ireland.com Service Discontinuation

KeithGav · 16-10-2012 10:02am #1

You may be aware that The Irish Times has just sold it's ireland.com domain name to Tourism Ireland and that the service will be discontinued from the 7th November next.

Personally, I think this is disgraceful and would urge anyone affected by this to contact them directly at customerservice@digitalworx.ie.
Below is a copy of the email I have sent to them:

I am emailing to register my disgust at your decision to sell the ireland.com domain to Tourism Ireland and the impact this will have on your customers.

As a regular user of the service for over 10 years, this development will affect me in a number of ways- having used the domain name as my main business email account, the address was extremely beneficial as it was easy to remember and is my main point of contact for friends, colleagues and customers. Not only will I now have to go through the tortuous process of having to inform everyone of a change of email address, but I will also need to get all my corporate literature, business cards, brochures, etc. revised, which will be a very expensive exercise and a cost I could do without in the current economic climate.

I have had a look at the FAQs page you have created for service users to detail how to deal with this transition and the attitude exhibited in same is contemptuous to say the least- your assertion that when initially signing up for the service, users implicitly acknowledged the terms and conditions and ownership of the 'free service' resided with ireland.com- this ignores the fact that we have been paying for this 'premium service' for the past number of years...

I would strongly urge you to reconsider how you are treating users of this service and how you propose to manage the transition- while your grubby little deal with Tourism Ireland, which provides you with an exit from the business which you have obviously long sought to do as demonstrated by the minimalist approach used in relation to customer service and technical maintenance of the service in recent years, probably cannot be reversed at this stage, how you treat customers having to cope with this changeover can be easily improved. You state that, after the 7th December 2012, "all data will be removed and destroyed", and that users will have to export all of their emails to a new account- surely in this day of 'cloud computing' and easy remote access etc., it would not be too much to ask that the data each user has be exported to a temporary holding site while they make new arrangements. More importantly, and to lessen the burden you are imposing on customers of the service, it should not be too much to expect that a mail forwarding service be provided so that customers can have emails sent to their existing ireland.com address automatically forwarded to their new address? In my opinion, such a facility should be a basic minimum service, provided on an indefinite basis, for long-standing customers of ireland.com.

Menas · 16-10-2012 10:40am

Personally I dont see a problem with the IT selling something that they own to someone else.
They are not contractually bound to continue offering this service to you and are not legally prevented from selling the domain...so good luck to them.

I had an ireland.com email address about 10 years ago but moved to a more stable domain as I reckoned the Irish times would sell ireland.com at some point or would loose money on it and shut it down (this was when all IT content was subscription only).

keithclancy · 16-10-2012 11:01am

Only way to make sure you keep your user@domain name is to buy your own domain and maintain your own service.

This has always been the case.

Cabaal · 16-10-2012 11:49am

OP, you are far better off just buying your own domain and using that for your e-mail address in future.

I bought my first domain back in 1998 and I've used it for my e-mail address since then, I've not changed my e-mail address since even though I've changed e-mail providers a number of times and currently I'm with gmail.com.

[EDIT]
Just to add, buying your own domain is very cost affective, you can renew a .com domain with blacknight.com for 9 years for just over 80e. Also a domain name for a business or on a CV looks far far more professional then joe_soap@ireland.com any day of the week imho

You can complain all you want about Ireland.com being sold but you are wasting your time, they are well within their rights to sell on the service or to shut it down as they wish. At the end of the day you agreed to their Terms & Conditions when signing up.

Fr Tod Umptious · 16-10-2012 2:07pm

What pisses me off about it most is that they do not seem to be offering a forwarding service, basically any e-mail sent to my ireland.com address will bounce from 7th Nov.

keithclancy · 16-10-2012 3:17pm

Fr Tod Umptious wrote: »

What pisses me off about it most is that they do not seem to be offering a forwarding service, basically any e-mail sent to my ireland.com address will bounce from 7th Nov.

Its not possible for them to do this as they will hand over ownership of the Domain.

Functionally ireland.com will no longer point at their servers.

