1&1 Internet

have been using 1&
for years. but as soon as one small problem happened, it snowballed into a nightmare. 1&1 has ZERO tech support. ZERO customer service. the staff is inept and powerless. there are no supervisors to help resolve an issue. no oversight of the customer service dept. the only thing they know how to do well is connect you to some other dept. have spent 2 months on the phone with customer service, and still they cant solve a simple issue. a new excuse/​response every time i call. i have never come across a major service provider with such a horrible internal structure/​business plan. WOW!

The most unprofessional company I have come across in some time. They leave you on hold forever and then we they pick up they say they cant help me. Stay clear of this Hack company and go with another. Even the big guys have good customer service. Save yourself a lot of headache and go with another company. Very Disappointed with my experience. I wish I could have all the time i wasted back.

Worst company. Never will buy a domain name again. Spent 1 hour trying to find my account with them. Transferred from person to person… they are not functional for me… Beware.
Stick with go-​daddy or
. Worth the extra money.

Top-​Down incompetence. I’ve spoken to 5 people about a simple issue and it is still not resolved. I will never do business with them again and neither should you.

I am in technology and deal with domain registrars and cloud service providers all the time. As a business owner myself, the customer IS always right, even when they are not.
Let’s begin with customer service. They are the most obnoxious group I have known in some time, and it is from top down. A culture is handed down from the highest level and there is no height I have gone to in the chain of command that was not obnoxious. I have to believe this attitude that «we are being done a favor» comes from the very top.
Next. Unlike their competition, this group insists on having possession of your domain. Try to then wrestle it back. It is reminiscent of the days of AOL dial-​up where they bounced you around for hours when you tried to cancel. The hurdles you must go through are significant.
The trifecta comes after you have moved elsewhere and you continue to get billed by them. Calls go unanswered. The card keeps getting charged. Frustration mounts.
The cleanup. I read a while back that there is some sort of loophole (probably deliberate) where when you join the BBB there is a method to cleanse or purge the claims against you. 1&1’s rating was horrible a while back and then overnight they jumped to an A– or something. Today they are a farcical B+. Suspect? Search Google for «1&1 internet bbb». Let’s hope Unilocal stays less prone to manipulation.
I really don’t know how they remain in business.

I signed up for the product to see if it would work for my needs. It didn’t and went I went to cancel it, I realized it is not possible to cancel the account via their website. I called the number listed and was told that they could not cancel it either.

If I could give negative stars I would
This is the absolute WORST company I have ever dealt with, Technical support is useless, and when a screw up that THEY caused results in complete domain outage their response is «Sorry it will take 72 hours to retrieve the data» Repeated calls and all they know how to do is make it worse…
At this point I can honestly say, CABLEVISION has better support and customer service then these guys do.
My recommendation is avoid these guys at all costs!

This review is based on my personal and very unfortunate experience of having been a customer of 1&1 Internet, Inc. for several years:
This is one of the worst businesses I have ever dealt with, and I would not recommend it to my worst enemy.
(It is, of course, my fault for using them — the web is full of negative reviews about them, which can be found with a very quick Google search, and I should have seen these reviews and paid attention to them before signing up for services with this company.)

One Star!!! I wish saw this before I signed up with these people.
I am a client of 1&1 who is beyond disappointed with their tactics. Their entire tech support team is outsourced to bunch of completely incompetent people. Nothing against any race or color but why do you have your sales teams in North America and your tech in Asia. The answer is clear, you priority clearly is get the client on the hook and then good luck to the client getting the proper support. Basically investing more in sales force and less in support. As a result of your cheap tactics my ecommerce website went down (average daily sales about a $ 1000) and the worst part no one on the tech support team seems to understand the emergency of the issue. i spent my entire day on the phone with no results so it a double loss of time and money.
The issue started as a result of lack of clear instructions from the tech support team on domain name transfer. I am totally aware of the risk of transferring domain and honestly it was not a priority. Thats why I DID call 1&1 before any action was taken. I was told as long as the hosting server info remain unchanged, everything should be fine. The transfer happens and the site went down. I called 1&1 again and then they realised I was not given the right instructions and acknowledge the mistake. Despite that my website if still down till this moment.
1&1 you just lost my business and expect legal actions if this issue does not get resolved by end of the day. The only thing you are getting back from me as a client going forward is simply bad mouthing based on this experience.

