Two years ago I registered a domain through
1&1 internet limited as a bit of fun. Two years later, on Saturday I received a letter from 1&1 in the post. It said:
Dear sir/madam
We recently attempted to debit the outstanding invoice total for your 1&1 package from your credit/debit card. However, your card has not been accepted.
The following amount remains to be settled:
(table edited out)
Amount Due: GBP 4.68
In Accordance with our Terms and Conditions we will place a temporary freeze on your 1&1 package(s) in 8 days unless you reply to this letter or we receive payment in full.
If payment is not made in full within 13 days, your account will be passed to the BFS Collections Agency or our lawyer for recovery and this will incur additional costs of GBP 15.00, default interest, etc., in addition to the outstanding balance.Well, I had emailed 1&1 at the beginnning of October to cancel this account and the next thing I heard from them was this threatening letter, so I phoned up the billing department this afternoon to sort things out and ask why I was being charged for a service I neither wanted nor requested. Having spent 10 minutes in a phone queue someone eventually answered and I explained the situation. Apparently they don't accept cancellations orders by email and I would have to pay the £4.68. They autorenew so by signing up originally I had apparently given implicit permission for them to keep charging me every couple of years whether I wanted the service or not. I asked to speak to the phone operatives manager, and was then asked to "hang on", which I did for a further 8 minutes before being hung up on.
So I phoned back and waited in a phone queue for another 12 minutes, and eventually got through to someone who asked me to wait for a minute after I had given him my account number. I waited for a minute listening to silence at the other end and then got hung up on. Again.
So I phoned up a third time and again got the message that I'd have to pay because 1&1 are the most stupid providers in the world who don't bother asking you whether or not you want to renew their service before sending you threatening letters and ruining your credit rating. I then had a bit of a rant to explain at length how I would be positively reccomending friends and aquaintances NOT to EVER use 1&1 internet.
Finally I decided to write them a letter to moan and rant and complain. As I was writing it Claire suggested I stick a fiver in to pay off the account. This struck me as a brilliantly fantastic idea (as most of Claire's are) because it meant that:
a) They'd have to do lots of admin at their end to log the money in, pay it into the account, issue me with a receipt etc,
b) I could request that they pay me my 32 pee change within 13 days or I'll send the debt collectors in, and
c) most importantly I could claim the moral high ground
So that's what I did. I posted the letter with the fiver off to 1&1 (using a "signed-for" thingy from the Post Office to make sure it gets there) and I copied the letter to Andreas Gauger, who appears to be the CEO of 1&1 internet, asking him to review my case. I also copied the letter to the BBC Watchdog programme just for the hell of it. I hope the billing department of 1&1 are suitably worried when they see the c.c. list on the letter but somehow, and sadly, I doubt they will be.
I think I must be getting more and more grumpy and intolerant as I get older. It's great!