Cabaal · 16-10-2012 3:27pm

Fr Tod Umptious wrote: »

What pisses me off about it most is that they do not seem to be offering a forwarding service, basically any e-mail sent to my ireland.com address will bounce from 7th Nov.

As already pointed out you can't expect the new owners to do this as they'll be in control of the domain and its nothing to do with the Irish Times anymore,

Once its transferred the name servers and MX records for the domain will be nothing to do with the Irish Times anymore so it would be impossible for the Irish Times to offer a forwarding e-mail service anymore.

It would also be unreasonable to expect the tourist board to offer this service and to incur the expense and time setting it up, it would also cause confusion for people e-mailing the tourist board as you can safely assume they might use the ireland.com domain for their own e-mail service.

galwayjohn89 · 16-10-2012 3:31pm

As has been said before you can get .com domain names for less then €7 a year. I have a .ie domain name for my email

16-10-2012 3:35pm

keithclancy wrote: »

Its not possible for them to do this as they will hand over ownership of the Domain.

Functionally ireland.com will no longer point at their servers.

They could (and perhaps should) have included it as part of their negotiations with Tourism Ireland. It wouldn't be especially difficult to set up. As a compromise, they could have turned off everything except mail-forwarding as planned, then provided a 2/3-month mail-forwarding service. 3 weeks is a pretty short time-line

Cabaal · 16-10-2012 3:37pm

Vuzuggu wrote: »

As has been said before you can get .com domain names for less then €7 a year. I have a .ie domain name for my email

You can indeed get a .ie domain, however they are more expensive then a .com and the IEDR is more strict about giving you the domain that you want.

For example to get myname.ie I had to send them a scan of my passport, you don't have to do that to get a .com domain

RangeR · 16-10-2012 3:53pm

28064212 wrote: »

They could (and perhaps should) have included it as part of their negotiations with Tourism Ireland. It wouldn't be especially difficult to set up. As a compromise, they could have turned off everything except mail-forwarding as planned, then provided a 2/3-month mail-forwarding service. 3 weeks is a pretty short time-line

Why would they even care? They got half a mill for something they probably paid less than €100 for over it's lifetime.

say_who_now? · 16-10-2012 3:58pm

OP you REALLY used a web based third party service for your business e-mail address? Really??

Unbelievable!

I admit I don't know much about ireland.com but I would sincerely suggest that you set yourself up with a proper business domain name asap and then import those settings to Outlook (or whatever your preferred e-mail client is) and send out a group mail to your contacts informing them to update their address books.

You'll have to take the hit on your personalised stationery I'm afraid, as I can't see any way around that one.

And just for future reference OP, every business has an exit strategy built in, I am self employed and I don't plan on keeping working forever. At some stage I plan on selling on the business and my customers will have to be prepared for this eventuality. Ireland.com have handled this as well as any other business that provides a service, and then make a business decision which involves closing down the service because it is not profitable. This is one of the drawbacks even of cloud computing that you mention in your OP. Nokia used provide an e-mail service @Ovi.com but had to sell it off to @yahoo! because it just was unsustainable. Fortunately for me having my own domain e-mail address this change didn't affect me, nor would I use a gmail, hotmail, etc e-mail address for business.

Consumer confidence is inspired by permanency and professionalism, so if you're also using a mobile number alone for your business number, I'd change that now too and get yourself a landline number before you go to vistaprint.com and design yourself a new set of stationery for your business.

RangeR · 16-10-2012 4:01pm

On that same subject, the amount of businesses that advertise themselves as <insert company name>@eircom.net on their vehicle livery is unbelievable.

16-10-2012 4:02pm

RangeR wrote: »

Why would they even care? They got half a mill for something they probably paid less than €100 for over it's lifetime.

On that basis, why not just switch it off tomorrow? And the absolute minimal costings for a site the size of ireland.com will have been many multiples of tens of thousands of euro

Cabaal · 16-10-2012 4:20pm

28064212 wrote: »

On that basis, why not just switch it off tomorrow? And the absolute minimal costings for a site the size of ireland.com will have been many multiples of tens of thousands of euro

Because they are allowing a wind down period,

Bottom line is Ireland.com was never a success for the Irish Times, the subscription model never worked out for them on the site and whilst it really should have been the number one news source in Ireland it failed over and over again.