This company has been in business since 1995 and I have had an account with them since about 1999. Overall for the price they are to be commended for being able to stay in business that long (albeit under a long string of different owners), even during the dot com crash and providing a reasonably useful, although very limited service. With mail (dot) com you get what you pay for including a wide range of interesting vanity domains.
Sadly, in almost 20 years they have hardly invested a penny into their infrastructure and I swear no one at mail (dot) com actually uses their own service because if they did they would see that some of what they do is downright silly. Yes, they have made a few minor cosmetic changes but the look and feel of their app is virtually unchanged.
They are masters at pop-​up ads no matter how you adjust your browser settings. I’m sure they don’t really care if anyone reads them (I honestly have never read one in almost 15 years) because that’s not where they make their money. It’s all in click-​throughs … if they show their advertisers that «x» number of people have been exposed to an ad they get paid, no matter how many of those people have actually read the ad or acted proactively on it.
Mail (dot) com uses this to sometimes hilarious effect, as in putting certain active clicking zones adjacent to another zone that will benefit them if someone accidentally clicks on it. The best example is the «Can’t access your account?» which they seem to have programmed to «slide» under your mouse when you try to accomplish a normal login and then clicks through to the IT people, the same people who write the app’s software — I can visualize at the end of every month that department’s supervisor showing a hugely inflated number of «requests for IT assistance» that were simply purposely misplaced click-​throughs.
Another thing that is just plain laughable is that before you can log in to an account that you have had since dinosaurs roamed the Earth mail (dot) com forces you to close a screen that tries to do a hard sell on having you open an account with them. Is it not clear to them that you are there because you already have an account with them? Is a blatant ad to open an account really necessary? As if that is not enough there is a banner ad just above when you enter your user name to use the account you already have coaxing you to open an account with them. Hilarious.
Their newsfeed may have been a novelty in 1995 but in today’s world of internet news it pales in comparison. I know it’s there but I have never read it. Well except for seeing something a few days ago about who won an event that every other media source had the sense to treat as a spoiler alert. Not mail (dot) com … they took care of spoiling the surprise by revealing the winner right in the headline.
By the way, mail (dot) com, your new freshened look is nice but now you’ve added another scam. Now you keep slapping my hand telling me I «forgot» to sign out from my previous session. Um, no, I sign out the same as always but I get the message anyway. Hmmm, by clicking on that message is that yet another click-​through that they bill to someone to puff up their P&L sheet? How low can you go?
Bottom line, I don’t have any major issues with mail (dot) com and give them an average 2.5 rating. Unlike the BBB who gives them an «F» and apparently most other reviewers here. I have a morbid curiosity why they as a German-​owned company are forbidden to do business with German-​speaking people but, hey, whatever.

THIS COMPANY IS RUN BY THIEVES AND LIARS AND THEY SCREWED OVER A DEPLOYED AMERICAN SOLDIER.
The guy running this company stole my money AND my domain. I was an American soldier deployed to Iraq and used my card to register a domain. Then a few hours later I get an email saying that they can’t sell domains to people in Iraq. Remember, I was an American infantry soldier in a warzone trying to get a domain registered. I tried to explain this to the owner of the company (the support staff had escalated the issue to the owner of the whole company).
The owner of the company said «Too bad! You are in Iraq and that’s not allowed,» and KEPT my money and KEPT the domain I wanted to register, so that I couldn’t register it elsewhere.

I wish it was possible for me to give ZERO stars to this company, but it’s not.
I have been buying, using and hosting domains for over 10 years. I have been a client of 1&1 for over 5 (maintained about 4 domains with them), but will never do business with them again. Worst company ever on many levels. After 5 years as a customer without incident they sent me to collections for an expired credit card (2 weeks expired) without sending me any warning or letter. Customer Service has always been bad, but this move was downright Dirty on their part. Disgusted with this company.

Shame on me for not doing my homework first. I suggested a client use this service to save a few bucks with their $ 0.99 new domain/​new customer deal. Completely not worth the headache of waiting for the name servers to update. Even once they did and I began working on my clients website they reverted or hadn’t propagated fully… which means I went dead in the water again.
Save yourself the trouble… use a different registrar.

