not things 1&1 are famous for and neither is customer service, so no one replied.

On the 3rd of May I actually rang billing enquiries and got an individual who sounding like he knew exactly what I was talking about said: "Oh, yeah, you'll get a response today or tomorrow."

When by the promised tomorrow no response had arrived from 1&1 I sent them this email:

To whoever gets this email,

I am not usually in the habit of being offhanded or abrupt but then again, in business, I am used to dealing with people and companies who at least acknowledge complaint letters, even if they do not respond to them. Having forced me to call you on Thursday 3rd May (I spoke to James but it may as well have been a wall) I was promised a response the same day (3rd May) or the next day (4th May).

I know now we're getting into the weekend and in your august world you do not work weekends so I am not holding my breath that I will get a response from you any time soon or, judging by the many, many, many postings in the online forums regarding your responses, it will actually cover the points I raised in my complaint letter to you.

So I will make good on my promise (because I am not in the habit of breaking them) and take this up a couple of levels.

Eventually you will start to lose enough customers to put your jobs in jeopardy.

Kind regards

David

Ok, by now you know the nature of their response: yep, exactly!!! My pet goldfish is more garrulous.

That salvo, with 1&1 was only the beginning. I did not know it at the time but things were about to get much worse.

One and one: the company that was good

2007-07-24T17:32:00.000-07:00

One and one started out early at the turn of the millenium offering for Europeans what big American hosting and registrar companies were already doing: allowing cost-effective registration and hosting and a lot of user control.

They were robust, customer friendly and always only a telephone call away and it actually cost local rate charges.

Fast forward just seven years. A call to them using Skype costs 10p a minute and you end up talking to an India-based call centre where the operators have to take you through a routine which eats up your telephone money like you would not believe.

But let's get a little specific.

Their control panel allows you to host a domain that is not registered with them simply by changing the settings of the name servers (DNS) and you also have the option to change the MX servers or keep them the same.

Except that when you try to have the DNS servers pointed to them with different MX settings, though in theory you could do it, in practice the control panel does not let you do it, reporting a problem.

I have taken this up with their Support staff (ok, laugh) who usually will send back a canned reply.

Not sure yet what they will send in this case but I am waiting to see.

1 and 1 - avoid at all costs!

2007-07-23T14:04:00.000-07:00

Ok, first the reason behind all this is because I finally have had enough. This is not the 'enough' of a customer who is simply disgruntled but the 'enough' of a customer who after trying, reason, threats and logic though not necessarily in that order, has come to realise that there is simply no way that 1&1 are going to take him seriously or even do anything to address the many issues which make their customer service crap and the product they offer not worth having.

So, over these posts I am now going to take things from the beginning. Bear with me.

1&1 sucks!!!!!

2007-05-23T04:53:00.001-07:00

Believe me, in the modern, time-pressed world it takes a lot to motivate someone whose business is writing to get involved in the writing well-documented, logical, diatribes against a hosting provider. Usually it is enough to get to a forum and input 1 & 1 sucks!! And vent off steam that way.

But I have really had it with a company that has become so disorganised, intransigent and "our way or the highway" minded. This is the 21st century. Management-centric companies which fail to listen to their customers should not be in business and 1 & 1 most definitely shouldn't.

This is going to be a long blog. As a longtime customer I used to be really pleased with their service, the robustness of their servers and the response of telephone queries. That was back in the late 20th.

Obviously a brand new century is offering them with the opportunity to revert to the robber-baron mentality. The view that just because they are big and they have some very fine print they have a right to dictate terms willy-nilly is about as outmoded as the bow and arrow as a means of warfare.

If you are reading this, leave your comments. 1&1 - begin to take notice. Customers will NOT accept bad service and dictated terms simply because you think that in an unregulated industry you can really get away with it. If we all vote with our feet you will have nothing left. And deservedly so.