1&1 - A Web Hosting Service Disaster!

How bad can web hosting get? One needs only to look as far as www.1and1.com. This used to be an excellent service. However, sometime ago they were acquired by a large German conglomerate who outsourced tech support to India. Since then, the quality of responsiveness and technical support has taken an incredible nose dive.

This is my firms experience.

8 days ago on May 19, we activated the Front Page extensions on our site so we could publish using the Microsoft Expressions web software. Normally it should have taken a few hours for the front page extensions to go into effect. However, after 24 hours, we still received the same message "Status Being Activated".

After 6 days (yes 6 days) of calling into tech support, speaking with supervisors, being told the problem was escelated to higher level support - 1 and 1 finally acknowledged they didn't know what the problem was and it was with the "highest" level of support in Germany, but it would take several days to fix it.

This morning (on the 27th) after 8 days of not being able to update the web site, and intermittent down time - I receive a note saying the problem was fixed and that "Front Page Extensions Were Working as Expected". I immediately attempted to publish the site. However, mid-way through the publishing effort, I received a 'timed out' error. And this is were it really gets interesting.

I call tech support to speak to a supervisor. First, the tech support rep says the supervisor is unavailable - he is in a meeting. After I continue to insist on speaking to a supervisor, and after being put on hold, I finally spoke to a supervisor. The supervisor proceeds to tell me that they have a server problem which has been affecting over 4,000 customers for the last week and they are 'gradually' migrating everyone from that server to a new server. He thought I "Might" be migrated in 3 to 4 days. Of course now our web site is completely off-line.

I summed it up and the supervisor confirmed the situation as, "They don't have a resolution and they don't know when it will be fixed". When I asked to speak to his supervisor, he told me he was it. He was the highest level of management anyone could speak to!!!

This is clearly the worst customer support I have ever received. I have been told the following over the course of the last eight days:

1) We know you have a problem, but we can't tell you when it will be fixed.
2) It's been escalated to our highest level of support.
3) It's a server problem.
4) It's a problem with the Front Page extensions.
5) We have applied a fix and it should be working in 30 to 40 minutes (I received this 'stock' answer at least six times during the first five days).
6) It's been fixed (I've been told this numerous times)
7) We will follow-up with you and keep you posted (I've been told this at least 15 times - but it has never happened once).

I have a proposed solution. Everyone who is a 1&1 customer should just move. That's right. Exercise your ability to be heard by going to another ISP. This will put 1&1 out of business and hopefully send a message to other service providers. If you cannot provide adequate service and customer support, then you shouldn't be in the business.