These guys, in all honesty, are by far one of the worst, if not the worst hosting companies I have dealt with. I have been designing and developing websites for years and am bothered by many things they do. One: They lock your account up for forgetting to update expired credit card information, SEVEN months prior to my domain being expired. Need to change your nameservers? Hopefully you don’t want it the changes to take place within a 24-​hour period, because it will not happen. Most places it takes 15 minutes tops.
A complete joke. Don’t fall for their 99-​cent one year gimmick. Just pay the extra 7 – 10 bucks and go elsewhere. It will be well worth it. I promise.

I kid you not — this is THE WORST company I have ever dealt with, and I am including every imaginable company I have EVER dealt with.
Since acquiring a few domain names here, I had changed checking accounts and hence, the debit card they had was no longer valid. Yes, they emailed saying that it’s time to renew; yes, they emailed saying that my method of payment wasn’t working; yes, they emailed saying that if I don’t change my payment method, my service would be disconnected.
And I was okay with that — my serving being disconnected. I don’t need it right now — disconnect approved.
Every company that has automatic billing had contacted me, and all the services I continued to need, I’d already changed to a new card. All the ones I don’t want — I left as-​is and they ALL canceled automatically when the company couldn’t get payment from me for the year ahead.
I don’t need the services they are charging me for, so I didn’t give them a new payment method.
Fast forward 4 months, I try logging into their system to see what status those domains were in, and re-​acquire one if possible. I can’t log in, because they want a payment method. So I put in a payment method — since I’m about to buy another domain name, and it still won’t log me in.
That led to my calling customer service and this is how it went.
«I put in a payment method and I still can’t see the status of my account.»
1&1: That’s because you didn’t pay your last bill. We sent you to collections.”
«What bill? I paid for the year I used!»
1&1: The domain names you have and the website builder.
«I wanted to cancel those domain names and I paid and tried the website builder ONCE and it wasn’t good enough so I never used it again.»
1&1: You still have to pay for it.
«I did pay for it – and I used it once.»
1&1: No, you have to pay for the next year of billing — an additional $ 29.95. And the amounts you owe for the domain names.”
«For something I’m not using?»
1&1: Yes.
«Why? If a customer won’t pay for the year ahead, why didn’t you cancel their service instead?»
1&1: That’s just how it is. We pre-​bill you for the year ahead.”
«I understand. And I don’t want the year ahead.»
1&1: You still have to pay.
«For something I’m not wanting or using?»
1&1: Yes.
«What kind of idiotic policy is that? I don’t want something from your company and you have no way of charging me for something I haven’t even used yet, so you send me to COLLECTIONS?»
1&1: You didn’t pay. We sent you emails.
«I get that I didn’t pay. I don’t want your services for those items. I paid for what I used and do not want another year of those services!»
1&1: Well, you still have to pay. You have to call collections and pay them what you owe AND… a late fee for $ 18.95. We can refund that when you pay.”
«OMG…you want a year’s worth of payments and a late fee for services I didn’t want and never used?»
1&1: You should have paid.
«I didn’t want the services! Why should I pay for something I didn’t want, never used and for sure, did not want to buy an additional year for!?!»
1&1: Then you should have cancelled your account. We already paid for you.
«You paid who?»
1&1: All the companies providing you a service — we paid them and now you have to pay us.“
Me: …
1&1: Call collections and pay them, then call us back and in 3 – 5 days, we’ll unlock your account for you.
Me: …
So I had to do all of the above to get one domain unlocked.
And you BET I am transferring that over to a different registrar and hosting it elsewhere.
Seriously — the CRAPPIEST service I have ever encountered.
Ha…sending customers to collections for services, products and time that they didn’t request for or agree to pay for.
HA!
Change over EVERYTHING to
.
1&1 will never get another dime from me.

So we finally had this issue resolved today. Unfortunately it took so long (a month to simply change an email address) and the support call center was such a hassle to deal with, that we are transferring our client’s domain to a new registrar instead of making an internal transfer like we had planned.
If you talk to anyone in the support department, they will give you canned responses and it will take forever to even communicate what the problem is. Don’t expect to ever talk to anyone in the process department because «they are not accepting calls» and if you want to speak to a supervisor, that’s impossible, but they don’t explain why. Also, your emails will likely never receive a response.
Avoid 1 and 1 like the plague.

