IONOS Poor Customer Service, Part I.

IONOS Poor Customer Service.

I have used many hosting providers over my time and some are worse than others. IONOS although a bit on the pricier side have had a few things going for them until lockdown happened.

They say they have 24/7 telephone support but what they omit in saying is that cancellation and billing are only open Monday to Friday during working hours. From my understanding that is not 24/7 support?

They also prompt you to write emails but in most cases, they go unanswered as in my case.

Their invoices simply have invoice/contract numbers but do not have any associated domain names (named), hence unless one can memorize contract numbers off by heart, cross-referencing contract numbers can be time-consuming and costly to a business that could be using the time more pro-actively, as in my case.

Furthermore, because everyone is working from home people are not updating the system properly so you end up having to pull your hair out talking to the next rep, and having to repeat yourself. I phoned twice yesterday and the second rep said there was no record of me phoning the time before?

For me, I have had an ongoing issue dating back to July of this year, where I canceled my hosting but kept the domain names for 5 products, and to be double sure I phoned to confirm my hosting had been canceled a day or so later and was told it was. Moving forward to the beginning of September I was invoiced again for the 5 domain packages including the domain names and hosting. Obviously, I was straight on the phone, and credit notes were generated but they did not reflect my invoices as I only had one refund to date.

I sent numerous emails to support@ionos.co.uk and billing@ionos.co.uk and for some reason, they were unable to collect any outstanding balance of £32.40 which I had disputed, which in turn, caused my account to be blocked all for the sake of the disputed £32.40.

So because they had now got me by my short and curlies, I tried updating my card payment but there seemed to be an error so I decided to pay by bank transfer. You would think that would be the end of the drama, you can think again….

Not only had I paid and proved I had paid by sending them a copy of my bank statement, but my account continues to be frozen. I have given them 48 hours to rectify this otherwise I will be sharing my disdain for all the world to read and his maker, Achim Weiss (CEO).

Like I keep saying “a happy customer will tell their friends and family and an unhappy customer will tell the world”.

IONOS already have some bad press if you read all the unhappy customers via Trustpilot https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/ionos.co.uk?stars=1

To think I have made about 15 communications in total (emails/phone calls) over this one incident which if you divide this into an hour is 4 minutes per email or phone call, yet today’s call lasted 43 minutes and a previous call log was 1.04 hrs, so you can imagine if each email takes me 10 minutes to write and each phone call takes sometimes over an hour well you can imagine how much of my valuable time is wasted and if I charge £300 per hour for my time then I should be compensated accordingly considering the incident was not my fault. I will have a full statement of the duration of calls I have had with this company in the next 9 days and will update them on this post.

What companies do not realize is if they cause a person to become unwell because of direct negligence and for the customer to lose business because of their incompetence then it is only fitting the company compensates the customer for their time and health recovery. They should have professional liability insurance. I wrote about my ill health because of this company on my other site: https://disabledentrepreneur.uk/heart-palpitations

They say you should not keep all your eggs in one basket and I should take a leaf out of my own book. In total, I have 63 contracts with this company to be exact and it is high tide I took my business elsewhere and look for a different hosting provider.

Not only has my account been blocked over a £32.40 outstanding disputed payment in which I have paid by bank transfer under duress, but I have to wait a further 7 working days to have my account unblocked as the system needs to process my payment. Well, I still have to run a business and 7 days is 7 days too many in my eyes and if IONOS purposely stops me from conducting my business then “all is fair in love and war” and they should compensate me for the loss and damages this has incurred.

Will I be using this company in the future?, this remains to be seen and depends on what olive branch they bring to the table.

They have 48 hours before I blast this post all over the internet. Currently, it can only be found organically and is not shared on social media.

https://www.ionos.co.uk/management?ar=1

I will update this post in due course.

#ionos #ionos1and1 #1and1 #ionosbadreviews more hashtags coming soon…