We Delay, You Pay

Some people might wonder why I kept sending emails after emails instead of calling. I was located in Burnaby, BC, Canada at the time and held a full-time job. Being in the different time zone from 1&1, the only time I can call them is during my breaks or during a tiny window right after I get off work.

On August 23rd, I quickly typed up a fax, stating everything they required in the previous email. I gave them a call and asked them if they have received the fax. They said they have received the fax and will process the refund and that I should check back in a few days to see the status.

I checked my credit card website daily to monitor the refund. After hearing no words from them I proceeded to call them once again to see if my refund is being processed. The representative told me that they did receive the fax, but there was no ID included in the fax, so they could not process the termination. No where in the email they sent me indicated that a copy of my ID is required. Over the phone I explained the entire situation once again to the representative in the billing department, he asked me to speak to cancellation department.

Fed up, I called my PC financial master card customer service and filed for a dispute on the amount to get things rolling if this turns bad. They sent me a letter for me to sign, declaring the transaction was fraudulent.

Every time I call 1&1 Internet is roughly a 10-15 minutes wait time. Mind that I can only call them while I was at work, I was limited to calling them during my lunch hours. After being tossed back and forth 2-3 times between billing and cancellation departments, finally a rep was willing to initiate a cancellation for me but he asked me to try to reach my cousin in the mean time. After two days of no response from my cousin, he finally agreed to terminated my account.

He then once again, transferred me to another department, the cashier. The cashier refused to issue me a full refund, because almost a month has elapsed since the the beginning of the new contract. I was outraged, I initiated the refund process as soon as I found out about the charge. It was 1&1 who continued to delay this process and now I was the one to be charged. He was unwilling to budge. Given that 1 month fee is only a few dollars, I opted for the partial refund as I was about to leave the country for my master's program.

Before I hung up the phone, I had the representative recite the following to me:

1. All accounts have been terminated.
2. There is no account related to my credit card.
3. There will be no further charge to my credit card.

I was happy. Despite all the grief they had put me through. I called into PC Financial master card to cancel my dispute claim. I left for Japan on September 25th, roughly a month after the ordeal. Little did I know it was not over yet.

Continue Reading: 11/07/2007 --- Fraud

No Access!

Here is what I wrote in response to the representative's email on August 21, 2007.
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Hi Damien,

I do not have the password access the account as it was for my cousin. He's no longer residing in the same country as I do and cannot be reached for this information. Perhaps I should just call my credit card company and do a charge back? since this transaction was not authorized at all and I have no way of accessing this cancellation website of your.

Please let me know where to go from here.

Kenneth
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Here he wrote me back again, seemly obsessed with their system and with no sign that he has grasped the entire situation.
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Dear Kenneth Yu, (Cust: (deleted))

Thank you for contacting us.

Your customer id is Cust: (deleted). Please go to http://admin.1and1.com to login to your control panel. If you do not have the password it can be emailed to the address on file from the site under forgot password option.

If you have any further questions do not hesitate to contact us.

Sincerely
Damien C**********

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This was getting all too irritating, I replied to state to them once again that I have NO access to my cousin's email OR his administration page. Finally someone wrote me back with an answer on August 22, 2007.
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Dear Kenneth Yu, (Cust: (deleted))

Unfortunately you will need to follow the cancellation instructions outlined in the previous email.

Alternatively you can send us a fax or letter requesting termination according to our Terms & Conditions (http://order.1and1.com/xml/order/Gtc):

14.3.

You or 1&1 may terminate this Agreement at any time for any reason, with or without cause, upon thirty days' written notice. 1&1 may suspend performance under or terminate this Agreement and cease transmission of data associated with Your Web Site immediately and without notice:

Please send us a fax that contains your Customer ID, Name, Address, Phone number, and say when you want this to cancel and any other further instructions. Please sign the document and write Attention Billing on it. Send the fax to 1-610-560-1507.

You can mail your cancellation request to:

1&1 Internet Inc
701 Lee RD, Suite 300
Chesterbrook, PA 19087

If you have any further questions do not hesitate to contact us.

Sincerely
Jim R*******
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Fax it is, so simple and straight forward. I wonder why it took so many emails to get an answer as simple as this.

Continue o Read: 8/23/2007 --- We Delay, You Pay

Cancellation

Before the end of my contract, I opted out of it. I sent an email requesting a confirmation that my plan will not be renewed past my contract termination date. 1&1 internet accordingly sent me an email asking me to click on this termination link. The termination went smoothly and they even gave me back a refund of a few dollars for the remaining month of my contract. Up to this point, I am pretty impressed with 1&1 Internet's structure and efficiency to process my request.

But, here comes the problem, 1&1 seems to automatically renew your subscription without ever needing a response from you. Meaning if you don't say anything, they will continue to rack up the bills. This is where it went wrong for my cousins account. Of course I had to find out about this after the incident started to roll out.

At the time my cousin has returned to Taiwan after he has finished his college program. It wasn't until the end of August, 2007, a month after he has left Canada that I spotted a charge on my credit card, it was for the amount of $26.66 from 1&1 Internet Inc. The amount seems to be for another 6 months of subscription.

I immediately contacted 1&1 through an email explaining the situation on August 20th, 2007:
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Dear Representative,

I have just come across an unauthorized transaction on my master card on Aug 14, 2007. I had previously used my credit card to help my cousin setup his domain for as a 1 time basis. I believe his domain was (deleted).net.

However, as the card holder I was not informed about the re-occurring charges. I logged into my account under (deleted).com and saw no relating information. Please cancel this domain ((deleted).net) and refund the most recent transaction back to my credit card. As I, the cardholder, did not authorize this transaction.

I have attached the first invoice sent to me from my cousin.

Please let me know how this turns out.

Sincerely,

Kenneth Yu

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1&1 Internet replied on the next day, August 21st, 2007:
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Dear Kenneth Yu, (Cust:(deleted))

Thank you for contacting us.

If you wish to cancel your package please visit https://cancel.1and1.com and use your Customer ID and password to login.

At the end of the process you will need to activate your request. In order to do so, you will receive an e-mail message with a special link which you will need to click to complete the process.

If you do not receive the email with the confirmation link email within a few hours of completing the cancellation, please notify us ASAP.

Please note that if you do not receive this email and click on the link with in (7) seven days of the request, your cancellation request will not complete and your services will remain active.

Your refund will be based on our refund policy per the terms and conditions of your account and will be processed within 14 days of your cancellation requests effective date

If you have any further questions do not hesitate to contact us.

Sincerely
Damien C********

Billing Department
1&1 Internet Inc.

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I suppose this is one of their pre-formatted email support response where you just paste and send. If the service representative had put in a little effort he would have seen that I had actually try to access it through my own account but with no success and that I had no access to my cousin's account. But I am sure he had a lot of emails to respond to, so I wrote him back with more details.

Continue Reading: 8/21/2007 --- No Access!