August 28, 2009

Experience with 1and1…

I recently received an invoice for a domain renewal from 1and1.com — however, I never asked for the domain to be renewed, nor had any expectation that it would be.  In fact, when I first purchased the domain, I specifically was purchasing it for a single year and didn’t get the impression that my billing information would be stored on their servers.

I’ll freely admit that they sent an email about a month and a half ago that said they’d be auto-renewing the domain.  However, the subject was “1&1 domain renewal notification,” and glancing at it, I read “The domains listed below are due to expire in 42 days on [date].”  Since I knew I had not requested an automatic renewal I simply ignored the email so that the domain would expire.

So anyway, I called ‘em up and asked about it, and they said they could send a link to a refund/cancel form.  Which of course I assumed would be an online form behind secure authentication that would let me simply take care of it all.  Instead, it was a link to a PDF that I was supposed to fill out and mail or fax in.  And they wanted my account information, credit card information, and a copy of a government-issued photo ID.  So considering that I already lost all trust in the company due to the way they charged me for a renewal and stored my billing info without me realizing it, there’s certainly no way I would send them all that information together, especially in a completely insecure manner. (Later another customer support representative told me he doesn’t believe the copy of the ID is necessary, but the form says you have to include it.)

The second customer support representative I talked to put me on hold and transferred me to the cancellations department without asking me first — “I’ll have to transfer you to cancellations [click]”…  Talking to someone in cancellations (who of course says they have no ability to deal with refunds), she actually asked me to verify my password for her over the phone.  I wasn’t about to do that, but it decreased my trust of them even further.

So having hit complete dead-ends with their customer support folks, who say that I agreed in the first place to auto-renewal, and that they can’t refund the charge without me mailing/faxing that form, I gave up and decided to just cancel my account, eating the $9 for the renewal.  (Side note: the first year was $7 — having it auto-renew at a higher rate is one more reason I don’t trust them.)  Unfortunately, when I requested that they delete all my personal, private billing information from their servers after I cancel (because they have no right to store it without my consent), the representative told me that it’s not possible to delete such information from their system.  (!!!)

The only way to cancel the account is to look up in their FAQ that you go to cancel.1and1.com to process cancellations, which I did.  Of course, then, it makes you go through an email verification (sending a link in email) to verify the cancellation.  However it also says that they won’t process your cancellation until you print, sign, and mail/fax another form to them (albeit a simpler one than the refund form).  I have a hard time believing they stay in business, except for all the charges they receive from people who didn’t want an auto-renew, and haven’t gone through the ordeal of cancelling.

So, if you’re thinking of buying a domain from 1and1.com, make sure you read all the fine print, and make sure you really want it to auto-renew (at whatever rate they decide is appropriate for subsequent years), and be prepared for some hassle if you ever want to cancel your account.