Don't use 1&1. When they aren't blatantly lying about pricing, they're trying to sneak some free trial in your account that starts charging you at random.

Last year they put a deal out for cheap domains, then come to find out they charged me the discounted amount a month later. WHAT?! I had to call and sort that out and they credited my account. Talk about false advertising. Their excuse was that if I already had an account the discount doesn't apply. Then why did they charge me the discounted rate in the first place and allow me to checkout? Also, why wouldn't they let me know they were charging me the rest of the amount? Shady business.

To add to that, recently I received an email that i was being charged $14.98 for some Website Building Service i never signed up for (I don't even build websites on 1&1). Apparently the last time i bought a domain through 1&1, I didn't un-check the free trial button and after 30 days they started charging me for a website builder every 3 months (or so the guy on the phone says). WTF?! This had been going on for 8 months until i finally checked my invoices. Why was this the first email I had received about this charge??

Now, obviously I could have caught this earlier and not been charged as much if I would have visited my 1&1 control panel every month but who does that? We buy domains in yearly time frames so we don't have to deal with them every month, like most internet services.

The point is, they lied about pricing and promoted false advertising and they put hidden free trials in their checkout pages knowing people aren't going to opt out, let alone even notice it. And to be honest I don't even remember seeing it and i'm the type that always looks over the details before pressing that "Purchase" button.

Never had these issues with Godaddy.. Coincidence?