1&1 Plans to Keep Patterico.com Out of Commission for 7-10 More Days
Coincidentally, that will keep patterico.com dark through the election.
I do believe it’s a coincidence, by the way.
Some people are telling me it’s not. They remind me that my problems started a couple of days after I posted proof that Obama’s career was “launched” in Bill Ayers’s living room. They tell me that the problems got worse after I told the people who were trying to scrub that evidence: “you’re going to have to crash my site and come get my laptop. Because it turns out that I saved a screenshot.” They point out that, less than 48 hours later, my site did “crash” — because my domain disappeared.
Maybe I’m being naive, but I don’t think so. I believe I’m facing massive incompetence, thievery, or very possibly a deliberate combination of the two.
It feels like evil intent — but not for political reasons. It feels like cyberextortion — people going after the almighty dollar. Commenters have pointed out corporate ties between 1&1, which can’t seem to process my timely renewal, and Sedo/Domcollect, which stood to profit from 1&1’s failure. Usually, corporate incompetence does not earn the corporation money — but 1&1 and its related companies have found a way to make money off of their own slipshod procedures.
I’m not going to say you’re wearing a tinfoil hat if you see a political conspiracy. I’m just going to disagree with you.
The latest e-mail from 1&1 is in the extended entry:
Here’s the e-mail:
Dear Patrick Frey,
Thank you for contacting us.
We apologize for the wrong information stated on your previous e-mail
due to a small technical glitch we encountered in our e-mail tool.
Regarding on your domain transfer, we noticed that your domain name was
being handled by SEDO and since approving the transfer is done in their
end, the transfer of domain has already started and it takes 7-10 days
from the time it was approved and that was on 2008-10-26. We apologize
for the time frame of this process because this is how transferring of
domain works and since it was also being handled by SEDO. We ask you to
patiently wait within 7-10 days to completely register again your domain
name with 1and1. We appreciate for your cooperation regarding this
matter.If you have any further questions please do not hesitate to contact us.
—
Sincerely,
Joseph Perez
Technical Support
1&1 Internet
Sorry, Joseph. My patience has run out.
Previous posts here, here, here, and here.
P.S. If you haven’t already, please note that you can reach the blog at patterico.net. Please bookmark it if you’re interested in the site. It’s apparently the only way you’ll get to my site before the election.
So are they giving it back to you, or are they telling you that you can hope for change 7-10 days from now?
Pablo (99243e) — 10/27/2008 @ 6:54 amIt looks like a letter written to avoid a lawsuit, not to solve your problem.
Mike K (2cf494) — 10/27/2008 @ 6:55 amO/T Patterico, but are you sniffing around the Obama/Rashid Khalidi tape that the Dog Trainer is sitting on?
Pablo (99243e) — 10/27/2008 @ 7:09 amThat sounds like a steaming pile of cow dung to me.
JD (5b4781) — 10/27/2008 @ 7:14 amI didn’t know DAs could be so Naive.
PCD (7fe637) — 10/27/2008 @ 7:14 amI’d check to see when your credit card was billed, and reply that the 26th is a bit too late for the service you paid for.
Scott Jacobs (a1c284) — 10/27/2008 @ 7:23 am“to completely register again your domain with 1&1”?
Hmmm… so not “we completely screwed up and we’ve taken steps to undo what we did,” but instead “here’s the NEXT task on the wild goose chase we’re going to require you to do.” What exactly does he mean? Obviously, you’ll be transferring the domain as soon as you get it back, but it sounds like they’re not switching it back to you on their own, but simply releasing it from the clutches of SEDO/DomCollect. Will it then be up for grabs again, if you miss some millisecond window to “completely register it”?
I agree with you that it’s most likely a combination of incompetence and greed that’s causing all this, not political crap. One, as important as the story being cited is, you’re just not big enough to be worth that much time and effort to an organized group to take down. Two, if they’re trying to send that particular story down the rabbit hole, attacking your domain was a piss-poor way to do it, as it does nothing to actually shut down your site. And, according to your Sitemeter stats, your traffic is a bit down, but not drastically so. Looks like the combination of your loyal readers and the blogospheric noting of your predicament and new domain is keeping people coming here.
PatHMV (653160) — 10/27/2008 @ 7:30 amThe message seems written in the kind of English one sees on instructions provided with tools from Harbor Freight or imported toys.
