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The Worst SaaS Cancellation Policy on the Internet

110 points by fruithunter 12y ago

0xeeeeeeee 12y ago
Gosh. I can't stand 1&1. When I was in undergrad I bought my first domain from 1&1 because I really had no idea where to buy them. I've received phone calls from them for 4 years. The always end with "Yes sir, we will remove your number from our list"....so either I'm on a lot of lists or they are lying to me.
TamDenholm 12y ago
I absolutely loathe 1&1, i've taken more than a few clients off of their hosting and its been an absolute nightmare EVERY TIME. A client of mine got so annoyed with their service they stopped paying and asked me to move everything out of there. After umpteen phone calls and emails i managed to do it, but it took weeks. I ended up having to pay to reinstate the service just so i could get access to it in order to move it, and since the client had lapsed on their payment, it had eventually went to a debt collection agency, because of that, 1&1 had refused my money, said i had to instead pay the agency, they would then tell 1&1 and then reinstate the service. Was an absolute nightmare... Personally, i think these are the kind of companies that should be bought by the big boys, because there's SO MUCH opportunity to win here. They have a massive user base that is VERY poorly looked after, buy the company, fix shit like this, and you can make a huge impact. Another option would be to try and topple the incumbent, doesnt take as much money but its a lot harder.
ChrisNorstrom 12y ago
1and1 has extremely aggressive telemarketers. They once called my computer illiterate father who can barely speak english and instructed him to go to trial.1and1.com to sign up for MyWebsite. Another time I refused the MyWebsite trial and the aggressive-pissed-off guy on the phone signed me up anyway. Twice. I finally got $350 refunded after months of complaining. Always hang up the phone. Yell "no no no" and hang up immediately. Always. They use phrases like "I'm going to sign you up for that so you're all set." and "ok you're all set with the mywebsite service". They don't ask you if you want a trial. They opt you in. It's up to you to interrupt them. I love their services however.
- m_mueller 12y ago
  > I love their services however. wat?
phdp 12y ago
I was scammed into adding on the website builder to my package. I was sitting at work and I received a call. I took it and a sales guy started trying to sell me on this. I explicitly asked him whether I would see any recurring charges if I said yes to this trial and then took no further action, and he assured me that was the case. I really just wanted him to shut up so I could go back to work. Imagine my surprise 4-6 months later. I was looking at my invoices and I notice this line for the builder! They did reverse the charges (I had just received the second bill and they bill quarterly), but it had to be done over the phone and during east coast business hours. Well, I work those hours.
- UnoriginalGuy 12y ago
  You were "scammed?" What? That story literally makes no sense. How did the salesman get hold of your personal information and payment information to sign you up to this service? Also how did you think a trial would incur no recurring charges after the trial expired? Particularly if you left it for 4-6 months? How long did you think the trial was? Sorry but that post could not be more nonsensical if it tried. And the line "I really just wanted him to shut up so I could go back to work." just further adds to the confusion. So you signed up to a trial to get a salesmen to leave you alone then left it for 4-6 months, and then got upset when you got charged?
  - mikeash 12y ago
    It's perfectly sensible for a trial to simply expire and stop rather than starting to charge you without any further intervention. Plenty of trials work that way. If the salesman told him that's how it worked, and it wasn't how it worked, I think that qualifies as a "scam".
  - chris_wot 12y ago
    Sounds like he expected it to end.
dlgeek 12y ago
I've found with businesses like this (though not 1&1 specifically), the magic word is "chargeback". It helps you cut through the bullshit because if they get too high a percentage of chargebacks, their credit card processing fees go up (and they can even lose the ability to charge cards).
- cordite 12y ago
  This experience reminds me of when I looked up my credit report the first time. You know, that 'free' deal to see the score and all. Turns out I was unwittingly put into a monthly plan, after an undisclosed-as-trial period with no refund. In order to cancel, I waited for about thirty minutes for an agent, then said "No, I would not like to continue" for another thirty minutes. These guys were ran by Experian. I wonder how "chargeback" would be received by such a company.
  - mikeash 12y ago
    Note that the free annual credit report is a real thing, government mandated, but of course the agencies don't advertise it. Instead, they advertise stuff that sounds like it, but is a ripoff. Visit annualcreditreport.com for the real thing. They might still try to upsell you, but if you can resist that, it's legitimate.
- kbar13 12y ago
  especially in the hosting industry, chargebacks are usually a HUGE pain in the butt for businesses to handle. In most cases where a chargeback would make sense I would go as far as to keep trying to talk to support to get the issue resolved. In 1&1's case.... no holds barred :P
- jusben1369 12y ago
  I know what you're saying but a chargeback is really for a charge that you believe is fraudulent/have no idea why it was made. That's certainly not the case here. So folks like 1&1 usually have proof that you willingly signed up for the charge. If that happens you can be blacklisted and other merchants suddenly won't accept your card. It then costs $99 to get off that list.
busterarm 12y ago
I remember well over 10 years ago when I first used 1and1 when they started aggressively advertising. Piss poor service, a few years and a couple hundred bucks in erroneous charges later and I finally managed to cancel them but not before getting sent to collections and having the only stain on my credit (which has long since gone away). The collections agency they use is as bad as they are. They are truly among the absolute worst service providers on the internet, along with the similarly-famous Network Solutions. Avoid at all costs.
overgard 12y ago
Ugh, these guys really are the worst. I had a credit card expire, and instead of letting me just update the card details, they sent it to a collection agency and when I called their customer support to just give them updated details they refused to help out. So you know what? I'm never going to pay them. Assholes.
VeejayRampay 12y ago
