1and1

Eventually I was told they sent communications to an address on PayPal (which I have no idea how they got). I told them that I hadn't used that address in over a decade as it was associated with an old website I no longer have. I told them what my current e-mail address was and has been for the past decade but they told me they were limited in what they could share with me as the webmail address was the only one they could communicate with me on. I repeated the same thing, saying I haven't been able to access that old mail account since my hosting with that site expired over 10 years ago and was not renewed. I told them to check their bounced e-mails file as proof I could not get whatever communications they attempted to send me. They gave me no indication whether they would (check their bounced mails).

Although I never expected I would get billed for a hosting package I never sought, I did originally tell 1&1 I would at least keep the domain. But since I could not get much help after numerous attempts, I asked for a total refund. Eventually they told me they would do so after I signed a statement stating that my current mailbox (an Inbox account) was my updated as my main account. I did so and faxed it to their billing and process depts. (whatever "process" is supposed to mean). I was told my refund would be processed.

Then a couple days later (keep in mind much of these communications are from October of this year) 1&1 asked me for my driver's license or passport. I said for what? I never had any previous host (GoDaddy, Webstarts, eHost, IPage, Host Gator, Site Builder) request such. I told them I would redact my SS # & driver's license # in faxing this stuff to them and they said that was fine but the more I thought about it, the more I got suspicious that giving them certain info would possibly jeopardize my security.

Since 1&1 has offices in Europe, I became even more suspicious about divulging more personal info to people overseas who might have access. As such, I decided not to do so and wrote my bank (which is the issuer for my debit Mastercard) to ask them to see if they could return funds to my account. Their fraud analyst looked into my case and agreed with me and thus has granted me access to the money 1&1 took out. I also could not get PayPal to hear me out in returning my seized funds but my bank Horizon did and they believed it was credible enough to reinstate them.

My experience is somewhat similar to what recent poster Isabel shared. I have had some not so good experiences with other web hosts but nothing comes remotely close to this. No one should do business with 1&1 IONOS. No host is this bad. I can't figure how anyone can stay in business doing what they do. But I can more or less echo to some degree what every negative review states. It is mostly true. I question the few who claim they are having a good experience in light of the vast majority who are. It appears 1&1 was a decent host not too many years ago but they are absolutely trash today.

There no one to be found to sue, 1&1 behavior it is like a big mafia, they are not behaving like a respectful company, We, the customers, we like to be treated with respect & honesty, they don't do either of that and at end they send customer to collection agencies. They ruin the customer credit score, and there is nothing we can do about, they never lose. Stay away from them.

Also, it's worth nothing. They kept trying to get money from me and kept billing my PayPal even though it wasn't authorized. It is OUTRAGEOUS that even though I tried to CANCEL an AUTO RENEWAL not only do I get charged, I get a credit, and then I get sent TO COLLECTIONS. I've reviewed their terms and conditions (EXTREMELY LONG BTW, must be because of all of the bad practices they engage in, they are trying to protect themselves at the cost of the CUSTOMER) and I simply CAN'T understand how they are still in business after treating so many of their customers like THIEVES AND VILLAINS.

I am not too savvy when it comes to all the web jargon, and 1&1 has spent hours on the phone with me, guiding me on how to transfer files between packages through Filezilla. They offered to do this for me for $70 but I declined and instead the customer service rep talked me through the entire thing. I've done that twice now. The most recent time was when I bought a package to host multiple domains instead of just one, so I had to move my old domain onto this new package.

Everything seems to be working smoothly. 1&1 does automatically charge you if you have recurring billing checked for each domain. This makes sense to me as you don't want to lose a website because you didn't pay a bill on time. They email you an invoice very close to the due date. I recently received an invoice for the single domain package that I had bought a year ago but was no longer using. In order to speak with a representative, you must set a time for them to call you back, at least a day later. They called right on time.

Unfortunately, I missed the first call and my account was charged for this service that I didn't need. I set another time for them to call back and when they did the call took less than five minutes. I gave them my account and invoice number, he verified that no domains were listed under this hosting package, and issued a refund in accordance with their 30-day money-back policy. I couldn't have been more pleased. Honestly, I was considering switching providers as my web design company has been growing, but I don't believe that I need to do that yet (there is a storage limit for all sites combined). I currently have 5 or 6 domains in my package. I take care of all customer service issues, and there really haven't been any major problems, I am happy to say!