123-reg reviews

Super live chat support

Ironed out two major issues that I couldn't figure out myself in no time. Top quality service.

nothing but problems with 123-reg -avoid

I have 9 uk domains with them and recently bought a new server and decided to update name servers on my domain names to point to the new server. Changed 1 domain without any problems. Second domain fails with a silly error:

Failed to change nameservers for mydomain.co.uk
Unable to modify nameserver Missing: At least 1 IPAddresses Required
(2 ips supplied but it still doesn't like it)
Raised a ticket and it took them 3 days with 2 different employees to resolve it.
Now whatever i try I get the same message - even after reverting to 123-reg nameservers and starting from scratch.

I contacted them earlier today through an online Chat and they said they fixed it. 6h later and nominet whois is still showing old nameserver details. Going at this rate it will take me 3 weeks just to change nameservers because i need to contact them every time.

Might just be easier to move my domains somewhere else – they might be cheap but if your business depends on them then I would advise you to look elsewhere.

Also if they see you are happy with their support response they send you a link to this page and ask you to write a review. If your experience is bad they don't send you the link hence why they have so many positive reviews

UPDATE 1: raised a ticket and 4h later they say: I will escalate this issue to the proper department to further investigate. You will receive a reply shortly.

Gary Trotman found this review useful

25 February 2013

Reply from 123 Reg

Hello,
My name is James and I work for 123-reg.
I would like to investigate the issues you have raised further. If you could provide me with the support ticket reference, I will follow this up and have this looked into.

Thank you,

James

domain forwarding issue sorted as easy as 123!

had an issue with domain forwarding. all sorted in under 5 minutes!!

live chat is only as good as the person using it

provided the company on the other end know their onions, which 123-reg certainly do

Col Gray found this review useful

Very speedy out of hours response! Can't fault it!

Very speedy out of hours response! Can't fault it!

Col Gray found this review useful

Fantastic online chat support

Needed helping mapping an additional domain for another wordpress site. Got stuck (not particulary clever with this kind of stuff) "Bogdan" was of massive help, covered all my points, timely
Happy as larry, and now working on content happily

Thanks again Bogdan

First class customer support

123-reg has the fastest response to email queries of any service I've used. Fast, polite and effective. Gold standard for customer service.

Col Gray found this review useful

Shoddy customer service and dodgy terms and conditions - be careful.

I've used 123-Reg for nearly 10 years. I remember a time when it would take their Customer Services *1 WEEK* to respond to a single email. Calling them wasn't an option for me since it was a premium rate 0906 number, costing either 50p or £1 a minute.

These days, emails are responded to in a matter of minutes and I haven't been on hold on their 0845 number (free from my BT tariff) for more than 3 minutes.

In terms of hosting, I haven't had any major issues, apart from a recent issue regarding WHOIS Privacy. The website and the invoice I received from them stated it would cost £1 per domain for a year. However, I was shocked to find that they had overcharged me - they charged me £4.99 + VAT per domain to have WHOIS Privacy on 3 domains. I sent all the relevent proof that I had (such as the invoice which clearly stated I was charged £1 + VAT per domain) but they were having none of it. The matter was then also escalated to the 2nd Line Support Manager but even she had a shoddy and careless attitude. They refused to refund me so in the end, my thanks go to American Express who saw the invoice and refunded me straight away and will now take it up with 123-Reg directly. As a result of this I am now going to migrate my domains elsewhere. I asked the 2nd Line Support Manager if I used her name as an excuse for transferring my services elsewhere, and in her usual careless attitude, she said this was fine! Whenever I would add something into the support ticket in order to try and resolve the issue, she would simply close the ticket without any response. If it wasn't for American Express, I was going to take this matter legally, though I have reported the matter to the Advertising Standards Authority for investigation.

My primary concern, however, relates to their terms regarding the storage of payment details, as I noticed a previous reviewer has mentioned. When I questioned this to 123-Reg, they said it's to maintain continuity and no loss of service, which I can understand. However, it should be MY DECISION if I want to pay 123-Reg, not theirs. If I wish to delete my payment details, then I should be allowed to, and thus take the responsibility if any services are disrupted.

The moment you store any card/direct debit/PayPal details, it will be stored and 123-Reg will take payment when a service is due without your permission. This in my view is theft.

123-Reg also mentioned that I should receive emails leading up to the renewal which inform me they will take payment unless I cancel the service. This is true, however, in a recent hosting renewal, I did not receive these emails. When I questioned 123-Reg, they said they checked the email logs and that reminder emails had been sent, thus branding me a liar (and yes, I did check the junk email folder).

