Ionos

I'd give 0 stars if I could. They take forever to respond to emails (days) and make you search and guess at what email address to even use. Their billing method is the absolute worst. They create "contracts" that auto bill via PayPal. You need to remember to go into PayPal after the payment goes thru (sometimes takes 20+ days to go thru) and from there, turn OFF the auto bill feature after they have been paid if you don't want to be ripped off.

They unnecessarily complicate and obfuscate their interface. They use SCARE TACTICS. If you want to turn off Auto-renew, instead of simply clicking the icon next to the domain name like everyone else, you have to 1- search to find the "contract billing" page (never easy to find), 2- select "partial cancel" option 3- select domains you wish to cancel auto-renew 4- select the "auto renew" feature 5- select 1 of 2 terms (immediate or 1 year out) 6 - click next 7- read scary screen about how if you do this, you will be DELETING your domain and anyone else can buy it 8 - confirm you wish to continue on that page 9 - wait for double confirmation email to arrive 10- click on link in email to once again confirm DELETING your domain 11- click link on page to again confirm you wish to DELETE your domain (remember, we are just turning off auto-renew). Finally, it will show auto renew is turned off. That is 11 steps plus all the fear factor of reading your domain will be deleted to do something that should be just 1 click.

Their entire system is like this. So many extra clicks, so much extra work. I've transferred out several domains and see the domains already in the control panel of the new registrar, yet they still have not shown up in the Transfers tab as outgoing AND they still show up in the current tab as still being with them!

Their Who-Is feature is easily a WEEK behind.

Everything about them is PATHETIC. I'm busily transferring out all my domains to REAL registrars. These people rely on scare tactics and the general public not understanding or being uncertain on what is involved in owning and managing a domain. They bank on once they have you, you will never leave because they make things so hard that the average person would just give up and pay the "few" extra dollars. And the pricing gets 50% higher than others when you get an expensive domain after you transfer it in at a loss leader price.

Everything about dealing with them and using their "lost control" panel sucks. You know how the rule of thumb is never host your web site with the same people who do your registrations? Well, that goes 1,000,000,000,000 over for these people!

Their offer shows $0.99 for .com domains, with a free whois protection. Yet, when you add a .com domain to cart, all of a suddent you see $8.99 instead of $0.99. What a bunch of crap.

Charged my credit card instantly, but claimed that they did not receive payment. Cancelled the contract but they will not refund. I will have to report them to fraud dept of my bank. Their services might seem a cheaper alternative but keep in mind the delay for domain set up and the work hours you have to spend to get things working.

Depending on what time you call, it seems you get different call centers. CAREFUL! They will tell you whatever it takes to get your business and when an issue arises they change their story.

They did not even register my domain, just cancelled my contract and didn't bother to refund me.

How tld-list even list 1&1 is beyond me.

1&1 advertise on the net their .99 cent domain - but they actually charge the .99 cents PLUS the next years domain costs, in my case it was over AUD$20. PayPal appear to side with this unconscionable behaviour.

I clicked [disable] button but does not take effect. WOW. Worst domain registrar.

Fuck bajingan kontol.

Don't use 1&1 ionos. They never make the registration your domain. Fuck them.

Been waiting for 4 days, they didn't even process my order.

Beware! Stay Away from them. They will actually charge your card and will take days to setup your domain while there is no mention of that payment in your 1and1 account. When you don't want to wait and ask for refund then say that they didn't took the payment and refuse to refund your amount

Yes, their dashboard is troublesome. Yes, they try to rip you off with fees. And I never heard of this one: They will trick you to not be able to use your website without their nameservers so they can charge you for a website. This is insane! This should be illegal! Their system don't want to disconenct from "1&1MyWebsite" consequently disabling nameserver change!! Contacted them by ticket and requested a phone call, after 3 days waiting my website is still offline!

24 hours for a registration, and domain has been taken by another person. Worst registrar! They also charged me for a failed registration and I have been over phone for more than 1 hour to get more info and receive a refund (which is not still refunded!)

