Complaints
This profile includes complaints for IONOS, Inc.'s headquarters and its corporate-owned locations. To view all corporate locations, see
Customer Complaints Summary
- 324 total complaints in the last 3 years.
- 141 complaints closed in the last 12 months.
If you've experienced an issue
Submit a ComplaintThe complaint text that is displayed might not represent all complaints filed with BBB. Some consumers may elect to not publish the details of their complaints, some complaints may not meet BBB's standards for publication, or BBB may display a portion of complaints when a high volume is received for a particular business.
Initial Complaint
Date:01/03/2023
Type:Status:ResolvedMore info
Complaint statuses
- Resolved:
- The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.
- Unresolved:
- The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.
- Answered:
- The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.
- Unanswered:
- The business failed to respond to the dispute.
- Unpursuable:
- BBB is unable to locate the business.
hosting account was found to have fraudulent charges. The provider acknowledged that the charges where fraudulent and services were added and charged to my account by them that i did not request. After multiple months of contact/emails/phone calls they have not provided a refund. They consistently try and get me off the phone by stating they will escalate and i will get a call back. I never hear back from them. They transfer me from dept to dept in hopes that i will just hang up.
Business Response
Date: 01/11/2023
Dear *********************,
Customer satisfaction is our top priority, and on behalf of IONOS, I am truly sorry your experience with our company has not met your expectations. I wanted to thank you for taking the time to provide your feedback. Direct feedback from the customer is an important resource as it helps us focus on the aspects of our products and service that need the most attention.
We appreciate your patience while our support teams worked to address your concerns. Here at IONOS we take internet security very seriously and as such our security team may take additional time to review a customer's concern. While the time it has taken to reverse the fraudulent charges was longer than usual, we can confirm that a refund was processed to the payment method on file on Jan.06.2023. We will also be forwarding this information to our Quality Assurance team for review and advise management for areas of improvement.
Once more, we apologize for any inconvenience, and thank you for taking the time to share your feedback.
Sincerely,
***************************;
Executive Solutions Manager
1&1 IONOS, Inc.
*************************************Customer Answer
Date: 01/20/2023
[A default letter is provided here which indicates your acceptance of the business's response. If you wish, you may update it before sending it.]
Better Business Bureau:
I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID ********, and find that this resolution is satisfactory to me.
Regards,
*********************Initial Complaint
Date:01/03/2023
Type:Status:AnsweredMore info
Complaint statuses
- Resolved:
- The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.
- Unresolved:
- The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.
- Answered:
- The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.
- Unanswered:
- The business failed to respond to the dispute.
- Unpursuable:
- BBB is unable to locate the business.
I have attempted to get help with my account *******. When I get the call center in the Philipines I am told to call back if I want a USA representative. When I ask for a supervisor I am told NO. I filed a complaint online now they are retaliating by cancelling any orders without notificiation or why they are cancelling. When **** responds to email but then I get responses from others. Would like to know they cancelled the order and still have pending charge on the Amex. If they do not want customers that complain about the service let them know that they do not want customers ahead and we will move on.Business Response
Date: 01/10/2023
Dear *********************,
Customer satisfaction is our top priority, and on behalf of IONOS, I am truly sorry your experience with our company has not met your expectations. I wanted to thank you for taking the time to provide your feedback. Direct feedback from the customer is an important resource as it helps us focus on the aspects of our products and service that need the most attention.
It was a pleasure speaking with you over the phone today and again we apologize for the inconvenience caused. While we understand that your preferred contact with IONOS is through an onshore representative, we are unable to provide the excellent level of service we consistently work to achieve for your particular product with our onshore support teammates as they provide support for our other services. I can assure you that our offshore support teammates are well versed in your hosting needs and are willing to go above and beyond for our hosting customers. We would like to provide clarity on the escalation process to our supervisors. We always hope to resolve a customer's concern at the first point of contact, however there are cases when an escalation is required and in order for our support teammates to facilitate this escalation, we require verification of the account. Unfortunately, our support teammates were unable to verify your account and details were not provided as to your concerns, so they were unable to process this request.