The e-mail service also died a death, I believe it started off free then they stung people by changing it all to a charged service because the site as a whole wasn't working for them and bringing in the money they expected.

Such a shame they could never made a decent job of it,

RangeR · 16-10-2012 4:33pm

28064212 wrote: »

And the absolute minimal costings for a site the size of ireland.com will have been many multiples of tens of thousands of euro

No. That's the development and hosting costs, that can be migrated to a different domain name. The domain NAME costs pennies.

Potentially, they could move the entire ireland.com website to something like ireland.irishtimes.ie at no cost. Still netting half a mill.

bit of a bogey · 16-10-2012 5:37pm

OP it looks like it’s the end of the road for Ireland.com email and don't think there is anything we can do. I too am incredibly disappointed.

Did you even get a response from the email you sent?

zokarin · 16-10-2012 6:08pm

Yeah... have to agree with the OP - horrible form from a horrible operation. Other posters are right that the company has the right (obviously) to discontinue the service, etc. But, most people (and, many lawyers) would argue that the company has a duty of care towards its customers, and 3 week's notice is way, way less than I would expect.

Plus, a redirect service is essentially trivial to set up and the IT could easily have sold the domain with a stipulation that a redirect be offered. This would probably cost a few hundred per year to run and furthermore provide the "new" ireland.com with a ready-made (and cheerfully-disposed) initial set of email marketing addressees to contact for their rollout marketing campaign. There are many, many outsourced services that would operate a redirect mailserver 24/7 at low cost. But, no, it's all too difficult for the guys at Tourism Ireland and the IT to get a handle on. End result: 1000s of pissed off people and probably 1000s of missed emails in the future.

Z

podgee · 16-10-2012 6:24pm

Like the OP, I find this incredibly frustrating. I have a work email address and a personal one - the personal one is my ireland.com account. I signed up for it when ireland.com initially started (late nineties) and at that time, I had to pay about £30 / year for it. It was a great service and was pretty solid over the intervening years.

Everything that I don't want linked to work is linked to it - my ebay account, credit card account, household utilities etc. etc. - and now to be given really really short notice to transition everything.. Sure, moving the mail and setting up a new email account (be it on my own domain or with gmail etc.) is an inconvenience - it's everything else that's a pain in the backside. Why could they not have negotiated a mail forwarding arrangement with Tourism Ireland ?? As a previously paying punter for their service, I'm really really disappointed. The last twelve plus years of my online life needs to be now repointed at ridiculously short notice. It's not good enough..

P

keithclancy · 16-10-2012 8:02pm

podgee wrote: »

Like the OP, I find this incredibly frustrating. I have a work email address and a personal one - the personal one is my ireland.com account. I signed up for it when ireland.com initially started (late nineties) and at that time, I had to pay about £30 / year for it. It was a great service and was pretty solid over the intervening years.

Everything that I don't want linked to work is linked to it - my ebay account, credit card account, household utilities etc. etc. - and now to be given really really short notice to transition everything.. Sure, moving the mail and setting up a new email account (be it on my own domain or with gmail etc.) is an inconvenience - it's everything else that's a pain in the backside. Why could they not have negotiated a mail forwarding arrangement with Tourism Ireland ?? As a previously paying punter for their service, I'm really really disappointed. The last twelve plus years of my online life needs to be now repointed at ridiculously short notice. It's not good enough..

P

30 quid a year is a rip.

Its 8 quid a year for a domain and google will host it for free.

God forbid google goes bust you can move the address easily.

podgee · 16-10-2012 9:19pm

keithclancy wrote: »

30 quid a year is a rip.

Its 8 quid a year for a domain and google will host it for free.

God forbid google goes bust you can move the address easily.

I wasn't clear - £30 / year was back when Google probably hadn't been invented. For perhaps the last 5 or 6 years, it's been free.

P

RangeR · 16-10-2012 9:29pm

keithclancy wrote: »

30 quid a year is a rip.

Its 8 quid a year for a domain and google will host it for free.

God forbid google goes bust you can move the address easily.

€[£]30 a year isn't a "rip" for a service provided, if you couldn't be arsed with having to worry about DNS settings and MX balloola.

