If you didn’t view the shriek-producing original or the terrifying sequel, well, you can still appreciate this new horror story on its own merits, but the critics may advise you to click for historicity’s sake…
*** Ahunter composes a new message in Eudora. Cue ominous music as the paragraph gets longer. Slow slow zoom in to the “Send” button. Here comes the mouse…CLICK! Beep! “SMPT server says 550 – Relaying denied” ** *
After several quick checks to make sure I didn’t do anything out of the ordinary, and a couple of retries yielding the same result, I call the evil babybell (Verizon, formerlly BellAtlantic, if you’re morbidly curious).
DSLIdjit: “DSL telephone number you’re calling about?”
Ahunter3: “012-345-6789”
DSLIdjit: “Your name?”
Ahunter3: “ahunter3”
DSLIdjit: “Verify your email address?”
Ahunter3: “The main email address I put down as my primary contact address? Or the one that comes free with the DSL service that I said all along I would probably never use?”
DSLIdjit: “The main contact address”
Ahunter3: “ahunter3@differentISP.net”
DSLIdjit: “And your home address?”
Ahunter3: “100 East Main Street, City”
DSLIdjit: “And the number you’re currently calling from?”
Ahunter3: “123-456-7890”
DSLIdjit: “Mother’s cousin’s dog’s maiden name?”
…etc…
DSLIdjit: “OK and how may I help you today?”
Ahunter3: “I’m getting an error 550 when I try to send email out from my non-babybell account when connected to the babybell DSL. I’ve been able to do this previously without problem. Did y’all change something recently?”
DSLIdjit: “Let’s look at your settings. Right click “My Computer” and go to the…”
Ahunter3: “I’m on a Mac” {yeah, ten thousand questions before letting me ask one and they didn’t ask what platform…}
DSLIdjit: “Oh, uh…um, OK, go to your Outlook Preferences…”
Ahunter3: “I’m using Eudora”
DSLidjit: “Oh, well we don’t support Eudora. We only support Outlook and Netscape email.”
Ahunter3: “That’s OK, all I really need to know is–did Verizon change policy or configuration settings in such a way that I can no longer use my other ISP’s SMTP and POP servers to send and receive otherISP email when my internet connection is over your DSL service? And, if so, what do I put in for SMTP server?”
DSLIdjit: “I can’t help you because we don’t support Eudora”
Ahunter3: “Uh, the answers would be the same if I were using Eudora or Netscape.”
DSLIdjit: “Sir, I can tell you what to type in the blanks if you are using Microsoft Outlook or Netscape email, but since you are using Eudora I can’t help you.”
…rinse lather repeat for 20 minutes before I get her to transfer me to a supervisor who, to my great fortune, knows what an SMTP server is…
DSLSuper: "Oh yeah, you can’t do that any more, too many spammers.
Ahunter3: “I understand. So what ought I to put as the SMTP server to use Verizon’s?”
DSLSuper: “Put ‘smtpout.bellatlantic.net’, that should work”
Ahunter3: “Thanks! I really appreciate it!”
** BUT TWO WEEKS LATER…**
*** Ahunter is again composing a new message in Eudora. Cue ominous music as the paragraph gets longer. Slow slow zoom in to the “Send” button. Here comes the mouse…CLICK! Beep! “SMPT server says 550 – Relaying denied” ** *
DSLIdjit: “OK and how may I help you today?”
…etc for the initial interrogation routine…
Ahunter3: “I’m using ‘smtpout.bellatlantic.net’ for my SMTP server and trying to send email out of my otherISP email account and I’m getting an error 550, relaying denied…been working for a couple weeks since you folks changed your restrictions, did you change them again?”
DSLIdjit: “Please go to your Outlook Preferences…”
Ahunter3: “Uh…mm, yeah, do I correctly understand that you do not support email clients other than Outlook and Netscape?”
DSLIdjit: “That’s right”
Ahunter3: “OK, let’s, um, work from Netscape, I don’t have Outlook.”
::launches Netscape Navigator version 3.0, latest version I own that contains the built-in email client::
Ahunter3: "OK, I’ve got a space for POP Server, SMTP Server, username, email address. My verizon username is…
::looks it up::
Ahunter3: “Verizonuser, the POP Server is mail.otherISP.net…”
DSLIdjit: “No, your POP Server should be mailbox.verizon.net”
…45 minute explanation of how a person can have more than one email account, and why one would want to send out email addressed from account one while connected to the internet with DSL service provided by a different provider…
Ahunter3: “So…what I want to know is, have you folks changed things so that I can no longer send my otherISP mail when my connection is via Verizon?”
DSLIdjit: “Sir, you’d have to ask otherISPcompany about that”
Ahunter3: “Um, I’m not having trouble sending or receiving otherISP email when I’m using their dial-up modem connection, and until a couple weeks ago I had no trouble sending from the Verizon DSL connection either. I doubt that the problem lies with otherISPcompany”
DSLIdjit: “Let’s try changing your password”
:rolleyes:
It only took two days, four phone calls, seven techs, and the unnecessary creation of a whole new Eudora profile for the Verizon email account that I don’t use and have never used, but I can now send and receive my email again.
I accept that there are sometimes reasons for changing things (like placing restrictions on the circumstances under which one can access services due to abuse by spammers), and I accept that changes on the ISP’s end may require changes on my end. But why the fuck can’t I get a tech who knows email when I make a fucking tech support phone call? I really hate this shit!
Look, you connect-the-dots recipe-following coloring-book challenged low-bandwidth standard procedure sycophants, you’re selling a service–a connection with a standard set of protocols which work in standard ways–for which a range of expectations are reasonable. I’m paying for “internet”, which was specifically adverised as including hyptertext transfer protocol, email services, news, along with unrestricted access to other protocols running over TCP that don’t require a dedicated server on your end.
Email services conventionally include the capacity to send, the capacity to receive, the capacity to pass file attachments (at least up to a certain size), the ability to have one’s incoming email stored (at least for a certain duration and/or up to a certain maximum total size) until accessed by the local machine, and so on.
They work in conventional ways. Users have a user ID and they utilize a server for sending email and a server for receiving their incoming email.
It works that way for Netscape. It works that way for Outlook. And listen, you 3-watt dimbulb cross-threaded unsocketed burnt-out pretender in the 60-watt socket, it works that way for Eudora (which is merely the #2 stand-alone email client worldwide), for Claris Emailer, for Lotus ccMail, for Mail.app on OS X, for SMTP and POP plug-ins for FileMaker Pro, probably even for the fucking SirCam virus.
I hope you have to walk home in a rainstorm getting your pants splashed by passing cars when your Ford runs out of gas after the full-service gas station attendant refuses to sell you any gas because they only support GM vehicles.
