Charter is at it again

[bybycharter]

We are having problems with Charter email....again. Down for about 4 days, back up for 2 then back down again. We were able to receive but not send. They are blocking port 25. When I call the "Charter Gripeline" (and can get through)they give me the same old story. "Call Microsoft. We don't support third party email" Charter's support line was down, so I communicated via chat. You've gotta love chat support......I assume that once you have to reboot.....it's over. If only they would admit that the problems is on their end, they might not lose customers.

I tried to explain to the techies that it is not a Microsoft problem; it is a problem with all third party software including Eudora, etc." I also explained to them that the problem is for all Charter customers in our area with a .net email address and we cannot operate businesses without the convenience of third party email. I finally got through to Tier 2 tech support; they also denied the problem. We have numerous upset Charter customers switching to DSL in the next week or two. Our orders with Bell South are being placed and once our accounts with Bell South are set up......by by Charter. Irregardless of their status, those of us that can are dropping their service. This is based on the lack of support and admission for this ongoing problem. We have some areas that do not have the ability to change services; Does anyone have a solution for those that cannot change?

[ProfessorU]

You should set up your mail to be sent from the charter SMTP server. It should still have your name and email addy in the 'from' field, "irregardless" of the SMTP server. This is so that Charter can monitor outgoing mail for spam abusers and shut them down, albiet a little big-brotherish and mildly inconvienent for anyone who jumps around from network to network.

[LindaHewitt]

bybyCharter,

Welcome to Virtual DR. I have several friends that have been having an additional problem with Charter because they are not receiving all of their legitimate email messages probably because of the messed up way that Charter does their automated anti-spam filtering. I have sent an email message to one individual with one sentence and he never got it.

Is Charter in compliance with their agreement with their customers? Maybe it is time for Charter customers to band together and take more unified action. Here is what happened to another ISP with similar problems.

http://www.emailblockinsettlement.com/

Cheers,

Linda

[bybycharter]

Thanks Linda,

Charter did resolve their problem. The irritating part was that they were blaming the problem on a Microsoft issue when that was not the case. CharterTech Support was giving out the Microsoft tech support number (just to avoid criticism) and people, not knowing better, called and paid premium dollars just to find out that it was indeed a Charter problem; many of these people were elderly and some didn't realize the cost factor. Once we started threatening, Charter changed their tune and corrected THEIR problem. I'd love to see a suit by all of those who paid Microsoft after being lied too by Charter; all they had to do was say that they were having difficulties, working on it, and give us a target date as to when they thought the issue would be resolved. This is an example of just how much Charter respects their customers.

bybyCharter,

Welcome to Virtual DR. I have several friends that have been having an additional problem with Charter because they are not receiving all of their legitimate email messages probably because of the messed up way that Charter does their automated anti-spam filtering. I have sent an email message to one individual with one sentence and he never got it.

Is Charter in compliance with their agreement with their customers? Maybe it is time for Charter customers to band together and take more unified action. Here is what happened to another ISP with similar problems.

http://www.emailblockinsettlement.com/

Cheers,

Linda