If I had 1 credit card then I probably wouldn't be as fussed, however, I have multiple cards, so obviously want to make the most of the current offers which my card provider has at the time. By helping themselves to MY money, 123-Reg lose stakeholder confidence without a doubt, thus coupled with the customer service issue above, I am going to migrate all services elsewhere.

Gary Trotman found this review useful

Very helpful

Christian my advisor was quick in getting me to understand my issue better.

Good service. will use again.

There's Service Then There's 123-reg Service

Thanks Cristian for sorting out my DNS problems having tried to get this resolved for a couple of days it was good to get a fast responce and deliverd soloution within a few hours. At last its doing what it should be :)

Great support staff

Having raised a handful oif tickets and being with 123Reg for a few years I have always had good customer service from them. They are prompt, polite and have always fixed the issues at hand.

Very helpful staff member (Soren)

I had a slight issue with a wordpress install and contacted live support via the 123 reg console and engaged in an online chat with Soren, who was very quick and concise and sorted my issue out in a matter of minutes, its very refreshing to find a representative and company that so care and assist there customers. I not in the habit of giving out recommendations, but in this case I have made an exception as I found Soren to be the excpetion, thank you and well done!

Painless customer support

I have used 123-Reg for at least 5 years, and find them easy to use. I've had a few technical queries (usually caused by my own mistakes or inexperience) which have always been sorted swiftly by their online help desk (which I assume is overseas due to quick response and foreign names involved) without any problems or communication difficulties.

This week I needed to cancel one of my hosting accounts so I phoned up the 0845 number. It was answered very swiftly and both people I spoke to were friendly and polite.

My request was handled without fuss, with no hard sell or resistance. The call handler did double check exactly what I wanted, to prevent misunderstanding. He also looked at my account and saw that a domain name was due to expire so checked that I wanted to allow that to happen, and keep the rest. His diligence was appreciated.

I had half expected to be put through to a foreign call centre, so it was a pleasing surprise not to have any communication difficulties.

I would recommend this company to anyone wanting low coast, low hassle, easy to understand domain registration, email services or hosting.

Excellent High Performance & Affordable Domain Purchasing System and VPS Services

I chose 123-Reg because they are simple, fast and affordable.

I was originally a GoDaddy customer using there standard VPS package costing over £45\month for a basic single-tier 1GB Ram 2x Core, 1TB Bandwidth, 100GB server. Having several problems with GoDaddy, with server downtimes, firewall blocking issues. I decided it was time to see what the rest of the market had to offer, where I stumbled upon 123-Reg.

I have used 123-Reg in the past for simple cheap domain registration, and what they offered for a basic VPS was simply outstanding:

- 1GB RAM
- Unlimited Bandwidth
- 2 CPU Cores
- Plesk Addon Included in the price
- Included Static IP Address
All for £24.99

I couldn't resist and instantly ordered it.

Within 5 hours the VPS was available and ready to use.

Despite minor connection and server issues, I have never had as many problems using 123-Reg compared to GoDaddy. There help and support has always been mostly helpful and within a decent response time.

Unlike Go Daddy, was impossible to get hold of, I would have to wait 3/4 of a day to talk to someone about a simple problem.

Excellent live chat support

I was experiencing some difficulty uploading a new domain. The assistant on the live chat was called Marian, she sat patient guided me through step by step and explained over and over again in simpler terms until she got through to do. I was taken on a learning curve and everything working perfectly now. Very impressed with the service

Chris Hewett found this review useful

Excellent Support and response time.

Had a couple of issues over the last couple of days and my experience with their support team has been excellent. Almost instat response and fixed problems that I was unable to sort myself.

123.reg are professional and utterly reliable in their services and support

123.reg simply tell you as it is. If there is a concern they say so but resolve issues by using common sense and simple language. They are easily contactable and utterly reliable in their services and support

Chris Hewett found this review useful

Great Service

Prompt service, professional, thank you.

Chris Hewett found this review useful

Had VPS for 3 days and terrible!

At first, there was no Plesk panel, I phoned them and they said they would rebuild server meaning I lost all the data that I had already uploaded, three hours later still no CP, had to phone them 2 more times within 4 hours to finally get this issue sorted, I then had to restart my VPS on Friday after a Windows update and it never came back on, I have tried turning it on via their website but the page just says 'loading' for hours on end.

I have been left with no server all weekend as their support is closed, also have 2 tickets for separate issues open since the first day, all have no response.

NOT GOOD!