Based on what I'm reading they should really rename their company 1^1...
nate 12y ago
This is a tangent, but I had a similar reaction to Honest company (baby products) and cancelling. My wife signed up to their trial subscription delivery thing for diaper for our newborn. This is Jessica Alba's company. We sign up for the trial online. The diapers were fine, but we still liked the indicator strip on the Pampers better. So my wife goes to the website to cancel. Can't cancel online. Great. So she has to call. But then she's on hold for 10 minutes, at which point being a brand new parent, she needs to nurse the newborn and can't be on hold any longer. So she emails to cancel, no response. A second call, another 10 minute hold time, and almost giving up again, she finally gets through to someone to cancel and she has to go through a series of questions before cancelling. Honest seems to be preying on new parents who simply don't have the willpower or time to deal with cancelling. Checking out reviews, it seems a lot of people have this 10 minute "hold time". I'm suspicious it's just an automated wait time, and their representatives aren't really that busy.
- nicksergeant 12y ago
  I used FancyHands to cancel my Honest subscription. Glad that was money well spent.
mcmillion 12y ago
1&1 is terrible. I tried them once with a VPS. After three or four days, they still hadn't provisioned the VPS for me (you heard right, it's a manual process), so I promptly cancelled. A few months later they started hounding me (via email and phone calls) to pay up on the $15 that I supposedly owed for a free trial. Absolutely terrible company.
rgawdzik 12y ago
It should be illegal to not offer online cancellation for an online service.
re_todd 12y ago
This is very timely, I was thinking about signing up with 1 and 1. Can anyone recommend an alternative with similar services and price?
- nfriedly 12y ago
  What exactly do you need?
  - re_todd 12y ago
    Cheap linux hosting for my php and wordpress projects.
    - logn 12y ago
      If you want a general VPS: Digital Ocean, Linode, Rackspace, Amazon EC2, Google Compute Engine Digital Ocean lets you provision the lowest spec servers of all those, for $5/mo. edit: if you just want Wordpress, check out https://aws.amazon.com/marketplace/ https://aws.amazon.com/marketplace/ although I've never tried that service. They give you a VPS with various apps pre-installed, e.g., https://aws.amazon.com/marketplace/search/results/?page=1&searchTerms=wordpress https://aws.amazon.com/marketplace/search/results/?page=1&se...
      - re_todd 12y ago
        Great, thanks!
    - wishinghand 12y ago
      Hell, Hostgator can service that need pretty well. Digital Ocean would be cheaper, but you gotta know how to set things up yourself.
      - re_todd 12y ago
        I'll check them out, thanks!
dmourati 12y ago
Wow, I'd heard of 1&1 but never imagined what kind of users take them up on their free trial offers. It sounds like their business model is smoke and mirrors. They maybe got a page out of the Comcast playbook. Sorry to anyone who has ever signed up with 1&1.
andrewmunsell 12y ago
They are truly terrible, for multiple reasons. I encountered a similar issue when canceling with them earlier, where they actually asked for my password over the phone: https://www.andrewmunsell.com/blog/one-and-one-asks-for-your-password https://www.andrewmunsell.com/blog/one-and-one-asks-for-your...
jusben1369 12y ago
There needs to be a general logo/sticker/proof seal. "You can cancel a subscription the same way you can buy a subscription" If you can sign up for something online and buy it within 3 - 5 steps you should be able to cancel it online with 3 - 5 steps. If you need to call or visit a human to sign up for a service then it's fair that you may be required to call or visit a human to cancel it. How many people would more confidently purchase/avoid purchasing if that was on the checkout/payment page?
ChuckMcM 12y ago
File an FTC complaint about them, and a BBB one, and send a complaint to Dun & Bradstreet while you are at it, and post something on ripoffreport if they are still around. Then change your credit card # ( get a new number / card ) Sounds like these guys are exploiting the same flaw in CC payments that a number of phone services, domain name registrars, buyer protection services, etc exploit which is that there is no way to 'pre-decline' a charge to your credit card. They will keep charging your card (regardless of your cancellation) and when you complain they will send the CC company a copy of your initial signup / agreement and won't include any follow up documentation. You will have to send your email as documentation as 'proof' month after month. Many people just give up and pay the the money. The local news station has a consumerist segment they run now and then, this sort of scam comes up frequently. Clearly you are not alone: http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/directory/1and1-internet http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/directory/1and1-internet
- kintamanimatt 12y ago
  Actually, my business bank in the UK (Barclays) can apparently block card payments in advance. I know because it took an astonishing amount of work to stop HasOffers from billing me after my trial had ended and been cancelled.
- mikeash 12y ago
  Shouldn't even a somewhat small proportion of customers hitting them with chargebacks cause them to lose their merchant account fairly quickly? Is there some way around that, or does it just not work the way I think?
brianbreslin 12y ago
On all the products I've sold in SaaS form, we've made it a point to let people cancel easily. Sometimes I question if we made it too easy, but then I think to Wheaton's Rule, and also the fact I'm saving time not staffing a team of assholes to block cancelations. I can imagine tons of possibilities to work to reduce churn, but this 1&1 stuff is nuts. I'm sure tons of people don't cancel because $9/month isn't worth their time right now to call.
grhmc 12y ago
My favorite part is when you go to their 1&1 reviews page (http://www.sitebuilderreport.com/reviews/1&1/user-reviews http://www.sitebuilderreport.com/reviews/1&1/user-reviews) it invites you to "Try 1&1" with a referral code.
wildpeaks 12y ago
This is pretty much the same story with eFax: never ever ever EVER signup for that thing.
brok3nmachine 12y ago
1and1.com actually allows cancelation online. I found this out years ago, when the pain became unbearable from using their services for over 8 years. https://cancel.1and1.com https://cancel.1and1.com Oh, and I attained this URL after calling customer support.
- steve_benjamins 12y ago
  Author here: actually the article talks about this- you're unable to cancel the My Website (their most popular service) using that website.

