I received an invoice the other day for the renewal of three of the many domains I registered with 1&1 a while back.
The trouble is, they’ve also billed me for renewing a domain name that they haven’t actually renewed and aren’t likely to renew: I transferred morrisclients.com away a while ago to a different hosting company and this year decided not to renew it. If you do a WHOIS lookup, you’ll see that the domain name is controlled by DreamHost and expired on 11 October 2009.
So despite these facts, 1&1 are billing me for the domain renewal and refuse to accept they’ve done wrong by doing so. In a conversation with Eshan Azim in 1&1’s billing department, he repeatedly told me that they had indeed renewed the domain name. He lied. I asked him whether the call had been recorded and he told me it had, so they can show that I at least am not lying.
So no, 1&1 aren’t issuing a credit note for these services they’re not providing and indeed have no intention of doing so.
I am now in the process of transferring away all of the hundreds of domains I host with them now and closing down my hosting accounts. This will cost them hundreds of pounds a year.
Good call 1&1!
You know, sometimes I wish that Microsoft would simply grow up and get over its childish hatred of Apple and because of that its reluctance to embrace (and potentially embrace) Mac users.
A fabulous example of this is Microsoft’s Live Messenger and their long running and unresolved failures to actually support audio-visual conversations for users running a Mac.
I use both a PC (actually a Tablet PC) and a Mac and I have just bought another laptop running Windows Vista (with an upgrade to Windows 7 coming in due course). On the Windows platforms I can run Live Messenger and hook up a webcam to have a face to face conversation with another Windows Live user.
If I’m at my flat on the Mac, I cannot.
Back in December 2008, Microsoft announced a forthcoming beta release of Messenger for Mac which would offer A/V support in 2009. Now, some 10 months later, there’s still no sign of it on the horizon, far less a final release version.
Pathetic!
Well that’s very disappointing: I’ve today received a Spam e-mail from Karnack Books sent to an e-mail address I set up and use solely for the Chartered Institute of Building.
I’ve checked my profile on the CIOB website and have specifically opted out of third party mailings, so no consent has been given.
So either their membership records have been hacked or they’ve gone against my wishes.
Just to bring everything up to date, whilst I was on holiday, eBike Insurance’s loss adjusters wrote to me offering a settlement of £3,500. I decided to mull this over whilst I was away again, but on my return I found a cheque from them for that sum in full and final settlement.
This amounted to quite a substantial loss to me but when I went through the policy and the small print, I realised they were actually being fair. I’d stated the value of the bike as £4,000 – eBay adverts the week of the theft showed that was under-stated – and whilst I was aware there was a £250 theft excess, I’d ignored/overlooked the clause that says if the bike isn’t garaged at the time in a locked garage, the excess rises by £250.
So quite a loss to me, but I can’t fault them for the speed with which they settled my claim. Recommended.
As usual, it’s the construction industry getting a hard time for dodgy dealings: first there was the issue about cover pricing that was then somehow translated into bid rigging in the media. A lot of hot air over what was practically nothing…
Now there’s news that the OFT has fined six recruitment agencies £39M for fixing fees.
I wonder when we’ll see similar fines for agencies working in other business sectors?
Or how about some massive fines to the banks for price fixing both in relation to bank charges and interest rates?
Or what about members of the BPI for price fixing? You’ll remember they sued online retailer CD WOW! for daring to sell legitimate CDs in the UK that had been sourced from Hong Kong for less than the prices they were being sold for in the UK. Much the same as the lengthy dispute between Levis and Tescos over parallel importing.
I won’t hold my breath.
So the England -v- Ukraine football match will only be available to view (at cost) on the Internet.
“[Kentaro] said Kentaro would take a maximum of one million subscribers for the match – which he said equates to about 2.5 million viewers – because this would be the “safe number to stop at to ensure the optimal broadcast”.
Hmm. I’m not sure my broadband connection – as much as 768kbps at times… – will ever provide “the optimal broadcast” for any streaming media.
“Andrew Croker, executive chairman of Perform, insisted England fans would “embrace” the internet broadcast.
“I think consumers are pretty sophisticated now, particularly in the UK, where we have been in the vanguard of adopting new technology,” he told BBC Sport.
“I think people want a choice – the chance to watch football in a different way. This is pioneering, very exciting and I think people will enjoy it.”
Yes it would be a different way for me – rather than high quality and effectively free broadcast on my television, I can have intermittent and choppy images on my Mac if I’m prepared to pay through the nose for it. Well guess what: I’m not!
Recent Music