On a personal level, I dumped my @ireland address years ago and got my own domain as I didn't like the way the domain was going.

Spocker · 16-10-2012 9:48pm

IN case this is useful for someone still using the service, and wants to download all their emails, I dug out some info from a couple of years ago on the IMAP/POP settings:

Here are our settings:
Incoming server: imap.ireland.com
Incoming port number: 993
Use SSL (secure sockets)
Outgoing server: smtpx.ireland.com
Outgoing port number: 465
Use SSL
Username will be your email address everything before the @ sign.
Password will be the password you use to sign in on webmail.

For POP3 Settings:
Username - username@ireland.com
Password - your account password
Incoming POP3 Server - pop3.ireland.com
Incoming Port - 110
Outgoing SMTP Server - smtpx.ireland.com
Outgoing Port - 25 or 587
SMTP Authentication - Yes
SSL - No

I've no way of testing this though, my account was closed some time ago. If someone gets it working , please post here

podgee · 17-10-2012 12:32am

Spocker wrote: »

IN case this is useful for someone still using the service, and wants to download all their emails, I dug out some info from a couple of years ago on the IMAP/POP settings:

I've no way of testing this though, my account was closed some time ago. If someone gets it working , please post here

Spocker - you are a genius. It worked perfectly using the online imapcopy - https://ssl0.ovh.net/fr/imapcopy/ - fair play to you - up until your post I was exporting and importing.

P

Paddy and Ice · 17-10-2012 1:21am

Maybe we should all email the Irish Times MD, Liam Kavanagh and give him three weeks notice that we will stop buying his newspaper. I have bought the paper 2/3 times a year for 20+ years. That works out at about €250 per year. If they do not introduce a forwarding service or at least a 3 month notice period, that is exactly what I am doing.

yankinlk · 17-10-2012 7:53am

I am shocked and dismayed that the good people of boards.ie are more concerned about MX records them the fact Tourism Ireland has literally flushed a half million euros down the crapper.

Wtf ? The app has killed the domain names cache.

Cabaal · 17-10-2012 8:41am

Paddy and Ice wrote: »

Maybe we should all email the Irish Times MD, Liam Kavanagh and give him three weeks notice that we will stop buying his newspaper. I have bought the paper 2/3 times a year for 20+ years. That works out at about €250 per year. If they do not introduce a forwarding service or at least a 3 month notice period, that is exactly what I am doing.

Go right ahead....your wasting your time.
You can't expect the Irish Times to change a deal that has already been agreed upon in relation to the transfer of the domain.

Cabaal · 17-10-2012 8:48am

yankinlk wrote: »

I am shocked and dismayed that the good people of boards.ie are more concerned about MX records them the fact Tourism Ireland has literally flushed a half million euros down the crapper.

Wtf ? The app has killed the domain names cache.

No they haven't,
If that was the case the actual facebook.com domain wouldn't be worth much....only the app would.

Domains especially .com's are still worth big money, Ireland.com is the perfect domain to be used for Tourism in Ireland and it was a good idea for Irish Tourism to secure the domain instead of allowing a company or organization outside of Ireland to do so.

Domains in general are still very popular and because alot of the good names have been used up on .com, net and .org that is why we such pushes for other domains like the .xxx and .movies etc. Good names such as Ireland.com are as popular as ever though.

To even suggest domains have been killed because of apps is just silly, its as silly as the people that said years ago that IM's and texts had killed e-mail....5 years later we still have e-mail as popular as ever.
http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2007/11/the_death_of_email.html

Of course, some people think apps will be dead in 3-5 years...http://www.thedomains.com/2012/01/18/meebo-founder-apps-will-be-dead-in-3-5-years/

podgee · 17-10-2012 9:29am

Cabaal wrote: »

Go right ahead....your wasting your time.
You can't expect the Irish Times to change a deal that has already been agreed upon in relation to the transfer of the domain.

I agree. I buy the paper everyday for many years. Stopping buying it will not influence a contractual agreement that's already in place.

According to the article on the sale of the domain, there are 15,000 active users - now if you could form a coherent band of comrades, then perhaps we could persuade the new owners to offer the service for a small premium ?