I would like to reiterate that the termination of your order was not done in retaliation, rather out of responsibility to be a better partner in the internet community and in accordance with our General Terms & Conditions. Our security team has provided an update via email and we appreciate your patience while our security team worked to review your request. I would also like to confirm the authorization hold was released the same day of the terminated order.
Again, it was a pleasure speaking with you over the phone and thank you for taking the time to share your feedback.
Sincerely,
***************************;
Executive Solutions Manager
1&1 IONOS, Inc.
*************************************Initial Complaint
Date:12/14/2022
Type:Status:AnsweredMore info
Complaint statuses
- Resolved:
- The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.
- Unresolved:
- The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.
- Answered:
- The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.
- Unanswered:
- The business failed to respond to the dispute.
- Unpursuable:
- BBB is unable to locate the business.
We have canceled our account, moved our domain, notified Ionos by both email and phone, yet they continue to try and collect for monthly services that they did not provide and we did not use. They currently state that we owe them approximately $24 dollars that we rightfully contest. We no longer wish to do business with this company and want them to bring the balance to zero, cease all collection attempts and notify any and all agencies, both collection and credit reporting, that we owe them nothing and the situation has been resolved.Business Response
Date: 12/19/2022
Dear ***********************,
We apologize for any inconvenience you may have experienced and that we were unable to address your concerns prior to escalating to the Better Business Bureau. I wanted to thank you for taking the time to provide your feedback. Direct feedback from the customer is an important resource as it helps us focus on the aspects of our products and service that need the most attention.
After reviewing your account, we have found that our support team has recently addressed your request and unfortunately we received your request to terminate your service after the renewal date which caused the contract to renew and invoice. Please note, as per our terms and conditions, the termination of services is to be processed by turning off the automatic renewal within the control panel. Step by step information can be found through our help center here *********************************************************************************************************************; and by following the below steps:
1. Log in to the Contract Service with your IONOS Customer ID and password.
Forgot your password? We explain how you can assign a new one in the article Change Your IONOS password.
2. If you have more than one contract, click on the contract you would like to cancel.
3. In the Update auto-renewal setting panel, click Next.
4. Toggle the switch next to Automatically keep my contract to turn contract auto-renewal off.
5. Click Save.
6. Review the listed impacts related to contract cancellation, and if you are ready to continue, click Disable Auto-Renewal.
7. Please inform us of the reason for your cancellation by choosing one of the options displayed. Then click Next.
Auto-renewal for your contract has now been disabled. The date that your contract will expire will be displayed after the final step.
As a courtesy, we have pulled and wiped the outstanding balance from collections. The process of removing a balance from collections and clearing it from our system can take 2-3 business days to complete, so you may receive notifications about the balance still being due in the interim but these can be disregarded. I also wanted to confirm that when a balance is passed to collections, we stipulate with the collection agency that it have no effect on the customer's credit history and the balance is not reported to credit bureaus. A balance is only passed to collections when it has been overdue for more than 60 days in our system.
If you have any further questions please feel free to contact us here in the Executive Solutions Team via email to: [email protected].
Once more, we apologize for any inconvenience, and thank you for taking the time to share your feedback.
Sincerely,
***************************;
Executive Solutions Manager
1&1 IONOS, Inc.
*************************************Customer Answer
Date: 12/19/2022
[To assist us in bringing this matter to a close, you must give us a reason why you are rejecting the response. If no reason is received your complaint will be closed as Answered]
Complaint: ********
I am rejecting this response because:
Nothing of what you stated is factual. I can no longer login to the account as it has been terminated and doesnt exist. ie... my username and password no longer work. Second, the service you provided was $8 a month. If, as you stated but i contest, you recieved my termination request 1 day after renewal, how did the "total due" more than double? On the day I cancelled, I paid everything currently due and then immediately called to cancel. Had it been the day after renewal, I would have had to pay it that day when i brought the account to zero. Just put the account back at zero and leave me and my credit report alone. this is all im asking.
