I signed up to a Web-hosting contract with 1&1 Internet for a year, because they had a special offer where the costs were reduced for the initial 12 months.

After 3 months the monthly payments taken from my card suddenly soared for no reason, which means that after only 5 months I had paid more than the whole contract for the year. I phoned up to be told that this was correct according to terms on their website, which had changed since I signed the deal.

Eventually, after many hours, and emailing them my contract, I got them to agree to refund the extra I had paid over the terms of my contract. I had now paid for the full year. I asked them not to take any more payments.

They agreed.

Fast forward to next month. They took another payment from me at the increased rate. I was hugely busy at work, so I didn't notice. Another month passed and they took yet another payment.

Then I noticed. At this point I had now paid more than double the annual amount set out in my contract. I called back but it was like Groundhog day.

Hours of calls again. I resent the contract again. Again I get them to agree to refund the extra I've paid and to stop the payments coming out by auto renewal.

By now I didn't trust them to do this. Fortunately I was changing my bank account, so the old card was cancelled.

Fast forward to next month. They tried to take another payment, which failed because the card had been stopped. After a while they sent me threatening emails: my hosting will be suspended and if I don't pay up they'll pass the "debt" on to debt collectors.

I called them back. How much to I owe? I've paid it all, haven't I? How do I stop you from taking payments I don't owe?

They wouldn't tell me how much they thought I owed them or how much more they might take out. According to them the system has generated an invoice, which had to be paid.

I went through all the previous invoices. I saw I had paid more than double the amount for the whole year, but then I noticed that they got the refund wrong. The had given me back slightly too much, and I still owe them a few pounds.

Ok, I told them, I'll pay this if you stop taking auto payments.

They refused. They said I need to provide updated card details so the autopayments could continue to be taken. They also said they couldn't adjust the autopayments so it would take out the amount which I'd agreed to in my contract. Apparently, I just had to keep paying money I didn't owe them because there was no way to correct their mistake.

Which would then mean months more hassle with me trying to get them to refund money they'd taken.

The only option they gave me was that if I updated the card details so they could take the final payment, they would then cancel the whole package, which would definitely stop the autopayments. This meant the year's hosting I had already paid for would end after only 8 months.

I just wanted it to stop. So that's what I agreed to do.

Incredible. I don't know if the company is legit or not, but I'm going to contact my bank so they can't access my card again.

VERY well known here

https://cse.google.co.uk/cse?cx=partner-pub-0964707606882478:652l7hswbgv&ie=UTF-8&q=1%2B1+internet&sa=Search+CAG#gsc.tab=0&gsc.q=1%2B1%20internet&gsc.page=1

go ring your bank and CANCEL THE Continuous Payment authority against your debit card and demand the payments back that were taken by mistake/unlawfully.

they are also lying about being unable to stop the payments being taken or corrected. you will need to demand that your bank refunds you under the direct debit guarantee

Had problems with this company before, I cancelled with them via email after 1 day but they said I was supposed to send a letter. They had dept collectors calling me up several times a day, until I literally just called the dept collectors and hung up 100's of times. It was the only way I could get them to stop calling me. They actually just stopped answering the phones eventually.