1&1? Forget about it
Appalling customer services. For the second time this year I find myself in the impossible net of this unprofessional company. Want to get your hosting or domain from them? No problems, straight forward unmanned process.
Now, the issue rises when you have a problem. Tens of e-mails sent to their complaints department after their customer services department not only cannot help you but when you ask to talk to a supervisor, they inform you that that is not possible, since their supervisors are in Germany and speak no English at all!! So much for a company trying to do business in the UK. From my experience, it is the first time I ever hear that inexcusable excuse.
The issue? After many problems with their mailing and hosting services, I decided to cancel one of my accounts. Since I had billing problems before, I consider it sensible to refuse to pay the last bill until confirmation of the account cancellation. The last thing I hear from them, is a letter from a collections firm for £10.48+£15 collecting fees.
After updating the collecting firm on the issue, they withheld my file for a couple of weeks until I sorted it out with 1&1. Needless to say, this is unheard of and they were really happy to do it, so I guess this unique approach to customer service from 1&1 (do not answer customer requests, just pass the matters on to collecting firms) must be quite common.
I contacted 1&1 and the lady on the phone could only tell me over and over again that the matter was on the collecting firm hands and that there was nothing else I could do. After asking to speak to a supervisor she told me the German-only choice of people to talk to. It seems they sent me a link to the cancellation webpage the third week of December, according to them before blocking my account. According to me, my account was blocked the week before, no daily spam or e-mails (including their infamous one) arrived in my mailbox.
After a long and mainly pointless argument she acceded to give me the complaints e-mail address.
Again, after many e-mails and no response, I decided to threaten them with taking the matters further and suddenly I received a response e-mail from them. After some bargaining they took the original payment from me. End of the issue?
Not really. I just received a letter from them asking for an extra £2.50 from the, in theory, cancelled account. I have no idea what they are talking about, and promptly contacted their complaints department. Seven e-mails after, I haven’t heard anything back from them.
Since from my experience I know that my file must be already on collector’s hands for under £3, I decided to let anyone who might even think for a second of signing up with 1&1 know that this is just an automatic cash cow for some German company. Do not expect any sensible or caring answer from them when issues arise. You have been warned.