Old Coot (1ee5b7) — 10/27/2008 @ 7:43 amI have to disagree with PatHMV — take the “Army of Davids” approach to this. How will you evaluate? You don’t have critical information, and can’t get it outside of court proceedings. Yes, incompetence is a more compelling judgment than veniality, but veniality can easily be concealed as incompetence.
Think “plausible deniability.” Exposing patterico.com (well-known in the wrong circles) to an auction to take it down for the rest of the election season is an easy way to find out your actual value. And the bidders should have been conscious that the “purchase” would likely be reversed, costing only the float.
Just think if YOU could monetize that value! You could even sell “don’t talk about Obama” futures…
Don’t let their baloney partial response slow your complaints in other venues.
Bill (9179a5) — 10/27/2008 @ 7:49 amOnce it’s chance, twice is coincidence, three times it’s enemy action. You don’t need to believe that Mayor Daley’s tentacles reach that far. It only takes one malicious little person whom you do not know but would be surprised at what he knows about you.
Or it could be an undermanned, overworked multinational reaching the end of its shoe-string.
nk (5dcbab) — 10/27/2008 @ 7:55 amIt’s hard to believe that this is the sort of email a corporation sends out when legal action is in prospect. First off, it admits the error. Next, it admits they aren’t in any hurry to rectify and fails to admit regret. Lastly, it’s obviously poorly written. Does the company General Counsel even know you were ripped off? I would consider starting an action, if for no other reason than to get their full and complete attention.
MTF (17058c) — 10/27/2008 @ 8:00 amI dunno… I’d be interested in just how deep they dig that hole. 🙂
Never interrupt the enemy when they are busy making a mistake…
Scott Jacobs (a1c284) — 10/27/2008 @ 8:07 amThat e-mail does NOT say that everything will be fine in 7-10 days. It says transfering from your old account to your new account takes 7-10 days, but you need more than that transfer. You need the domain taken from the new “owner” who won the auction.
It’s like you ask your doctor when your cancer will be gone, and you says “the pneumococcus will gone in 7-10 days”. It sounds good unless you know what it means.
roy (78d4a2) — 10/27/2008 @ 8:07 amI’ve had dealings with One and One myself, on behalf of clients and not my own site, thankfully. They’re definitely incompetent and crooked, but I’m with you, Pat, on its not being political; near as I can make out, it’s across the board.
Mike (797d3d) — 10/27/2008 @ 8:18 amEven if it took 7-10 days to re-register your name, Sedo’s name servers (which Andre Schneider uses for the “Sedo Domain Parking” squatter ad service) could point it at this IP address IMMEDIATELY. Then everyone who visited http://www.patterico.com would be redirected to this IP addresss.
Sedo could fix this problem INSTANTLY.
It won’t.
That tells you everything you need to know about these crooks.
Daryl Herbert (4ecd4c) — 10/27/2008 @ 8:18 am— Sedo could fix this [DNS resolution] problem INSTANTLY.
cboldt (3d73dd) — 10/27/2008 @ 8:29 amIt won’t.
That tells you everything you need to know about these crooks. —
.
Ditto. And add, they are not promising that the domain is yours. Their statement is some sort of conditional “can register with 1&1.” If you own the name, you can register wherever you damn well please.
.
You are being too patient.
If this turns out to be incompetence can we imagine what a concerted effort backed by the Fairness Doctrine would look like under a BHO as POTUS?
Connecting the dots, DRUDGE posts a graph of a declining subscrition rate among left leaning MSM media outlets. With the rise in folks obtaining their news from web sites it is foolish to not take preventive measures to ensure the integrity of domain ownership. The next battle will be asymetrical focusing on radio and the internet. Don’t underestimate the ties between AOL, CNN, and Time Magazine for example.
Just sayin’! Don’t underestimate the possibility of conspiracies these days.
vet66 (1e01a3) — 10/27/2008 @ 8:32 amAfter seeing what has happened to Joe the Plumber, and the Orlando TV station interview-of-Biden, cast my vote for the “paranoid” side who thinks this may very well not be coincidence.
In so many ways, Obama is Dangerous.
RR
Reagan Revolution (7f69de) — 10/27/2008 @ 8:47 amhttp://www.DangerousObama.com
My money would be some sysadmin who decided that you had tossed down a gauntlet with the Ayers thing. Yes, the 1&1 gears turn slowly but if you know how they turn, tossing a monkey wrench in them isn’t hard. So, was the upcoming registration coincidental, or an opportunity taken?
