Another Way to get Fucked by 1and1

So, here’s the skinny on another way to be on the shit end of 1and1′s stick.

First, sign up at 1and1 for a package. Any package. The URL is 1and1.com; you can find their hosting packages, I’m sure. Oh this one looks good… The Beginner Package: $2/month for six months, then it doubles to $4. Right on, you say, and you sign right up. Great. You’re happily going along when you decide you need another domain. So you order another domain through 1and1′s not great prices, but hey, it’s all together.

Fast forward another ten months. You’ve got a pack of domains running, but you’ve outgrown your 1and1 service. You look at the offerings and decide to go with a HostGator package instead. Since you have multiple domains, check out their “baby” level service. Unlimited domain hosting. Great.

You gently move your sites from 1and1 to HostGator. Everything goes smoothly, and you go ahead and flip the switch, changing the nameservers from the 1and1 ones to the hostgator ones. Now everything’s beautific, you’ve got great service, you’ve got fantastic uptime, hostgator is really coming through for you. You’re ready to stop paying for the hosting at 1and1; you don’t need it, and frankly it wasn’t all that great anyway. You call up their “cancel.1and1.com” instructions, enter your username and password, and … shazam! …

You can’t cancel your package without cancelling the domains!

So now you need to transfer the domains to (hostgator? I prefer namecheap) before you can cancel your account with 1and1. And you’ll probably be billed for another round at 1and1. As an added bonus, your domains will be locked in “updating status” for an indeterminite length of time) if you’ve recently changed something about them. For instance, their nameservers.

Thanks, 1and1. Again.

Written by russ on March 23rd, 2009 with no comments.
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