P

Sorentox · 17-10-2012 7:31pm

I feel it’s is a disgrace how Ireland.com are off loading their loyal customers. They have sold up and we are been told to step out of their way! Get lost.

My Email address is my Electronic Identity for my personal and business transactions. Most of which are financial and legal as everything has to be confirmed by email for the last 15 yrs. They have decided they want to delete that identification, data history and it’s our tough. This is not acceptable considering we paid, for years, for this service.

The total disregard for there customers is further Highlighted with the time spans they have given there customers:-

“our @ireland.com email subscribers that the service will be discontinued from November 7th “ we received this notification late in the 15th of Oct. God forbid anyone was away on Holidays or in hospital sick – what time does this give them?

“You can set your ireland.com email account so that anyone who emails you receives an automated response informing him/her of your change of address (see instructions below). This will be available until November 7th.” - what’s the rush in cutting off this service? For customers of 10 years, this illustrates even further disregard from Ireland.com to its customers. We all have to get new email addresses now – a notification of change of address should stay up for the next 9 to 12 months advising email senders of this change. It not the address holders who at fault here – but they are been punished.

I take on board that files can be exported and most of the emails will be saved but as they say themselves “we cannot provide technical support for the importing of data to a new or alternative account – this is a task that must be performed from within the account that is to receive data.” Ie) Data can and probably be lost and it’s the users outlook.

I have written to the Data Protection Office about this and they have informed me that it’s the first that they have heard on the issue – typical Irish mentality – lie down a take it! We shouldn’t – we should at a minimum demand the closure dates and notification notices are pushed out further and give people a change.

How many other web sites are we registered with, and our “Ireland.com” address is our identification. Each of these have to be contacted with a new address.

www.dataprotection.ie

email:- info@dataprotection.ie

Phone 00353 57 868 4800

If your annoyed by the way you are been treated – write to them today. It’s your data, your data history, your electronic address and electronic identification. We are not all IT engineers – this is a cumbersome task to complete properly for an average email user. They have to show some respect. Their deadline need to be pushed back significantly.

I wrote an email of complaint to them and they gave me a standard reply dictating that these issues were addressed in my agreed “term & conditions” – I replied, asking for the T&C’s – 36hrs later no sign of the original T&C’s. It’s a big brother approach and it needs to be slowed down a little.

keithclancy · 17-10-2012 7:45pm

Sorentox wrote: »

I wrote an email of complaint to them and they gave me a standard reply dictating that these issues were addressed in my agreed “term & conditions” – I replied, asking for the T&C’s – 36hrs later no sign of the original T&C’s. It’s a big brother approach and it needs to be slowed down a little.

I'll save you some time there:

From 2005

http://web.archive.org/web/20050423055950/http://www.ireland.com/services/email/termsconditions.htm

If User uses the e-mail service for business purposes, ireland.com accepts no responsibility for deletion, corruption or failure to store messages or content maintained or transmitted by the service. ireland.com accept no responsibility for any business as a direct or indirect result of the Services.

and

MODIFICATIONS AND DISCONTINUANCE OF THE SERVICES
ireland.com reserves the right sole discretion to modify or discontinue the Services, or any portion thereof, at any time, with or without notice to User. ireland.com shall not be liable to User or any third party should ireland.com exercise its right to modify or discontinue the Services. No refunds will be granted to Users in this instance.

Honestly, it would have been worth your while to read the Terms and Conditions if your using it for business purposes.

AFAIK thats been the conditions since 2002

Time · 17-10-2012 7:46pm

Sorentox wrote: »

I feel it’s is a disgrace how Ireland.com are off loading their loyal customers.

Except you aren't their customer because you don't pay for the service. Their advertisers are the customers, and your the product being sold.

Sorentox · 17-10-2012 8:29pm

We did Pay subscription for the early years - €30 / yr. It was there choice to stop looking for payment as advertising was not covering there cost, presumably.
Our €30 help support this venture in its early days, which have lead to its survival and now half million euro sale.

