topic Re: Email deleted, unfair terms, unsatisfactory response in Plusnet Feedback

Email deleted, unfair terms, unsatisfactory response

rn — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 19:19:26 GMT

Help! Plusnet have deleted all my Sent emails and most of my Inbox, and are refusing to retrieve them from archive.
We have said we will download and then delete the emails (all the emails, if that’s necessary to retrieve the lost mail!) from the Plusnet server after they give us access to them, but to no avail.
Plusnet’s system seems flawed.
In particular, the description of the email storage limit is not in language that an ordinary user might understand - what does 1GB look like? (Email Acceptable Use Policy, 8.1.3 "8.1.3 If you exceed a total of 1GB (Gigabytes) of email on our servers for more than a 30 day period it will be removed without notice to you."). No explanation.
This is compounded by (a) Plusnet should inform a user several times as the user approaches their email storage limit, but they send just one warning message which doesn’t even state the exact usage reached, (b) Plusnet don't provide users with a way to check their email storage level (confirmed by Mattz0r (Plusnet Staff) in Plusnet forum thread at http://community.plus.net/forum/index.php/topic,90327.0.html - "There currently isn't a way of seeing the mailbox size, However, I have put some feedback through to our development team, with a suggestion to get this implemented." 04/11/2010, 13:08.
This seems to come under the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999.
Additionally, someone on a 2 or 3 week holiday and out of email contact could return to find their email deleted, without being aware they’d even received a warning.
If PlusNet have irretrievably deleted the emails, isn’t this contrary to their obligations to Government regulations requiring them to be stored for a certain amount of time? Plusnet, surely those emails are still around somewhere?
We’ve had a surprisingly wide range of responses from Plusnet (mostly documented in the Help Assistant):
i) It’s the fault of a Thunderbird upgrade and nothing to do with Plusnet.
ii) It wasn’t Thunderbird, actually Plusnet deleted the emails themselves, and they can’t be retrieved.
iii) The emails weren’t deleted, actually Plusnet have archived not deleted them. An advisor wrote "I advised they have archived the mail, not deleted and and she can get them back and download them directly off the server."
iv) It’s the user’s fault in some way, because this issue arose before (around a year ago). One Plusnet staffer cited tickets from around a year ago as a reason to delete emails now. Other Plusnet staff then refer to these old tickets as irrelevant. (I believed Plusnet regarded the year-old issue as resolved - empty spam folder, read unread messages, delete some mail.)
v) User’s deleted email is backed-up for approximately 24 hours, and so my emails cannot be recovered. Ouch! I called them well within the 24 hours to ask what to do to retrieve the emails and request a backup download, and Plusnet prevaricated. Also, this isn’t email deleted by me in the normal course of a day, it’s email that’s been archived by Plusnet.
Plusnet said they have just closed a call centre, and had a back up of 700 messages to deal with. They seem to be having difficulties with continuing their previous levels of customer service – perhaps they are willing/wanting to lose customers.
If this sort of thing can’t be resolved with assurance that it will not happen again, the hunt for the next service provider with better customer care commences.

Re: Email deleted, unfair terms, unsatisfactory response

matt_2k34 — Thu, 25 Nov 2010 02:38:34 GMT

AFAIK
you dont pay for your service for the email, its an "add on" and as such, terms and conditions apply.
Those terms are you dont use more than 1gb of space, and if you do - PN will remove the emails.

Quote
Plusnet said they have just closed a call centre, and had a back up of 700 messages to deal with

Because people dont want to deal with South Africa.

Quote
If this sort of thing can’t be resolved with assurance that it will not happen again, the hunt for the next service provider with better customer care commences.

Alot of broadband packages dont get you a 1gb mailbox. the fact your using IMAP on a server you have little control over concerns me (google Loss of email, plusnet has done this twice in the past before also)
Your client should tell you how much space your mailbox is using.
I'm failing to see the problem, you've exceeded your allowance, you've had the emails removed per T&Cs - 1gb of email is ALOT of email, do you never clean it out???!!
Regards

Re: Email deleted, unfair terms, unsatisfactory response

jelv — Thu, 25 Nov 2010 09:40:03 GMT

Quote from: Matt_2k34
Alot of broadband packages dont get you a 1gb mailbox. the fact your using IMAP on a server you have little control over concerns me (google Loss of email, plusnet has done this twice in the past before also)
Your client should tell you how much space your mailbox is using.

The Extra Folder Columns add-on to Thunderbird shows you the size of your mailbox folders.

Quote from: Matt_2k34
I'm failing to see the problem, you've exceeded your allowance, you've had the emails removed per T&Cs

The problem is not that they were cleared out, it is that the user is not given warning they are approaching the limit, not given information about their actual level of usage and not given sufficient opportunity to do some housekeeping themselves.

