Email Disabled by PlusNet but nobody spotted it!

[#1]

All of a sudden all 3 computers in the household stopped working.
No one could send over POP3
I had an email informing me that ONE of the family's email accounts was over the 1gig limit.so I cleared them all down to just unread messages.
Still it would not recognise anyone's password to send POP3 email
6 calls to Plusnet over 2 days... each call lasting a very long time and somebody finally spotted that the account was disabled.
I was finally told because ALL of the families accounts TOGETHER exceeded the 1 gig limit - which was not what the advisory email said.
Loads of calls,loads of messages to the HelpDesk and only one eagle eyed assistant finally spotted the problem.
"Oh" he said "that's glaringly obvious"... "its been disabled - why was you not told?"
I was told that it must definately be my client end... what on all 3 computers at once.
Come on - I spent too long in IT Support myself not to spot that glaring error.
How about a simple apology...

[#2]

I agree that it would be frustrating to have the email account blocked but if you have been in IT Support yourself I am surprised that you have not set your email clients to delete messages after they have been downloaded.  This is a feature available in all the email clients I have come across, generally there is also an option to leave messages on the pop server after downloading for a set period eg 14 days.
1GB of stored messages is really quite a lot, most providers pop accounts would grind to a halt with that.

[#3]

Well I was in IT Support with 10,000 students at a London college.

The accounts had exceeded the limit, not because of the 14 day removal period but because one was at uni and the other was away on holiday and so both were not accessing their home emails.

[#4]

Having spent so long in IT support, one might have thought you'd know that you do not SEND emails using POP3.  POP3 / IMAP is for receiving emails.

Also the email which advises you that COLLECTIVELY your ACCOUNT has exceeded the 1GB email store fair usage policy lists the size of each mail box on the ACCOUNT.  Such notification emails have NEVER been is respect of a single mailbox ... though in extreme circumstances one mailbox alone might have exceeded 1GB ... especially if being used to "share" photos.