" ireland.com accepts no responsibility for deletion, corruption or failure to store messages or content maintained or transmitted by the service "

My greatest issue is with there time span and unreasonable deadlines. Not everyone opens there email daily or weekly for that matter. What if you are elderly, in Hospital, or on holidays? These accounts contain personal legal and finaicial correspondance -- do you dicover some day they have all been deleted.

remember yesterdays email, could be the source of todays dispute, the basis of tomorrows court action and your email account may often hold the only piece of evidence to be used. The time span for notification and deletion of the accounts is too short.

The change of address notification of one month, is months too short. Whats the rush taking that down?

They have a right to close down, yes -- we have a right to some user / customer respect and be shown a little more courtesy! With out the 15,000 users, would they have been in a position to command a half a million?

The deadlines have to be pushed out!

keithclancy · 17-10-2012 8:45pm

Sorentox wrote: »

We did Pay subscription for the early years - €30 / yr. It was there choice to stop looking for payment as advertising was not covering there cost, presumably.
Our €30 help support this venture in its early days, which have lead to its survival and now half million euro sale.

" ireland.com accepts no responsibility for deletion, corruption or failure to store messages or content maintained or transmitted by the service "

My greatest issue is with there time span and unreasonable deadlines. Not everyone opens there email daily or weekly for that matter. What if you are elderly, in Hospital, or on holidays? These accounts contain personal legal and finaicial correspondance -- do you dicover some day they have all been deleted.

http://www.ireland.com/step-by-step-guide

Its 2 months to allow you to download your data.

There are a number of free email service providers that will allow you to set up a new email account. Many of these will allow you to easily transfer emails directly from your @ireland.com account before midnight on December 7th.

If the sales already been done and the domain will be switched over. While it would be technically possible for the new company to maintain a service to send and auto-reply / redirect, it wouldn't be worth their while to do so as they would take all the flack for any failure in service.

Menas · 17-10-2012 9:57pm

Sorentox wrote: »

With out the 15,000 users, would they have been in a position to command a half a million?
!

Can you explain to me how 15,000 people with ireland.com email addresses have driven the value of the domain name to 450k? I don't understand.

Paddy and Ice · 17-10-2012 11:50pm

I spoke with John O'Shea yesterday morning who is their Head of Online and he agreed that the three weeks was very short. I asked him could he put up an auto-forward facility i.e. John Smith is no longer using john.smith@ireland.com from (date) but can now be reached at new.address@email.com etc.

He said they looked at it but there was a problem with implementing it but that he would look at it again. Even if it was in place for three months at least it would help people update their records as opposed to the ridiculously short time frame of three weeks.

This might suit the Irish Times and Tourism Ireland but they have both shown complete disdain for the users. What goes around, comes around.

Paddy and Ice · 17-10-2012 11:52pm

I am new to Boards. I started a similar 'thread' called Ireland.com pulled the plug after 15 years - 3 weeks notice! can you join / link that thread to this one?

Cabaal · 18-10-2012 8:39am

Paddy and Ice wrote: »

This might suit the Irish Times and Tourism Ireland but they have both shown complete disdain for the users. What goes around, comes around.

Its nothing to do with Irish Tourism though, they are now going to use the domain for tourism...they are not a e-mail provider and the last thing they need is 15k odd e-mail address being used on the domain when they likely plan on using the domain for their own e-mail addresses.

Also as for what goes around, comes around....whats your revenge on Irish Tourism?....tell people not to visit Ireland? :pac:

KeithGav · 18-10-2012 2:51pm

As the original 'OP' on this thread; I would urge all of those subscribers who are p!ssed off with the discontinuation of the ireland.com service to submit a formal complaint to the National Consumer Agency (www.nca.ie) as this is surely a clear-cut example of an organisation badly treating their customers?
I submitted my complaint this morning and, just maybe, if they get enough complaints about it they may persuade IT/TI to reconsider the wholly insufficent notice period and complete lack of any interim arrangements to enable users to make transition to alternative service...

18-10-2012 2:59pm

KeithGav wrote: »

As the original 'OP' on this thread; I would urge all of those subscribers who are p!ssed off with the discontinuation of the ireland.com service to submit a formal complaint to the National Consumer Agency (www.nca.ie) as this is surely a clear-cut example of an organisation badly treating their customers?