110 points by fruithunter 12y ago

Gosh. I can't stand 1&1. When I was in undergrad I bought my first domain from 1&1 because I really had no idea where to buy them. I've received phone calls from them for 4 years. The always end with "Yes sir, we will remove your number from our list"....so either I'm on a lot of lists or they are lying to me.

TamDenholm 12y ago

I absolutely loathe 1&1, i've taken more than a few clients off of their hosting and its been an absolute nightmare EVERY TIME. A client of mine got so annoyed with their service they stopped paying and asked me to move everything out of there. After umpteen phone calls and emails i managed to do it, but it took weeks. I ended up having to pay to reinstate the service just so i could get access to it in order to move it, and since the client had lapsed on their payment, it had eventually went to a debt collection agency, because of that, 1&1 had refused my money, said i had to instead pay the agency, they would then tell 1&1 and then reinstate the service. Was an absolute nightmare... Personally, i think these are the kind of companies that should be bought by the big boys, because there's SO MUCH opportunity to win here. They have a massive user base that is VERY poorly looked after, buy the company, fix shit like this, and you can make a huge impact. Another option would be to try and topple the incumbent, doesnt take as much money but its a lot harder.

ChrisNorstrom 12y ago

1and1 has extremely aggressive telemarketers. They once called my computer illiterate father who can barely speak english and instructed him to go to trial.1and1.com to sign up for MyWebsite. Another time I refused the MyWebsite trial and the aggressive-pissed-off guy on the phone signed me up anyway. Twice. I finally got $350 refunded after months of complaining. Always hang up the phone. Yell "no no no" and hang up immediately. Always. They use phrases like "I'm going to sign you up for that so you're all set." and "ok you're all set with the mywebsite service". They don't ask you if you want a trial. They opt you in. It's up to you to interrupt them. I love their services however.

m_mueller 12y ago
> I love their services however. wat?

phdp 12y ago

I was scammed into adding on the website builder to my package. I was sitting at work and I received a call. I took it and a sales guy started trying to sell me on this. I explicitly asked him whether I would see any recurring charges if I said yes to this trial and then took no further action, and he assured me that was the case. I really just wanted him to shut up so I could go back to work. Imagine my surprise 4-6 months later. I was looking at my invoices and I notice this line for the builder! They did reverse the charges (I had just received the second bill and they bill quarterly), but it had to be done over the phone and during east coast business hours. Well, I work those hours.

