nightmare experience with 1and1 domain registrations

this company does everything they can to prevent you from managing multiple domains. their system makes it as burdensome and difficult, obscure and slow as possible to be able to manage multiple domains. they will gladly and quickly accept domains being brought in, but letting you out? forget about it. unless they can bill you for another year in advance, you can forget about moving your domains to any other domain registration company, as this company will make it as confusing and difficult to transfer your domains out as it can be humanly imaginable.

they recently blocked all my transfer requests on a 30+ domain transfer out of 1and1, refused to answer transfer emails that should have been delivered to our company mailbox and that were being withheld by them and not properly forwarded to me, they delayed transfers until we threatened them with legal action if they didn't allow the transfers to go through, and ultimately, changed the expiration date for many domains that had not yet expired in order to charge us for at least 15 domains that we should have never been billed for;

finally, after billing us, they didn't update the date in the whois, so the new registrar sees no updates to the registry expiration dates, and this would mean that we were defrauded by 1and1, as registry expiration dates not only were not updated, but that 1and1 BILLED US AND DID NOT RENEW OUR DOMAINS since we were transferring them out!!!!

we had to send them letters and calls and it was a NIGHTMARE to try to get our domains out, 1and1 ended up DELETING 8 domains of our 30 domains, when we tried to transfer them out; and refused to acknowledge the transfer requests, now we have 8 domains in redemption because of the REFUSAL of 1and1 to transfer our domains; charged us in advance for 22 domains that we attempted to transfer BEFORE expiration, and DID NOT UPDATE THE REGISTRY DATE AFTER CHARGING US!

UNBELIEVABLE! we are filing a complaing with ICANN about this. Do NOT HOST ANY DOMAINS WITH 1AND1! it's a NIGHTMARE to manage any domains you have, you won't be able to pull them out of there when you need to do this quickly and timely, pay 1 dollar at any other better registration company, and do not EVER consider 1and1 for your domain registration needs, not only it's a nightmare, but also have SCAM policies in order to improperly bill you in advance for unexpired domains and to make the whole process as burdensome, difficult, impossible and horrible as possible! you have to even FAX a signed LETTER and do a double confirmation ONLINE plus TWO different cancel processes, in addition to unlocking, and you must make SURE that you change to emails NOT HOSTED WITH 1AND1 if you expect to RECEIVE the transfer emails,

or else you will not receive your transfer emails, they will withhold them!

in other words,

if you have a domain with 1and1, and ALSO hosting, you have a BIG PROBLEM!

DO NOT HOST ANY DOMAINS WITH 1AND1!!! NIGHTMARE COMPANY!!!

Biggest Con: nightmare to manage multiple domains, overly slow, improper billing practices, makes almost impossible to domain transfer out

Zero Tech Support

I've been with these guys for quite a while using Front PAge Extentions. I am moving to ASP.Net and some of the stuff works as advertised but when it comes to databases they are terrible. They have their own protcols in the name of security, they won't support an ACCESS database and I have been rond and round with tech support until they finally sent an e-mail that told me to do what I started the e-mail string with. Amazing. I'll leave simple sites with them but I'm moving ASP.Net somewhere else.

Poor customer service, they don't care

I started a website on 1 and 1, using their business website set up. I signed up for the service, and found an additional charge on my credit card for $19.95. Since they said they had a 30 day money back guarantee, however, they told me it did not apply to that charge. That makes no sense to me, either you have a money back guarantee or you don't. I didn't even have the service for two days, and they billed me anyway. I wrote to the company and called them several times, and they did nothing. Do not use them, unless you are prepared to get ripped off.

Biggest Con: terrible customer service and they don't back up their guarantee

1and1 is BBB rated "F" - Here's one reason why

AVOID 1and1! They will send you to debt collection for something their fault!

They failed to cancel my domains per my request. Apparently I was supposed to get an email from 1and1.com but I never saw this. They email was the last step to their very confusing cancellation process.

It literally takes research to find out how to cancel. You have to log in to another sub-domain that is not well-advertised, there you try to figure out their ambiguous terminology for cancellation (nothing simply put). You get a confirmation (which is worthless unless you answer their email) and then wait for an email to confirm you want to cancel. As it turns out, I never saw that email, so I was "uncanceled". They are now threatening debt collection for their incompetence.

No other registrar is so confusing. Others require a couple of clicks. 1and1 may say this is to protect you but I'm sure the reason for a confusing system is to keep people from leaving.

1and1 is a scam.

