Update 13 Feb 08 late afternoon: I have my email address, etc. back. It seems that my crime was that I was receiving too much spam. Yes; receiving and not sending.
I guess shutting down the accounts of people who get maybe 40 spam/day [that gets past any ISP filtering; and always goes into the Outlook spam folder] would be one quick way to shut off a large majority of the spam problem. Seems a bit ass backward to me though.
I ensured to ask whether it was the reception of or the sending of spam and was assured that it was the reception of. I was also warned to find a better way of dealing with or that this account will be cut off again. ‘Pleasantly’ warned, but warned nonetheless. I didn’t bother to ask whether I would get a warning or letter of concern as I fear the standard has already been set.
So I get about 40 spam/day on average that gets through anything external to my email program. And Outlook sucks everyone into the Spam folder. Now, every one of them is from my blog contact form. All in all, I think the situation is handled quite well; until I stop using Outlook anyway. Their web-based email program doesn’t recognize them as spam!
Anyway, perhaps I specifically need another WordPress plugin to help cut down on Contact form spam. I do not want a captcha. I despise those things!! Of course, spammers are what are and darn well should be despised.
Useful suggestions for reducing the only spam I know of via my contact form is appreciated. Of course, if it is spam that they are stopping and I never see or are otherwise aware of, then how am I supposed to correct the problem anyway?
As some of you may know, Comcast bought out Insight and is taking over Insight accounts.
Well, in our area it happened very recently; like perhaps this morning. I was sitting in front of my computers this AM when all of a sudden Outlook tosses up a login box (which I never see). I tried a couple things and never got back in. Closed Outlook and tried logging in to the web-based version to no avail.
Finally about 9:15 PM (a few minutes ago) I was able to call. Called my local Insight folks and got a Comcast service person. As she was trying to have a look at my account she kept speaking of an account id when I told her it was my email id, especially when it did not match my email id. She claimed they were the same thing.
It turns out that they changed my account id which also changed my email id, which also means they changed my fucking email address! Seriously! They just changed my 4-year old email address without nary a please, thank you or any other means of notifying me.
I’m not sure what I’m doing next as I am currently just sitting here pretty much stunned. I do a lot of work with my school email address but I also do quite a lot from my personal address. For instance, that’s where my blog contact form sends to and where I get comment notifications (if that was working currently). I’m also on several non-library-related listservs and it’s where I get my weekly Unshelved.
To say the least, Mark is not a very happy camper. At all.
Comcast changed my account id so I was unable to login to my email. Without telling me. And even more importantly, this change to my account id changed my email address. They changed my email address without any warning or notice.
17 responses so far ↓
1 Mark // Feb 12, 2008 at 10:10 pm
I have changed the email address to which the comment form sends. Temporarily, I hope. I shall call back tomorrow and see what the hell they think they are doing. But I fear none of it will matter.
So even if you knew my local email address, this may be your only way of contacting me for now. Or regular comments on the blog, of course. I can check for comments whether or not I’m getting notifications sent to me, and that address was also updated.
So it is the blog, blog comment form or my school email address for now.
I knew things went too good with Crane Alley and Lisa last night. Birthday Month had become too much of a positive again and my world just had to smack that shit down.
Grrr!
2 Jen!! // Feb 13, 2008 at 6:56 am
I guess that Comcast hadn’t counted on that whole e-mail thing as being more than a fad.
3 Meredith // Feb 13, 2008 at 7:08 am
That’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard of! How do they think it’s ok to change customers’ email addresses out of the blue?!?!? Are they at least forwarding your stuff from the old email address to the new email address? At least then, people can still get in contact with you. If not, that is pretty scummy.
4 Mark // Feb 13, 2008 at 7:51 am
They do not seem to be.
When I was able to login to my “new” account last night with the young woman’s provident information there were 2 welcome-type emails–from Insight, no less, and not Comcast–dated Aug 2006 & May 2007.
At least there could have been one from “Your New Overlords.”
I have tested by sending myself an email to the previous & current via my school account and only got new. Also changed comment form to new and tested. But no forwards as far as I can see.
As I was getting ready for work just now I realized that it is 4 years worth of most online accounts, to include all e-commerce, etc. Pretty much everything that isn’t directly school or professional-related (and that one is a partial split) all have accounts founded on that address.
Again, I think I have to put off calling till this evening; thankfully not quite so late.
5 bibliotecaria // Feb 13, 2008 at 8:57 am
This is why I established an email that is totally unrelated to my ISP account. (I use fastmail.fm.) I had a problem when I changed providers one time. This way whatever my ISP does, it doesn’t effect my email at all.
But still, they changed it without telling you??? That is just stunning!
6 walt crawford // Feb 13, 2008 at 11:27 am
Appalling. Just appalling.
