In May of 2008 1&1 somehow ended up changing the critical permissions on a
number of files and directories within my web space. All files in my
webspace reverted to basic read only permssions. This caused mission
critical database applications to malfunction. I contacted 1&1 after being
made aware of the problem within roughly 6 hours of the problem occurring.
It then took them 4 days to be able to let me change the critical
permissions back. All in all I figure I lost a few customers, a few
thousand website visits, 12 hours of my personal time, much of it on hold, a
pile of their support staff time, and all I got in return were apologies
and an offer to credit my account for one month of hosting. I suffered all
this loss over not being able to communicate directly with an administrator
that could patch my problem within 5 to 10 minutes. I was faced with call
centre hell, no solutions, and no resolutions. I was told to e-mail
automatons and robots to get my solution and despite the time spent there
was no resolution. I may be faced with very similar problems in the future
because I know that anyone at 1&1 Internet Ltd that could fix my problem has
not even heard my complaint, despite me spending 12 hours of my own time to
explain it and the simple solution to the problem I faced. From my
perspective 1&1 Internet Ltd. has zero company support for it's customers
when they are at fault for a problem. All promises of service have been
proved false. This company does not deserve anyones business, despite their
size.