Unruly Behavior

Ok, I got called out to a new client on Monday afternoon. Their ISP had blocked them from sending e-mail via their own POP3 e-mail server because they were detecting SPAM zombies within the network.

They were also having some other problems with the network, and I needed to get into their router and make some changes.

So we called the ISP to get access to the router.

First, the guy who used to work with the ISP quit on short notice, over a year ago, and had used his Hotmail account to handle all the business with the ISP.

The ISP would not give us the router username and password without an e-mail from this Hotmail address. After about fifteen minutes of fighting with the tech, we asked for a supervisor and explained that the guy was gone, so there was going to be no e-mail to the ISP from his Hotmail account.

So the supervisor tells us that the only alternative is for someone from within the domain to send an e-mail to the ISP. "OK," I said, then unblock the customer from sending e-mail."

The supervisor says he can't do that because there are spam zombies in the network.

So, I asked, "Is the only way to fix our network from which you are blocking e-mail is to send you an e-mail is to send you an e-mail that you won't get because you are blocking our e-mail?"

And he said, "Yes."

Completely frustrated, I asked, "Do you speak any language other than English?"

He said, "No, why?"

I replied, "Because I wanted you to say what I just told you in another language and see if it sounded just as stupid as it did in English. Let me talk to your supervisor."

So finally, the third person we talked to seemed to understand that you can't send an e-mail from a domain where e-mail is being blocked and gave us the username and password.

This whole process took over an hour and a half with hold times and hunting down supervisors. Net cost for the ISP being inept for my customer: $225.00

Netifice could possibley be the least useful ISP I have dealt with in a while.

Now, here is the absolutely funniest part of the story. Everyone at the company that had the problem was from India. The ISP help desk was all in the USA. That is the exact opposite of how it usually works.

Labels: bad support, isp, work