1and1 Customer Service Is THE WORST!

Been a customer for a while. Eventhough their product features are way below average than other hosting company, their price is slightly better than its competitors. What I don't like about this company is their customer support is the WORST for company as big as 1and1. Technical Support is the only department that quite helpful. Other department, especially Billing is horrible. If you don't believe me, try get in touch with them. It's much better to outsource that department to India, Europe or any other South East Asia countries whose official language not English. They seem to understand English, have much better customer service skills than the current Billing department team.

Biggest Con: Worst Customer Service

ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE TECHNICAL SUPPORT AND BILLING - DO NOT USE!!!

Save yourself a headache and DO NOT use 1and1. Their service is horrible. When you try to call them for technical support, you actually get transfer to other countries and the person on the other end does not understand what you are saying or they do not know how to help. I have asked them to give me a code so I can transfer my domain name to another site and they gave me an invalid code that does not work. I have called them so many times and emailed them but they are not helpful. Extremely bad service! Also, I wanted to cancel my contract with them and they are not responding. When I tried to call their corporate office, then only have an address in Germany so they are not even in U.S. no wonder you get transfer all over the planet to when calling for support. Please do not use them. There are much better companies out there...

Biggest Pro: NOTHING JUST GOOD ADVERTISING ON THEIR PART AND YOU THINK YOU ARE GETTING A GOOD DEAL - BS!!!
Biggest Con: EVERYTHING - DO NOT USE THEM

Extra fees, bad telephone representative, long server down time

My website was down about 2 days every week, with weird errors like 500 error (which is server side error) or simply no response.
I used it to host several simple html pages and I dont think that will cause the super long down time.

After 1.5 years I finally decided to move away from 1and1 and cancelled my account 3 weeks in advance.

However, they still sent me a bill of 5 dollars after my cancellation of the service, and when I tried to call the sales representative, they kept giving me an attitude and transferring me around the department, just to save that 5 dollars. (and their sales representative's accent is intolerable).

Hope my extra fees, bad experience from telephone representative and server down time can persuade you away from them. Don't be fooled by their "promotion" and self-claimed cheap price.

Horrible, just horrible...

1and1 has no customer service and they will not help you if they cannot find a script to handle the situation. Most service items require a deeper technical understanding than they offer. A request for a more technical support person will not be considered as an option.

1and1 email service is absolutely horrible. Their servers are slow and there is no backup on their side! If you lose and email it is your problem, they do not have the ability to restore anything. The email Exchange Server is incredibly slow. So slow that I have taken the time spent waiting for my email to download to my client that I am motivated to find review sites and post my dissatisfaction!

Do not burden yourself with 1and1. They are not worth the money saved. As soon as we identify a better alternative we are moving on.

Biggest Pro: There are none.
Biggest Con: They are still in business.

Words from a Web Designer

I design webs for a living and let my clients choose their own host.

If they choose 1and1 I start to worry....

I built a web for my client who already had a mail package with 2 (my name for 1and1) and called them to upgrade to a mail package with web space. They took his order and said everything is ready. I tried to publish but could get no FTP access so sent their support an email only to be told that the client had not purchased any web space just a mail package. I went back top my client and explained this and he got back in touch (at 6p per minute) to be told he had DEFINITELY purchased some web space and there was no reason why he cant publish.

Still wth me .....

Another email to Mark in support brought the response that he ABSOLUTELY DEFINITIVELY had not bought any web space. Went back to client who was completely baffled and once again called 2. They said that the problem might be that he needed to set up the domain on his account so they sent him some instructions to do this. He tried, I tried but no-one could work out what needed to be done.

Am I still typing this ....

Another email to Mark in support and he sent me a list of instructions on how to set up the domain.

This worked first time.

Heres the best bit, they inferred that it was my clients fault because he did not set up the domain, which he could not do because first time he did not know he had to do anything and second the instructions given were bogus ... aaaaarrrrrggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Is it me?

I have now put on my website 'Whatever you do, do not use 1 & 1 for hosting.' I think I would welcome a call from their legal team.

Biggest Pro: I dont use them
Biggest Con: Everyone else is so much better.

Bad, bad deal

The company used to be good a few years ago but has declined in the last year.

They have increased prices and decreased services

Their billing department gets in the way of transactions with lots of red tape and misinformation. Other departments still try to help, but billing rules and is a deal breker.

Their control panel is very basic.

Overall, not a good value for your money.

I was slow to move on because I hosted with them for many years, but finally had move on.

Biggest Con: Billing department is very inflexible and they get involved in any changes

Give credit where credit's due!

After reading all the moans about 1and1 on this site, I thought I should give a bit of praise to balance things up.
My computer recently picked up a virus (no credit to McAfee) which allowed hackers to send out phishing e-mails to all and sundry from our web-site.
The abuse team worked extremely hard at identifying the problem and eventually solving it, keeping me posted along the way.
It's still a bit soon to say that we are completely out of the wood, but I am very grateful to and impressed by a lady named Olga of 1and1's Abuse team who was very helpful indeed.

Biggest Pro: The expertise of the Abuse Team
Biggest Con: The billing department - I received my first bill the other day after 4 years!

The Worst hosting provider

1 & 1 is the worst hosting and Domain regastrationn company I have ever delt with. I would advice people to stay well clear of them. I rencently toke out a free trial with them but I canciled it a few days after becuase the service was not good but they ended up saying that I was tied into a contract and haven been made to pay a full years subsciption for something that was ment to free for 30 days. If you do encounter a problem with then won’t get a lot of help from them. It is a nightmare to prove that you have been billed for something you haven’t used, and even when you do it is still hard to get out of it. I am now with 123 reg and I have to say this is a great company they do help their customers with billing problems and other issues with your account.

The worst support and customer service

They have the worst support and customer service that I have seen.

I ordered Dynamic Cloud Server from them and for FOUR days they were unable to make it work! I sent them several emails, made a call - NO results, NO responses, NO excuses, NO explanation. It is unbelievable.

Stay away

Used them for a few years for a bunch of domains (business hosting) and they were great in the beginning. Maybe they were sold to another co. because for a year now I had nothing but problems. Their tech support is outsourced to some backwater Indian sh!thole village where you can't understand a word they're saying their English is so dwarfed. My servers were down on a DAILY BASIS, they would not do anything about it. Speed would come to a crawl at unpredictable intervals. Eventually I gave up on these guys and moved my hosting elsewhere. I would not recommend these guys to anyone.

Biggest Pro: Cost and speed - when it's working!
Biggest Con: Reliability is very poor customer service sucks