Kevin (0b2493) — 10/27/2008 @ 8:48 am“can register with 1&1” … huh? Why would anyone ever want to do that for any domain when they can’t even point your domain at patterico.net for the duration of their bookkeeping problems?
Whether it’s greed or politics as the underlying cause is hard to tell and not relevant. It’s too involved to be incompetence. They’re competently pretending to be incompetent.
htom (412a17) — 10/27/2008 @ 8:49 amI think they deserve just as much patience as they showed you, i.e. none. Figure out a reasonable daily rate for loss of business during the “transfer period”, present them with a bill once the transfer is completed, and if they don’t pay it take it to small claims court. With luck you can get a lien on their business.
Socratease (0f2b4c) — 10/27/2008 @ 9:09 amThought you might like to know – I used my old link to patterico.com just now, and it brought up a page on “Welcome to Novell Small Business Suite® 6.5”.
WTF?? Maybe someone is in the middle of building a web site there?
Either way, get after these idiots!
Tex Lovera (456ded) — 10/27/2008 @ 9:31 am– and then maybe Patterico too preoccupied with this stuff, instead of pushing for the LA Times tape of the Rashid Khalidi/Obama thing.
Hey, Jamie Gold, we’re just wondering…
MikeH (e9e89c) — 10/27/2008 @ 9:35 amPlenty of other people are on the LA Times tape Khalidi/Obama thing. Perhaps the various truths will come out AFTER the election? All my moonbat acquaintances say is that the GOP twists O’s words and do worse things themselve and, besides, time to level the playing field between rich and poor. Afterall, “Fairness” requires it.
I earlier posted about contacting all those LA Times advertisers to protest the censorship. Might force the Times to release AFTER the election. The truth is out there. Trust no 1 except Nobama.
madmax333 (0c6cfc) — 10/27/2008 @ 9:51 amThey’re stalling for time.
Why, I don’t know. But as several people have mentioned, there’s no reason that they cannot point the DNS servers correctly while this happens.
Absolutely no reason. Be a 15 second fix. If they were honestly trying to help you.
They’re stalling. Don’t let them. Demand that they at the very least point the DNS at your site – right away – and then ask them what they are saying they will do in 7-10 days, and when, if anything, will you need to do. And who you will speak to. If this is their error, someone there should be heading up the correction. From the sound of it, “Joseph Perez” isn’t that person.
They’re not trying to help you recover. Which would be trivially easy to do. So easy, that there’s no legitimate reason not to… If they weren’t stalling for time.
Unix-Jedi (651a1b) — 10/27/2008 @ 9:55 am— I used my old link to patterico.com just now, and it brought up a page on “Welcome to Novell Small Business Suite® 6.5.” —
cboldt (3d73dd) — 10/27/2008 @ 10:11 am.
I bet you’re running a Novell O/S, and are viewing a web-page on your own machine.
Okay, I’ll say it then: If you think this is some sort of evil marxist left wing conspiracy you’re out of your cotton pickin’ gourd and if a possible Obama presidency leads to this kind of paranoia, I’m going to invest heavily in aluminum futures.
C’mon. Really. This is nothing but the almight sleazoid chase for a dollar $$% at any cost and I have yet to meet an unethical business man (or woman) who gives a flying toss whether that dollar originates from a Republican or a Democrat.
That being said, and if we must politicize this sad and unfortunate situation (I hope 1×1 gets put out of business for this type of behavior), let’s talk about the Pharmaceutical industry shall we? Who, owning the GOP 109th Congress and GWB somehow got a special provision on the new Senior Citizen Rx plan so that the government could not negotiate lower prices on behalf of bulk drugs for its subscribers.
Or how about the oil company tax cuts or the Real Estate Industry lobbyists or the financial Industry lobbyists who got every thing they wanted from Congress or the Car manufacturers who got the EPA to squash California’s new intelligent and realistic and responsible CAFE standards. And while we’re at it the weakening of bankruptcy rights and consumer rights or allowing credit card companies and banks to run de facto usury schemes in everything but name or the weakening of Food safety, drug safety agencies or (and this is my favorite) allowing SEC to turn into a tool of business without the outcome of such a thing, now painfully, PAINFULLY apparent, because the private sector is (or was) KING in the brave new world of cult of the GOP the Free Market-is-never-wrong Dogma or the incredible short sighted authoring of something like the Commodities Futures Modernization Act passed by Phil Gramm, yet another nail in the coffin of the stock market now in if it’s death threos with no sign of recuperation anytime soon. (And yes, it was signed by Bill CLinton, but it wasn’t his legistlation and he didn’t architect it.)
