Alex Le’s Blog

1and1 is Crook

August
10
2006

view comments
permalink

Anti 1and1 I woke up this morning, found out that my lastproxy site was down, and so are all of my other websites hosted on the same accounts. I was so upset and got on the phone right away to call 1and1.

The lady from 1and1 responded politely about the status of my account, saying that the “admin” had decided to move my account to a different server. I was so mad and angry at the moment, but I tried to keep my temper down. I demanded for an explanation from the 1and1 side - as I haven’t received any advanced notice or emails from them about the usage of my site. The lady put me on hold for about 40 minutes (!) and got back after talking to her supervisor and the “admin” guy, saying that they have had put my account back on, but the “admin” would send me an email afterwards explaining the situation. Fine. An hour after that, I received a somewhat threatening email from them:

Dear Nhat Le, (Customer ID: 91XXXXXX)

Recently we have noticed that your web site(s) is consuming a
disproportionate amount of server resources. Because of this, we have
had to move your account off of the shared hosting server to an
auxilliary server. We now request that you consider purchasing a Managed
or other Dedicated Server in order to continue hosting with 1&1
Internet.

The decision to move your account was made by the system administrators
in order to improve the quality of service for the rest of our clients
on the shared server from which you were previously hosted.[Why I wasnt’ notified in advanced? You managed to always charge me my money way before I even know about it, so why can’t you let me know in advanced?] The
resources consumed by your account threatened the ability of that server
to capably operate as as a shared host, so it was required that your
account be moved in order to mitigate server load. [By “mitigating”, you mean hacking into my files and disabled it? I will consider to take more actions on this too.]Though we could move
your site back to the original shared hosting server, it is not
recommended. Your account activity has demonstrated that your site
deserves its own server to better suit its performance needs. [Yeah, I’m moving off right now to my own VPS. Thank you!]

Please visit 1and1.com to review the server products we offer. You will
have one (1) month to make a decision and migrate your account over to a
1&1 server or another host provider. [I’m taking action now! And read my lips, I’m not buying anything from 1and1 ever again] You can choose to return your
account back to the shared server, provided that you take steps to
reduce the load generated by your websites. If the account has to be
moved off the shared server system again you will only have the option
of purchasing a dedicated server account to continue hosting with 1&1
Internet.

Please reply to this email promptly. Further questions/comments should
be directed to admin@1and1.com.

Thank you for your compliance in this matter.

–
Sincerely,
John A. Fernandez
Customer Compliance Operative
1&1 Internet Inc.
Internet.

So they decided to automatically move my site off to a difference server even before notifying me. That’s a pretty stupid and bold move that 1and1 mase. Frankly, I’ve been happy with hosting with them (I’m a 3+ years customer, have recommended 1and1 to friends too). After yesterday when my files got hacked into and today with the closing down of my site, 1and1 just suddenly become a crook now.

I did call them up a week ago asking them SPECIFICALLY about the CPU USAGE POLICY, they told me that anything happened, they would let me know ASAP. I still had the email confirmed my talk with the guy from the support staff. So much for such a promise. You just broke it, 1and1. I really want to file a BBB compliant on 1and1’s reckless business practice. After all this mess has settled down, that’s the action I would take to show 1and1 how to treat customers.

Their advertising scheme is too good to be true: my current business plan got 1Tb transfer - that’s a boat load of bandwidth that a huge, huge (mega) site would take a month. And if your site is that popular, you should be on your own dedicated server already. 1and1 is basically offering the same service for 1/10 of the price of a good dedicated system. The deal is just too good to be true. So the catch is when your site got a little popular, they will FORCE you to upgrade by threatening to close down your site. This is really their business practice. They spend money on flashy, multi-page ads on magazines and at the same time, squeeze hard-earned money on the little webmaster guy who got hooked. 1and1 means they one big bad crook company against one of you.

The only thing that would cause me big trouble is transferring all of my domains to Godaddy. That will be a big pain in the neck as I have about 15 domains hosted on my 1and1 account. What a mess they are causing me. I just wasted my day for all of this non-sense.

My take on this: watch out for 1and1. And don’t sign up with them if you want to do serious hosting. Get a VPS or dedicated instead!

Entry posted at 6:09 pm on Thursday, August 10th, 2006, and it is filed under Observations, Random Walk, Server, Web Scripting, Web Technolgy

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

Subscribe in a reader. Enjoy reading my blog? Subscribe to my RSS to read new post whenever I publish something new.

12 Responses to “1and1 is Crook”

Sune Christesen

6:15 am
August 11, 2006
#69

It’s a typical scenario these days, specially with the large discount providers. I think it’s sad that you more and more often see sites being closed, moved or suspended due to the ISP chosing to do so.

Specially the cases where the customers are promissed unlimited bandwidth, and banned for consuming too much bandwidth, are stupid.

Regarding your specific situation, at least they could have contacted you before they took action.

Luke

10:40 pm
August 24, 2006
#123

I had a similar thing happen to me with my current host. Why wouldn’t they notify at least 24 hours in advance to tell you that you’re site will be down if you don’t transfer?

Do they look at their stats once a week?

Brian

8:36 am
September 20, 2006
#695

I had the same thing happen to me, and coincidentally, from the same person. I fixed the issue causing the problem and am still waiting :

“A case has been escalated to the server administrators about moving your
account back to the shared hosting environment. Once we have received
an update from them, we will email you with this information.”

This is 1 week after I fixed the problem.

They’ll probably wait until the end of the month time period and notify me that it’s still not compliant.