Quote from: Matt_2k34
1gb of email is ALOT of email, do you never clean it out???!!

1GB is a massive amount of mail. For it to reach that he must have a lot of emails with large attachments.
One thing I've done in the past is after I've saved the attachment to disk I edit the message to remove the attachment and just keep the message text.

Re: Email deleted, unfair terms, unsatisfactory response

adamwalker — Thu, 25 Nov 2010 09:46:07 GMT

rn,
I've checked your account and indications are that your mail has been archived rather than deleted. I'd like to seek clarification on this from our networks team so please bear with me.
We are sorry if support have provided conflicting advice on this matter but we must advise using your mail client to keep an eye on mail volumes and file sizes as it would help prevent this happening again for you which is something I'm sure that you would want to avoid.
Adam

Re: Email deleted, unfair terms, unsatisfactory response

jelv — Thu, 25 Nov 2010 10:01:06 GMT

In that case Adam, you need to make sure that a priority is given to updating all your mail client guides to include information on how to do that (including where the the user needs to install an add-on - e.g. the Thunderbird add-on I've given details of above).
I'd also suggest that you contact all users whose current usage is above say 500MB to advise them of the need to monitor their mailbox size. Who knows, if you did that a lot of other mailboxes might be reduced in size.

Re: Email deleted, unfair terms, unsatisfactory response

davidj66 — Thu, 25 Nov 2010 11:03:49 GMT

I'm very confused by this thread - if you download your emails to your client eg Thunderbird - how can Plusnet delete them?

Re: Email deleted, unfair terms, unsatisfactory response

James — Thu, 25 Nov 2010 11:13:37 GMT

They'd be stored on our servers too David.
Either by using IMAP or by telling the email client to leave a copy of the emails on the server.

Re: Email deleted, unfair terms, unsatisfactory response

davidj66 — Thu, 25 Nov 2010 11:45:14 GMT

@jAMES - ah I understand now - he has set up T'BIRD up to leave a copy on the server and that's what he is moaning about going missing- must admit I never bother since a previous ISP lost all my emails - anything I need I archive/back up on my home PC!!

Re: Email deleted, unfair terms, unsatisfactory response

pierre_pierre — Thu, 25 Nov 2010 12:54:46 GMT

unfortunately the extra colums aint much good

Quote
Works with:
* Thunderbird 3.0 - 3.2a1pre

current is 3.6, did try but no joy

Re: Email deleted, unfair terms, unsatisfactory response

jelv — Thu, 25 Nov 2010 13:58:46 GMT

The current released Thunderbird is 3.1.6.
The latest nightly build from Tinderbox is 3.3.
So 3.6 is absolute rubbish - there is no such Thunderbird build.
I do note however that Firefox is currently 3.6 - do you want to borrow a icon?

Re: Email deleted, unfair terms, unsatisfactory response

pierre_pierre — Thu, 25 Nov 2010 14:47:35 GMT

whoops, but it still doesnt seem to work, it is installed, tried various things, but no output

Re: Email deleted, unfair terms, unsatisfactory response

jelv — Thu, 25 Nov 2010 16:44:02 GMT

At the top right of your folders panel you should have a tiny icon with a drop down - is it not there?

Re: Email deleted, unfair terms, unsatisfactory response

pierre_pierre — Thu, 25 Nov 2010 17:02:31 GMT

dont think so
Total being clicked puts that in the bar, but no info

Re: Email deleted, unfair terms, unsatisfactory response

jelv — Thu, 25 Nov 2010 18:08:48 GMT

That's the wrong panel - it will be at the top of the folders panel on the left hand side.

Re: Email deleted, unfair terms, unsatisfactory response

pierre_pierre — Thu, 25 Nov 2010 18:47:21 GMT

ok found it

Re: Email deleted, unfair terms, unsatisfactory response

David_W — Fri, 26 Nov 2010 10:17:54 GMT

On the topic of email. If you really must have all your emails online nip on over to gmail and sign up, then use that service to collect all your emails from PlusNet, set up gmail to use imap and you'll have pretty much unlimited storage for your mails, just make sure you select to delete the mails from Plusnets server when you collect them via gmail. At the moment I have 7.5Gb of storage with gmail so your 1Gb wouldn't be an issue.

Re: Email deleted, unfair terms, unsatisfactory response

adamwalker — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 09:58:30 GMT

rn,
Thanks for your patience waiting for us to get back to you about this. I'm sorry but the messages have been deleted. Action was taken due to the levels of mail stored.
At this point I would like to comment that I will be looking into what efforts if any were taken to consult you on this matter prior to doing so.