topic Re: Stupid policy, can it be changed? in Plusnet Feedback

Stupid policy, can it be changed?

God — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 11:31:09 GMT

Hi Folks
As you might know I am usually a very satisfied plusnet customer and sometimes considered a bit of a fanboy, but today I find myself having to have a rant due to what I consider a ridiculous plusnet policy that needs changing!
I signed up my parents in-law (who are in their eighties) to a plusnet account and am slowly managing to get them half way to computer literate. But today we have a problem and it is plusnets fault.
They were having a problem accessing email (most likely their own doing) so I offered to check it from my computer using web/squirrel mail. The only emails in the inbox were from plusnet advising them that there emails had been archived because they hadn’t accessed their mailbox for a long time, how daft is that?
They are paying their bill every month, they weren’t using much space as they get very few emails and now they have to raise a ticket to get any unread emails reinstated. They are just getting to grips with using a computer; they sure as hell aren’t going to cope with the support system so I will have to try and sort it out.
But the main gripe is that I cannot see the justification for summarily archiving a mailbox (and all the inconvenience that brings) just because it hasn’t been accessed recently, especially and it only contained at most about 20mb. Surely plusnet aren’t that short of server space?
If you are paying your bill your email box should be left alone unless it is hogging masses of disk space. I would like plusnet to un-archive the email without me having to mess about with tech support and for them to change this policy or justify it.
Thanks

Re: Stupid policy, can it be changed?

jelv — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 11:36:17 GMT

This came up recently - I had thought that archiving was only done for non-subscription accounts. If the damned search on here worked...

Re: Stupid policy, can it be changed?

God — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 11:38:45 GMT

They are on Option1.

Re: Stupid policy, can it be changed?

jelv — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 11:46:55 GMT

Found it (by looking through many pages of my recent posts):
It's in a bigger topic, but if you start reading from http://community.plus.net/forum/index.php/topic,68532.msg550525.html#msg550525

Re: Stupid policy, can it be changed?

God — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 12:17:47 GMT

Yes that is the email that I found. But I can't see any justification for the policy, and as far as the users are concerned they have been accessing it, Now I am not going to push that point because I am not 100% sure they 'actually' managed to access their mail (using outlook express). However I still want to know why plusnet are archiving pensioners bloomin' email accounts to save a handful of megabytes of storage!
It's crazy, unless they somehow managed to accumulate a zillion spam messages in a very short time. Please will a member of plusnet staff look in to this and comment for me?

Re: Stupid policy, can it be changed?

orbrey — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 12:22:29 GMT

Hi God,
That doesn't sound right at all. Can you PM me a username so I can take a look at the account and investigate further please?
Thanks,
Matt

Re: Stupid policy, can it be changed?

God — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 12:35:32 GMT

Cheers Matt I have PM'd the details.

Re: Stupid policy, can it be changed?

God — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 15:05:39 GMT

This is just plain daft. I have checked my records and on the 9th of September I logged in to their computer remotely using ‘logmein’ accessed there outlook program and forwarded one of their emails to myself. So their email was definitely accessed in the last 90 days.
So do I now need to raise a ticket, get on the phone or is something already in hand?

Re: Stupid policy, can it be changed?

Kelly — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 15:14:54 GMT

I've just prodded Orbrey.

Re: Stupid policy, can it be changed?

God — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 15:16:36 GMT

Quote from: Kelly
I've just prodded Orbrey.

Peace be with you Kelly

Re: Stupid policy, can it be changed?

Kelly — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 15:33:25 GMT

Just to be clear:
In the last 90 days you have:
1) logged into their mailbox
2) forwarded an email that had been received into their mailbox (sent from an external sender) to your address.
3) you have then logged into their mailbox and that email you forwarded had been archived?
If so, I sense a problem.

Re: Stupid policy, can it be changed?

God — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 15:54:22 GMT

Hah! Ok I have worked out part of the problem. The mail account that I forwarded from is an added mailbox, the default account is the one that has been archived. That may well not have been used, but I still think it's crazy to archive it if the user account is active. I still need it unarchiving to find out what might have been missed.

Re: Stupid policy, can it be changed?

Chris — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 16:16:23 GMT

I've unarchived the mailbox for you, any mails that were archived will be restored in around 30 minutes.

Re: Stupid policy, can it be changed?

God — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 16:28:49 GMT

Cheers Chris, is it likely to get archived again if it isnt used or is there a way of setting a don't archive flag?
Cheers again, it is now available, it contains changes to terms and conditions and notices of direct debits, surely that doesn't make sense to archive the account that you are communicating important items to your customers through?

Re: Stupid policy, can it be changed?

God — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 11:14:17 GMT

Sorry to bump this but I would like an answer. So if the account users are using an added mailbox rather than the main account mailbox will the main mailbox get archived after 90 days including all the service emails about direct debits, terms of service changes etc?
Thanks

Re: Stupid policy, can it be changed?

jelv — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 11:42:16 GMT

... which doesn't matter in the slightest if you've done the sensible thing and changed the contact address on the account to be an email address that you do use.

Re: Stupid policy, can it be changed?

God — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 11:59:23 GMT

Thanks for your opinion Jelv but I think it is up to me to decide if it matters in the slightest or not. Clearly a pair of 80+ non technical users would have struggled with this, and my original point was that it is a stupid policy to archive an account just for the sake of it. So far I havent seen anyone from plusnet even attempt to justify why this policy is in place.
Once again I am aking why is it policy to archive mail accounts of paying customers when they contain just a handful of emails, causing the owners inconvenience?

Re: Stupid policy, can it be changed?

pierre_pierre — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 12:14:12 GMT

all my post from PN goes to a Postmaster mail box. this was set by PN. and that is not my main mail box

Re: Stupid policy, can it be changed?

jelv — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 12:15:33 GMT

I'm surprised that "a pair of 80+ non technical users" managed to set up a separate mailbox and configure their mail client accordingly in the first place! If they could do that how come they couldn't make the far simpler change to their contact email address?

Re: Stupid policy, can it be changed?

God — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 12:21:48 GMT

Oh dear, Clearly they didn't Jelv. I think you are missing the point. I am not interested in if changing default email addresses is easy for non technical account holders or not. I am interested in getting a response from plusnet staff about the archiving policy.