Yes, the list goes on and on and on and all for the sake of the almighty dollar with the blessing of the Republican Congresses since 1995 and the full and active support of the Bush administration including John McCain.
Yep, that chase for the almighty dollar weakened your rights Pat, and allowed these scum bags to steal your domain, and I would bet any amount of money that wherever they are in this world all they care about is paying less taxes and having to deal with less government regulation so they can take advantage of people like you.
Dog eat dog world is their motto and I’m gonna get mine and screw you is their number one rule of business.
Peter (e70d1c) — 10/27/2008 @ 10:15 amCall Sedo.com at 617-499-7200. That’s the number I received when I signed up to watch the auction of patterico.com on Friday morning. Sedo ran the auction, and they run the nameservers ns1.sedoparking.com and ns2.sedoparking.com that are currently handling all DNS requests for patterico.com.
On Wednesday, those nameservers started pointing to sedoparking.com’s servers. On Friday they started the auction. By Friday afternoon, they started pointing to 127.0.0.1 (localhost) to avoid attracting further attention to their hijacking/extortion.
They could today, now, easily start pointing at the correct address, 70.32.75.225. Call them at 617-499-7200 and demand that they do that.
Jobius (6e3552) — 10/27/2008 @ 10:26 amConspiracy, no. Willfully sabotaging a customer out of partisan spite…yes.
Rich Fader (295108) — 10/27/2008 @ 10:27 amMaybe you are getting through to them; I just tried patterico.com and was immediately shifted to patterico.net.
tbaughman (7d7f4f) — 10/27/2008 @ 10:31 amNot for me it didn’t…
Scott Jacobs (a1c284) — 10/27/2008 @ 10:37 am$ host patterico.com
patterico.com has address 70.32.75.225
$ host patterico.net
patterico.net has address 70.32.75.225
Yup, they’ve pointed the DNS servers at the right IP address. Looks like ns57.1and1.com is now the nameserver, as opposed to the sedoparking.
Interesting. I suppose it’s possible that they didn’t think of this until your commenters pointed it out. Or that they were meaning to do this, and just hadn’t gotten a round tuit yet.
Unix-Jedi (651a1b) — 10/27/2008 @ 10:41 amStill, I’d demand that they clarify who’s doing what and when, and when, if at all, you’ll need to be involved. Right now (unless there’s other communication), they’re being rather passively non-specific there.
For me neither. That page is probably still in your browser cache, Tbaughman.
Peter (e70d1c) — 10/27/2008 @ 10:42 amScott:
If they’ve just now made the change, it’ll take a while for it to propagate through the nameserver system based on how much and how long everybody’s ISP and host caches.
Unix-Jedi (651a1b) — 10/27/2008 @ 10:44 amWow, I think we got results. whois still shows Andre Schneider as the registrant (if there’s legal action to be taken, Mr. Schneider needs to be on the list) — BUT, the authoritative nameservers are now 1and1.com instead of sedoparking.com. 1and1.com nameservers are pointing to the correct address, 70.32.75.225.
It’ll take some time for the bad addresses to expire from various caches, but it looks like they’ve actually tried to do the right thing (for the first time since this started five days ago).
Jobius (6e3552) — 10/27/2008 @ 10:44 amComment by Peter — 10/27/2008 @ 10:15 am
Someone has some serious anger-management problems to deal with,
Another Drew (cdf426) — 10/27/2008 @ 10:45 amalong with re-acquiring a grip on reality.
Oh wait, scratch that, it’s true they’ve pointed the old domain name to patterico.net
Looks like they’ve capitulated. Excellent. Now lets find out who they are get the DA’s office of their state on their ass.
Peter (e70d1c) — 10/27/2008 @ 10:46 amJust tried patterico.com – starting from several different addresses – and it redirects immediately now to patterico.net.
no one you know (1f5ddb) — 10/27/2008 @ 10:47 amIs there nothing that will not prompt an end-stage BDS rant from Peter?
