1and1 Review - A Hosting Nightmare
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September 27th, 2008
As I was first getting into the industry, like every other newbie out there I was excited to get a hosting plan. I was first introduced to 1and1.com from a school mate, and l later saw many full page ads in magazines. They seemed like a big trust worthy company but boy was I in for a surprise.
1and1.com - Downtime Kings
“99.9% Uptime
No matter what the cause, network downtime hurts your credibility, your sales, and your business. 1&1 uses its experience and expertise in hosting to deliver 99.9% uptime, so your website is there when you need it.”
This is taken from their “About Us” page, promoting their 99.9% uptime policy, this is obviously false.
I’m usually not one to put other companies down, but their continuous down time and horrible customer service has lead me to this frustrating post. I had been a loyal customer to 1and1.com (Using the Business Package) for about 3 years now, and this will be my last month hosting with them.
Horrible Customer Service and Support
The pathetic part is, I now have 1and1.com’s customer support phone number on my speed dial since my sites go down so often. It seems I am talking to one of their customer service reps every other week regarding a downtime issue with my hosting. They promise and reassure me on a follow up regarding the issue, but of course, no emails, no calls, no response. I’m not talking about a few hours of downtime (I completely understand, all hosting companies out there do have some downtime, no one is perfect) but we are talking about 2-3 days of downtime with no support.
As a frustrated customer, I have asked to speak with their manager or supervisor regarding the matter, but again, they claim they do not have a supervisor and they can only refer me to an email address complaints@1and1.com. Even when I email the complaints department, they take about a day or two to respond and again, they do not have a solution for my issue, and continue to blow me off.
1and1 Hosting Overview
- Customer Service - 1
- Pricing - 4
- Server Uptime -1
- Overall Rating - 2
Conclusion
I will be moving on and partnering with my friend to go in on a dedicated server at this point, but the purpose of my post is to truly discourage anyone out there that is considering to host with 1and1.com.
Something I learned the hard way is when it comes to things like hosting, do your research and read real life customer reviews and reports before making your decision. Saving money is great, but the loss of traffic, losing customers, angry clients, and most of all, time wasted is much more damaging and frustrating in the long run.
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I agree, I left 1and1.com long time ago due to similar incidents. They are awful! Worst hosting ever…
Thanks , I was considering the business package with 1and1.com, this is good to know. Anyone know or can suggest a good hosting company? I keep hearing about media temple?
I only use 1&1 as a registrar for my domains. I found it quite suspicious that they had 5 page advertisement spreads in a lot of computer magazines. Even saw them in none technology related magazines, such as Maxim. It’s a good thing I decided not to host with them.
Yup. On top of that I just got this email from them last night.
“For domain renewals and orders as of November 3, 2008, the following
domain rates will apply: .com, .net, .us, .org, .info, .name, and .biz domains will be increased to $8.99 per year”
So, now they are increasing the price on their crappy services… double ouch.
LOL another 1and1 victim. I learned my lesson the hard way too. Your not alone on the hosting nightmare. 1and1 is THE worst hosting company out there. I have visited many hosting reviews websites and 1and1 always has bad reviews. Lets all learn our mistakes and stop using 1and1 please!
Ok - wish I had seen this and other complaints first. Clearly I did not do my research. A computer friend told me about 1&1 and being a newbie I just took his word for it. I say that now that I have been in a battle with them over billing. The girl I keep getting is… well NOT NICE- AMBER! Beware if you get her on the phone! I asked for a supervisor 4 times and she just ignored me and put me on hold.Well she said words also that do not need to be repeated.
For someone that does not know much about computers and is on a limited budget…. Can anyone recommend another place to go? Go Daddy seemed rather complicated. Any suggestions? I am open to any and all - I just want to get out of 1and1. Thanks
Hey Page~
I wouldn’t be able to give advice on other hosting companies, but your best bet would be to do research from personal experiences from others that have used those companies.
Here is a site that I have been using http://www.webhostingtalk.com/, a lot of honest opinions and reviews are being dropped on there. I would check that out and make your decision from there~
Good luck!
We had our domain name registered with 1and1. We transferred our domain over to APLUS.NET. 1and1 SPITEFULLY turned our next year’s fee over to a collection agency to harass us and put a bad mark on our good credit history. Do NOT trust this dishonest business.
Try APLUS.NET for domain name registration, never had a problem with them
I’ve read these same kinds of things about 1and1 elsewhere and had a nightmare experience with a client’s web site who had already signed up with them. As for other companies, I’m not a hosting guru, but I’ve had only good experiences with the 2 companies I work with now: Hostgator (used as a reseller plan for a bunch of WP sites) and MidPhase, which has the better customer service between the two. Now, what I’m hearing all over the net is that Wired Tree has some awesome hosting too if you need something a bit bigger.
