I have been using 1and1 for the past year or so as my hosting provider for one reason really, I get to host all my domains and point them to their own sites without having to pay on a per domain basis except for the $6 per year registration fee and my $20 per month. Everyone has warned me that they really sucked, but the only time I encountered that was when trying to get some technical support a while back. Overall, the server I was on has been stable and I have not had any problems with response times. Of course, it goes without saying that this was until tonight. Just now actually, as I sit on hold listening to – and I kid you not, “Time keeps on slipping, slipping, into the future”
So what did they do to warrant this warning to everyone to avoid ever using 1and1 hosting services. Their entire administrative control system has been down the better part of the day, as was the webmail interface for all my accounts, which I have been relying on this evening since forgetting my power cord at the office. The almost funny part is how poorly their customer service is set up. I really felt sorry for the poor canuck on the other end of the berating I was serving up, but I am really fuming that the only answer to my questions about what is going on was “we are waiting for the update from the administrators.”
When asked if my credit card data had been compromised in a hacking incident, he suggested I call the billing department or send an email to support (as if they ever answered support emails during normal situations). When asked about what was affected and what was going in, he continued to insist he was waiting for the latest update. So I asked him what the last update was – he put me on hold for about 8 minutes (not bad considering I expected to wait for a few hours) and came back to tell me the same story. It is a real shame to go through this right now with all the stuff going on, but I think it is about time to switchover to someone else as soon as I can.
I guess the old saying about getting scammed is really true – “if it seems too good to be true, it probably is…”
#1 by Jackie Danicki - October 3rd, 2006 at 08:03
Dude, imagine how frustrating it is having to deal with their UK and US operations, which don’t talk to one another. I’ve been trying to transfer ownership of my domains to MYSELF, because they can’t register a simple change of address. So I’m getting emails about how the owner of gastroblog.com hasn’t authorised the transfer…and I AM the owner, and no one’s asked me to authorise the transfer, and why the hell do I need to transfer it to myself in the first place? Utterly awful company.
#2 by Chris Brogan… - October 3rd, 2006 at 16:52
Um, I hate to be a “ditto,” but I had some really bad times, too. Im leaving it in place in the short term, but not for love.
–Chris…
#3 by David Pruitt - October 5th, 2006 at 00:06
We have a client using them. The server is in Germany, but we’ve just started working with them. All of our other clients we refer to Pair Networks (www.pair.com). We have been using them for over 2 years with absolutely no issues.
I highly recommend them.