1and1.com is holding my Domain Hostage....

M

magik20

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Jun 10, 2002
Messages
1,241
This is pretty annoying / irritating, so in the hopes you dont EVER deal with 1and1.com I wanted to get the word out on their "business" practices.

Back in 2008 i was looking around for a web host for my web idea, TotalEmergencyServices.com. After seeing 1and1.com in Maximum PC about four hundred times, I decided to give them a shot.

After signing up with them, within 2 months I was dissatisfied with the service ( small issues, nothing huge ) and ended up moving my hosting to another account, but kept the website online and registered through 1and1.com.

For 8 months I never received any emails or phone calls from 1and1.com. On the 16th of April, however, I found that the website would not come up, and tracked down 1and1.com's billing department for answer.

After an hour of hold times, finally the answer I received was I owed 1and1.com $50 for hosting. Not really complaining, nor bothered by the amount, I called the collections company I was referred to ( my account expired on the 15th, put into collections 1 day later.... how nice of them ) and paid the $50 plus a service fee.

Well, thats annoying, but ok so at least I get my website back right?.... right?? hahaha... no.

1and1.com precedes to inform me that now I have to pay an extra $40! in "redemption" fees for not paying the bill, and also buy hosting from 1and1.com to get my website back.

I then lost my cool with the service rep and loudly explained that I never once got an email from 1and1.com within this year and even most of last year. The only billing email I got was dated 7-18-08 because of a change in my credit card number.

I asked him what company does this?? On top of never even getting a billing email saying if i dont pay you your closing the account, now your holding it ransom?

Long story short, dont deal with 1and1.com. While $40 is not alot of money, they could easily have asked $200. If you say no, they will release the website address to the public and there goes your URL.
 
Hmm, I've been using them for a year now and it's been the best domain service I've had.
 
thisd is normal for ALL (or most) domain registrars if you go over your expiration date. doesnt matter if you got emails or not. Normally they give more than a day before going in to the redemption service.
 
If you say no, they will release the website address to the public and there goes your URL.
Click to expand...

If you do not pay the money then you have no rights to the domain name any longer.....what do you expect them to do? This is no different to any other service/subscription.
 
also, if you don't pay, it can take months before it comes back into the public domain for sale. There is no set time or date that it will happen either. They normally just say 90 days but you never really know.
 
Actually, no one "releases" expired domains anymore. They all put their own parking page there and try to charge $5k if you want it back.
 
And if you go 1 day past the due date, you are screwed. I've lost 2 domains the day they expired to two different chinese companies. It didn't feel too bad, though, because they bought them because the traffic was high. :) But, I've moved on. Same site for 6 years this time, and 4 the first time. Going on 11 years with the same site isn't too bad. Now, it's a totally new domain and site design that I'm working on and will relaunch soon.

Take it as a new direction and redo the site or whatever. Just make the best of it and go from there. It may end up being a good thing.
 
I've got a couple of domains registered via GoDaddy (and they've been fine / relatively inexpensive). I've always wondered: what happens if GoDaddy goes under?

[naive] I assume ICANN has some contingency plan for this? [/naive]
 
TheSpook said:
I've got a couple of domains registered via GoDaddy (and they've been fine / relatively inexpensive). I've always wondered: what happens if GoDaddy goes under?

[naive] I assume ICANN has some contingency plan for this? [/naive]
Click to expand...

Normally the names get split up and given to other registrars. Which turns into a nightmare for those whose names get this treatment.
 
Never keep your names registered with your host. Know when your registration expires. Problem solved.
 
you didnt pay the domain renewal and it expired. They have the right per ICANN to charge you whatever fee they want to get the domain out of redemption while it is in the redemption period.

The redemption period is 30 days per ICANN, after 30 days they can either keep the domain themselves or release it. $40 is a lot less than most registrars charge to get an domain out of redemption, Enom is $160
 
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