I also went with some really bad hosting providers with great-sounding offers (”failsafe hosting” etc) and miserable uptime, then I found cartika. Seriously if you want zero hassle try them (cartikahosting.com), I’ve still not seen any downtime in over 2 years.
So I just did a search on “1and1 downtime” and your site came up on the first page!
It seems 1and1.com has been getting terrible reviews everywhere I look. I’m also glad your readers have suggested other hosting options besides 1and1, I am new to this and need some direction. I did read about 1and1.com on a PC Mag I recently just bought, but lucky me, I did my follow up on the internet.
Thank you all for this 1and1 hosting review, I will be checking out the suggested options.
Cheers
I have been with 1and1 for a few years now, and it appears that I am one of the lucky ones. I have had little to no downtime, I have a few sites on the server. Once or twice I’ve had downtime (once due to a hack and my account was suspended) and I will agree that their tech support is terrible. I guess if I run into another problem then I might just go ahead and switch, but for now they havent been too bad to me.
I do worry now that I see a post like this :/
I didnt have any problems with 1and1 for a while until early this year. It seems when I search for 1and1 hosting reviews, most people are not satisfied and they seem to have a pretty bad rep in the industry. They are similar to microsoft I guess, spending massive amounts on ads and not much on fixing their product. 1and1 has been pretty bad with my billing and has messed me up a few times just in the past couple months, which is what lead me to this search on their hosting reviews. boo on 1and1. need new hosting
I’ve used 1and1 for 5 years or so.
Here’s the deal.
Up time is great. Of course, you only notice downtime. In the 5 years I have had 2 incidents where it was down for 2 hours or more (router maintenance and server hard drive crash)
A couple of instances of sluggish behavior tied to some bad scripts.
NO PROBLEM with bandwidth. Hosting many gigabytes of user created MP3 files and video, fast, smooth, and glitch free.
HUGE AMOUNT OF FILE SPACE. 400gb with my $9 plan
Flexibility:
The $9 prof account allows you to install and compile imageMagick, C++ tools (and you can run anything that doesnt access protected ports, i.e. Jabber or Shoutcast servers)
MySQL - 100mb database size max - Not yet a problem, and I log EVERYTHING
Access - your scripts can execute command line utilities (useful if you dont have shell access
SIMPLIFIED (almost to the point of rudimentary idiocy ) Control Panel (even a caveman could use it)
RECOMMENDED FOR:
1. Total newbies who just want to upload some raw html and simple sites
2. Power users who really know what their doing and dont need to call anyone for help,ever
3. Cheap hosting, high bandwidth and decent mySQL speed and throughput.
4. Setting up a Webservice or similar tool, PHP GD runs damn fast, for example, and the plans all have high bandwidth.
NOT Recommended for:
2. Intermediates who think they can find answers from their host: There are none. In fact, 1and1 Support Sucks so much ass, the have a dedicated support site in California.
AVOID 1and1 for .NET sites - VERY VERY BAD, and very very restricted.
AVOID 1and1 for dedicated hosting. - you will be fucked.
AVOID 1and1 if you believe you dont have to do your own backups, or they (1and1)can restore shit.
AVOID 1and1 as a Domain Registrar - you WILL live to regret it.
HOWEVER: If you have a website FUNCTIONALITY that requires high bandwidth and a lot of space,
Example.
I have a 1and1 server that uses FTP to login to multiple sites I administer and backup the contents periodically to special folders.
That is an excellent use for 1and1, and, at less than $5/month
1and1 is basically like sex.
With sufficient ‘Birds and Bees’ knowledge (and condoms) it can be moderately painless and generally not too expensive.
I suggest you use this hosting http://tinyurl.com/hostgat
our company use this hosting company service for 5 years.
thanks.
With over 5 million hosted site, and 55,000+ web servers, 1and1 is bound to have a few issues, but seriously, what host even has 20,000 servers.
My uptime has ben very good at 1&1.
My cost and features have been very good.
Most people don’t realize that 99.9% uptime = slightly less than 9 hours outage per year. It just may not seem that why when it’s your server that is down.
Most of what Steve said is reasonable. However I appreciate 1&1’s auto renewal domain feature which keeps me from losing valuable domains. As far as backups, why trust any web host? You should always have an offline backup of your site in case of an emergencty. Support poor at 1&1, it has been just fine for me, maybe the more technical the question, the more difficult it can be to get a good answer, but I would expect this from any host.
Postive or negative, surfers should take review with a grain of salt.
Enough said.
Keepin’ it real,
Kate