Introduction

My name is Kenneth Yu. Thank you for reading this blog. Currently I reside in Yokohama, Japan, doing my master/PhD program at the Tokyo Institute of Technology. I believe in fighting for a cause and fighting for justice.

It is my hope that this blog will expose some of the malpractices of 1&1 Internet. Please click on the below link to start viewing in chronological order.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

>> Begin Reading Here <<

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Table of Contents:

1. 2/18/2007 --- 1&1 Internet Hosting
2. 8/20/2007 --- Cancellation
3. 8/21/2007 --- No Access!
4. 8/23/2007 --- We Delay, You Pay
5. 11/07/2007 --- Fraud
6. 11/08/2007 --- Not Alone
7. 11/08/2007 --- Broken Record
8. 11/09/2007 --- Help on the Way
9. 11/10/2007 --- PC Financial
10.11/11/2007 --- BBB
11.11/12/2007 --- Cheating Service Level
12.11/14/2007 --- Feedback
13.11/16/2007 --- More Silence
14.11/18/2007 --- Card Cancellation

Card Cancellation

I really liked this President Choice Financial Master card. I got it from the local Supermarket many years ago when I was still in university. It offered 1% cash back in the form of grocery points. I've gotten a binocular (which I still have) and a lot of food with the points. I brought it with me to Japan as an emergency measure.

This is some sort of defeat I guess, but I feel okay about it. The time has come for me to let go. I've done all I could to fight this company. Being a student in a foreign country has somewhat limited the amount of energy I can spend on this, but enough is enough. I can sleep soundly knowing that I held my composure in this frustrating time.

Let it be known that 1&1 Internet still has not replied, not to mention any sort of apology. They got what they wished for though: I am letting this case slide away. PC financial has given me nothing but great service. They didn't even try to persuade me to keep the card. They knew my situation and knew what was best for my situation. Of course, they also knew that I've been a loyal customer for the past 5-6 years. I know I am going to apply for another one once I am back in Canada.

More Silence

Nothing from 1&1 Internet, so I guess they are keeping quiet and hope this will slide as time go by. So I sent another email:
--------------------------------
Billing Department,

Account number:(deleted). It has been more than 7 days since my last message to you and I still have not received any sort of communication. I have requested a refund of an unauthorized charge to my credit card for a domain name that should have been canceled more than a month ago. I have filed a complaint with BBB and you action towards the resolution of this matter will be recorded with BBB accordingly.

I am now requesting a proof of termination letter to be mailed to my address on file. This was suggested by my credit card company to prevent future fraudulent charges. The letter must state that all accounts related to this credit card number has been terminated. For the record, it is extremely frustration to deal with the non-existent customer service of 1&1 Internet.

Kenneth Yu
----------------------------------------------------
They wouldn't even write an email stating a refund is not possible. 1&1 Internet has the worst customer service. period.

Continue to: 11/18/2007 --- Card Cancellation

Feedback

1&1 Internet has the most insulting customer service system I have ever dealt with. Not only do they NOT reply to your emails when the issue gets the slightest bit complicated, they will annoy you by sending feedback requests in the middle of the dispute.

I have received so far, 3 of them during the dispute. Here is one example. I received it after the blank email they sent me. The email actually revealed which incompetent agent was behind the deed.
--------------------------------------------------------
Dear Kenneth Yu,

Thank you again for choosing 1&1 web services. We are writing to follow up on your recent contact with Eshall B*****. As 1&1 is constantly striving to improve service performance and provide greater value to our customers, we ask that you please take a moment to follow the link below and answer a few survey questions.

http://survey.1and1.com/survey.php?deleted.

Your opinion is greatly appreciated. The survey will only take a minute or two, and will help us to better serve you in the future.

Thank you for your time and consideration.


Sincerely,
1&1 Internet, Inc.
------------------------------------------------------
Of course I gave them all lowest score and left a nasty bit in the comments. By the way, I have forwarded the website to my credit card company for investigation. One fact is, I have no proof that this cancellation took place. I am willing to take the the loss of $5.86CAD if that means 1&1 internet won't harass my Canadian residence when the charge-back takes place.

Continue to: 11/16/2007 --- More Silence

Cheating Service Level

I just received a reply from the billing department of 1&1 Internet...of absolutely nothing. That's right. It's getting a bit comical, they managed to sent me an email with my original message inlined and no additional content. This is hilarious. I wonder what will come next.

They probably didn't really want to reply to the email, but it's been sitting in their email queue, so they got rid of it by replying with nothing. I know, because I was a clerk in a Customer Service department in my last job. Now the email is at the end of the queue. The agents have satisfied the max queue time service level by simply doing nothing. So when the customer service department calculates their stats, it LOOKS good.

