The Sorry Tale of How 1and1 Internet Stole Christmas
I have been asked about what happened with our domain. it's a long story.
we were registered through 1and1.com - not sure where we found them, but if you referred us, it's probably better not to mention it at this point. heh. they sent (or say they sent) a bill, via email, some time ago. we never received it, so were utterly surprised when they shut us off on Tuesday. (they sent one email, and never tried again. they never even sent a second email! and, they were unable to tell me if it had bounced or not.)
now, on the phone they said the first thing we had to do to retrieve the domain was to open a new account. Jovino tried to do this on their site but their forms don't work with mac. it breaks at the very end. so, he got that set up... and then they closed for the day.
the next day, we got through to collections, were informed that the charge had been $6 but that it was now about $30 due to late fees. ok, whatever. managed to pay them and then was informed that it would take three days for collections to communicate this to regular billing. so, decided to follow up to see if things could be sped up. was told to fill out a certain form and fax it in. this day I spent almost the entire day on the phone, on hold for a lot of it (being tortured with staticky xmas music - no LDB, which is amazing given the hours I logged) and talked to many MANY of their employees. every single one of them said that there seemed to be "something wrong" with the new account but they couldn't tell me what. then they closed again.
on Thursday I made my first call around 8am. my question that day was how to fill out some info on their form - info that the form said was required, but which I had not been given. again, I was repeatedly told "there's nothing in that account" etc etc. sorry, dudes, *you* set it up for us! finally got someone who knew the answer, so I completed the form and faxed it. I waited a bit and then called to make sure the fax had arrived. this call in itself was ridiculous... but eventually they found the damn thing. and then, you guessed it, they closed.
so, today. I get up early again, call them, and am told that they will call me back within two hours. of course, they don't do this. they have called us ONCE, and never sent any of the promised emails either. and yes, I checked the spam folder. it had a message welcoming me to their affiliate program, for fuck's sake. I am NOT kidding! (however, ALL of these calls *have* been on their 800#...)
so, two hours later, I call again. this time they tell me that I can't use the account that they had us set up on Tuesday, because, get this: we were in arrears when the account was set up. (which THEY KNEW when they had us do it! YARGH. (I have left out a lot of similarly absurd stuff that I just can't quite bring myself to recount. a LOT of it!)
so, anyway, the guy sets up a third account, but he can't give me the account number yet (which is the only thing I need) but promises to email it to me. which, of course, he never does. he also informs me that Monday is the very soonest they can process this, even if I get the fax to them today... and THEN it will take FIVE DAYS before we're back. that's a week from today and we will have been 404 for nearly two weeks by then. I swear, it is like attempting to do business with VOGONS!
so anyway, I wait a couple of hours and call at 1, an hour before they close. someone looks it up, tells me. I fill out and send the fucking fax AGAIN. and I'll be setting an alarm for Monday morning to get on the phone with them, again.
and that's when I realize: next Friday is the 12th. the commonly accepted deadline for ordering things that need to be mailed before xmas is the 15th. AWESOME. so basically, there's not going to be any xmas for us this year, just none at all.
worse, to our customers it will appear that we have just disappeared. before you ask me, NO there is not ANY way to get ANYTHING up at bunnywarez.com until they let it go. and YES OF COURSE we are getting a new domain reg company as soon as we can... which will not be until they release our domain back to us. I appreciate the thoughts but if we could do that stuff, we'd have already done it on Tuesday.
this comes on the heels of us rushing to get a new item made in time for xmas sales. it's awesome and I love it and I know it'll do well but for fuck's sake, we can't sell the damn things without a site!
we are doing a small holiday sale on Sunday the 14th, on Folsom (near the Cat Club, if that's even still there). and that is IT. this really sucks as we are trying to make $ for a big production run and every bit is needed. (and there is a deadline on that one...)
butanyway. there ARE good things in my life, I am grateful for Jovino and our friends and fresh alfalfa sprouts and cheese and tacos and cold beer. I'm grateful to be here in Cali with a roof over my head and a fridge full of food. I love my kitties (and they've been behaving pretty well this week too, progress is being made on the kitty integration front) but diggity-dammer, can this just PLEASE get worked out?!?
