I am very sorry I have not updated in awhile. To be brutally frank, I was almost afraid to write this post, as if it would jinx my good fortune.
You see, after all of my months of complaining and screaming and demanding, I finally got results! David Rubel admitted all of the errors and apologized for all of my troubles. He was very conciliatory, even offering some substantial monetary concessions to make up for all of the aggravation they caused me.
He does, however, continue to insist that I register a credit card or PayPal account with them. He holds that that is a requirement to maintain an account with them.
I continue to refuse to do it, on the grounds that even now I have NEVER received a correct invoice from them.
I think my main concern is that I cannot get any sort of account information from the website that actually reflects the transactions and reconciliation. Even now, if I go to my account and simply add up all of the invoices and credits showing there, nothing matches reality.
I will continue to keep a close eye on my account, and I will be ever vigilant to cancel every domain exactly according to their procedures. I will continue to save every email and make sure I can identify which Cancellation ID goes with which domain, since nothing in their system can correlate those for you.
I plan to post some step by step instructions for canceling domains at 1and1 in the near future. Not their standard crap, but how to successfully cancel a domain and maintain the necessary proof that you did it so when they experience “system difficulties” you can prove them wrong.
I am still not happy with 1and1, because of the absolute nightmare I had to go through to force them to fix their own mistakes, but I have proven that if you are willing to make enough noise, they will capitulate!
I really think there should be some better way of us banding together to make their exploits more public. Is there a facebook page or other sites dedicated to the appalling responses provided by this company? I have had a similar experience which has lasted several months. They ‘upgraded’ my contract without my agreement and then told me that they couldn’t switch it back, and I would have to do it. Their communications are awful, freqently avoiding answering any questions. They also failed to send a copy of the notice hey claim to have sent, claim their T&Cs allow this and point to a clause that does not allow it – but most irritatingly refuse to give any response exept the constant same mantra.