I am still struggling with the idea of publishing this blog on Digg.com. I don't want to be a whiner, but I hope the other people will have a chance to see how the biggest hosting company handles accounts and customer service. There is a good chance that this blog will be buried easily since my case seems so insignificant.

On the side note, I have heeded to my friend's legal advice and changed the name of the blog to 1&1 Internet Exposed, instead of 1&1 Internet Fraud before the blog goes public to avoid the slightest chance of them suing me for defamation. I was also careful by refraining from using logos. Some companies can sue you silly for doing that, especially when you have a bone to pick with them.

Continue to: 11/14/2007 --- Feedback

BBB

I have filed a complaint with Better Business Bureau. There has been zero communication from 1&1 Internet since November 8th, 2007.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

re:Mr. Kenneth Yu and 1 & 1 Internet Inc

Thank you for completing the BBB Complaint Form. Your online complaint has been submitted and we will begin processing it. This process involves contacting the company for a response. When we receive a response we will provide you with a copy. At that time, should you wish to amend or provide additional information relating to the complaint you can do so.

Unless you have heard from us otherwise, please allow 30 days from the date of notification, before inquiring about the status of the complaint. Please know that due to the large volume of complaint activity facilitated by the Bureau, we appreciate your adherence to the 30 day time frame. If the company contacts you directly about your complaint or resolves the matter, please let us know either by email (info@mybbb.org) or by phone (202) 393-8000, so that we can keep the information current and take timely action in processing the complaint.

Thank you for allowing the Better Business Bureau to be of service.

Please keep this email for your records.

----------------------------------------------------------
In the desired outcome section I typed:
1. Termination of all accounts associated with my credit card.
2. Full refund of $5.86 (woohoo?)
3. Compliance of 1&1 to ICANN agreement, where the accounts should've been left to expire.
4. An apology from the head of customer service.

I wonder how far this can go.

Continue to: 11/12/2007 --- Cheating Service Level

PC Financial

I called collect from my dorm public phone to PC Financial Master Card. It was nice to talk to to an English-speaking representative after being bombarded with Japanese for the past few weeks.

I expressed to Monica from PC Financial about my concerns that 1&1 Internet will send out their collection agency minions to hurt my credit rating and harass my family in Canada. Monica assured me that 1&1 internet does not have the right to do so and since I have already paid them for the service and I am merely disputing it. So I went through with the dispute. She also advised that I should cancel my credit card if they continue to charge it.

This $5.86 has been the ONLY charge made to my credit card since I left for Japan. I spent a lot of time with 1&1 Internet to ensure that there would be no financial ties to my card because I only planned to keep use this card for emergency. Little did I know that by not cancelling the card caused me so much grief.

I am grateful though, that at least the PC Financial staff is assisting me in this somewhat isolated situation I am in right now. May justice prevail.

With things set in motion, I wrote 1&1 Internet another email to let them know how things are going:

-------------------------------------------------------------------
1&1 Representative,

This is regarding case number: (deleted). My customer ID is: (deleted). There has been no communication from you billing department since my last request 48 hours ago. My email to your complaints department also has gone unanswered. I have some good news for you and hope this will expedite the resolution.

I have obtained access to my cousin's email and in turns, access to the administration page. I have put through and activated the termination process. Hopefully this will be enough to stop you from mentioning "Please click on the link," or "Please go to admin page" in every single one of your response to me.

Even though the termination should go without hiccups, I still feel that your company lack the decency to issue me a refund. Therefore I have filed for a dispute with my credit card like I said I would. The good news is, the amount is only for $5.86CAD. A company as big as 1&1 Internet will hardly suffer if the dispute shall rule in my favor.

The next step is to file a complaint against 1&1 Internet with BBB, but the good news is, the BBB rating of 1&1 Internet is already rock-bottom, my mere complaint cannot possibly hurt it more. Yet for the sake of argument I will go through with it if the issue is not resolved.

Right now I am in touch consumerist.com, hoping they will launch a full-scale investigation on the legitimacy of 1&1 Internet's business practice, but the good news is, they are very busy so probably it won't happen very soon. With that being the case, I have made this little blog to document all that goes on in this case. It is my plan to submit it to Digg.com, but the good news is, a small fry like me probably won't stir up any controversy.

http://1and1exposed.blogspot.com

I hope you will get back to me with some good news too. My loss is a mere $5.86CAD or $5.86 + 4.37 if you include the pro-rated fee you take away from my first refund. It will be interesting to see how much resources your company is willing to dispense in fighting with me.