Be careful !! You only get this price if you make a recurrent payment on your credit card. I did so last year and now I wanted to cancel the domains, but the payment went through even with the auto renewal feature disabled on those domains... Don´t think it's fair or correct or even honest... But that's just my opinion...

Worst registrar ever, deserves zero stars. After I have been cheated by them for $30, I have only been using them to buy disposable $0.99 domains which I later let expire. I always create new account using a new disposable email address, otherwise they won't honour their promo price. Registration takes ages, DNS updates also. Remember to use fake WHOIS data because they will publish it instantly. Also, turn off recurring payments in your PayPal account AFTER they have processed those $0.99 which sometimes takes 2-3 weeks from registration. If you have an extra few bucks, better use other registrars, like internetbs.net.

Don't even consider registering or buying with this registrar. I have TRIED to buy one domain this year but their customer support is so AWFUL and not responsive that I eventually quit. Absolutely you have much better choices when choosing a domain registry...

Couple hours after the successful transfer, I noticed that the DNS servers were changed to those belonging to 1&1 (NS-US.1AND1-DNS.COM). Initially the DNS servers records retained the same I had before the transfer (3-rd party).

Who asked them to do that??

When I placed the order to transfer my domain to 1&1 (For just $0.18 BTW) I also noticed that they require me to confirm any transfer they would claim from my PayPal account in future. No other option suggested...

take so long to get your domain active after you pay for it. maybe they can get word record for it

Well, I tried to transfer a domain in to these fools. Days later my contract was locked and the transfer was not processed. At no time was I advised that there was a problem. When I spoke to customer support I was told that the contract has been cancelled, and that I would need to start over, but there was no guarantee that the process would complete.

They automatically charge you even with the auto-renew option disabled. If you don't plan on renewing the domains, I'd suggest calling up your CC company or removing the recurring payment from your PayPal.

Fucking liars. Fuckers. Motherfuckers. Why is this so common these days? Fuck you. Liars. Fuck you. Fuck you.

They are beggars.

THE WORST REGISTRAR.

DON'T USE THEIR SERVICES OR YOU WILL REGRET!!!

Wanted to transfer a domain.. the price changed to $8.99 at checkout. waste of time.

I VE HAD THE SAME PROBLEM AT FIRST THE PAYMENT PASSED BUT NOT BEEING ELABORATED I WAS OBBLIGED TO PAY AGAIN AND THEY ALWAYS ALSO BY NIGHT TRYED TO TAKE MY MONEYS FROM MY CARD ALSO AT THE NIGHT...NEVER WITH 1&1

Very very bad. Not worth the hassle for the 99 cent deals.

Sorry for giving 1 star. I meant 0 (zero) stars. Worst. Thing. Ever. Did i mentioned Ever?

Really want a 0!!! I can't tell you enough how much I hate their buggy system and I am just terrified. They can suddenly cancel my order due to a bug in their system one day and double my bill due to another bug in their system the next day. They can't even just refund the money to my credit card and instead they transferred the money to my PayPal account and now I would have to have a SSN or a US bank account to get my money back (finally, it's not their business this time, as they have transferred me the money, they said). In addition to my horrible experience with them, I somehow just believe they will send me another bill in one year even though I have already turned off auto-renewal for my domain name. Lastly, even if you just want to buy a one-dollar domain from them, I would suggest you go somewhere else and have a happy life. No money is worth the trouble.

tried to transfer domain .co and made payment with paypal verified. registrar cancel payment and asked me to make payment with credit card. made payment with credit card through paypal. registrar didn;t reply for more than 5 days, i sent several emails and made phone calls but no proper response. Finally received email saying we will not transfer your domain.

On 1/24/2019, I set up a website with IONOS on a $12 year-long promotion for a little project of mine. About a week into the project (2/4/2019), I decided I didn't want to keep the website up and disabled the domain auto-renewal feature. They promptly sent me an email letting me know the feature had been turned off, that the domain will expire on 1/24/2020, and I should click the link below to turn the auto-renew feature back on in order to protect my domain and ***prevent it from being cancelled.*** Thinking everything was taken care of, I logged out of the associated email and discontinued checking it.