Regards,
***********************Business Response
Date: 12/30/2022
Dear ***********************,
We apologize for any confusion regarding our response to your concerns. The account has been terminated, all fees have been reversed, there is a zero balance due and the balance has been pulled from collections. As previously stated when a balance is passed to collections, we stipulate with the collection agency that it have no effect on the customer's credit history and the balance is not reported to credit bureaus. A balance is only passed to collections when it has been overdue for more than 60 days in our system.To reiterate, the request to deactivate the contract was received after the renewal date, which caused the contract to renew and issue a renewal invoice. The fees associated within the renewal invoice apply to the *** Extended support in which notification was sent to the email address on file prior to as your *** version was no longer being supported and the basic fee of the hosting package. This information is outlined in your invoice.
I hope this information provided clarity and again we apologize for the confusion.
If you have any further questions please feel free to contact us here in the Executive Solutions Team via email to: ******************************.
Sincerely,
***************************;
Executive Solutions Manager
1&1 IONOS, Inc.
*************************************Initial Complaint
Date:12/13/2022
Type:Status:AnsweredMore info
Complaint statuses
- Resolved:
- The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.
- Unresolved:
- The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.
- Answered:
- The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.
- Unanswered:
- The business failed to respond to the dispute.
- Unpursuable:
- BBB is unable to locate the business.
IONOS is a shady company that I wouldn't recommend to any general consumer. Signed up for 3 domains at a reasonable price and they automatically enroll you in domain renew but do not tell you and then automatically charge your account before telling you for a jacked up price for the yearly renewal. Then when you go to cancel the renewal they won't let you because they automatically charged your account and if you cancel it cancel your domain access. So now I've paid for 3 domains the full yearly price without a warning or renewal email and do not even have access to them. I cancelled the payment in ****** and now they are still threatening to send me to collections for a contract I cancelled and a service I don't have anymore. Quite the sketchy company.Business Response
Date: 12/13/2022
Dear *************************,
Customer satisfaction is our top priority, and on behalf of IONOS, I am truly sorry your experience with our company has not met your expectations. I wanted to thank you for taking the time to provide your feedback. Direct feedback from the customer is an important resource as it helps us focus on the aspects of our products and service that need the most attention.
Please note, due to the nature of our services and as per Section 2.1 of our terms and conditions, services shall automatically renew for additional terms of equal length unless you turn off the auto renew function in your account, in which case this Agreement shall terminate at the end of the then-current term. You will receive notice between 30 and 60 days prior to the end of each term of your Extended Term Package that will alert you that your term is about to renew and will provide you with instructions on how to cancel if you do not wish to renew. These notices will be provided via your Customer Control Panel in the Message Board. Any and all service fees for the Extended Term Packages are non-refundable and payable in advance for the entire term thereof. This information is also provided at the time of check out when placing an order. Unfortunately, we found no record of cancellation or attempted cancellation for your Instant domain package until now. If you wish deactivate the auto renewal, you are able to do so within the control panel, this process should be completed at least 5 days prior to the renewal date.
In order to process this request, please follow the below steps:
1. Log in to the Contract Service with your IONOS Customer ID and password.
Forgot your password? We explain how you can assign a new one in the article Change Your IONOS password.
2. If you have more than one contract, click on the contract you would like to cancel.
3. In the Update auto-renewal setting panel, click Next.
4. Toggle the switch next to Automatically keep my contract to turn contract auto-renewal off.
5. Click Save.
6. Review the listed impacts related to contract cancellation, and if you are ready to continue, click Disable Auto-Renewal.
7. Please inform us of the reason for your cancellation by choosing one of the options displayed. Then click Next.
Auto-renewal for your contract has now been disabled. The date that your contract will expire will be displayed after the final step. Alternatively, you are able to contact our cancellations team directly at *************** to process your request.