Kenneth Yu

--------------------------------------

Continue on: 11/11/2007 --- BBB

Help on the Way

When I was able to reached my cousin about the termination of his hosting account 2 weeks ago. I had asked him to click on the link in his gmail to complete the termination. After the incident rolled out yesterday, I sent another email to him asking him to give me password to his administration and gmail account, something I would never ask from anybody.

He replied today apologizing that he didn't finish the termination process last time, but he said he clicked on the link today. Also he gave me his password to his gmail account if the termination does not go through. This will hopefully satisfy 1&1 Internet's obsession with link-clicking. Hopefully this will also ensure that they will never ever charge my credit card again.

After going through all the correspondence from 1&1 Internet in my cousin's gmail account. I have to say there was plenty of communication to the email account I had no access to. The last charge to my credit card is actually for the domain name. Not for web space hosting as this has been canceled. Although they promised to to severe all ties to my credit card, they failed to terminate this domain 30 days ago.

Why don't I cancel my credit card all together? I have read that people were harassed by 1&1 and their credit collection minions when they fail to process a payment due to the wrong credit card expiry date. If I am to cancel my card, I am sure they will harass my Canadian residence and attempt to hurt my credit rating.

But let just focus the issues at hand. I am really not going after them for the $5.86 CAD, but I am going after them for holding my credit card information hostage and charging it whenever they feel like without merit. After supplying sufficient proof to them, they still refused to cancel.

Judging from my cancellation experience a month ago, it does not end when you have activated the termination. 1&1 will refuse to refund the $5.86 which they have so wrongfully charged in the first place. By being persistent they hope you will give up so they can swallow the amount without providing any service.

On the other hand, someone from consumerist.com has replied me, saying they will check it out. I don't expect an investigation from them anytime soon, as they are a very busy organization helping people who suffered from worse scams everyday. Yet its nice to know that things are going uphill from now on.

Continue on: 11/10/2007 --- PC Financial

Broken Record

I got a reply 1&1 Internet again. Everything seems to be running in loops. In fact, the rep that replied me happened to be one of the reps that responded to me 30 days ago.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear Kenneth Yu, (Cust:(deleted))

Thank you for contacting us.

Your name is on the account, so legally you are responsible for it.

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 e-mail with the confirmation link e-mail within a few hours of completing the cancellation, please notify us ASAP.

Please note that if you do not receive this e-mail and click on the link within (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
Jim R******

Billing Department
1&1 Internet Inc.

You can also contact us via phone at (877) 300-8316
from 9am till 5pm EST Monday to Friday

--------------------------------------------------------------------
So he is sticking to the "please go to admin page" response again. I can't keep track how many times they've told me to do that. Here is how I responded.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Jim,

I am fully aware that my name is on the account and I am doing what I can to cancel the account and your company simply refused to cancel. This is exactly what happened last time and your company reaped the benefit of it by delaying the process and continue to charge my ccount. In fact, I have also dealt with you a month ago. Again, as I have stated in my previous emails. I do NOT have the password access the administration page, but that's really outside the scope of this discussion. There should not be a charge after the termination anyway. If you so insist that the termination did not go through, then please explain why there was a partial refund to my credit card a month ago?

I will list my concern in point form so you and the other internet support can understand me better.
1. I do not have the password to the account, so I cannot access the administration page. Please do not ask me to go to that website.
2. I do not have access to the email address registered with that account, so I cannot retrieve the password. Please do not ask me to click on the link.
3. This account had already been terminated 30 days ago and a refund was issued as proof of termination.
4. You continued to charge my credit card after termination. This is fraudulent misconduct.
5. You have less than 48 hours to resolve this issue.

Please do your homework before you reply to this email, or you will just make an idiot out of yourself. On the other hand, I suggest you escalate this issue to you supervisor or your head of customer service as you and the other representatives failed to comprehend what seems to be simple English. I have begun to collect evidence on this case. My loss is minimal, but I do know that there are other victims out there experiencing the same abuse from 1&1 internet.


Kenneth Yu

------------------------------------------------------------------------
And I also sent an email to the complaints department. Don't say that I haven't given them chances to make this right.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear Representative,

My customer ID is: (deleted). After countless conversations with your incompetent billing department internet support. I feel it would be the right thing to do to file a formal complain with 1&1 Internet before I do so with BBB, consumerist.com and eventually publish my findings on internet mass media.

