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E-mail problem - over 5 weeks and still not resolved!!

Sauniere
Grafter
Posts: 58
Thanks: 2
Registered: ‎18-03-2009

E-mail problem - over 5 weeks and still not resolved!!

I have been a customer of Plusnet for approx 17 years. I called Plusnet Customer services on 22nd October (on hold for 20mins) to cancel my service due to changing ISPs (changed to consolidate internet phone & TV to save money)   When I finally got through I enquired about changing my account to mail only with hosted domain as I wanted to keep my domain and didn’t want to move it to a hosting company due to all of the problems it might generate.  I was told that I couldn’t change to mail only service and I would have to migrate the domain. I knew this was incorrect and whilst on the phone I was trying to find the relevant information on the Plusnet site but couldn’t find it so said I’d call back. 

 

After checking the Plusnet cancellation policy and finding what I required I called back.  After being passed from one person to another I finally spoke to someone who appeared to know their stuff ([CSA Removed]) and told me I could revert to a mail only account with hosted domain.  I asked for this to be done and [CSA Removed] suggested it take place after midnight of 23rd so that I would still have internet access in case of any problems with Virgin installation.  Shortly after ending the call I received a generated email showing [CSA Removed] had posted the request.

 

On the morning of 24th October at approx 05.40 I received 4 emails stating that “you have successfully deleted your mailbox”   The mailboxes referred to were Sauniere, Caius, Corin and Tracy.  (Tracy was a mailbox that was not in use anymore) Obviously I was concerned and logged a post on the plusnet support ticket explaining about the emails and asking for clarification on what was happening. (I received no response from this question)  I had assumed that the mail service would have continued seamlessly.  When I got to work I tried logging into the various mailboxes and found that I could still access them and mail was still there.  I called Plusnet support to explain the situation and ended up on the phone for 75 minutes during which time I was passed from one department to another with nobody knowing what to do or who I should talk to! I was on hold for at least 10 minutes on each occasion (sometimes longer) and had to explain the situation again to each new person.  Frustrating doesn’t even begin to describe it. I was finally put through to someone called [CSA Removed] who was helpful (even though he couldn’t fix the problem himself) and said he would escalate the call to “Networks”   Following the call I received an email notification of him posting within the ticket (there was also a ticket update from [CSA Removed] earlier who had tried to fix the problem and failed)

 

At this point I couldn’t receive mail in my mailbox but I could send from it and I couldn’t send or receive mail from the others.  

 

The following day I asked for an update via the ticket system – no answer

 

On the morning of Friday 26th October I called Plusnet support asking what was going on with my mail problem.  I spoke to [CSA Removed] and he informed me that the fault had not been escalated to networks at all, it was just left within the pool – unanswered still.  [CSA Removed] said he would escalate it to networks however they had a backlog of work and it would take them (a further) 3 – 5 working days to look at it.  I received an email notification for his post on the ticket.

 

During the following week I discovered that I could no longer access my sons mailboxes and all of their emails had gone.

 

On the afternoon of the 5th of November (2 weeks since the initial problem)  I called Plusnet support again because the ticket had not been dealt with, I had received no update or anything. 7 working days since [CSA Removed] had given me the estimate fo 3-5 working days.  On this occasion I spoke to [CSA Removed].  He identified that I could receive email to sauniere@xxxxxxxx.plus.com but not to my domain email (which is the one that i use and mentioned this on numerous occasions during the conversations!).  I told him about my sons mailboxes disappearing along with their mail and he said they could be re-instated and that the mail would be archived.  I didn’t receive a notification email following this conversation.

 

Later that afternoon I discovered that I could send and receive domain email.  In fact I was also receiving email to my sons email addresses caius@xxxxxxxxx.co.uk and corin@xxxxxxxxxx.co.uk into my mail. After a couple of days (Wednesday 7th November) their mailboxes had still not been restored, I went onto the ticket system and discovered that [CSA Removed] had posted on the Monday but had failed to mention the restoring of the mailboxes.  I posted myself highlighting this and stating that I was now able to send/receive from my domain address etc.  I also enquired about the mailbox and archived email restoration as I didn’t want to recreate the mailboxes myself and found that it screwed something up when Plusnet support final got their [-Censored-] in gear and did something to help.