JD (5b4781) — 10/27/2008 @ 10:51 amI have cleared cache and history from Safari. Still no re-direct from the .com address.
“Safari can’t open the page “https://patterico.com/” because it can’t find the server “patterico.com””
~Paul
Paul (38c4d7) — 10/27/2008 @ 10:51 amI kept wondering why the woman who posted about the Ayers-Obama connection kept the page up so long and wasn’t practicing the neighborhood omerta oath.
She was (is?) one of the few Clinton supporters in the area.
Obama's Neighbor (f28dac) — 10/27/2008 @ 10:53 am“Safari can’t open the page “https://patterico.com/” because it can’t find the server “patterico.com””
Try http://www.patterico.com/
Peter (e70d1c) — 10/27/2008 @ 11:01 amDon’t click the link, type it in with the www in there.
Peter (e70d1c) — 10/27/2008 @ 11:02 amhttp://www.patterico.com now gets redirected to patterico.net, but patterico.com still gets the unavailable page. At least for me through comcast.
htom (412a17) — 10/27/2008 @ 11:10 amI got the redirect both from patterico.com and from http://www.patterico.com. I tested on IE and on Firefox.
Bradley J. Fikes (315ee4) — 10/27/2008 @ 11:17 amOld Patterico bookmark went straight to this site via Firefox.
Good.
Gabby (1566d8) — 10/27/2008 @ 11:33 amI wonder if this isn’t a conspiracy after all . . . not a political conspiracy, but a consipracy because you are a political blog.
In other words, 1 & 1 may not care about where you are politically, but that your blog is political, and that it is 8 days until the election. What better time to “fail” your site, and then try to hit you up for money?
B. Minich (fe95c9) — 10/27/2008 @ 11:39 amI’m still pulling page-load errors when I try and use the old site, but soon, I hope… Soon…
Scott Jacobs (a1c284) — 10/27/2008 @ 11:40 amCall it a preview of the Fairness Doctrine in action.
Icy Truth (1468e4) — 10/27/2008 @ 11:47 amah, the return of the prodigal son. snuffles and truth & justice mutants have been crying out for rebuttals from you.
I no longer get the sedo parking page at least. best is clicking on the http://72…..thing. No idea why clicking on patterico name inside a Coulter column days ago brought me back to the promised land.
madmax333 (0c6cfc) — 10/27/2008 @ 11:54 amMy guess is that they initially redirected the string that starts www but not the bare domain name (which is how I have it bookmarked.)
htom (412a17) — 10/27/2008 @ 12:06 pmThat email is an example of the use of deniable plausibility.
Alan Kellogg (e4d258) — 10/27/2008 @ 12:55 pmI despise conspiracy theories because they tend to obscure facts and truth. That said, 1&1 Domains IS located in a “battle ground state”, near Chesterbrook, PA 19087, therefore my money is on an in-house political hack at 1&1 up to dirty tricks. Either on their own or at another’s bidding.
C. Norris (c4095e) — 10/27/2008 @ 12:58 pmSure. You’ll get it back in 7-10 days. I believe it! You should, too! And if you do…..
Good day to you sir! I am Barrister JRM. I have a website that is worth $35 million. We can transfer it over to you as soon as the modalities are resolved.
Once you send us your money, we will promptly (FN1) convey you the website and you will get it for covering our expenses. There in is the thing.
Please send your banking information to me. It will be received witht he utmost security interest.
You so lucky. $35 million.
–JRM
FN1: Unless something comes up. We hate when that happens.
JRM (de6363) — 10/27/2008 @ 1:16 pmas of 3 pm EST, the whois info at verisign reflects a renewal to Oct 2009, and the patterico.com URL now redirects to patterico.net for me.
Looks to me like you are good to go, Pat.
SPQR (6eb953) — 10/27/2008 @ 1:44 pmrun em outta business, pat! grab em by the nose and kick ’em in the ass!
What are the elements of conspiracy again?
jdub (ba3489) — 10/27/2008 @ 1:53 pmPatterico:
I’m not going to say you’re wearing a tinfoil hat if you see a political conspiracy.
Dude, it’s a conspiracy so VAST our puny human brains can even grasp it.
furious (56af6d) — 10/27/2008 @ 3:42 pmIt’s forwarding here now. All they have to do is change the DNS servers, or give it back so you can do it.
cassandra (47eae1) — 10/27/2008 @ 4:11 pmI got a call at noon from someone at 1&1. He appears to have taken the necessary steps.
