1&1 - www.1and1.co.uk

The worst Company in the history of Companies! They took over £60 from my bank in 2 days when I signed up to a 6-month free trial! They point blank refused to telephone me - they only contact you by email - and when/if they do, their replies to queries are scripted, do not answer questions asked and at times ignorant and rude. Their system constantly crashes - they tell you to install this web browser and that web browser, delete your cache, restart your machine - yet 5 minutes of editing it all happens again, you loose everything you have just worked on and you go through all the same again.

Using their eShop package is was a nightmare - awkward, requires a degree to figure out the simplest of tasks, to have a shop you have sign up to cart provider and pay even more money. To install any worthwhile features you have to pay even more! Webmail didn't work EVER - setting up an email account took 3 days and it still didn't work properly. If you want to use Outlook you have to pay more!

When trying to sort problems, they decided to change my package to their Professional Website Builder - even more problems, even less customisation, can't even change font type, colour or size - really!

I have never been so disgusted with a company in a long, long time. I am still waiting for my money back that they say they don't know why it was taken. I am still waiting for my domain to be transferred to my new provider. Please if you value your time, your wallet and your business don't use them!

Recently I had a publishing website with 1&1 and a customer complained to 1&1 that one of the books I was promoting was promoting child abuse which was of course a huge fabrication. However, 1&1 instructed me to remove the book from my site or to have my contract cancelled.

When I asked 1&1 legal if it was their policy to instruct their customers to remove content from their website should anyone complain (regardless of how absurd the complaint) they confirmed that IT WAS THEIR policy to have the material in question removed or the site closed so that they didn't get sued.

This of course highlights a huge flaw in the hosting system because businesses and website owners can lose their business overnight should anybody want to make a complaint about their business or in fact make up something nasty.

I'm now looking for a new host with some morality and a bit of backbone.