Fast forward to today, 4/10/2020. I get a $150 collections notice in the mail because of IONOS. After regaining access to the associated email and my IONOS account, I see that these assholes moved me into a new contract at $132 for another year despite me having disabled the auto renewal feature. Turns out disabling the auto renewal feature of the domain is NOT the same thing as cancelling/disabling auto renewal of the hosting contract...??? Granted, this is something that I would've caught had I kept checking the email and that's my own fault. What really gets me is that after disabling the auto renewal feature less than a month into the promotion (2/4/2019) and them leading me to believe my ass was covered, they waited until a MONTH (12/24/2019) before the promotional year ended to email me and say that my domain was expiring soon and, in big bold letters in the middle of the email, that "[t]his does not cancel any hosting package associated with the domain." Fuck these guys. They used misleading language to make me think the service was cancelled and waited until the service was almost up and I'd all but forgotten about the damn thing to notify me that the service isn't actually going to be cancelled. They use predatory, misleading practices that lure folks in on a screaming deal and then fuck them over later on. By the looks of it, I'm not the only person who's been misled and fucked over by these guys. TL; DR - Got sent to collections for using a domain I explicitly opted out of renewing. Avoid at all costs.

Scammers and liars.

Their website shows the price for 1 domain in the .ME zone - 2 $ for the first year for new customers. You can buy only 1 domain in this zone. But when adding this domain.ME to the basket - the price is immediately indicated for 2 years: $ 2 for the first year and $ 20 for the second. That is, they offer to register a domain for 2 years at once. If you change the term by 1 year, the price of the domain becomes $ 5 - the same as other registrars. Prices are false! This domainer is deceiving people!

Their words are not worth a cent. My score is 0 points.

Terrible service! They charged me even though i disabled the auto-renewal button. On top that they added an extra product. They have cancelled as per my request but hvae totally ignored the refund part. And when I tried calling my so called personal consultant, they was no answer for days and when I finally reached someone on the given number, I was told its a college number. What the hell! I seriously want my money back. This is such a scam. They don't even deserve one star

Total Crap. Have been with them for several years and they have wanted to charge me in the past for restoring backups.... which is supposed to be part of the free tech support. Why take backups if they charge you to restore? Now I get an email that they intend to charge me if I don't upgrade my PHP? I checked, all of my domains are current. Transferring out asap.

Sent to collections on a domain I didn't agree to renew, horrible interface and they handle domain contracts like no one else i've ever dealt with. I assume what they do is contractually legal just in no way transparent or consumer friendly.

I used 1&1 many years ago. Was a 'laddish' culture then and found them infuriating to deal with.

I agree they make it difficult to cancel contracts and even when you jump through all of the hoops, they still come back and say you have done something wrong (excuse?).

When I also ran a campaign website against 1&1, I was contacted by a former 1&1 manager. he left the company because of their culture. Some of the stuff he showed me was grotesque.

firstly i buy domain and hosting and after payment i login my account i was shocked it was locked. "Your contract has been locked"

Stay clear! When you try to cancel it doesn't cancel. You email them, call them and think you're cancelled only to find they didn't cancel you, ate charging you still, and then they threaten to send you to collections!! Once again this company scammed me put of money. How many times do I have to go through this! I've emailed, I have called, what else do these people need!! I've followed thier silly online cancellation process and still they charge me and threaten collections if I don't pay! Cancel my account already!!!

Why this fraud can survive still and cheating so happily ? How to stop this terrible fraud ?

The Worst domain registrar in the world, So please don't try it.

Sold the email address i created specifically for them to spammers. Stay away.