According to our records, we received a chargeback dispute from your financial institution regarding the payment for the annual renewal. When a dispute is received, the financial institution reverses the payment which leaves an open balance with IONOS, that must be settled in order to unlock any remaining services. As your account has been terminated, as a one time courtesy, we are clearing the balance associated.
I hope this information has proved helpful and appreciate the time spent providing your feedback. If you have any further questions please feel free to contact us here in the Executive Solutions Team via email to: [email protected].
Sincerely,
Michelle S******;
Executive Solutions Manager
IONOS, Inc.
********************Initial Complaint
Date:12/04/2022
Type:Status:AnsweredMore info
Complaint statuses
- Resolved:
- The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.
- Unresolved:
- The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.
- Answered:
- The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.
- Unanswered:
- The business failed to respond to the dispute.
- Unpursuable:
- BBB is unable to locate the business.
The company canceled my server and deleted the data within 30 days and sent the bill for the canceled server to collections.. I lost all my website data as a result of their impatience and action. Ive had a sever with the company for years which should show Im credible. The business has failed to refund me for the canceled server charges as well as provide a credit for deleting my data which cant be recovered. Customer id *********Business Response
Date: 12/07/2022
Dear *******************************,
Customer satisfaction is our top priority, and on behalf of IONOS, I am truly sorry your experience with our company has not met your expectations. I wanted to thank you for taking the time to provide your feedback. Direct feedback from the customer is an important resource as it helps us focus on the aspects of our products and service that need the most attention.
Our records indicate that we have recently addressed your concerns and the contract in question was correctly terminated due to non-payment and all notifications were provided prior to termination. As a one time courtesy, the last invoice has been reversed and is currently in the process of being returned to your financial institution. For the records of this complaint, please review the following email from 12/6/2022 that is listed below:
Dear *********************************** (Customer ID **********,
Thank you for contacting us.
We have received an escalated case regarding your request for retroactive refunds on your Cloud server package (Contract ********). I apologize for any inconvenience caused in this matter.
Upon review of your account history, I show that the Cloud server was correctly canceled for non-payment, per our terms and conditions of service. When a payment is declined by a payment method provider, we are not provided a cause. It is only marked as a failed payment, which prompts notifications to be sent to the e-mail address on file, well prior to any action being taken against the contract. If a balance remains outstanding 60 days past the date the invoice was issued, it is passed to a collections agency for reimbursement. When a balance is passed to collections, we stipulate with the collections agency that it not be reported to credit bureaus, so this would have no effect whatsoever on your credit score. If a balance remains outstanding beyond the point it has been passed to collections, it is eventually terminated for non-payment.
While payment was eventually remitted for the balance due, the payment was not made in time to prevent cancellation of the contract for non-payment. I can assure you we do all that we can to notify customers prior to a cancellation action taking place, to prevent data loss and to give the customer adequate time to make payment arrangements, but unfortunately in this case the payment was not received in time to prevent the cancellation. Any data that was stored in the contract would no longer be available for retrieval.
While we would have to consider the balance that was due for the contract to be valid, and refunds would not be applicable in cases where a contract was correctly canceled for non-payment, I have issued a refund for the final payment made for the Cloud server as a courtesy. Please allow 3-5 days for the $165.89 refund to post to your payment method. It should not take that long to receive the refund, however if you do not receive it within that time please advise in reply.
As well, if you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to reply. Thank you for your patience in this matter and again I apologize for any inconvenience caused.
Sincerely,
John K*******
Solutions Manager
IONOS
I hope this information has proved helpful and appreciate the time spent providing your feedback. If you have any further questions please feel free to contact us here in the Executive Solutions Team via email to: [email protected].
Sincerely,
Michelle S*********;
Executive Solutions Manager
1&1 IONOS, Inc.
