I wished to buy a website address from Fasthosts, but it was only buried in the terms and conditions that I was in fact signing a one year contract, I thought I was only paying for a month's service. I wanted to terminate early and I incurred extra charges.

Recently relocated technical support to Phillapines; workforce out there appear clueless! You will be place in a queue for half an hour (making them a tidy sum in call fees!) and will then be told that the operator has escalated the issue (because they themselves have no idea how to resolve anything) and it will take up to 48 hours to be sorted!!

God help you if you go the email enquiry route - you will receive an email to confirm receipt of your enquiry within seconds. Hours later they will email you claiming you havent told them your account number / support pin / relevant domain names etc. even though all of this information is clearly in your orginal email!

They have done this twice to me now in two weeks and it appears to be ploy to make it look like they are dealing with your complaint and waiting for the customer to respond when all they are doing is batting off your enquiry.

Be vary wary of buying domains through them for business customers with generic names - I parked a domain with them for a haulage firm whilst I completed the client's website only to find that without my permission they had placed a holding page under that name advertising my client's rival haulage firms for several weeks! Result is a nice income stream for Fasthosts and a furious and embarrassed client of mine who terminated our agreement, quite understandably. Fasthosts have cost me thousands.

Having complained, I was told in effect 'tough shit.'

They have gone massively downhill recently in my opinion. Host your sites and names elsewhere - their corporate arrogance and incompetence are a nightmare nobody in business needs.

What a mistake using fasthosts and recommending to any of my clients.. Come back 1and1.. All is forgiven. Never again. Simply trying to cancel service was a mammoth task.