Gary Trotman found this review useful

11 February 2013

Reply from 123 Reg

Hello Jack,

I would like to be able to look into the issues you have experienced further. If you would like me to please send details of your account and/or your support ticket ID's over to customerexperience@123-reg.co.uk.

Regards,
Nerys

EXCELLENT

123-Reg have ALWAYS given 100% effort when I have contacted them for help. They have always understood what needs to be done and when I didn't understand how to do certain things - they stepped in and sorted it for me. They always go above and beyond to make sure their customers get exactly what they want and need from their service.

I would recommend them 100%

Chris Hewett found this review useful

FAILED TO RENEW DOMAIN ON 'AUTO-RENEW', 6 DAYS OF NO SITE/EMAIL!!!

All payment details were up to date, and they admitted fault, but it took 6 days to get my main business email/website back up and running.
Also tried to charge me £75 to get the domain out of quarantine, but after a while decided they wouldnt charge me the £75 as a 'goodwill gesture', haha! so funny.
I asked about compensation for loss of business over 6 days, they read me the section of their contract that states they will not pay out compensation under any circumstances. So, unless your email/website are not important to you... DO NOT TRUST THIS COMPANY.
It took about 4 phone calls, and three 'tickets' to finally get this sorted. The reason for the 6 days... they can only communicate internally through tickets, WHAT A JOKE.

Good support experience, difficult to install wordpress

I wanted to host an existing domain on a UK based server, so this seemed a good hosting option. Their interface is difficult to navigate and I found the domain transfer experience a little clunky. I have installed Wordpress on other sites hosted on other companies using fantastico etc and found that very easy. It is not straightforward with 123-Reg however and I had to enlist their online chat support. This support was very good however and their agent Marian was excellent. The 123-Reg pricing was good too as I bought during a promotion period.

Im really appreciate 123-reg services

I use 123-reg services for some time and I see the service is excellent.
5 stars is my choice.

Helpful, friendly and patient. Perfect for a begginer

I had no idea what i was doing, all i wanted was my website set up in the root directory. 123 made it easier than Wordpress own 5 minute set-up. Once i got through on the live chat (that took about 7 minutes, but i am pretty relaxed, i went and had some tea) Bogdan came on and made everything work for me. He even explained why it wasn't working in a way that i could understand! I would recommend 123 to anyone

Excellent customer service

They were really good at helping me iron out the small problems when hosting a new website - www.cottinghamcastles.co.uk. Their ticket support system was great when I needed to post a question outside of office hours and their live chat feature was excellent. They helped me in a matter of minutes and without fuss. Particular thanks to Marion for her patience and clear instructions.

Disgraceful company who will lose your domains

They take your renewal payment. Send you a confirmation email. Then don't register your domains. Then you lose your domain as someone else buys it. They say you should be checking whois to see they've done their job properly!

They close tickets without resolving. They try to bully you with quotes from their terms & conditions.

Not worth the stress they will give you when you lose your valuable domain!

Ben Bull found this review useful

Consistently Good Service

Have several domains here, always good service via tickets. Quick, easy and efficiently dealt with.

Thanks!

Cancelled renewal - they renewed the package anyway

I have been using 123 as my domain registrars for years. A year ago I got an e-mail from Microsoft offering me a domain and hosting for a year (it was some student deal), in conjunction with 123. As I already had an account with them it seemed like a no-brainer.

A year later and 123 e-mailed me to say the domain and hosting were due to expire in a few days, so I logged into the website and set both to "allow to expire". Yesterday they billed me £70+ for renewal of the package I set to expire (and, they have actually expired the domain name and the package shows as expired on my accounts page)!

I opened a ticket and infromed them that they'd taken money from my account after I'd cancelled the package. They told me to ring a (non-geographic) number. Unfortunately the call-centre only open until 7pm and only on weekdays and as I generally don't get home until after then I had to use my mobile to ring them. 10 minutes later I'm still not through to a person and this call is costing me a fortune. I have no idea if they are going to answer the phone in 5 seconds or 5 hours! So I had no choice but to hang up.

Quite why the person who received the ticket couldn't just issue the refund is beyond me. Anyway, I ended up just ringing my credit card company and asking for a chargeback on the amount.

I'm not jumping through hoops because of their mistake (I'll assume it was a mistake rather a deliberate attempt to appropriate funds from people who they hope won't notice the charge has gone through!), and from now on I'll take my business elsewhere.

Update (14/05/2013): Bunch of cowboys. They've now gone and automatically renewed a charge for a whois privacy service on a domain that expired months ago! If you are considering buying a domain please do yourself a favour; go with anyone but these rip-off merchants!

6 days ago

Reply from 123 Reg

Hello ZB.