When I had to make a choice of broadband providers, with “slow” SBC (now AT&T) DSL vs. “superfast” Comcast, I made it based mostly on my love of Comcast’s customer service: I went with SBC/AT&T. I guess this is evidence that it was the right choice. (Funny how AT&T hasn’t changed my sbcglobal.net email address–which, admittedly, I never use.)
Just. plain. atrocious.
7 Jenn // Feb 13, 2008 at 8:26 pm
As some of you may know, Comcast bought out Insight and is taking over Insight accounts.
Oh you poor thing. We have Comcast, and while we’ve been lucky to not have issues with the Internet, the television side has been awful. When we move, we’re switching that at least back to satellite.
Comcast sucks.
8 Richard // Feb 13, 2008 at 11:25 pm
teh suxxor. Of course I’m having the opposite problem of not being able to get off AT&T which bought out my SBC account…of course I switch to Insight and they get bought by Comcast.
I was excited to see Working Asssets now has a mobile division called Credo (that runs over Sprint’s network). I had WA before and was happy…now they just need to provide me broadband service. Maybe I’ll switch next time my contract is up..
9 Kathy // Feb 13, 2008 at 11:51 pm
I use this contact form: http://www.bloggingexpertise.com/plugins/wp-contactform-akismet/
It sends the messages through Akismet so I haven’t gotten spam through my contact form in ages.
10 Comcast Is All Over The Place « Life as I Know It // Feb 19, 2008 at 8:19 pm
[...] Anyway, I tend to forget sometimes that anyone can read anything that I write on this blog. I forget that people and companies have ego feeds to keep them abreast of consumer opinion and the like. I almost felt embarrassed when I received the email from Comcast’s customer support. I mean, I hadn’t reported the problem to them directly. I wasn’t intentionally trying to express dissatisfaction with Comcast. Unlike Mark Lindner, I’ve have a pretty positive relationship with Comcast since they took over cable in my geographical area (but admit that I wouldn’t be at all happy in Mark’s situation either). [...]
11 Melanie Putnam // Mar 19, 2008 at 5:54 pm
I am embarassed that I use to defend comcast. In the past 6 months I have experienced the worst service ever. Today I can’t even get my email and I can’t get to comcast.net at all.. no ping, no trace route… nada. I haven’t had the patience to get on the phone yet as it takes half my day to explain to them that “I am not getting email”…. Yes I paid the dam bill. I am so ticked right now. The reason I found this was I was looking to see if they were down for any reason. We have comcast at work and decided to day to go for a T-1…. 4x the cost just because Comcast is horrible. To bad I can’t get Fios.
12 Mark // Mar 20, 2008 at 8:24 pm
Hi Melanie, thanks for the comment. There may have been a time when they were worth defending; I can’t say. But from people I know all over the country it doesn’t sound like they are any more, or any where.
And I must say what they did to me was entirely uncalled for. Now they did undo it when I got my wits about me the next day. But they also warned me to fix a “problem” which I don’t see. So how do I do that? Not saying they don’t have a legitimate concern. But there are ways to work with the customer first. At the very least a warning would be nice.
13 Comcast, you may not care but you are about to lose another customer // Mar 28, 2008 at 4:47 pm
[...] already have had a “Welcome to Comcast” problem just recently. I also find it interesting that they actually responded after-the-fact when Jennifer [...]
14 battgino // Apr 26, 2008 at 1:22 pm
Comcast may have a huge press blitz on regarding their “Big Push” to repair its image, unfortunately other than pay a good PR specialist I don’t think they have done anything to change their monopolistic user unfriendly ways. As a senior citizen I am on a limited income. The only time my TV is on is during football season yet the money grubbing, greedy monopoly that Comcast is insists that I pay over $70 a month just to get ESPN as part of a package that I don’t need any other channels from. These rates recently went up. How about a football package like the hockey package they offer. No. That wouldn’t get as much money into corporate hands.
We have to stop this monopoly and call for a cable customer’s bill of rights. We need protection from the constantly increasing rates for decreasing service.
15 EMCSW // May 8, 2008 at 10:02 pm
Does anyone experience that the audio and video are not in sync? I wonder before I blast COMCAST.
16 bumpkin // May 9, 2008 at 12:32 pm
I couldn’t agree more with bibliotecaria. Using email from your ISP provider is a guaranteed headache. Eventually you will switch providers and have to deal with updating all your contacts with your new email address.
Get email for life with one of the many free providers(gmail, yahoo, not microsoft, etc)
http://bellicose-bumpkin.blogspot.com/2006/10/soapbox-email-for-life.html
17 Mark // May 10, 2008 at 4:00 pm
EMCSW, no I do not notice that issue, but then I also do little audio/video on the web. Sure I do some but I rarely go looking for it and also skip much of what I’m pointed at.
So, sorry, can’t say.
bumpkin, yes, agreed. I have remedied that part of the problem. I should do even better and get the email set up that I have through my domain host but I just haven’t done so.
For now I joined the growing hoards of Gmailers. Very reluctantly.