ThisDomainWasFree Weblog

1&1 Internet suck. At providing domains. But they suck so much at providing domains, I bet they suck at hosting too.

Over two years ago I bought a domain with them. About one week after purchasing a domain with them I transferred that domain to another provider (1-2-3-reg.co.uk) because 1&1 couldn’t offer me the most basic function of control over the domains DNS servers. This is so they can tie me down to a hosting package. I was having none of that, so I transferred. It cost me something like £5-10. After this ordeal I made a mental note to never use the company again and promptly forgot I had an account with them.

A year or so later 1&1 started giving away .name and .info domains. If I remember correctly you could get 50 .info and 50.name domains .. for free .. if you had an existing account with them. This reminded me that I had an account with them and I signed in and registered three or four domains. Now I knew the scam, they make you register a domain “for free” but it’s only free for a year. After a year they assume that you want it renewing, they don’t want to hastle you about it so they don’t tell you. They just renew the domain silently. So I made another mental note to delete the domains or whatever I had to do to stop them from billing me in about 11 months time.

Eleven months later I actually remembered, I was quite pleased with myself, I logged in and after some searching found that I had to cancel my “contract”. So I did just that. Of course this is 1&1 so it wasn’t easy, I had to fax them confirmation. Signed confirmation. That I wanted it cancelling. Of course this was for “my security”, er .. no, it was so I would stick with 1&1 because I couldn’t be bothered. Fortunately I was one of the few individuals who still owned a fax machine, so I promptly faxed them my cancellation (twice, just to make sure) and left it at that. I didn’t receive any more e-mails from 1&1.

And now it’s over two years from the registration of the initial domain and I still haven’t had any e-mails. I did get a letter, though. Well, actually it was an invoice. Simply stating that I owed them £30+ and If I didn’t pay up soon that would be come £45+ and some nasty men would be collecting it from me. What?! I logged on to the site, turns out my contract wasn’t cancelled. I don’t know why! But I owe them £30. Bugger. Well I decided I can’t be bothered following it up, I knew that there would be some small print hidden away in some obscure ToS that was referenced once in a letter they sent to me two years ago that said I had to cancel my contract twice or that random billing of me was ok. So I’m paying it. I think. I entered my new credit card details and nothing seemed to happen. Currently I’m waiting to see what happens. I don’t want nasty men knocking at my door. I’ve also cancelled my contract. I did it twice this time.  And will check that it’s still cancelled tommorrow. And the next day.

Oh, I just remembered why I set out the write this rant. THEY BILLED ME FOR THE DOMAIN I REGISTERED TWO YEARS AGO. The domain that I transferred away from them 1 year and 11 months ago. The domain that they have absolutely nothing to do with. They’re still billing me for it. I don’t know why, the domain isn’t mentioned anywhere in my control panel just on my “online invoice”.

So I’mve finished complaining. I hope someone finds this post and decides to go with godaddy or another decent domain provider. One and One are bad domain providers. They try every trick in the book to keep you as a customer, they don’t warn you about renewal (godaddy warn you every week for two months when a domain is coming up for renewal), they don’t really let you know what’s going on and they bill you for domains that they haven’t had anything to do with for two years.

Good Night!