BTW if there is something you want, comment or call me (or email through lj) and I can let you know if we have it etc. we can take credit cards over the phone or accept paypal, or you can come pick it up and pay cash. we are NOT dead! it just looks that way right now.
speaking of beer... it's the 75th anniversary of the repeal of prohibition, and I think I'm going to go have a cold one now.
we were registered through 1and1.com - not sure where we found them, but if you referred us, it's probably better not to mention it at this point. heh. they sent (or say they sent) a bill, via email, some time ago. we never received it, so were utterly surprised when they shut us off on Tuesday. (they sent one email, and never tried again. they never even sent a second email! and, they were unable to tell me if it had bounced or not.)
now, on the phone they said the first thing we had to do to retrieve the domain was to open a new account. Jovino tried to do this on their site but their forms don't work with mac. it breaks at the very end. so, he got that set up... and then they closed for the day.
the next day, we got through to collections, were informed that the charge had been $6 but that it was now about $30 due to late fees. ok, whatever. managed to pay them and then was informed that it would take three days for collections to communicate this to regular billing. so, decided to follow up to see if things could be sped up. was told to fill out a certain form and fax it in. this day I spent almost the entire day on the phone, on hold for a lot of it (being tortured with staticky xmas music - no LDB, which is amazing given the hours I logged) and talked to many MANY of their employees. every single one of them said that there seemed to be "something wrong" with the new account but they couldn't tell me what. then they closed again.
on Thursday I made my first call around 8am. my question that day was how to fill out some info on their form - info that the form said was required, but which I had not been given. again, I was repeatedly told "there's nothing in that account" etc etc. sorry, dudes, *you* set it up for us! finally got someone who knew the answer, so I completed the form and faxed it. I waited a bit and then called to make sure the fax had arrived. this call in itself was ridiculous... but eventually they found the damn thing. and then, you guessed it, they closed.
so, today. I get up early again, call them, and am told that they will call me back within two hours. of course, they don't do this. they have called us ONCE, and never sent any of the promised emails either. and yes, I checked the spam folder. it had a message welcoming me to their affiliate program, for fuck's sake. I am NOT kidding! (however, ALL of these calls *have* been on their 800#...)
so, two hours later, I call again. this time they tell me that I can't use the account that they had us set up on Tuesday, because, get this: we were in arrears when the account was set up. (which THEY KNEW when they had us do it! YARGH. (I have left out a lot of similarly absurd stuff that I just can't quite bring myself to recount. a LOT of it!)
so, anyway, the guy sets up a third account, but he can't give me the account number yet (which is the only thing I need) but promises to email it to me. which, of course, he never does. he also informs me that Monday is the very soonest they can process this, even if I get the fax to them today... and THEN it will take FIVE DAYS before we're back. that's a week from today and we will have been 404 for nearly two weeks by then. I swear, it is like attempting to do business with VOGONS!
so anyway, I wait a couple of hours and call at 1, an hour before they close. someone looks it up, tells me. I fill out and send the fucking fax AGAIN. and I'll be setting an alarm for Monday morning to get on the phone with them, again.
and that's when I realize: next Friday is the 12th. the commonly accepted deadline for ordering things that need to be mailed before xmas is the 15th. AWESOME. so basically, there's not going to be any xmas for us this year, just none at all.
worse, to our customers it will appear that we have just disappeared. before you ask me, NO there is not ANY way to get ANYTHING up at bunnywarez.com until they let it go. and YES OF COURSE we are getting a new domain reg company as soon as we can... which will not be until they release our domain back to us. I appreciate the thoughts but if we could do that stuff, we'd have already done it on Tuesday.
this comes on the heels of us rushing to get a new item made in time for xmas sales. it's awesome and I love it and I know it'll do well but for fuck's sake, we can't sell the damn things without a site!
we are doing a small holiday sale on Sunday the 14th, on Folsom (near the Cat Club, if that's even still there). and that is IT. this really sucks as we are trying to make $ for a big production run and every bit is needed. (and there is a deadline on that one...)
butanyway. there ARE good things in my life, I am grateful for Jovino and our friends and fresh alfalfa sprouts and cheese and tacos and cold beer. I'm grateful to be here in Cali with a roof over my head and a fridge full of food. I love my kitties (and they've been behaving pretty well this week too, progress is being made on the kitty integration front) but diggity-dammer, can this just PLEASE get worked out?!?
BTW if there is something you want, comment or call me (or email through lj) and I can let you know if we have it etc. we can take credit cards over the phone or accept paypal, or you can come pick it up and pay cash. we are NOT dead! it just looks that way right now.
speaking of beer... it's the 75th anniversary of the repeal of prohibition, and I think I'm going to go have a cold one now.