Sometimes, if it wasn’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all. Just as I was ready to get deep into blogging regularly again, or at least try to, my web host takes a nose dive.
There’s my excuse, here’s the rant:
I can honestly say, without much doubt, that 1&1 Web Hosting has THE worst customer service, tech support, etc. that I’ve ever dealt with. About 3 weeks ago, I found all of my websites offline. Early the next morning I receive an email explaining they were having server issues and that everything should be back to normal within 24 hours. 24 hours came and went and the following morning I received another email saying they were finishing the repairs and everything should be back up and running by that evening and that I would suffer no data loss due to the technical issues they were experiencing. They were only half right as the server was back online that evening, but all my files were history. I call tech support the following morning, express my displeasure and have to explain to the woman that my files really are gone, with the exception of tons of empty directories.
Now, I only have myself to blame that I didn’t have backups of my sites. Between computer/hard drive crashes, any backups I had were gone and unfortunately for me, not replaced.
Back on point; I was informed that tech support was aware of these issues and would be retrieving my files and other peoples as well, from backups soon. for the next 4-5 days, I received generic ‘sincere’ emails, simply stating their apology and they were working on correcting the problems and restoring my files as soon as possible. All the while, nothing. Some family emergencies and such kept the web hosting problems from the front of my mind for about a week. I decided to call back last Monday to speak with billing about getting some kind of refund as at that point, I was almost 2 weeks without service. I was told to email the complaints department as billing couldn’t confirm any technical issues related to my account. Fine, I email complaints, spelling out most everything I’ve just said here.
The billing rep told me I would receive a response from complaints in 1-5 days. Christmas comes and goes, not even a response telling me they were working on it and would get back to me soon, web sites still down. Fed up with the crap, I signed up with a new web host.
I contacted tech support again, two days ago, checking on the status of things … 15 minutes on hold, AFTER speaking with someone, for them to come back and say they were unable to retrieve my data, but they were aware of the message I sent to the complaints department and were working on some form of compensation. At this point, I’m fuming, I asked to speak directly to the complaints department. Not possible. Apparently, there isn’t a single damn telephone anywhere in the complaints department, the only form of contact is the email address. Though, I was told they would give my complaint some higher priority. Bull! I’m still waiting.
I was a happy customer for over 5 years up until this BS. Hell, I started with them at the beginning of when they opened up shop here in the States. Now, I can’t even get a response beyond a three line, form letter apology from their tech support crew; he needs to use spell check once in a while, too.
I jumped over to FatCow Hosting, so far so good, easy to manage and the process to get started was quite simple.
Is anyone else experiencing this with 1&1 right now? I’ve read more than a few former, disgruntled customers complaints, about issues in the past, I’m just wondering if anyone else out there is screwed like me, during their current mess. Let me know.
In closing, stay far away from 1&1 Web Hosting.
1and1 equals 0 in my book! I’ve had very similar problems to yours. I had been a customer of 1and1 for several years but just used them for web hosting since I put together my site with Dream Weaver and uploaded it to their servers. But then a few weeks ago I decided I wanted to simplify my life and try out one of their packages with built in templates. What a truly unfortunate decision that was! I ordered a MyBusiness Site and a starter e-shop. For days I couldn’t even open the new site and kept getting the run-around from tech support. (“Bugs with their system” was the only response.) When it finally opened I realized it wasn’t even the package I ordered.
Well, when I contacted the contract department they couldn’t even trace the original order. So, with so much time already invested I decided to go ahead and use the more simple package I got. The problems only grew worse. The MyBusiness Site website builder template/software is garbage. I must have called tech support five times to try to sort out problems. And then the content I had saved started dropping out! When I called to report this they offered to re-load it up out of backup. But then there were of course the requisite deluge of e-mails requesting that I confirm I wanted to do this and on and on….
So, to get my blood pressure back to some more reasonable level I canceled all my contracts. I haven’t begun the battle to get my money back even though they said they would cancel a couple of invoices as a favor. If they really were sincere about doing a favor they should close their doors.
Just getting past all this makes me feel better…
1and1 deleted all of my files in Dec 2009, and sounds exactly the same. Stated they would recover my files over the next week, and never heard from them again. Took two months to get someone to finally say they could not recover them, and that they were only going to credit me $32 for deleting and knocking down all of my companies hosted through them. I had 1and1 for 6 years, and will NEVER go back with them. Do as others have stated and stay FAR FAR AWAY.
I’m sorry to hear that others suffered as badly as I did. Worse yet, for me anyway, is I tried contacting 1&1 last week because I hadn’t heard anything from them since this whole mess began and any phone calls I did make were met with the usual, “we are working on the problem” and that my complaint was being worked on, which is obvious bullshit, it ended up in the recycle bin somewhere.
When I did call last week, they didn’t even have record anywhere, of my complaint! When I asked what they were going to do about this whole situation, I was told to email the complaint department again! As nicely as possible, I asked to speak with a supervisor who was mysteriously helping another customer and then my call backs every 15 minutes afterward, he was not answering his phone at all. Why the hell am I going to email the complaints department, when they blew me off completely already! I’m still pissed about the whole thing. I’m just glad I jumped ship and didn’t wait for them to stick to me again.
As far as my new host, I couldn’t be happier. If anyone is looking, I highly recommend FatCow Hosting.