Blue Chi’s

I’ve been renting a dedicated server at 1and1 for a little bit less than a year, and through this period, I only had two bad incidents in the past, but none of them was enough for me to switch providers, however, two days ago I got an email from 1and1 saying that they received a spam complaint, less than ten minutes after the first email, I received a second one saying that they are receiving a *massive* number of complaints and for that reason they are locking up my account until I email them back with the measures I took to stop the spam.

Both of these emails were automated messages, nothing in them had any details about the complaint, I instantly called them, waited for 15 minutse on the custom support line until someone talked to me, and I was told that the ‘abuse department’ can only be reached by email, the technical support dept cannot do anything for me, and all I have to do is wait. I emailed the abuse dept back and I got no response for a whole day, I called again, and they told me to just wait cause they can’t do anything, I emailed the complaints dept telling them about the mess (again, the complaints dept can only be reached by email, no phone line), my email to the complaint department was sent 24 hours ago and I haven’t received anything from them yet. Today at around 3pm UK time my account was unlocked, I got no explanation email from the abuse dept or the complaints dept.  I didn’t even get a notification saying that my account is not unlocked.

I do not send any emails using the 1and1 servers, and I use a 3rd party service to send my website’s monthly newsletter. The alleged complaint does not make sense.

I was frustrated for more than 24 hours with no response for 1and1, our members were frustrated, and the contractual obligations with our advertisers were at risk, I was obviously losing traffic and money. 1and1 had not justifications for shutting me down, and they did not even bother to even email me back with an exaplanation.

Unfortunately, the losses we sustained do not justify taking legal action, but these people lost my trust and respect. I have already purchased a hosting package at Media Temple and will be moving all my websites to the new service ASAP.

If you are thinking of getting a host for your website make sure you stay away from 1and1.