Whenever something looks too good to be true, it almost certainly is. Take 1 and 1 Website Hosting, for example. Their website offers what looks like a fantastic deal: all packages FREE (their emphasis) for six months. Sounds good? Yes, and after the six months is up, the rates seem quite reasonable, too. Why not give it a go? I did.

When you sign up you are made to confirm that you will abide by their General Terms & Conditions. Just click the box. Who reads the terms and conditions anyway? After all, it’s 7,981 words: that’s over three times as long as the Magna Carta, six times as long as the U.S. Declaration of Independence or about as many words as you’ll get in a 2.5 hour movie script. Even if you do try and read it, most of what you find doesn’t apply and you can bet that no one from the Plain English Campaign has been anywhere near. This, for example, is one paragraph from section 3.4, which covers Web Hosting:

A web hosting package with unlimited web space will provide the Customer initially with 30 gigabytes of web space. Where at least 75% of the available web space is used the capacity will be automatically increased in increments of 1 gigabyte without charge until the usage reverts to less than 75%. Usage will be checked daily. Increases will be limited to once per day. 1&1 reserves the right to change the server used for this service to a server which is suitably equipped for the customer’s usage. In such cases a suspension of the service may be technically unavoidable.

All I’ve discovered from that paragraph is that an “unlimited web space” isn’t actually unlimited. Good start.

Assume you click the button and sign up. You set up a website – not the easiest thing to do for someone who, like me, is used to Dreamhost.com – and get started. Then you find you don’t like it and want out. So you try and find out how to cancel your “FREE” contract (their emphasis). Cancelling is not something that’s covered very well on the 1 and 1 website. You eventually find the FAQs (link at the bottom of the page in small type). This brings you to this screen:

Still not obvious? Try Billing & Contract. Clicking on this shows up another menu:

Shall we click on “Cancellation System”, do you think? When you do, another menu opens up. This looks like this:

Almost done. After clicking on the wrong link a couple of times, you eventually land on “How do I cancel an entire package”, which takes you to another page. This is the steps you have to take in order to cancel your contract with 1&1 websites:

Step 1:

You will first need to log into http://contract.1and1.co.uk/ using your Customer ID and Control Panel Password. Click the Login to log in to the cancel site.

Step 2:

A welcome page is shown after logging in. Click the Cancellation button at the top of the page.

Step 3:

Select the package that contains the domain (or other item) to cancel from the list of packages.

Step 4:

Select to cancel Entire contract and then click the Next button to proceed.

Step 5:

Select an option from the drop-down box for Cancel contract on.

Step 6:

Any remaining domains or features will also be shown on this page. Select cancellation options for these domains/features and then click the Next button.

Step 7:

A summary of the cancellation options chosen is shown. Please double-check the options chosen and click the Confirm button to submit the cancellation request. If any changes are needed, simply click the Back button.

Step 8:

To complete the cancellation, you will have to contact our service team to confirm the cancellation of the package. Without calling the service team, the cancellation will eventually void itself.

So you’ve done all that (upwards of 15 clicks!) and you’ve still not cancelled your contract. Another potential problem is that the service team only work from 9am-5pm, Monday to Friday. Whatever happened to the “24 hours a day, 7 days a week” support you were promised before you signed up? This does not apply when you are trying to cancel a contract, apparently.

If you are doing all this at night or over the weekend and forget to telephone the support team to confirm your cancellation. You have wasted your time. This happened to me and I eventually got an invoice. I didn’t pay it and it was passed on to a “collections agency” called Arvato, who slap on their own charges. I have refused to pay, citing that their cancellation system is illegal because it is so damned difficult. I’m pretty sure I have a good case. You might want to try it out for yourself.