UnoriginalGuy 12y ago
You were "scammed?" What? That story literally makes no sense. How did the salesman get hold of your personal information and payment information to sign you up to this service? Also how did you think a trial would incur no recurring charges after the trial expired? Particularly if you left it for 4-6 months? How long did you think the trial was? Sorry but that post could not be more nonsensical if it tried. And the line "I really just wanted him to shut up so I could go back to work." just further adds to the confusion. So you signed up to a trial to get a salesmen to leave you alone then left it for 4-6 months, and then got upset when you got charged?
- mikeash 12y ago
  It's perfectly sensible for a trial to simply expire and stop rather than starting to charge you without any further intervention. Plenty of trials work that way. If the salesman told him that's how it worked, and it wasn't how it worked, I think that qualifies as a "scam".
- chris_wot 12y ago
  Sounds like he expected it to end.

dlgeek 12y ago

I've found with businesses like this (though not 1&1 specifically), the magic word is "chargeback". It helps you cut through the bullshit because if they get too high a percentage of chargebacks, their credit card processing fees go up (and they can even lose the ability to charge cards).

cordite 12y ago
This experience reminds me of when I looked up my credit report the first time. You know, that 'free' deal to see the score and all. Turns out I was unwittingly put into a monthly plan, after an undisclosed-as-trial period with no refund. In order to cancel, I waited for about thirty minutes for an agent, then said "No, I would not like to continue" for another thirty minutes. These guys were ran by Experian. I wonder how "chargeback" would be received by such a company.
- mikeash 12y ago
  Note that the free annual credit report is a real thing, government mandated, but of course the agencies don't advertise it. Instead, they advertise stuff that sounds like it, but is a ripoff. Visit annualcreditreport.com for the real thing. They might still try to upsell you, but if you can resist that, it's legitimate.
kbar13 12y ago
especially in the hosting industry, chargebacks are usually a HUGE pain in the butt for businesses to handle. In most cases where a chargeback would make sense I would go as far as to keep trying to talk to support to get the issue resolved. In 1&1's case.... no holds barred :P
jusben1369 12y ago
I know what you're saying but a chargeback is really for a charge that you believe is fraudulent/have no idea why it was made. That's certainly not the case here. So folks like 1&1 usually have proof that you willingly signed up for the charge. If that happens you can be blacklisted and other merchants suddenly won't accept your card. It then costs $99 to get off that list.

busterarm 12y ago

I remember well over 10 years ago when I first used 1and1 when they started aggressively advertising. Piss poor service, a few years and a couple hundred bucks in erroneous charges later and I finally managed to cancel them but not before getting sent to collections and having the only stain on my credit (which has long since gone away). The collections agency they use is as bad as they are. They are truly among the absolute worst service providers on the internet, along with the similarly-famous Network Solutions. Avoid at all costs.

overgard 12y ago

Ugh, these guys really are the worst. I had a credit card expire, and instead of letting me just update the card details, they sent it to a collection agency and when I called their customer support to just give them updated details they refused to help out. So you know what? I'm never going to pay them. Assholes.

VeejayRampay 12y ago

Based on what I'm reading they should really rename their company 1^1...

nate 12y ago

This is a tangent, but I had a similar reaction to Honest company (baby products) and cancelling. My wife signed up to their trial subscription delivery thing for diaper for our newborn. This is Jessica Alba's company. We sign up for the trial online. The diapers were fine, but we still liked the indicator strip on the Pampers better. So my wife goes to the website to cancel. Can't cancel online. Great. So she has to call. But then she's on hold for 10 minutes, at which point being a brand new parent, she needs to nurse the newborn and can't be on hold any longer. So she emails to cancel, no response. A second call, another 10 minute hold time, and almost giving up again, she finally gets through to someone to cancel and she has to go through a series of questions before cancelling. Honest seems to be preying on new parents who simply don't have the willpower or time to deal with cancelling. Checking out reviews, it seems a lot of people have this 10 minute "hold time". I'm suspicious it's just an automated wait time, and their representatives aren't really that busy.

nicksergeant 12y ago
I used FancyHands to cancel my Honest subscription. Glad that was money well spent.

mcmillion 12y ago

1&1 is terrible. I tried them once with a VPS. After three or four days, they still hadn't provisioned the VPS for me (you heard right, it's a manual process), so I promptly cancelled. A few months later they started hounding me (via email and phone calls) to pay up on the $15 that I supposedly owed for a free trial. Absolutely terrible company.

