I've been using 1&1 for several years and have been very happy with them. Support has been very responsive. Reliability has been great--a couple outages in the past 3-4 years, but I've had worse problems with many other "enterprise" hosting companies.

1 & 1 Internet is a horrible company, but some recourse is possible! Not only am I a very disgruntled customer after they lied to me repeatedly after reselling a name I had registered and paid for with them, but I am an investigative journalist. In the last 8 months, I have written more than 30 articles, interviewed more than 200 people who have been blatantly wronged by 1 & 1 Internet, talked to several consumer groups and interested attorneys, and worked with over 60 radio and TV stations on this story. Everyone has been very interested, and the investigation continues. If you have had an issue with the company, you can do the following make a difference, and get your justice:

1.) File a complaint with the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s office at www.pa.gov, or call the investigator Madelaine Dakour directly at (215) 560-6790. They have already received a large number of complaints, and have escalated the investigation, so make sure and contact them.
2.) File a complaint with the Better Business Bureau where they already have a completely Unsatisfactory rating by going to www.bbb.org
3.) File a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission at www.ftc.gov
4.) File a complaint with your state consumer advocacy group through the Attorney General’s office or Secretary of State’s office. Indiana’s is www.indianaconsumer.com
5.) Explore your state’s legislative code and find out where they stand on mandatory arbitration clauses. The Federal Arbitration Act has been shot down by state courts if they find the 1 & 1 contract to be “unconscionable” and without “mutuality” as they offer nothing for the consumer. More and more courts are ruling in favor of consumers, especially with terms and conditions that allow for illegal activity. Breach of contract, fair trade laws, fraud, and consumer laws are the tip of the legal iceberg for 1 & 1.
6.) I’m working with station affiliates of each of the major TV networks, and you can help by contacting your local station through the main sites at www.cbs.com, www.nbc.com, www.abc.com, and www.foxnews.com. Contact the investigative reporter, or simply send a news tip to the newsroom and they will follow up. Chances are, they are already aware of the major problems with the company.
7.) Keep meticulous records!

My lawsuit is pending, and I’ve been inundated with law firms wanting to take on the abysmal business practices, or lack thereof, with 1 & 1. The blatant disregard for the consumers has gotten the attention of the legal community, media, and consumers all across the country and by banding together, we can get some justice. You do not have to succumb to their tactics!

Best wishes,
Kelli J. Jack
President
Lines, Inc. Media
8425 Woodfield Crossing Blvd.
Suite #100
Indianapolis, IN 46240
(317) 469-7529

I'm an investigative journalist, and am also a very disgruntled customer of 1 & 1. Here is what you need to do first:
1.) File a complaint with the Pennsylvania Attorney General's Office by calling Ms. Madelaine Dakour at (215)560-6790, and www.pa.gov
2.) Next, file a complaint with the Better Business Bureau at www.bbb.org
3.) Their contract is in violation of the Federal Arbitration Act by having clauses considered "unconscionable", and trying to prohibit class-action lawsuits and pushing mandatory arbitration. Courts are wising up, and realizing that they are violating many rules, and are overturning and disallowing the contract. Check your states legislative code, but the FAA may have the final say.
4.) Depending on your issues with 1 & 1, you may be able to claim fraudulent advertising. If you can prove lots of downtime, then their continued claim of 99% uptime is false and misleading.
5.) File a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission at www.ftc.gov. They have received tons about this company, and are looking into their practices.
6.) Keep meticulous records, and keep me posted. I have written more than 30 articles and interviewed hundreds of frustrated customers. More than 60 TV and radio stations are working independently and with us on stories, so make sure and contact your local stations. The big four are www.cbs.com, www.abc.com, www.nbc.com, and www.foxnews.com
Don't give up! We can work together and get this awful company to do the right thing.

Kelli J. Jack
President
Lines, Inc. Media
8425 Woodfield Crossing Blvd.
Suite #100
Indianapolis, IN 46240
(317)469-7529 main

Unfortunately they got too big and lost the essence of their business. My sites (I have 9) have been down more than up in the last 2+ weeks. Their customer service (Phillipines) is frustrating at best.
Today I will be moving all my domains to a company that is more reliable and cares.
In an attempt to try and resolve these issues and not walk away from an almost 4 year relationship I called their US billing # and asked to speak with the CEO or any management level person. I was told that they do not speak to customers.

I have been a customer for 2 plus years with 1and1 hosting 5 of my sites. In that 2 years they have had 3 major outages that lasted 24plus hours. The last straw was on 4/29/08 when my site/customers experience intermittent downtime which lasted until 5/13/08 when my sites were COMPLETELY down for 5 days. On 5/19 they came back up but have been experiencing intermittent downtime ever since. On 5/21 I filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau since their customer relations department was unwilling to communicate with me. A company should not be allowed to operate this way.

We have been using it for 3 years and one day site is not accessible. We call support then they said server is down. OK it can be happen. How long of down time can you accept?
Maybe an hour? It happened a 36 hours ago and it is still down. I called number of times. The only I heard is "Sorry we are working on it" which is a script to be told to say. what kind of problem can let them abandon client's the most interests? Beware of their horriable support and if you need reliable service. Avoid 1 and 1.

Never go with 1and1

ABSOLUTELY HORRIBLE!!!!!!

Sites go down twice a week

Customer service will not be able to help you! they have no idea what they are talking about

I have been denied twice from speaking to a supervisor. They told me he is too busy to take customer calls.

worst hosting company ever.

DO NOT USE 1and1!!! two thumbs down!

Service was bad.
Auto-renew is their big scam. I am now being billed for services provided by them when my account was frozen for nearly three years. Time they were sued.

A hosting company that promises to provide 24/7/365 TECHNICAL support should AT LEAST be able to do that - PROVIDE TECH SUPPORT. However they cannot and give the run around to people like you and me.

500 errors are error messages that 1&1 use as a catch all for any error whatsoever, making it impossible to debug especially if you are installing a preexisting script. 1&1 has so many different configuration quirks that makes it impossible to narrow down exactly what the problem is.

But you want to know what 1&1 really is perfect for? Hosting STATIC HTML pages. That's it. Don't use them for anything else or it'll be the beginning of neverending headaches once you start doing any more than that.

That goes for their dedicated hosting too - if you want to talk about having no network redundancy, consider that 1&1 went COMPLETELY OFFLINE for 6 hours in the month of February when a construction crew cut one of the lines outside of their kansas data center! No backup plan, no compensation, nothing. Just us, an e-commerce company, sitting on nothing until the server could come back up.

We moved to ServerBeach for our dedicated hosting and have been extremely happy since.

That's all I'm going to say about 1&1. Horrible, HORRIBLE service.

1&1 is a terrible, terrible web host. I chose them becuase I saw many ads for them in various pc magazines and it looked like a great value! I was Wrong! Now I barely have my site up, thanks to the piece of &*#&* web editor. 1&1 Says they give you features but everytime you turn your back they are tyring to sell you more stuff. Many things like the Live Chat are a joke. The live chat is included for business, but if you want to use it for commercial use, which is why you wanted it in the first place. You will have to pay $10/Month Extra! That doubles the price of the hosting! The Stock images are a joke, I'm not putting a *&*&*&# Copyright notice for images for a business. This is how 1&1 Works, they put out ads where the competition isn't, they rely on first time web hosters since they can't get repeat customers.