Telecom advises I'm losing my Flickr account...

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freitasm

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#715846 12-Nov-2012 13:47

nzlpablo: Thanks for the rational responses. The real issue is that people aren't being told exactly what they're signing up for.

Here are the facts, as simply laid out as possible:

1. A "Yahoo! Mail account" is free for life.
2. Telecom explicitly state that customers get a "Yahoo! Mail account"
3. Telecom customers do not get to keep their "Yahoo! Mail account" for life

Could someone at least acknowledge the discrepancy between these points? I feel like I'm speaking another language here.

Here are the facts you are making a point of leaving out: almost every single ISP in New Zealand, except for Orcon, will not keep your email address for life for free. Some will let you keep the address for a monthly fee, some won't even give you this option.

Having said that, your posts are coming through to myself and some moderators as someone from the competition trying to paint the product/service as a bad thing.

So I asked this side of the discussion to die. If it doesn't ban hammers will fly.

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mattgreen

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#715850 12-Nov-2012 13:50

ISP email portability does not exist. Why? Because:

a) forwarding masses of spam to your competitors is a huge waste of resource for a mail system
b) it helps keep customers "sticky" and ISPs like the status quo
c) it is technically impractical - what happens when you move ISP again.. Does your second one forward or do you contact your ISP from 10 years ago? What happens if one of them goes out of business? How do you setup a global portability database? What happens if you close your new account and they end up having to bounce your mail for eternity? I could go on and on...

It's wrong to blame Telecom for the standard (global) industry practice. Show me three NZ ISPs that lets you keep your email account when you close all your accounts for significantly lower than the ~$10/month Telecom ask for as a "dialup" plan.

I do think it's a bit rough they are pushing long standing customers off the grandfathered hosted email accounts but that's a different issue - and an easy workaround has been given above.

Talkiet

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#715852 12-Nov-2012 13:56

nzlpablo: [snip]
Here are the facts, as simply laid out as possible:

1. A "Yahoo! Mail account" is free for life.
2. Telecom explicitly state that customers get a "Yahoo! Mail account"
3. Telecom customers do not get to keep their "Yahoo! Mail account" for life

Could someone at least acknowledge the discrepancy between these points? I feel like I'm speaking another language here.

The major point I see is that the Yahoo account supplied as part of the Telecom package is NOT the same as the free offering with yahoo.co.nz...

See this page

http://telecom.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/1339/kw/yahoo%20email/related/1

which specifically points out the differences...

It refers to this page:

http://www.telecom.co.nz/internet/broadband/yourbroadband/premiumservices/

Which refers to a "Free Yahoo! Mail account"

Both pages mention that to access this account you need to access them with the xtra username and password.

So point 1 you raise here does NOT refer to the yahoo account supplied through Telecom and accessed through the xtra.co.nz email address and password. I can see the confusion though in the terminology personally, but I also feel you're making a bigger deal out of it than it actually is.

- Most places don't continue to provide services that cost them money after a customer leaves.
- You CAN get a yahoo.co.nz email account unemcumbered by any obligation or relationship to Telecom.

Cheers - N

Please note all comments are from my own brain and don't necessarily represent the position or opinions of my employer, previous employers, colleagues, friends or pets.

nzlpablo

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#715854 12-Nov-2012 13:56

freitasm:
Here are the facts you are making a point of leaving out: almost every single ISP in New Zealand, except for Orcon, will not keep your email address for life for free. Some will let you keep the address for a monthly fee, some won't even give you this option.

Having said that, your posts are coming through to myself and some moderators as someone from the competition trying to paint the product/service as a bad thing.

So I asked this side of the discussion to die. If it doesn't ban hammers will fly.

Today I learned you can't complain about an ISP if you happen to work for another ISP.

So that means, what, 75% of geekzone can't complain about other ISPs? I'm not here to promote my employer.

I feel I've asked a valid question. Not sure why it's getting shut down, but do what you gotta do I guess :/

Edit: plus now there is actual sensible discussion going on about it. Why can't it continue?

Talkiet

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#715855 12-Nov-2012 14:00

freitasm:[snip]
Having said that, your posts are coming through to myself and some moderators as someone from the competition trying to paint the product/service as a bad thing.
[snip]

To be fair, it didn't come across that way to me. There's scope for confusion in the terminology used.

It's a shame that when we described the email account, we chose...

"Free Yahoo! Mail account" instead of "Uncharged premium Yahoo! mail account"

given that "Free Yahoo! mail account describes that actual free offering from Yahoo direct.

All that said, Paul is aware that the xtra.co.nz Yahoo account offers additional services, so I'm confident he hasn't actually confused the services here...

Cheers - N

Please note all comments are from my own brain and don't necessarily represent the position or opinions of my employer, previous employers, colleagues, friends or pets.

freitasm

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#715856 12-Nov-2012 14:00

nzlpablo:
freitasm:
Here are the facts you are making a point of leaving out: almost every single ISP in New Zealand, except for Orcon, will not keep your email address for life for free. Some will let you keep the address for a monthly fee, some won't even give you this option.

Having said that, your posts are coming through to myself and some moderators as someone from the competition trying to paint the product/service as a bad thing.

So I asked this side of the discussion to die. If it doesn't ban hammers will fly.

Today I learned you can't complain about an ISP if you happen to work for another ISP.

So that means, what, 75% of geekzone can't complain about other ISPs? I'm not here to promote my employer.

I feel I've asked a valid question. Not sure why it's getting shut down, but do what you gotta do I guess :/

I feel I gave a good explanation as any. We consider this open providing people don't come here posting strawman.

We don't like some ISP people going around other ISPs discussions to avoid exactly what happened here: how can we trust the direction you are pushing is not commercially influenced? We can't and because WE are independent I rather not have this kind of things happening here.

If you don't like, so be it, you are not required to post here. The door is on your left.

nzlpablo

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#715860 12-Nov-2012 14:07

Talkiet:

To be fair, it didn't come across that way to me. There's scope for confusion in the terminology used.

It's a shame that when we described the email account, we chose...

"Free Yahoo! Mail account" instead of "Uncharged premium Yahoo! mail account"

given that "Free Yahoo! mail account describes that actual free offering from Yahoo direct.

All that said, Paul is aware that the xtra.co.nz Yahoo account offers additional services, so I'm confident he hasn't actually confused the services here...

Cheers - N

Thank you! We are at least on the same page now. We clearly aren't going to resolve this one today (or ever, presumably) but I still need to disagree with you, in that those pages you posted do not say "to access this account you need to access them with the xtra username and password", they say:

"To be able to access Premium Services you need a username@xtra.co.nz email address and Xtra password."

I've bolded the salient bit.

I presume my account is going to be suspended sooner or later, so thanks for your responses so far Neil.

freitasm

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#715863 12-Nov-2012 14:08

For goodness sake. Trolls are gonna troll.

plambrechtsen

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#715864 12-Nov-2012 14:09

mattgreen: I do think it's a bit rough they are pushing long standing customers off the grandfathered hosted email accounts but that's a different issue - and an easy workaround has been given above.

I don't believe that's happening at all. If you signed up for and are paying the $2.95 or whatever it is for the email only plan back when Telecom offered it as a plan option then nothing is happening to those people (happy to be told otherwise but I don't think that plan is being retired).

What's going on right now is a cleanup of folks who for whatever reason ceased their billing relationship with Telecom but their Xtra account along with all the premium services wasn't suspended at the time. Those accounts with no billing relationship with Telecom are being either migrated to an account that is open, or being closed off.

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