 

Needless to say I received no response   

 

On the 22nd November (1 full calendar month since start of the problem)  Over 2 weeks since my last update I contacted Plusnet once again and spoke to [CSA Removed] who looked at the lengthy ticket and said she would send this to complaints and to give it 72 hours. 

 

Well surprise, surprise we’re now on 28th of November and still no response from Plusnet.  This has got to be the worst customer services department I have ever had the misfortune to deal with.  I realise that changing my account to mail only and hosted domain was considerably reducing payments made to plusnet and as a result I might not be treated with the same priority as other customers but what I didn’t expect was to be left hung out to dry, given the silent treatment and to still have problems a month on.  I went nearly 2 weeks with NO EMAIL at all.  In this day and age with email being equally as important as other methods of communication it is absolutely ridiculous!   The only way I have made any progress at all is by phoning plusnet.  What is the point in having an online ticket system when you ghost the customer?

Moderator's note by Dick (Strat): CSA name(s) removed (to an area staff can see) as per Forum rules.

Moderator's note by Dick (Strat): Personal information removed from a public forum (to an area that staff can see).

10 REPLIES 10
EmilyD
Plusnet Help Team
Plusnet Help Team
Posts: 2,032
Thanks: 357
Fixes: 117
Registered: ‎26-03-2018

Re: E-mail problem - over 5 weeks and still not resolved!!

Hi @Sauniere,

 

I'm very sorry for the poor experience that your have had following your move to a new provider and your request to keep this open as an email/domain only account.

 

It's disappointing to hear that you were given the incorrect information initially and that you were told that it would not be possible to keep your email and domain services active after moving to a new phone/broadband provider. I'm sorry that your email account was cancelled despite you requesting that it stay open and that you are still waiting for the two mailboxes that you have mentioned to be restored.

 

I've had a look into this and can see that the agents that you have spoken to recently have raised the request to restore your mailboxes to a ticket pool called "Network Administration" which is what we used to send such requests to. However, this process changed some time ago and this pool is no longer monitored, which is why you have not received a response from this. Our current process is to raise this as a task directly to the relevant team. I'm very disappointed that some agents are not yet following the correct process and that this has led to a big delay in you getting this issue resolved. I have passed on feedback regarding your experience here and this will be passed on to the managers of the specific agents in question and we will also address this internally to ensure that agents are aware of and follow the correct process.

 

I have raised this as a task to the correct team now and have asked that they restore access to the mailboxes that you have mentioned and also restore the archived emails from these. I have taken ownership of this issue and I should receive an update from this team within the next three working days. I'll be in touch via ticket once I have this update and you'll also receive an email notification of this.

 

Sorry again for the experience that you have had here and for the inconvenience caused.

If this post resolved your issue please click the 'This fixed my problem' button
 Emily D
 Plusnet Help Team
Sauniere
Grafter
Posts: 58
Thanks: 2
Registered: ‎18-03-2009

Re: E-mail problem - over 5 weeks and still not resolved!!

Thanks for your intervention Emily, much appreciated. 

I'm not sure what is going on with the mail account though.  When I made the request for domain and mail only account the domain was completely ignored and my email address is @Sauniere.plus.com (not sauniere.co.uk which I expected)  However when I log into my webmail it says that the mailbox is sauniere.co.uk.

I've recreated my sons mailboxes but their mailboxes say sauniere.plus.com which is not the domain 

also, I can't send email from outlook (I can receive ok but can't send)  I've seen some posts on the forum saying it's because it's a free account but I was told it was a pound per month?  I agreed to pay monthly for the domain and mail but I've got a feeling that things have been screwed up from the very start and I've ended up on some kind of free email account.

I really want to get this whole mess sorted because it's doing my head in now.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

madswitcher
Pro
Posts: 384
Thanks: 86
Fixes: 1
Registered: ‎01-08-2007

Re: E-mail problem - over 5 weeks and still not resolved!!

Hi Sauniere,

beware your last point about the mail-only account and not being able to send emails.  I use Virgin and come in over the Plus SMTP relay.  On November 12th all 6 of my emails accounts went into 'receive only',  I got passed from pillar to post by phone support trying to convince them all that it was the relay server that had put a block on my access.  It was only when I went public by posting here that some action was taken.

Gandalf is (hopefully) sorting this out, so if you follow the thread :unable to send emails over a virging link' you have an example/prescedence of the symptoms and cause so to give them a pointer of where to start looking.