Hopefully. I’m ready to move hosts.

Michael

5:14 pm
February 13, 2007
#16385

Wow! this appears to be the same problem I am having. But they gave me an even more retard excuse than they gave you. Below is the email they sent me.

“Dear Michael ******(Customer ID: ********)

It has come to our attention that you have recently executed and/or
attempted to execute an unauthorized service on your web space:

./psd/surfer.cgi
./peeps/surfer.cgi
./onlinehome/psd/surfer.cgi
./onlinehome/surfer.cgi
./michaelrox/p/surfer.cgi
./psd/proxy
./peeps/proxy
./cibolasucks/proxy
./onlinehome/psd/proxy
./proxy
./michaelrox/p/proxy
./michaelrox/proxy

Such services are not permitted to run on 1&1’s web spaces:

http://order.1and1.com/xml/order/Gtc

7.13.
You agree and warrant that any and all material(s) of every kind which
you store in Web Site Space or transmit using 1&1’s Services or
Equipment shall at all times be free from any and all damaging software
defects, including, but not limited to, software “viruses”, “worms”,
“Trojan Horses,” and other source code anomalies, which may cause
software or hardware disruption or failure, reduced computer operating
speed, or compromise any security system. You agree that you will not
attempt to access the 1&1 Equipment or web site or another customer’s
web site without authorization.

—

This is also stated explicitly to you when you connect via SSH to your
account:

“Shell access is provided for web development and not for running
irc-bots, arbitrary tcp/udp servers (e.g. gameservers) or cracking
toolkits. Disregard leads to suspension of your contract.”

Please remove the software at this time and do not attempt to use it
again. Be aware that further infractions can result in the suspension or
termination of your contract.

Thank you for your compliance in this matter.”

Mike

9:50 am
March 5, 2007
#17808

Hi,
I just read your rant regarding 1 & 1 internet services. I’m trying to prepare myself for possibly having similar problems you had. I’m working on having a backup plan, but in order for that plan to work I still need to be able to forward my domain if they shut me down. When they shut you down, did you still have the ability to log-in to your control panel and forward you domains ? Or did they shut that off also ?
Thanks, any help is appreciated.
Best, Mike
defeedme@gmail.com

Alex le

10:11 am
March 5, 2007
#17812

@Mike,

I don’t remember exactly about accessing your account after being suspended by 1&1. I think that you can. Or in the case you can’t login, you can call them up and request to access the admin page, they will reopen it up for you.

ashley powell

6:05 am
June 15, 2007
#39318

i recently recieved a letter from 1&1 of suspension do to the fact that i was rufusing to pay for my hosting and setup fees. they threatened that they would hand the debt over the bealifs. i soon after fiqured that the did not exept VISA ELECTRON. altough i am sure that i had seen the visa logo on the 1nd1 website. i can no longer access my control panel and my account has been erased from there records. not a happy customer!

what do you think of there affilation program.

Chris

5:29 pm
September 28, 2007
#61284

I set-up BankRaid a few years ago to highlight my battle with 1&1. A couple of years down the road and it all became too much too handle - and too costly as well. Too many folk ‘out there’ were writing to me asking for help. So, now I’m taking a different tack. I cannot afford to be so charitable and need some recompense for all my efforts. I’m proposing an alternative way forward. As it appears that 1&1 are virtually beyond the law, inasmuch that regulating agencies (both government and on the internet) seem reluctant to help the consumer, I thought I’d set up my own hosting company and try and attract customers - hopefully many from 1&1! Just seems that this is the only way to go. Please visit http://www.bankraid.com and see how life can be so much better!

Abdool

7:33 pm
November 15, 2007
#78482

Hi,
I bought some domain names through 1and 1 and I could not get my invoices for over I month. I complained to ICANN and others.
Finally it was mailed to me. I am sorry to hear these sad stories.
Rgds,
Abdool

Tim

10:35 am
March 22, 2008
#132623

My site http://www.innerbody.com has been down for 4 hours. Its 3/22/08 at 9:30 am the 1and1 customer service representative in the Philippines has no idea why the server in the USA isn’t responding. He’s been looking for his supervisor for 5 minutes to talk with me. We ping the site every 5 minutes and have learned that the site has been out 19 times this month. Their unreliable service is costly and frustrating, and we’re looking to replace them as soon as possible.

Mike

5:36 pm
March 25, 2008
#134246

$10/month for 1TB of transfer and an ungodly amount of storage. Things that sounds like they’re too good to be true, probably are, they offer these services knowing that most accounts won’t take up much bandwidth or storage, so they show huge numbers for a low cost. If you’re sites are getting a lot of traffic, monetize them a little bit so you can afford to host on VPS or dedicated. It’s as simple as that.

Max

12:51 am
June 24, 2008
#173591

I signed up for their email service, moved a domain name to them I use only for email and then after one day already got false-positives in their spam filters using default settings plus they do not offer email filters, just white/black lists and the lists must be fully-qualified emails, no wildcards. When I contacted support to find out if there are email filters available somehow no matter how people I explained the question to I just got one dumb canned response after the next- they asked me if I was having trouble accessing my email, have I tried another client, would I like to know how to use their web mail, would I like to add a million other services, etc.

When I canceled they had the audacity to try scare-tactics and say both in the support email and on the cancellation screen “Please note that cancelling your account will also cancel your domain name ____.com” this is despite the fact I never bought the domain through them and they have no control over my domain.

Good riddance to them!

1and1 is Crook

12 Responses to “1and1 is Crook”

Leave a Reply