Badly? Maybe, but the NCA have no power there. Illegally? No.

KeithGav wrote: »

I submitted my complaint this morning and, just maybe, if they get enough complaints about it they may persuade IT/TI to reconsider the wholly insufficent notice period

The only people to complain to are IT, and they've already made their decision. They're unlikely to go back on it, unless a significant number of people are going to boycott their papers on the back of it

KeithGav wrote: »

complete lack of any interim arrangements to enable users to make transition to alternative service...

http://www.ireland.com/step-by-step-guide

keithclancy · 18-10-2012 3:04pm

KeithGav wrote: »

As the original 'OP' on this thread; I would urge all of those subscribers who are p!ssed off with the discontinuation of the ireland.com service to submit a formal complaint to the National Consumer Agency (www.nca.ie) as this is surely a clear-cut example of an organisation badly treating their customers?
I submitted my complaint this morning and, just maybe, if they get enough complaints about it they may persuade IT/TI to reconsider the wholly insufficent notice period and complete lack of any interim arrangements to enable users to make transition to alternative service...

Can you point out where in your contract with them they state a notice period ?

Honestly your lucky it just didn't disappear one day, theres a few webmail services that have gone that way.

Fr Tod Umptious · 18-10-2012 4:03pm

Paddy and Ice wrote: »

I spoke with John O'Shea yesterday morning who is their Head of Online and he agreed that the three weeks was very short. I asked him could he put up an auto-forward facility i.e. John Smith is no longer using john.smith@ireland.com from (date) but can now be reached at new.address@email.com etc.

He said they looked at it but there was a problem with implementing it but that he would look at it again. Even if it was in place for three months at least it would help people update their records as opposed to the ridiculously short time frame of three weeks.

This might suit the Irish Times and Tourism Ireland but they have both shown complete disdain for the users. What goes around, comes around.

Well that's not exactly how I was thinking of it.

I was thinking more in the background, i.e that the current active user specifies a forwarding e-mail address and after 07/11 all emails are automatically forwarded to that e-mail address

I have already put a permanent auto reply on my e-mails now informing people of what my new address is.

KeithGav · 18-10-2012 5:16pm

keithclancy wrote: »

Can you point out where in your contract with them they state a notice period ?

Honestly your lucky it just didn't disappear one day, theres a few webmail services that have gone that way.

Does the notion of "customer service" not exist?

18-10-2012 5:19pm

KeithGav wrote: »

Does the notion of "customer service" not exist?

It does. If you're unhappy with customer service, don't use the service anymore. But the service provider is not obliged to improve their service

Cabaal · 18-10-2012 5:27pm

KeithGav wrote: »

Does the notion of "customer service" not exist?

It does, the Irish Times are actually providing very good support

If you are in need of further assistance, our helpline is open Monday to Friday, 8am to 8pm on telephone 1890 876 666 or 01 685 6999, or email customerservice@digitalworx.ie . Please note: Customer Service will be unavailable on Bank Holiday Monday, October 29th.

Honestly, in all the mail providers I've seen close up shop I've never ever once seen any of them setup a helpline you could call.

So yes, they are providing a level of customer service, they could just leave you stuck with online help and the FAQ...thats what everyone else does.

sandin · 19-10-2012 9:10am

If the complainers here spent the same time changing their address on their so called "very important contacts" as they have spent venting their anger, they'd be well finished of the job by now.

A few moths ago, I decided not to renew a domain I had for years. It was the main email address I used for many things including all banking, bills, business contacts, friends etc.

It took about 2 hours to effect change to 90% of people - the rest either did not matter or will find me if necessary.

Here's how to do it.
1 - get a REAL email address that you control.
2 - Send text message to all conatcts in your phone
3 - Put on facebook that your new address is xx@xx.com and ask for everyone to change it.
4 - Do a list of all online accounts you ahve a spend an hour changing the address and also checking any other details needing change.
5 - Print sticker with notice of new email address and put on every bit of correspondance you have.

6 - Chill out, job done.

granturismo · 19-10-2012 9:43am

sandin wrote: »

If the complainers here spent the same time changing their address on their so called "very important contacts" as they have spent venting their anger, they'd be well finished of the job by now..