I can confirm that domain names can be set to expire via the control panel, however you do need to call us to cancel a hosting package. This allows us to run through a few security questions with you and ensure that you have back ups of all files on the hosting package and any associated email services. Once we do cancel a hosting package it is removed from our servers so I hope you can see why we need to ensure that customers have a copy of all of their files.

We do of course aim to answer all calls as quickly as we possibly can, however at times the lines are busier than usual. If you do have any outstanding issues you would like me to look into for you opr you wish to give me some further feedback please feel free to send details across to customerexperience@123-reg.co.uk and i will be happy to help you further.

Regards,

Nerys


Update (15/05/2013):

Hello ZB,

Please could you email me with your username or email address on your account to customerexperience@123-reg.co.uk and I will be able to look into this for you.

Regards,

James

Very fast and helpful service

I contacted 123 to cancel an email address that I no longer wanted. They sorted it out promptly, refunded the money without quibbling and moved my email accounts so that they were part of my free hosting package.

Fantastic customer service!

I have an acct with weebly and it takes up to a week to get a response from them. 123 responds within the hour!

Just awful...arrogant bullies and appalling security. Go somewhere else!!

Shoddy customer service, auto-expiry decides to reset itself mid year and they will randomly renew services without authorisation six months later and deduct funds from your payment details that they have sneakily held on file. They suspend accounts with no notice or explanation if you make a chargeback claim for this kind of behaviour, blocking you all control of your account and you can't contact them online - you will then pay £s to ring them and an admin fee to unlock your account. And the worst crime of all...they sent me someone else's domain name, ftp user name and password in an e-mail - yes, you read that right...a shocking security breach! I have moved away from them...never ever again...and they were happy to let me go after three years of loyal custom. I took the hit on the lost fees mid-term and asked nominet to move my domain name to another registrar and I then moved the hosting and e-mail too. It's cost me extra and has been a bit of hassle that I could have done without but I didn't care as a matter of principle was at stake. If you really must buy your domain name from them, just make sure you host your website from another source; a reliable and trustworthy one. This bunch of cowboys won't get another penny out of me.

ZB found this review useful

04 February 2013

Reply from 123 Reg

Hello Ursula,

I can see from reading your review that the level of service and support you have received from ourselves have not met the level you have expected. Although you have moved your services away I would like to be able to look into the issues you have experienced to ensure these are all resolved correctly.

In regards to renewals I can confirm that the renewal selections do not reset mid year. If you have had services renew which had been previously set to expire this would be an isolated incident. I would be more than happy to investigate this and work to rectify any errors which occurred on your account if you could provide me details on your account and which services.

I am very eager to look into the hosting email you have received to establish the source of this.

If you could send your details, and the hosting email you received to: customerexperience@123-reg.co.uk I will be able to look into these for you.

Regards,.
Nerys

Very helpful.

The service was extremely helpful. The person who was supporting me, Bogdan, was very patient and polite, as I am quite a novice as regards technical information.

VPS's have no support

Asked for help accessing Plesk panel, told that VPS support does not cover my problem. Sovled myself using support forums so thanks to those guys.

01 February 2013

Reply from 123 Reg

Hello,

The VPS services available with 123-reg are a self managed service. As such there are areas which are not covered by the support which we offer. If you would like I would be more than happy to check your particular support request and feedback to our teams here if needed. You can send details over to customerexperience@123-reg.co.uk.

Regards,

Nerys

Very helpful customer service.

I had a question about my domain names and connected to live chat. Dorin was very helpful. Thank you very much for the good service.

Most helpful staff, great customer service from "Dorin"

brilliant customer service..... I made some mistakes, the help files are a great training aid. Many Thanks

top marks

very helpful and friendly, most certainly one of the best customer services around

Quick, easy and stress-free!!

One of the best customer service I've ever experienced! Quick answers, very reliable and polite advisers. I'd recommend 123-reg to anyone thinking about buying a hosting space simply because of the customer service! A+++

Fantastic

I am a complete newbie to website building and publishing websites and i have to say i have spoken to this company on the phone as well as live web chat and have found them very polite and helpful and they sorted out my problems for me which would have cost me a fortune if i had a company dealing with all this for me ,,, will be staying with this 123-reg for as long as i have a company and hope this will be a long time...... 5 stars to you 123-reg and thankyou.

Great quality, and fast results.

They sorted out my issue, very professionally, with style even. i would use them again for there great quality.

franklyn

Quick and helpful

I only waited a couple minutes before someone was with me (Gabriel this instance). I was happy with his cooperation and he seemed to get right to it. Overall happy. xx