He conceded to me that he became involved because he had been contacted by the PR company for Sedo and 1&1. (In addition to researching possible legal action, part of my multi-pronged strategy was to put public pressure on these companies through their PR agency. A couple of national journalists helped out, and I’m going to ask them for permission to thank them by name.)
I’ll probably wait until tomorow morning to make an announcement, to make sure the changes more fully propagate, and because the company screwed up the privacy request which I’d like to get resolved before any official announcement.
Thanks to everyone who has helped out.
Patterico (71d255) — 10/27/2008 @ 4:53 pmI’m glad this worked out, Patterico. I found it especially interesting given that I’m currently working on aiding a major corporation write a proposal for next years’ gTLD application process. Something to think about when we write the section on registrar relationships.
SPQR (26be8b) — 10/27/2008 @ 5:49 pmThat’s good news.
If this happens to someone else in the future (and it probably will), I hope the browsers direct them to your posts so they can get ideas on what to expect and how to handle it.
DRJ (cb68f2) — 10/27/2008 @ 6:43 pmMy guess is that they weren’t trying to shut your blog down to block access to your posts in order to squelch the info in them.
kishnevi (fb6ec3) — 10/27/2008 @ 7:30 pmI’d go with the idea that they saw your sudden popularity (thanks to Hot Air links, etc.) and decided you were a popular site they could screw with to get money from.
Once you do get control again, obviously freaking transfer to another registrar and tell them to sod off permanently. It appears to be forwarding to the .net for me, now.
buddy (ad0862) — 10/27/2008 @ 7:42 pmGot here through the old patterico.com link this time. 🙂
htom (412a17) — 10/27/2008 @ 9:38 pmbuddy,
Amazingly, general registration rules require me to stay with 1&1 for 60 days.
Patterico (cc3b34) — 10/27/2008 @ 9:43 pmBy the way, once .com starts resolving for everyone, we’ll make .net bounce to .com and not the other way around.
Not yet, though. For example, I still can’t through at .com, so if I did that redirect, I would lose the site on my home computers.
Patterico (cc3b34) — 10/27/2008 @ 9:45 pm.com is now resolving for me. I had been getting a blank page.
Congrats on getting your domain back. But I pity those who didn’t/won’t be able to manage to put the fear of God into these scumbags. They could have fixed this in an instant, as they’ve now demonstrated. They didn’t want to until they realized it was going to cost them if they didn’t.
Pablo (99243e) — 10/27/2008 @ 10:03 pmI’m hosted with 1and1 and I’ve dealt with their service: definitely big company annoyed by small customer mentality at work.
That being said: It does take up to 7-10 days to transfer domains.
DNS transfers also propagate around the world to other DNS systems in a decentralized and orderly manner.
First the change is made to the domain’s primary (or parking) server, then, at regular intervals (usually once each day) the Server sends out any changes it has had to other servers across the internet, which then make a change and at the scheduled time pass it on to the next ring of servers.
There is no master server which controls the entire DNS system and can affect instantaneous change.
This explains why some visitors can see the DNS changes resolving the issue while others cannot.
It takes on aver 3-4 days for DNS changes I’ve submitted to actually travel the entire globe.
Were they wrong in the way they handled the situation initially? Possibly.
But once the changes have been made against the DNS system, they’ve done all they can and there is no further method to hasten the process to resolve the issue.
We maintain our credibility when we reserve our justified angst for real problems and move it away from those issues which have been resolved.
matthew (3fe755) — 10/28/2008 @ 1:16 pmI don’t have any beef with 1and1’s web hosting. However, I curse the day I ever listed any domains with them. Check out Red Flag for some customer comments.
Warth Publishing Inc (73abba) — 11/5/2008 @ 3:34 pmIt should be a warning that when their phone is answered by a recording that tells you if you have gotten a notice from NCO, a collection agency, to press a certain number. If they are a reputable business, why do they have to send so many accounts to a collection agency?
The Eastern Pennsylvania /Washington DC Better Business Bureau have given 1and1 an “unsatisfactory” rating. It is my understanding that 1and1 gets a complaint almost every day. An investigative journalist, Kelli Jack has written a series of articles about them and has a pending law suit. She says: “1and1 Should Be Shut Down.”