Keeping F9 email after leaving and SMTP auth

[#1]

@Petestrix Pete - unfortunately, some of the 1st-line support aren't clued up, and you were advised wrongly - note 'Gandalfs' comment in the accepted fix above.

[#2]

I was hoping that would be the reason, but the 1st-line support 'elevated' the query, and I still received the same answer, hence I'm curious to hear, if @Gandalf is able to respond again on the thread at some point, who I need to speak to to achieve the same result.

Pete

[#3]

Pete, take my word for it - if @Gandalf says it can be done, it can, and I'm guessing the 'elevation' was to their line manager, who hasn't been here long enough, either.

[#4]

Legacy Force9 Mail accounts behave in the same way as Plusnet Mail accounts, however the caveat is that it’s tricky to retain a Force9 email address that’s associated with a broadband account following the broadband being ceased/transferred to another provider.

@jab1 The issue discussed earlier up was a bit different in that the Force9 email address was already a Force9 Mail account from many moons ago (the broadband account was separate which meant that when it was closed, no changes were made to the Force9 email, so all they’d had to do was authenticate via the username and password to send mail as the authentication couldn’t happen over a closed Plusnet broadband account)

Pete’s account would have to be moved onto Plusnet Mail after cancellation and the Force9 email/login components manually rebuilt, because there’s no longer an option for us to create Force9 Mail accounts.

@Petestrix If you can drop me a PM when/if you move to your new/FTTP provider, I’ll be happy to see what we can do but I can’t make a promise or a 100% guarantee however I’ll make sure we try our best.

If we’re successful you’ll need to recreate any additional mailboxes you may have after we’ve reactivated your account, so I’d recommend heading onto manage my mail at plus.net/email as soon as you can to make a note of all your email addresses and email settings. This will make it easier to replicate and restore everything back to how things were before the cancellation.

[#5]

@Gandalf  Thank you for the really comprehensive reply. I really appreciate your time. I'll probably pause for a few weeks before deciding whether to change to a new provider (though the 900mb speeds are tempting), to consider how to manage longer term, as using the *****@xxxxx.f9.co.uk functionality has left me 100s of separate email addresses. Great for identifying security breaches and sources of spam, but the legacy this has left feels very unstable.

Thanks again, and to @jab1 too.....

Pete

[#6]

No problem @Petestrix the ideal situation would be for us to offer FTTP although if or when we do, I’m not sure it’ll be at the full 900-1000mbps but one can hope!

Retaining your F9 email addresses after cancellation I’d say there’s a good chance we’d be successful but we’d be stepping outside of process due to how we’d need to put the changes through in our systems, so there’s also a chance it’d go horribly wrong which I suspect is why the process is as it is that the adviser you’ve spoken to has followed when advising it’s not possible.

I agree it’d be a hassle to replace all those email addresses. While I’ve personally only ever used one email address at any one time, I remember the last time I had to change was when I finished university, I used my Sheffield Hallam email for everything so I had to make sure everybody knew my new email address.

Feel free to drop me a PM if you do decide to go to another provider and I can make sure it’s raised to the best people to try to retain your emails.

[#7]

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@Gandalf wrote:

@jab1 The issue discussed earlier up was a bit different in that the Force9 email address was already a Force9 Mail account from many moons ago (the broadband account was separate which meant that when it was closed, no changes were made to the Force9 email, so all they’d had to do was authenticate via the username and password to send mail as the authentication couldn’t happen over a closed Plusnet broadband account)

Pete’s account would have to be moved onto Plusnet Mail after cancellation and the Force9 email/login components manually rebuilt, because there’s no longer an option for us to create Force9 Mail accounts.

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Thanks @Gandalf - That'llteach me to either double-check or keep my mouth shut, but it's another nugget of info to remember.

[#8]

No problem, knowledge is power as they say and to borrow a famous quote, with great power comes great responsibility. 

[#9]

Sorry to jump on this thread but I have recently transferred my mother's broadband to BT as it wasn't possible to increase speed where she lives - she has a very old force 9 email account and prior to the changeover we requested to keep it, and it was confirmed would be possible. We double checked again prior to the changeover, and again were advised that this would not be a problem. On the day of changeover - 7th April - the email was still working in the evening, but the following day the plusnet account was closed and the email access ceased. I spoke to customer service and the technical team who said this was typical, they could see the previous requests to keep the old email but would message the "back office team" just to be sure. It was suggested that if the email wasn't back up in the next couple of days to call back. My mother called back on the Monday and was then told that as it was a force 9 email it wasn't possible to keep - not surprisingly she was very upset about this. I called on the Tuesday (last week) and am now trying to sort (my mother is 78 and gets very stressed at anything technical) and was told that she had been incorrectly advised (supposedly a number of new staff who don't always know where to look on the system etc etc) and told categorically that it was not an issue, it was possible to keep the force 9 email, as far as they could see everything was happening as expected and can take 3-5 working days. I called back last Friday as it was still not back up and the person I spoke to tried to be helpful but couldn't really give me any answers. They said they would check and call me back - I received a returned call on Saturday to be told that it was not possible to keep the email address as it was a force 9 email! I know that this person had only recently completed their training as they told me this.
I asked them to escalate as I don't feel this is acceptable. Have heard nothing since. @Gandalf just wondering if there's anything you can do to help at all please?

[#10]

Thanks for your post @hkeys 

I'm really sorry for the poor experience your mother's had to retain her Force9 emails. I've emailed a colleague to see what we can do to get them back. I'll provide an update on the ticket 213481778 before the close of play today.

[#11]

Thank you, much appreciated

[#12]

Thanks for getting back to me @hkeys 

No problem, I can confirm we've reactivated your mother's account now and restored her Force9 email address. I've just sent a test email but it's bounced back which suggests that it's not yet fully functional but it should be within an hour.

[#13]

@Gandalf That's great news, really appreciate your help and for keeping me updated. I can log into her email account now but emails aren't loading so will check back again bit later. 

[#14]

No problem @hkeys it looks like emails are still bouncing back with the error "Your message couldn't be delivered. The Domain Name System (DNS) reported that the recipient's domain does not exist." so I've passed the task back to a colleague in our NetOps team for further investigation. I'll keep the ticket 213481778 with me and update it soon.

[#15]

@hkeys, I've updated the ticket but just to confirm your mother's emails should now be working. 

Let me know if there are any issues. Apologies again for the experience she's had.