mattwnz:

 

I can kind of understand their position. I would think that more than 50% of support tickets are for email, which is a service people aren't really paying for anyway. But a lot of people do stay with spark, because of the xtra email address, so they don't want to lose it. But I guess they can't have it both ways. By only supporting webmail makes a lot of sense, as they have 100% control over whether people can access that or not. 99% of problems people have with email (no including Yahoo)  who are using software like outlook aren't to do with the email provider, but with the users own computer, the settings are wrong, or  a network problem.

 

 

 

I don't understand how Microsoft comes into providing support at all. They provide the OS, and in some cases, they sell people outlook, but many people use other email clients as well.

 

Spark will only tell you how to get to the web mail version of their email. If you want to set up your outlook they send you a five step process with no server names, ports or other info in it.

Even if they did provide the name of pop3.xtra.co.nz as a server  -it is not working for "hundreds of their clients"  <their words not mine>.

You need to go to Microsoft ( 0800 800 004 ) who remote log in and set up your pop to use pop.mail.yahoo.com  as your mail server and changes your username to be username@xtra.co.nz   instead of just username  MS say they are receiving hundreds of calls from Spark clients and having to do this exact process.

The reason Spark wont fix it themselves is they dont want people knowing you have to use pop.mail.yahoo.com and then having to change that when the final shift occurs back to what ever their pop and imap servers will be.

If Spark would pull their heads out of their [INSERT APPROPRIATE  ORIFICE HERE] and actually tell people there is a temp issue for some users owing to the shift, then they would save the users a lot of aggravation and MS a lot of wasted time.

Spark will do this fix for you remotely - at a cost. IE they broke it - you pay to fix it.

It s now Spark's HelpDesk's policy to point you at the old settings for pop and imap (fix it yourself) and will only support you getting onto the internet and accessing web mail. they provide no follow up support or help if you have correct settings and it suddenly fails owing to them dickering around with stuff. "You need to refer to the vendor of the third party app for support" - Spark standard answer / quote.

Where this leaves Spark users is if Spark screw up their authentications / servers etc, you are stuffed! There is no fixing it. They will not hlep with that other than getting you onto the web mail system.

My client could access their Spark email via web mail, username and password. Their pop / outlook 2010 stopped accessing mails ( along with hundreds of other clients) as Spark has messed things up.