********************Initial Complaint
Date:11/28/2022
Type:Status:AnsweredMore info
Complaint statuses
- Resolved:
- The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.
- Unresolved:
- The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.
- Answered:
- The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.
- Unanswered:
- The business failed to respond to the dispute.
- Unpursuable:
- BBB is unable to locate the business.
Appending services to contracts that were not signed up for. Between 2017 and 2022, >750 USD has been charged from my account for services that were not requested such as ranking coaches, email addresses, web editors, etc. This behavior is ongoing. Please, record any transactions made with ionos. If you are being stolen from, please submit a complaint with an upload.Business Response
Date: 11/30/2022
Dear ***********************,
Customer satisfaction is our top priority, and on behalf of IONOS, I am truly sorry your experience with our company has not met your expectations. I wanted to thank you for taking the time to provide your feedback. Direct feedback from the customer is an important resource as it helps us focus on the aspects of our products and service that need the most attention.
According to our records our team has recently addressed your concerns. While we aim to assist in the best way we can, the services in question were all added on the same day in Sept 2021 through the customer's interface with corresponding email confirmations. Follow up calls to our support team were received on the same day requesting assistance with gaining access to My Website creator and requesting assistance in connecting the recently purchased domain name summitcarpets.info to The My Website Now contract. The Mail service was added to an existing Instant Domain contract in conjunction with the Email archiving feature and email addresses were created. While our support teammate assisted in accessing your newly purchased services, they did pitch the Design Service, however as you requested to review this option at a later time, the service was not added to the account.
As a courtesy our support team has reversed the last two invoices for the Ranking coach service. Based on the information available, we would be unable to provide the compensation you are requesting and would be unable to extend any courtesies above what our support team has provided.
I hope this information has proved helpful and appreciate the time spent providing your feedback. If you have any further questions please feel free to contact us here in the Executive Solutions Team via email to: [email protected].
Sincerely,
Michelle S*********;
Executive Solutions Manager
1&1 IONOS, Inc.
********************Initial Complaint
Date:11/27/2022
Type:Status:AnsweredMore info
Complaint statuses
- Resolved:
- The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.
- Unresolved:
- The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.
- Answered:
- The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.
- Unanswered:
- The business failed to respond to the dispute.
- Unpursuable:
- BBB is unable to locate the business.
I paid for domain and web hosting on 11/23/22 and canceled within their 30 money back guarantee policy. On 11/26/22 I canceled with confirmation and today 11/27/22 they charged me again. They owe me $27.41 and it's very odd to be charged twice in such a short time after cancelation in the same month. I want my money backBusiness Response
Date: 11/30/2022
Dear ****************************************,
Customer satisfaction is our top priority, and on behalf of IONOS, I am truly sorry your experience with our company has not met your expectations. I wanted to thank you for taking the time to provide your feedback. Direct feedback from the customer is an important resource as it helps us focus on the aspects of our products and service that need the most attention.
Our records indicate that our support team has recently provided insight on our cancellation and refund processes. I can confirm that your request to terminate your account along with a reversal of the associated invoice has been processed as per our 30 day MBG process. To reiterate our authorization process for ordering purposes, the authorization is the banks way of saying that the customer has the funds or credit available for the purchase. IONOS will eventually get the funds if the authorization request is approved. However, this will only happen after the transaction is settled. In your case, due to the timing of the termination, an invoice was already in the process of generating and as our billing system is automated we advised via email that should an invoice generate, a refund will then be issued. Due to the timing of the order, cancellation request, the authorization hold remained in place until the account was terminated and associated invoice reversed. The authorization hold has been released and the refund will process to the payment method on file within 3-5 days.
I hope this information has proved helpful and appreciate the time spent providing your feedback. If you have any further questions please feel free to contact us here in the Executive Solutions Team via email to: [email protected].
Sincerely,
Michelle S******;
Executive Solutions Manager
1&1 IONOS, Inc.
********************
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