ITS A FAKE COMPANY, ONLY WANTS TAKE YOUR MONEY AND NEVER MAKE THE REGISTRATION OF THE DOMAIN.... USE ANY ANOTHER

dear friends really this co is doing fraud and cheating. if you buy any paid service or paid contract they will charge you and dont want to cancel or delete. they are charging me from last many years. if i request plz keep my domian and cancel my contract for monthly fees. they threaten if you cancell we also delete all your domaon never seen american organization like this in any country

I purchased a one year domain from this service. They do not allow you to view your own invoices for 30d, lock out many features, threaten to doxx users that try to transfer to another registrar, etc. It was painfully hard to even cancel the autorenew feature. Do your research on registrars and DO NOT USE IONOS.

Save your money and your sanity. Have no problem paying new provider more, to get good service. Used Ionos for years, but suddenly they are unable to complete the simplest requests. Have been billed for cancelled accounts and now my domains are being held hostage - will not complete my transfer request for a week, until they are sure I want it to be transfered. Afraid to call as they have messed everything up, so many times. Don't want them to "help" with this one.

Veramente una terribile esperienza, che ancora deve finire. Dopo un anno pagato con un servizio inutilizzato, di cui sono responsabile io ovviamente, quest'anno, durante la quarantena scatta un rinnovo automatico che è diventato alla fine coatto. Prontamente comunico che non sono più interessata al servizio, dato che non lo utilizzo, e nel giro di neanche un mese mi ritrovo contattata da un ufficio di recupero crediti (la cifra di cui stiamo parlando è di 37€) a cui hanno fornito la mia pratica, che ora mi pressa per recuperare questi soldi.

Ho fatto presente che volevo vedere il contratto, per capire i termini di recesso dal pagamento, dato che a questo punto ho capito che dovrò farlo, ed è partita un'altra epopea.

Al momento sto ancora tribolando ma sicuramente posso esprimere il mio totale disappunto nella gestione dei clienti e delle loro pratiche.

Esperienza terribile!!! Assolutamente non suggerisco i loro servizi!!

This company is scammer,i placed order and got email that they contact accept order,because i live in pakistan,if they cant accept order of pakistan,then why they always deduct the money from pakistani people??

Be very careful when you sign up for hosting. They lock you into a one year contract and will not let you cancel before the year is up. When you go to cancel it says you have to call in to cancel. You call in and tell you you are not allowed to cancel. I wasn’t looking for a refund, I was only looking to cancel so my auto renewal would not change me. Very disappointed. Rude and unhelpful customer service, all they do is repeat themselves.

I've used 1&1-IONOS for a few years now but never again.

In spite of what they say/claim, they have NEVER sent me a renewal notice for a domain 30 days before it expires. I get all their ads and other crap but 3 times now, the only "Renewal Notice" I received was on the actual day it expired and the notice was telling me they were going to bill my paypal for the renewal.

The last time it happened I didn't want it renewed and didn't have the time to recover passwords and such for the account - which wouldn't matter since it had already expired - so I went into my paypal account and cancelled the payment agreement immediately.

When I got home, I sent an email to support telling them I don't want it renewed.

I got a notice they couldn't get the paypal payment.

Another email to support. Finally someone answered and told me I should have turned off the auto-renewal BEFORE it expired.

Then the rep argued with me that they send out SEVERAL renewal notices before it expires. (This is actually a LIE. See below.) Contacted support again by email and told them to cancel the domain and I'm not paying for it. The rep told me I was too late and I only had 72 hours from the day of expiry to cancel the domain and if I don't pay it, they'd send it to a "collection agency".

Found out yesterday the account is locked and has been sent to "collections".

I've also just filed a complaint with ICANN over this because ICANN rules stipulate the registrar SEND notices 30 days & 7 days prior to expiry of a domain. UPDATE: "Michelle" at IONOS has reached out to me regarding this issue. The response was an eye-opener and explains the many complaints on the web, about not receiving Domain Renewal Notices by email.

“In an attempt to reduce the number of mailings sent to our customers, as of the end of 2021, renewal notifications are now provided within the customer's Control Panel message board. Customers are able to activate ‘Push Notifications’ for renewal reminder alerts via a mobile device or web browser. However, we have forwarded your feedback to our Product/Service Management Team for further review.”

