Goodbye 1&1

Mark it in your calendars, make it a national holiday, today is the day! What has made August 18th, 2009 so special? Today is the day that I cancelled my account with 1&1.

So why did I cancel my 1&1 account after over five years as a customer? Here’s why:

– Outdated control panel that makes it very difficult to manage multiple domains

– Terrible technical support

– Same feature-set that came with my account back in 2004

– Terrible communication with customers and confusing billing options

Here are just a few examples of what finally drove me away from 1&1.

Suppose you move to a new city (which I did in September of last year). With services like GoDaddy or Name.com you can simply select all of your domains and update the information all at once. With 1&1 you have to select each domain individually and change the contact information. Since I originally had around 80 domains with 1&1 this took about two hours to do!! With GoDaddy or Name.com I can update hundreds of domains in about two minutes!!

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The control panel interface that 1&1 had back in 2004 was great five years ago. Since then there have been no changes – it’s still the same old control panel from 2004. Simple tasks I can do with other registrars and hosting providers take much longer with 1&1 since they have failed to upgrade with the industry. If you only have one domain this might not be a problem, but with multiple domains and databases this can be a nightmare!

1&1’s technical support takes the cake. There have been many times where technical support cannot solve my problem and tell me, “Sorry, I cannot solve your problem and there is nothing else we can do.” I then spend hours on Google and end-up solving the problem myself. When 1&1 sends me a survey asking about my experience. I always tell them how terrible it was and that my problem wasn’t resolved. I also go-out of my way to provide my contact information so someone can get in touch with me to follow-up about how this can be improved. Not once has anyone written back which makes me think these surveys are really not being used for anything!

Finally – and this one always gets me. When I call technical support and tell them that the Control Panel is outdated and their services have fallen behind – they agree with me! I’ve had a number of support agents say, “I know, we hear that all the time, but there is nothing we can do about it.” I’ll tell you this – if your own employees agree your service sucks…might be time to consider making some improvements.

Of course I’ve left-out the wonderful billing department. 1&1 is famous for reporting you to collections without warning if your credit card cannot be charged for a particular purchase. I went-out of the country for a month a little over a year ago. While I was gone an alert went on my credit card since i used it in Asia. I returned from my travels to find that 1&1 had sent my account to collections. Since they couldn’t charge $15 to my credit card they sent it to collection and the whole thing cost me about $75. I’m not the only one that has had this issue with 1&1 – SkyDomains wrote a great post today titled, 1&1 Took Me To Collections.

Just do a quick Google search for “1&1 reviews” and you’ll find thousands of other unhappy 1&1 customers. Here’s just an example of several hundred bad reviews about 1&1’s service: Read Reviews from WebHostingTestimonials.com.

So I finally hit my breaking point and called 1&1 on the phone and told them I wanted to cancel my account. They asked why, and I told them…their response, “I understand – it makes sense you would want to cancel.” No attempt to keep me as a customer, not a care in the world, just “see you later!”

After finally transferring my last domain out of my account I went to cancel.1&1.com and cancelled by account today. I actually feel as if a big weight has been lifted off my shoulder. I now keep my domains between three registrars that I know and love – Moniker.com, Name.com, and GoDaddy.com.

Normally when I post a negative review of a service someone from the company contacts me to give an explanation and share their side of the story. I encourage this and hope that someone from 1&1 could respond to my post or email me directly and give me their side of the story or some explanation. I’m not the only customer they have lost and more and more people are speaking-out about how bad 1&1 is.

Share your thoughts about 1&1! Have you used it? Loved it? Hated it! Share your voice and be heard!

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Morgan Linton

Morgan Linton