Biggest Pro: Cheap - that is until you find out it's a scam
Biggest Con: They make it very difficult to cancel

Do not do business with these folk. Choose a reputable company

These folks make it hard to make changes to your account if it means less money for them. I was unable to logon to my account because Safari, my web browser does not reveal all the buttons needed to access it. I later learned I could use Firefox. Calling them, they will not record anything discussed. You had better make sure all your correspondence is in writing, and send it by certified mail. Who want to deal with a company like that, with no integrity? To make a long story short. I asked for a refund because they sold me something I didn't need or want. Then they billed me for it and I was unable to cancel. They sent it out to collections, and my bill doubled over night for something I didn't want, never needed or used. RAPE is the word for how these people do business. My other web site has been problematic. I've had difficulty with log on on at times. Their templates are not flexible. I would probably keep my website with them except for the fact they screwed me over on the other domain. I will gladly pay someone much more than what I pay these folks to move my website elsewhere. I won't do business with a company that treats me like crap.

Biggest Pro: None
Biggest Con: No integrity.

Easy to use but very limited features and no customer service

At first look they seem to have a lot of features but don't be fooled, NOTHING is customizable with them. I tried to add an SRV record to my domain and the customer service lady wildly was searching for what that means and since it wasn't on her cheat sheet, she told me to write an email to their complaints department and request that feature. Thanks for nothing lady!

Their hosted exchange is down more than up so don't even go there...

If you have very simple websites with nothing extra than go ahed with them but forget the additional thing like "Dynamic Content Catalog", they're down a lot...

T.

Biggest Pro: Easy for very basic setup (1 page website with no extras)
Biggest Con: Very limited features, horrible technical support...

Not the best service but also not the worst

Overall service is good. Over the last few months I have been having sporatic issues downloading email to my outlook. One day I will get connection the next day I wont. They are also not compatible with the blackberry and they have no intentions on adding the RIM service to their program.

Biggest Pro: Price and customer service
Biggest Con: blackberry compatibility

Be Cautious

I am hosting 11 domains on their windows business package. The control panel is HORRIBLE. It is slow, awkward and difficult to navigate.

I moved to the business package specifically to get .Net features. At that point the revelation became obvious. The advertisements are misleading.

The feature set says - multiple domains, FrontPage support, Multiple FTP, Access DB support, ASP.Net and on it goes with features I'm not really interested in.

When I first launched my sites, the global.asa file didn't function, so I shrugged and decided that I didn't really care about that. When I up-graded to business class and couldn't get my aspx files to function, I confronted their "tech help" by phone. That was an interesting experience in hold-shuffle, but eventually I got someone to email me a FAQ (still cant figure out how to get to the specific FAQ from the top) explaining that I must manage a redirect with asp code in the root folder of my account to the folder for the domain. That means every domain must point to the root folder. That is ludicrous! Such an architecture exposes my database folders and private folders to the public browser when the asp file won't run (happens a lot here). Not to mention the fact that all my relative links would be off by a parent tier. So, after several months of trying to fit in here, I have concluded that this is a poor selection.

Bottom line:
You can not have multiple ftp accounts and FP extensions
You can not have multiple domains and ASP.Net in isolated environments
You can not have ASP.Net and MSAccess Databases
You can not have a global.asa file for each domain

A lot of these restrictions explain the site outages (maybe a good week was 96% up). The application pool is shared with all of my domains, so it was pretty easy to exceed the connection limit or other pooled resources.

I'm looking (much more diligently than before) and will be gone soon.

Biggest Pro: fine for single domain
Biggest Con: poor control panel and feature combination

Stuck in the Past and Weird Policies

I have never had up time issues with these people, but I have never enjoyed their interface... or the way you have to use randomly generated usernames for *everything* except the control panel... and I hate the way they still insist on using PHP4 and support PHP3!!!! MOVE ON PEOPLE!!! (I am currently in the process of switching, but don't plan on renewing. My 6 month billing ends in Feb. 2008)

Biggest Pro: Price, Reliability, Feature Set
Biggest Con: Quirks

This is a very unfriendly company

The management site is very unfriendly. You can eventually figure out how to do things but I would say it is suitable for experts only. Adding a product is relatively easy but cancelling one is well nigh impossible. A year and a half ago I turned on the web site builder for a trial. I didn't like it so I attempted to turn it off. Could not. After three requests of customer service, I was told I had to go to a completely different web site to cancel products. I have cancelled that feature every quarter for a year and a half and I am still being billed for it.

I am looking for a new Host.

Biggest Pro: None
Biggest Con: Very difficult to use. Cannot correct billing problems.