In other words, they think that "providing" the renewal notices in the user control panel, is fulfilling the ICANN requirement that: "Registrars are required to SEND two renewal reminders one month and one week before (and within five days after) the expiration of a domain name.

The registrar must display on its website the methods for SENDING these notices."

I'm pretty sure that "sticking the renewal notices in the users control panel" (and clearly expecting the user to log into their control panel on a daily basis to check for these notices) does not qualify as SENDING out the notices.

Considering the number of other (mostly useless) emails that IONOS does still send out, this - IMO - has nothing to do with "reducing the number of emails sent to users". It suggests they think sending their ads to users is important. And sending out renewal notices is not.

I suggest anyone else that IONOS has burned in this way, do the same.

BTW: The issues mentioned in other reviews that say it's almost impossible to turn off the Automatic Renewal function without becoming afraid to do so? In her email, "Michelle" outlined the SEVEN (7) detailed steps involved in turning off the automatic renewal function. 1. Log in to the Contract Service with your IONOS Customer ID and password.

2. If you have more than one contract, click on the contract you would like to cancel.

3. In the Update auto-renewal setting panel, click Next.

4. Toggle the switch next to Automatically keep my contract to turn contract auto-renewal off.

5. Click Save.

6. Review the listed impacts related to contract cancellation, and if you are ready to continue, click Disable Auto-Renewal.

7. Please inform us of the reason for your cancellation by choosing one of the options displayed. Then click Next.....

In Namecheap (where I've moved all my IONOS domains) it's an at best, 3 step process. 1. Sign into my account. 2. Look for the domain in the displayed list and click the "Manage" button.

3. Click the "Auto-Renew" switch. That's it!

Deceptive pricing & poor support. Initially cost about half as much as competitors, ended up paying 3x as much as better web host services. Their support "team" also doesn't know how to properly communicate via phone or email. Definitely would NOT recommend.

Absolutely the worst decision ever to go with these guys. Its not far off a scam. Wouldn't it be easier just run a business that says what it says on the tin instead of not doing anything. One guy pretty much called me a pain in arse because I want the website developing. Never get back to you. Lie about whats going on. AVOID at the cost of your mental wellbeing. Dreadful business employing dreadful people.

24-48 hours to purchase my domain name??? WTF? I've never had this happen ANYWHERE! Wondering if I can go register it somewhere else while they have their thumbs up their Philippine asses. "thank you for the information" phillipine bullsh!t

Instead of doing quality business they actually looking to rip you off.

This is how all British business is done!

When you click on "renew" button instead of having your domain in the shopping cart to see the price you are paying and later confirming the purchase they would renew for ridiculously high amount without any confirmation what are you going to pay them!

That's absolutely unfair practice. You must see how much you going to pay and explicitly confirm payment.

Even I managed to move away my domain from them, they later tried to obstruct me transferring out other my domains. Had to call this suckers and deal with their manipulative support.

British suckers! Never any business with them!

There is a mandatory charge as an additional fee (ICANN FEE for $0.18) for transfer-in. It might be applicable the same for registration/ renewal as well but I did not check.

I've used 1&1 for 10 years now and haven't had many problems with their service. Is more expensive once the first year runs out though. You also have to make sure to register correctly to get the deal.

I've used 1&1 for several sites. They have a reasonable interface, and if you're lazy or sloppy during setup you may end paying more than minimum. But once set up, everything's fine. This is the internet. Along the same lines, this review site makes no effort to sift real from bogus reviews. That majority are by "anonymous" - almost all of which give 1&1 one star. Others are clearly spammers.

They ask for gender binary when signing up.

This is discrimination against non-binary and trans people.

I've been with them for over 3 Years now! Great hosting! Free privacy! Customer Service is also good! Overall 5/5 Don't listen to what others say bad. This is worth it, low prices stay low. And great support, also really easy to navigate!

I've been with IONOS for a while now and their service is great, as well as their prices and customer support. Don't listen to these other reviews, they're trolls. one even said "I had to click too much" sad...

They are very up front with prices and if you don't know how to navigate their control panel, you probably need to go back to kindergarten.