Cheers

Mike

MatthewWheeler
Plusnet Help Team
Plusnet Help Team
Posts: 8,896
Thanks: 1,506
Fixes: 480
Registered: ‎01-01-2012

Re: E-mail problem - over 5 weeks and still not resolved!!

@Sauniere  Sorry to hear you're still having issues.

With regards to the mailboxes they link up with your domain so for example if you have mailbox@username.plus.com this will link to your domain as mailbox@yourdomain.co.uk

You can test this by sending a e-mail to the mailbox with the domain name on the end.

Can you advise what error you're getting when trying to send so we can investigate further?

If this post resolved your issue please click the 'This fixed my problem' button
 Matthew Wheeler
 Plusnet Help Team
spraxyt
Resting Legend
Posts: 10,063
Thanks: 674
Fixes: 75
Registered: ‎06-04-2007

Re: E-mail problem - over 5 weeks and still not resolved!!


@Sauniere wrote:

When I made the request for domain and mail only account the domain was completely ignored and my email address is sauniere.plus.com (not sauniere.co.uk which I expected); However when I log into my webmail it says that the mailbox is sauniere.co.uk


Webmail shows the default identity which is set for sending messages in webmail as the mailbox name. Identities can be viewed by clicking Settings then the Identities tab. The top one in the list (if more than one has been defined) is the default and if you click it to show details it will have Set default ticked.

When you have a domain anything sent to mailboxname@mydomain.co.uk ends up in the same place as anything sent to mailboxbname@username.plus.com. You access such messages in webmail or an email client by logging in using username for the default mailbox, or username+mailboxname for additional mailboxes (with appropriate passwords).

You *don't* use your domain name when collecting mail, but you can specify it as the sender email address when sending messages in webmail or a client.

David
Sauniere
Grafter
Posts: 58
Thanks: 2
Registered: ‎18-03-2009

Re: E-mail problem - over 5 weeks and still not resolved!!

the error I get is server error 550 recipient rejected relay denied 

I've tried changing port from 25 to 587 but neither works, the problem is only in Outlook.  I can send ok from webmail and on my phone  

Sauniere
Grafter
Posts: 58
Thanks: 2
Registered: ‎18-03-2009

Re: E-mail problem - over 5 weeks and still not resolved!!

Update - outgoing mail now working in Outlook.  I clicked the "requires authentication box" within the outgoing mail account settings.  

Gandalf
Community Gaffer
Community Gaffer
Posts: 26,563
Thanks: 10,265
Fixes: 1,599
Registered: ‎21-04-2017

Re: E-mail problem - over 5 weeks and still not resolved!!

Glad to hear you've found the cause of the problem and you're now able to send mail from Outlook.

Let us know if you need any further assistance.

From 31st October 2022, I no longer have a regular presence here as I’ve moved on to a new role.
Anoush Mortazavi
Plusnet
Sauniere
Grafter
Posts: 58
Thanks: 2
Registered: ‎18-03-2009

Re: E-mail problem - over 5 weeks and still not resolved!!

I have commented in here because the method of posting within a support ticket is awful and you can't see what you've written until it's posted. 

I have been informed that my sons emails cannot be restored due to archived email only being kept for 30 days.  As mentioned in my initial post I contacted PlusNet support on numerous occasions (most within that 30 days) and due to the ignorance/incompetence of some of the PlusNet support staff my sons have lost their email completely.

To make matters worse I have been offered the insulting figure of £10  (yes that's ten whole pounds!!) as compensation. I did not and do not want money, I simply wanted someone competent to deal with my problem.  If it hadn't been for Emily Draper I'd still be sat waiting for a response to the support ticket from October.   

The only reason I am leaving my domain and mail account with PlusNet is because I daren't move it elsewhere. 

I want someone senior to contact me with an explanation as to how this whole mess was allowed to happen

 

 

 

 

JOLO
Plusnet Alumni (retired)
Plusnet Alumni (retired)
Posts: 1,149
Fixes: 77
Registered: ‎06-08-2018

Re: E-mail problem - over 5 weeks and still not resolved!!

@Sauniere,

 

I've passed this on to a manager for a call back, which should be at some point tomorrow. I would also suggest following the formal complaint process if you're still unhappy with our resolution after this.