1&1 Internet (&"1"more) Bill Scam!

Hosting
1

And I am a fool for not reading the reviews about 1&1? I just didn’t think it could be that bad, until they did it to me.

In short, I had registered/maintained a domain with 1&1 for about 2 1/2 years. No problems to report with their hosting. However, shortly after I had closed my business I received a renewal invoice for the domain that I no longer was going to be using. I cancelled using a very well hidden cancellation page
https://cancel.1and1.com/ along with a confirmation

Today I received a 3rd party collection notice stating that 1&1 had sent this account to them for collections. I thought “No big deal” it must be a mistake and called and explained to them that I no longer used this domain, It was cancelled 3 days after their emailed invoice so I should not have been billed or sent to a collection agency. The first reply was…

“Unfortunately domain names are nonrefundable as stated during the
ordering process and in our Terms & Conditions
(http://order.1and1.com/xml/order/Gtc): 3.9. Upon cancellation of this Agreement you will receive a prorated refund
of any pre-paid, refundable fees for the remainder of any term.”

That seemed like a candid response and completely irrelevant to my issue, so I spoke to a supervisor and received the following response:

"Our records indicate that your cancellation request was made after the billing due date for the domain "

And after telling them the above is true, but as I had cancelled the domain 3 days after the expiration the last reply I got was:

“Our records show the effective date of your cancellation was after the billing date for the domains. As such the invoice you received is valid and the balance must still be resolved.”

They claim to still have the right to bill renewals for this non-existing domain. In other words they are charging me renewal fees without renewing anything, which is pretty close to stealing in my opinion. And therefore I am left with no other option that to make this scam public in hopes of having some good come out of all this.

Monetarily my loss is not going to be a big one (less than $50), but it is annoying to have to waste time trying to resolve issues 3 months after my business has closed to find out that they had no intention of doing the right thing but were scams from the beginning.

Please don’t make the same mistake as I did, and stay away from 1&1.

Important dates:

12-11-10 Received emailed Invoice
12-14-10 Cancelled
3-4-11 Received a Collection Notice From NCO Financial (3rd Party Collection)

2

That doesn’t sound very good at all. I’ve been with 1&1 for a while now and I haven’t had any problems but then again, I’ve not had to cancel anything as of yet.

I hope they don’t do this to me if I ever do need to cancel a domain from my account.

It’s a shame to hear stories like these about companies (especially ones I use) but if your preventing someone from going through the same route as you then good on you!

So do you still have websites and if so, who do you use? Would you recommend them?

3

domain renewal must happen immediate after expiration date and with the charge on your account, if it did not happen, then domain must be on a grace period for sometime (which is again wrong, happened on your case), so if you had raised a cancellation before billing then it is something wrong with their billing system, it happened to charge you later even after the cancellation it could be because of there offline billing system. it is unfortunate it happened to you, domain name after renewal cannot be refunded by cancellation because of registry policy.
if it has been a new domain registration there is about 3-4 days allowed for refund on cancellation and it again depends on the tld and cctld and the registrar policies.

4

That doesn’t sound very good at all. I’ve been with 1&1 for a while now and I haven’t had any problems but then again, I’ve not had to cancel anything as of yet.

I’m in the same situation. Fortunately I didn’t register a domain through them.

It’s weird to read so many negative reviews about their cancellation process, because otherwise the service I’ve received has been almost as precise as a swiss watch.

5

Thanks guys. I think 1and1 should allow for a grace period and not just say “Oh it was after your due invoice date…so therefore we must charge you”. Remind you no that more than 3 hours after I had cancelled via the cancel page https://cancel.1and1.com/ my site was offline. I thought I was all in the clear, but boy was I wrong. Here is what they are trying to collect from me.

1)$29.97 (Unknown…trying to steal from me)
2)$18.95 (Filing fee for NCO Financial Fee) 3rd party collector
3)$0.97¢ (I don’t have a clue) Guess they are trying to suck out every little penny from me.

6

I wonder how you could not notice the enormous amount of awfull reviews about 1 & 1.
The forum is full of them, and the web as well. They’re scammers, and always have been.
Pursue legal actions if you can, anything to damage that companies reputation, cause they’re just pigs.

7

I don’t know if I would go as far as legal action, but it just goes to show you why their BBB rating was so poor before they wiped it & no wonder they aren’t even accredited through the BBB. They employ these bully tactics to try and collect money for services that were never provided after cancellation. Guess they need the money as bad as I do. Avoid 1and1 as much as possible.

8

NOTE: I own a well know web design business and was looking to bring 100+ customers and every new one I get over to 1and1.
Wow, I read some of these and still tried 1and1. ONE big problem: bogus cancellation process. Though tough to find, You can search their websites site map and find a cancellation link. In the process, you will read that an email will be sent for you to complete the process. I got the email and click the to confirm BUT GUESS WHAT? IT’S NOT EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY. It’s effective after that contract period. Since I cancelled same day i signed up, that means 12 months later. When i called, a really nice lady told me its a known issue in the process and that there is currently no date as to when the message will be included to CALL IF YOU WANT TO CANCEL EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY. Advice: Call and do the work with a live person, get names and share with the rest of the world online.

9

Has anyone been billed for a domain that they never purchased. I have a domain for my blog which I maintain. I started receiving bills and collection agency bills for another domain that I never purchased. They apparently collected for two years. Now they want me to pay for year 3. I thought it would be no problem to just tell them there was an error as I wouldn’t own such a domain. But NO, I have to pay all fees for the collection and the next year and still “cancel” the domain I never bought to begin with.