1&1 --> Any experience with this webhost ?

[Vic20]

I'm trying to find a good webhost provider, but so far I haven't found anyone yet. I've signed up and cancelled about 10 different providers last month and also lost a lot of money. Siteturn was amoung the worst of them all...

I read a reccomendation in this forum about Hostmatix.com
but after signing up I did not get an instant account activation as they promised, nor did I get in contact with sales/support. Their "Live chat" function is a joke....I only get an "page not found error"...... so, as with many others I've tried, Hostmatix goes in the bin.....I hope I get my money back....:/

Now, I've found a webhost provider called 1&1, and they seem very good and professional. Anyone heard about them or have any experience with them ?


Thanks
Regards
Victor, Norway

 

[Blue]

1&1 are the largest service provider in the UK. They recently broke in to the North American market and should prove to be very reliable.

 

[Vic20]

1&1 are the largest service provider in the UK. They recently broke in to the North American market and should prove to be very reliable.

Ok, sounds good, thanks!



Victor

 

[antiscam]

1&1 are the largest service provider in the UK. They recently broke in to the North American market and should prove to be very reliable.

They are also complelty useless. There is a very good reason why they are cheap! Also don't register a domain name through them if you want control of it yourself. You can't change the nameservers and you'll have a hell of a time moving the domain to another provider.

They spend a lot of money on slick advertising and next to nothing on customer support.

How many hosting companies do you know of where you sign up for a server, they take your money, they confirm your order then you hear absolutly nothing for five days despite numerous e-mails. They then tell you that YOU, were supposed to phone THEM to confirm your identity. It doesn't say that on their sign up page or in any subsequent confirmation e-mails.

Three weeks passed and we kept being told the server would be set up within two days. Eventually after five weeks of messing about trying to get them to activate the server we gave up and asked for a refund under their money back guarantee. That was in Feb and now half way through June we are still waiting on the refund. And we are not the only ones! We also lost a domain name because they simply ignored our requests to transfer the domain out and we got fed up with trying to get them to do something.

It seems 1 & 1 work on the basis of if they ignore you long enough you'll go away and forget the money you spent and the hassle you had.

If you want good cheap hosting go with 123-reg or someone similar. At least you'll get someone with more than one brain cell on the end of the phone if you have a problem.

If anyone else has had problems with 1 & 1 please contact me.

Antiscam

 

[TheOrbit]

Blue, I hope you mean reliable as in financially sound? They are owned by a big company in Europe and 1&1 is basically not making much profit but using profits from their parent company for operations (or that is what I have seen written on many forums). From all of the places I have seen...1&1 has the worst rep when it comes to customer support. Customer complain about not recieve almost any/minimal support and replies take forever. They are definetly cheap for a reason.

 

[Blue]

Financially sound and stable as in network stability.

I've said it before, if you need a lot of hand holding on a shared account, these are not the guys to go with.
I've had one and one accounts since the free hosting offer last year and have had no issues at all. That being said, I've never had to use customer service.

 

[TheOrbit]

Thanks for clearing it up. Financially they are not really sound from what I have heard though. I hear that United Internet, the parent company, is giving their profits to pay for 1&1's loses. Is this true?

 

[Blue]

I've heard that, but that's not an unusual situation. The three year free hosting promotion they used to get their foot in the NA market place would be a serious cash pig. It's quite possible they are using revenue from the parent company to finance it and using it as a tax write off on both sides of the pond.