Okay, every now and then when I phone my ISP's tech support, I get someone knowledgeable who doesn't presume I'm stupid (mainly because I can express myself coherently with the appropriate terminology and not get confused LOL).
The rest of the time, I swear, I don't know where they hire these people from, but if they don't have a script for it, then I'm stupid and don't know what I'm talking about. usual instance being that my ISP regularly lowers the bandwidth allowances on their unlimited usage accounts, and I have to phone to get it popped back up again, which pisses me off, but hey, the good techs just say "sure, we'll do that" and the crappy techs go "there's nothing wrong with the bandwidth at our end..." type type type type type - and suddenly it's *fixed* (oooh it must be MAGIC).
My situation: My computer died back in August and I recently got a new hard drive and reinstalled WinXP and got everything back up and running. It was a beautiful thing, and being the not-terribly-technically-talented person I am, I was inordinately proud of myself. Had a bit of a hiccup setting up my 'net connection, but tech support was very helpful and we got it all done (issue was that my video card needs to be replaced and the driver was causing conflicts, etc. so until I could get online to get a current one, I could only boot up in safe mode, and there's no connection wizard in safe mode *sigh*).
Everything is lovely until I try to set up my OTHER e-mail address as a pop3 account - I help run an online database and have an e-mail with that domain, but I hate webmail, so anyway... I put in all the settings, and tested it out, and I managed to receive the last 6 months' worth of my e-mail with no trouble at all. Tried to send an e-mail from that account.... and hit a brick wall. *sigh* All my techier friends have informed me that ISPs routinely block the standard outgoing port from sending from other domains or what have you. I vaguely remember having to phone to get them to unblock it last time, so okay. I'll call and get them to unblock it again.
Except THIS time, I run into wonder-dummy who won't listen to me and is determined to blame her lack of knowledge of the issue to my stupidity. *sigh* So I'm telling her that I suspect that port 25 is blocked from sending anything other than sympatico mail, and ask if that might possibly be the case and can we unblock it if it is. Without even checking anything, she says "We never block ports, there must be something wrong with the way you entered the settings, and we don't support third-party e-mail.".... errrr okayyyyyy. That wasn't at all what I asked. It's conceivably possible that i messed up the settings, but I had three people check them to make SURE I had them in properly, and EVERYTHING (including the error message I get from Outlook Express) points to this port being blocked. Can we just CHECK please? Apparently not. She got really belligerent with me, and told me that if I wasn't even willing to entertain tech support's suggestions, then she wasn't going to help me further with my THIRD PARTY problem, and went into her closing spiel. I tried to get a word in, but she just kept doing her closing spiel over me and disconnected the call *sigh*
What did I do to offend the gods of technology and intarwebness?
The rest of the time, I swear, I don't know where they hire these people from, but if they don't have a script for it, then I'm stupid and don't know what I'm talking about. usual instance being that my ISP regularly lowers the bandwidth allowances on their unlimited usage accounts, and I have to phone to get it popped back up again, which pisses me off, but hey, the good techs just say "sure, we'll do that" and the crappy techs go "there's nothing wrong with the bandwidth at our end..." type type type type type - and suddenly it's *fixed* (oooh it must be MAGIC).
My situation: My computer died back in August and I recently got a new hard drive and reinstalled WinXP and got everything back up and running. It was a beautiful thing, and being the not-terribly-technically-talented person I am, I was inordinately proud of myself. Had a bit of a hiccup setting up my 'net connection, but tech support was very helpful and we got it all done (issue was that my video card needs to be replaced and the driver was causing conflicts, etc. so until I could get online to get a current one, I could only boot up in safe mode, and there's no connection wizard in safe mode *sigh*).
Everything is lovely until I try to set up my OTHER e-mail address as a pop3 account - I help run an online database and have an e-mail with that domain, but I hate webmail, so anyway... I put in all the settings, and tested it out, and I managed to receive the last 6 months' worth of my e-mail with no trouble at all. Tried to send an e-mail from that account.... and hit a brick wall. *sigh* All my techier friends have informed me that ISPs routinely block the standard outgoing port from sending from other domains or what have you. I vaguely remember having to phone to get them to unblock it last time, so okay. I'll call and get them to unblock it again.
Except THIS time, I run into wonder-dummy who won't listen to me and is determined to blame her lack of knowledge of the issue to my stupidity. *sigh* So I'm telling her that I suspect that port 25 is blocked from sending anything other than sympatico mail, and ask if that might possibly be the case and can we unblock it if it is. Without even checking anything, she says "We never block ports, there must be something wrong with the way you entered the settings, and we don't support third-party e-mail.".... errrr okayyyyyy. That wasn't at all what I asked. It's conceivably possible that i messed up the settings, but I had three people check them to make SURE I had them in properly, and EVERYTHING (including the error message I get from Outlook Express) points to this port being blocked. Can we just CHECK please? Apparently not. She got really belligerent with me, and told me that if I wasn't even willing to entertain tech support's suggestions, then she wasn't going to help me further with my THIRD PARTY problem, and went into her closing spiel. I tried to get a word in, but she just kept doing her closing spiel over me and disconnected the call *sigh*
What did I do to offend the gods of technology and intarwebness?
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