So, having made several calls I’ve gotten to the root of the problem and found further justification for dumping 1&1.
The story:
Yesterday I received an invoice from 1&1. It had no payment date on it, but I recalled from their T&C that it needed to be paid within 14 days and they would attempt to take funds from my account at the end of that period.
Guess what.
No, surprisingly they didn’t try and grab the money from my account that day, well they did but that wasn’t the problem. No, this is even better.
They charged me £50 for a credit check as I was paying by Switch. £50. To credit check details that hadn’t changed.
Having bemused the phone bank people (“No we don’t know who it’s going to” – wtf?), I phoned the Billing department at 1&1. I asked if they had tried to take payment for the recent invoice. The girl at the end of the line said they HAD tried but failed and would be trying again tomorrow.
After tearing a strip off her for breaking their OWN terms (but not too harshly as she obviously couldn’t see on her system that I’d already requested a cancellation of the contract) I happened to mention that what had confused me was the amount being processed as £50.
“Ohh that’ll be the credit check, but it should be an instant, ‘in-and-out’ transaction”
Cue much swearing (Lyle, you would’ve been so proud of me!) amidst which I pointed out that the “in-and-out transaction” had managed to bump me over my overdraft limit and I would be incurring additional bank charges.
Thankfully this isn’t true, for once my bank have been quite good about it and won’t be charging me at all (and here was me bemoaning them earlier, tut tut).
So farewell 1&1. Strike that, I hope they get everything they deserve. As a comparison; in the hours since I’ve signed up with 34sp I’ve received better information and support than I did during two and a bit years with 1&1, and at more than half the price.
There is another lesson here.
I jump to conclusions far too fast for my own good. I need to learn to pause.