Another example of a tech snob. Translation; If you have to rely on ireland.com and their ilk for email then your contacts are really that important.

sandin wrote: »

1 - get a REAL email address that you control.

6 - Chill out, job done.

Another example of 'I know how to do this, you minions dont and I do - na na nana.

keithclancy · 19-10-2012 10:35am

KeithGav wrote: »

Does the notion of "customer service" not exist?

Its a free service, they made it clear in the Terms and Conditions what the service was, you may have paid for it at some stage but this stopped (The charge at the time was clearly defined as a yearly fee)

Another example of a tech snob. Translation; If you have to rely on ireland.com and their ilk for email then your contacts are really that important.

If your using a free service as a communication method for your business its not a very good idea.

Just to anyone here thats using services such as Skype/VoIP over a DSL Line for example.

If your using a Consumer/Free Service be aware that you will not have recourse in the event the service fails, e.g. your DSL Line goes down your without Phone/Skype/E-Mail/Access to your online services will not work until it can be restored.

This is why companies sell Consumer and Business products, Business products come defined with a clear Service Level Agreement with Guaranteed restoration times.

E.G.

Eircom Business:
http://business.eircom.net/broadband/products/landline/voice/19272542/

Guaranteed 8 working hours turnaround

Now get guaranteed 8 hour working repair with the new Business line 8 hour repair from as little as €2.50 (ex VAT) / line per month on top of the cost of your standard telephone line

Whereas the Consumer product has no such Service Level Agreement.

If you don't do that, then I would recommend at the very least you have an automatic forward when unavailable set on your VoiP / Skype number to your mobile and have a 3G Dongle as a backup.

If your business depends on communication then I would recommend that people have a second look at how they handle their business communication/data.

Using a free e-mail address for business purpose, is NOT a good idea and honestly might put some customers off contacting you at all. I'll usually avoid a business if it doesn't have a landline number and has an address like "johnny65@hotmail.com"

Also, when Ireland.com switch over the domain, anyone that sends a mail will get a response saying "Unable to Deliver" so they won't just disappear into a black hole.

Hope this helps and tbh the previous poster is correct, if you spent the time switching over any accounts and notifying people through facebook / auto reply that you will not longer use this address the less problems there will be.

While I understand people might be angry because of the hassle, at least you know for the future and it didn't just disappear without warning.

Cabaal · 19-10-2012 11:01am

keithclancy, have to agree with you fully on the business users using a consumer service for business, not smart and certainly not clever.

Used to deal with ADSL provision and faults for one of the biggest providers in the UK and the amount of people that would make business loss claims was just hilarious on a almost daily basis.

Every single one of them failed, they never got compensation for any affects on their business as they had signed to a consumer/home service.

No one ever stopped them signing up to a business service with a business service level agreement, I regularly used to respond to customers advising that if uptime was that important they should go with a business package.

Save ireland.com email · 19-10-2012 5:24pm

In the Dail yesterday the Tourism Minister Leo Varadkar left open the possibility that the ireland.com email service may be continued.

"I will discuss it with the chief executive of Tourism Ireland to see if there is a way to facilitate people retaining those addresses," Minister Vardakar said in reply to questions from Fianna Fail TD Timmy Dooley.

Register your protest at: http://www.facebook.com/ReverseIreland.comClosure

Email Minister Leo Varadkar asking for closure decision to be reversed: minister@dttas.ie

RangeR · 19-10-2012 5:31pm

Save ireland.com email wrote: »

In the Dail yesterday the Tourism Minister Leo Varadkar left open the possibility that the ireland.com email service may be continued.

"I will discuss it with the chief executive of Tourism Ireland to see if there is a way to facilitate people retaining those addresses," Minister Vardakar said in reply to questions from Fianna Fail TD Timmy Dooley.

Register your protest at: http://www.facebook.com/ReverseIreland.comClosure

Email Minister Leo Varadkar asking for closure decision to be reversed: minister@dttas.ie

No no no no no, God no.

Just no.

EDIT : Actually. Reported. Duplicate accounts not allowed.

ireland.com Service Discontinuation

Comments