You can find the details yourself through you response ticket log. I will summarize the important bits here. About 2 month ago I was charged for an unexpected auto-renewal of web hosting of my cousin's hosting. I emailed and called to have this refunded, but was delayed due to the fact that I had no access to the password or the email registered with his account. With my cousin out of the country 1&1 continued to delay the refund transaction and ended up charging me for the days. Eventually I received a partial refund and was promised not to worry about any future charges as all accounts related to the credit card have been terminated.

30 days later, I found once again your company has charged my credit card without authorization or notification. The billing department has went back on their words and stated that the account was never canceled, yet they could not explain why there was a refund prior to this charge. All efforts made to communicate with the billing department ended up with frustration as they only know two types of responses: 1. Please go to administration page, 2. Please click on termination link.

I have come to the conclusion that the simplest of refund request cannot be handled by your company. The level of customer service have been the worst I have seen.


Sincerely,

Kenneth Yu
---------------------------------------------------------------------

Continue on: 11/09/2007 --- Help on the Way

Not Alone

It appears that I am not alone. A quick search of 1&1 internet fraud on google returned several results for both 1&1 UK and 1&1 US.

Simon Jones' Encounter
Jeff Croft's Encounter
Chris Beach's Encounter
Dusty D's Encounter
Elliott Back's Encounter
Kyle Manning's Encounter
Milionster's Encounter
Nom De Plume's Encounter
Dean Marshall's Encounter
Ryan's Encounter
1&1 Sucks Blog
1&1 Sucks.info

Discussion on Brainfuel
Discussion on CNet Forum
Discussion on Digitalpoint
Discussion on Grumbletext
Better Business Bureau Report

I guess we could organize a class-action suit against the company.. its an idea.

Continue to: 11/08/2007 --- Broken Record

Fraud

I arrived in Japan a little over 1 month ago, still having a hard time adjusting to the new life style after years of being away from school. I occasionally check for my bank statements as I am a self-financed student without any scholarship. I worked so I could go back to school again.

Then I saw another charge of $5.84 on my master card from 1&1 Internet. This nightmare continues to haunt me. I am in Japan, dealing with an American company putting fraudulent charges on my Canadian master card. Can this situation get more difficult?

I am on the other side of the world now, there is no way I want to go through the same horrible phone support over long distance calls. I sent them another email:

----------------------------------------------------------------

Dear Representative,

My Customer ID number is (deleted) and (deleted). A little over a month ago I've gone through quite the trouble with your company and my credit card company to obtain the refund on unauthorized charges to my credit card. At the end of the ordeal I had agreed to take a partial refund and halt my credit dispute with my credit card company. As the customer service representative indicated over the phone, there was to be no further charge to my account for any of the domain names as they had been DELETED and my credit card information should have been REMOVED.

Much to my surprise I found another amount on my credit card at the end of October, one month after the deletion of all domains. This is grossly unprofessional of your company. I ask again that you process a full refund immediately on item reference number: (deleted) and REMOVE my credit card information from you database. Please reply immediately to this email.

Sincerely,

Kenneth Yu

----------------------------------------------------------------
Then look at this idiotic reply.
----------------------------------------------------------------

Dear Kenneth Yu, (Cust: (deleted))

Thank you for contacting us.

Our records show that you never activated the cancellation process by clicking on the link in the cancellation confirmation e-mail you received at (deleted) @gmail.com. You will continue to be charged on your Instant domain until you click on that link. If you haven't received it　yet, please go to https://cancel.1and1.com, go to status, and you can request to have the　confirmation e-mail resent.

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

--
Sincerely
Tanisha R*****
Billing Department
1&1 Internet Inc.

----------------------------------------------------------------
Here we go with the links again. I lost my patience and actually made a threat for the first time and I am dead serious about this threat. I will proceed to sign up with skype and continue this battle for as long as it takes.
----------------------------------------------------------------

As I have stated a month ago, the second account number does not belong to me. It belongs to my cousin, who is no longer in the country. I had try contacting him numerous time but received no reply. I have no access to his email account or his administration page, so please stop asking me to click on any link or go on any administration page. The bottom line is, this is my credit card and the transaction was not authorized.

If you look on my record you will find that there was a partial refund on the 6 month contract. A month ago I had already taken a step back and allow you to charge me for the month in which we were dealing with the situation. This case has gone up to the customer service
supervisor and I had spoken to 2 representative in billing and one in cancellation. Please use your common sense and see that I had asked for a refund only because I wished to terminate the domains.

At the stage if the situation is not resolved within 48 hours, I will contact my credit card company and take you to court over this fraudulent conduct. Please see the light and save us both some time.

Kenneth Yu

Continue on: 11/08/2007 --- Not Alone