I had a good initial experience with 1and1 when I purchased 4 domains. I liked the free email account that they give and the free email forwarding. All was looking good and I was actually considering transferring all of my domains at various other registrars over to 1and1. And that’s when the problems began.
Within the Domain Center control panel there is an option to transfer domains into 1and1. I tried this for various domains I was looking to transfer and I kept getting an error that said something of the order «You cannot complete this operation». So, naturally, I thought «Hey, this is a great opportunity to get on the phone and see how their support is!» More problems ensued.
I got on the phone after waiting 10 minutes with someone who’s English was satisfactory. After putting me on hold several times to check with a supervisor, I imagine, he finally came back on and said «Sir, the error that your are receiving is a bug in our system and there has been a support ticket to our IT team to fix it.» After asking what I should do to transfer my domains, he finally suggested that I log out and go to the main page and begin the transfer process as if I were a new client. He assured me that I could enter my account details during that process and all would be well. So that’s what I did. Which didn’t work at all and created further trouble.
Now I had 3 new packages within my account that were generated from the transfer attempts with each one of them blank, meaning there wasn’t any domain within them. So after receiving no response on a support ticket I submitted I called customer support again and this is when I decided I was with the wrong company. The support rep this time told me that she didn’t know why it didn’t work and she had no recommendations for me. She was completely confused and we both ended the call with no action steps to correct any problem.
I was finished with
at this point and began to search for a better registrar. I read many, many tech blogs that extolled the support, features, and pricing of several registrars:

and
kept popping up. I ended up going with
and I’m so happy with their support, pricing, featureset, and interface. They’re motto says it all: no bullshit. They’ve been wonderful. The only problem is now getting the domains that I have registered with
out of there and over to Gandi, which is my latest headache with
. I just got off the phone and was told by the agent there was nothing he could do to release my domain name in question, despite him seeing that I had requested the transfer properly with the respective authorization code and everything. He said that I just needed to wait for 2 more days to see if it happens.
If you’re looking for a domain registrar or company that has great support, an easy to use interface, a functional featureset, and an overall satisfactory domain management experience — Avoid
at all costs. It appears they’ve diverted much needed product & customer service investments into Super Bowl commercials and other marketing efforts. I’ll never try them again.

DO NOT SIGN UP FOR HOSTING WITH 1&1. Their e-​mail servers have been blacklisted and e-​mails are being returned, unsent. They refuse to compensate customers for this really, really detrimental issue. They continually update their status page to show that the problem is resolved within hours, but it has been over 2 weeks. I am moving my 40+ websites and hosting away from
.

Let me add my voice to the throngs of irate 1and1 users here. I’ve been a customer for a decade. However, competition is fierce, and for the last few months I’ve been moving my 30 websites to new hosting services.
This week, I removed two of the last three sites. I decided to downgrade to the 1and1 Starter package which includes one free domain for $ 3/​month.
Today, I got my new bill from 1and1 — they charged me $ 15 for a domain I transferred a week ago to a new registrar, and $ 15 for a domain that is currently in process for transfer — due to complete tomorrow. And mysteriously, another domain I canceled on 1and1 weeks ago reappeared on my account.
When I called billing, they told me to «wait a few more days» to see if the domains finished transferring (I already have access to them on the new registrar and I’ve built websites on the new host) and then the goofball in billing transferred me to Tech Support to find out how I can re-​cancel the domain that already shows up as «Canceled»…
Tech Support told me to be patient since they were all backed up due to some email problem that was causing emails to be delayed.
I hung up. I’ll just cancel the whole contract this weekend when the last domain gets transferred.
DO not waste your time with these guys — there are lots of good options (BTW — GoDaddy is NOT a good option!)…

Fraud! Fraud! Fraud!
Stay away from this site — you auto sign up for a 1 year contract after 30 days of service. It’s in the fine print but not mentioned otherwise. This place sucks and they take advantage of new users.
They let me break the contact of 1 year… but they made it hard to do. STAY AWAY! Fraud people!