rgawdzik 12y ago

It should be illegal to not offer online cancellation for an online service.

re_todd 12y ago

This is very timely, I was thinking about signing up with 1 and 1. Can anyone recommend an alternative with similar services and price?

nfriedly 12y ago
What exactly do you need?
- re_todd 12y ago
  Cheap linux hosting for my php and wordpress projects.
  - logn 12y ago
    If you want a general VPS: Digital Ocean, Linode, Rackspace, Amazon EC2, Google Compute Engine Digital Ocean lets you provision the lowest spec servers of all those, for $5/mo. edit: if you just want Wordpress, check out https://aws.amazon.com/marketplace/ https://aws.amazon.com/marketplace/ although I've never tried that service. They give you a VPS with various apps pre-installed, e.g., https://aws.amazon.com/marketplace/search/results/?page=1&searchTerms=wordpress https://aws.amazon.com/marketplace/search/results/?page=1&se...
    - re_todd 12y ago
      Great, thanks!
  - wishinghand 12y ago
    Hell, Hostgator can service that need pretty well. Digital Ocean would be cheaper, but you gotta know how to set things up yourself.
    - re_todd 12y ago
      I'll check them out, thanks!

dmourati 12y ago

Wow, I'd heard of 1&1 but never imagined what kind of users take them up on their free trial offers. It sounds like their business model is smoke and mirrors. They maybe got a page out of the Comcast playbook. Sorry to anyone who has ever signed up with 1&1.

andrewmunsell 12y ago

They are truly terrible, for multiple reasons. I encountered a similar issue when canceling with them earlier, where they actually asked for my password over the phone: https://www.andrewmunsell.com/blog/one-and-one-asks-for-your-password https://www.andrewmunsell.com/blog/one-and-one-asks-for-your...

jusben1369 12y ago

There needs to be a general logo/sticker/proof seal. "You can cancel a subscription the same way you can buy a subscription" If you can sign up for something online and buy it within 3 - 5 steps you should be able to cancel it online with 3 - 5 steps. If you need to call or visit a human to sign up for a service then it's fair that you may be required to call or visit a human to cancel it. How many people would more confidently purchase/avoid purchasing if that was on the checkout/payment page?

ChuckMcM 12y ago

File an FTC complaint about them, and a BBB one, and send a complaint to Dun & Bradstreet while you are at it, and post something on ripoffreport if they are still around. Then change your credit card # ( get a new number / card ) Sounds like these guys are exploiting the same flaw in CC payments that a number of phone services, domain name registrars, buyer protection services, etc exploit which is that there is no way to 'pre-decline' a charge to your credit card. They will keep charging your card (regardless of your cancellation) and when you complain they will send the CC company a copy of your initial signup / agreement and won't include any follow up documentation. You will have to send your email as documentation as 'proof' month after month. Many people just give up and pay the the money. The local news station has a consumerist segment they run now and then, this sort of scam comes up frequently. Clearly you are not alone: http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/directory/1and1-internet http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/directory/1and1-internet

kintamanimatt 12y ago
Actually, my business bank in the UK (Barclays) can apparently block card payments in advance. I know because it took an astonishing amount of work to stop HasOffers from billing me after my trial had ended and been cancelled.
mikeash 12y ago
Shouldn't even a somewhat small proportion of customers hitting them with chargebacks cause them to lose their merchant account fairly quickly? Is there some way around that, or does it just not work the way I think?

brianbreslin 12y ago

On all the products I've sold in SaaS form, we've made it a point to let people cancel easily. Sometimes I question if we made it too easy, but then I think to Wheaton's Rule, and also the fact I'm saving time not staffing a team of assholes to block cancelations. I can imagine tons of possibilities to work to reduce churn, but this 1&1 stuff is nuts. I'm sure tons of people don't cancel because $9/month isn't worth their time right now to call.

grhmc 12y ago

My favorite part is when you go to their 1&1 reviews page (http://www.sitebuilderreport.com/reviews/1&1/user-reviews http://www.sitebuilderreport.com/reviews/1&1/user-reviews) it invites you to "Try 1&1" with a referral code.

wildpeaks 12y ago

This is pretty much the same story with eFax: never ever ever EVER signup for that thing.

brok3nmachine 12y ago

1and1.com actually allows cancelation online. I found this out years ago, when the pain became unbearable from using their services for over 8 years. https://cancel.1and1.com https://cancel.1and1.com Oh, and I attained this URL after calling customer support.

steve_benjamins 12y ago
Author here: actually the article talks about this- you're unable to cancel the My Website (their most popular service) using that website.