We recently upgraded our web server to a dedicated package with 1&1. After being moved to the wrong type of server, we called 1&1’s customer service department to try and have the issue resolved. Our experience with them was so bad, I’ve decided to write a short article about the importance of customer service and the consequences that even one bad customer experience can bring.

Our Attempt to Upgrade Our Hosting Package with 1and1

The issue, in a nutshell, was that we were misinformed about what server package we were being upgraded to. Being a customer with 1&1 Internet for about 6 years (transferring the account from my old web development business to Deversus in between), we’ve grown to the point where we require a dedicated web server to meet our needs. I used 1and1’s Switch Package feature via their control panel to process the upgrade. The Switch Package experience was awful, at best. It gave a terse listing of the available servers and their associated costs, with no description or links to indicate what the server package contained. After Googleing the package of interest (the 1&1 Dedicated Server Dual-Core M Website), we decided to go with that (as a caveat, the Dual-Core M package description we read was from the 1and1 UK website and is no longer on the US website).

Three days later, the upgrade was complete — sort of. It was at this point that we realized we had been upgraded to 1and1’s “dedicated managed server” and not a “dedicated root server” like we were expecting. We hadn’t a clue that there was even such an option. While one could blame us for not doing our due diligence to make sure of what we were getting, the general lack of information throughout the process was simply unacceptable.


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