Worst mistake I ever made (123-reg.co.uk)

Member Name:

Product:	123-reg.co.uk
Date:	05/05/01 (78 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: none

Disadvantages: never ending grief

123-reg.co.uk gets my vote for the worst online trader. Deliberately misleading advertisements throughout the press (trying to dispell the popular fact that they stink), disgraceful service from the company, ripping customers off and worst of all, corrupt systems. In fact, everything about the company is corrupt.

The basis of this company (a division of the notoriously bad and equally abhorent "Webfusion") is that one registers a domain name with them and three days later (why the delay? oneandone.co.uk have it set up in an hour on their simular service), the new domain name points to wherever your files are, like the free webspace your ISP (internet service provider) gives you when you have an account with them. email is a "capture all" so if you register the name "www.mywebsite.co.uk" (or whatever) then any email address ending in "@mywebsite.co.uk" gets pointed to the email address you provide. The registration is for two years and unlike some others, you don't own the name, they do - which is naughty, not that they are forthcoming with that information.

After seeing adverts for domain names for 99p + vat (they've come down since but before you think bargain, read the whole opinion), one of my friends and I registered a small number of domain names with them, expecting to be charged £1.17 each (the inclusive of vat price). A few weeks later (rather than within a day or so), the invoices arrived - but for £46.99. For a week or so, my friend contacted them but they ignored them until I started getting nasty with them. The bulls**t response from them was (quote) you have two options (?!): one where you get to print out an invoice on line that costs the lower amount or one where you get a paper invoice costing the higher amount". Utterly unsatisfactory. I kept the pressure up and they backed down, as they know I know the scam they are pulling and whilst I do not like the term "gras
s", the ASA (Advertising Standards Agency) will be receiving a full report from us, a newly formed computer consultency business so we do have some knowledge about the industry - at least we do now!!!

Customer care - or lack of - is an utter disgrace and I beleive their intent is to fustrate disgruntled customers into giving up when they don't play ball and keepinng the money to which they have dishonestly obtained.

The most alarming concern with this company is the corrupt systems they have. One of the domains we registered with them, a commercial web site, points to pornographic material which is something we find very alarming indeed. Upon tracing, we find that the sites were all from this company and naturally, we are not getting a response from the company. Not only do we now have the inconvenience of moving our domains away from this company, we do not know what damage this has done to our company (which is why none of our sites are listed in the user profile on this opinion site).

None of which is satisfactory to say the least.

Summary: