Email account fees

[Ming the Merciless]

It will be deleted, not a scam. I had an old talk talk email deleted a few months back.

 

[presta]

I used to do similar, using throw-away email accounts for various purposes but that became a bit cumbersome. Instead you can have just one account but use the + separator to use one inbox for all your stuff. For example, if your new email address is Skol@gmail.com and you don’t want eBay or Amazon to have your true address, you use Skol+eBay@gmail.com or Skol+Amazon@gmail.com. That way, if you start getting spam at least you know whose system leaked it, and it makes it dead easy to set up filters. As far as I know it works with all email providers. (I use it on Outlook too.)

That's interesting, I didn't know you could do that. It doesn't stop them from leaving the '+Amazon' bit off though.

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

I had a Tiscali account many years ago
when we changed to another provider I just assumed they would leave it alone

but they didn;t - on the day we switched they blocked the email address
I did manage to persude them to unblock it for a day so I could move everything over

but since then I have stuck with things like Hotmail and Gmail so I am not dependant on any contract
(but instead allow massive companies to see what I am doing -sigh)

I wouldn;t mess about with them - assume they will do what they say

but I wouldn;t pay them -- it may be a pain to contact everyone that uses the account but it is a one-off thing and then you are sorted until the World changes

 

[I like Skol]

That's interesting, I didn't know you could do that. It doesn't stop them from leaving the '+Amazon' bit off though.

I did think that. Very easy for hackers and spammers to write basic programming to drop out the '+megacorp' bit of the address and render your attempt at protection useless?

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

I did think that. Very easy for hackers and spammers to write basic programming to drop out the '+megacorp' bit of the address and render your attempt at protection useless?

If it isn't used much
and the people who do use it are ones that are more aware of scams and stuff
then hackers and spammers won;t bother with the effort
sending an email is cheap
the time to try to real someone in is what costs them
if anything they would write something to just not communicate if you do it like that

 

[I like Skol]

It will be deleted, not a scam. I had an old talk talk email deleted a few months back.

I'm working to the premise that the addresses will be locked/deleted at some point, but looks like they legally or by some sort of code of conduct can't/won't do this before 2yrs (so 18 months and counting...).

Already a good chunk of accounts switched, but many, many more still to do. Luckily I do maintain a reasonable, if rather cryptic, list of accounts so at least I have a starting point to work from before I have to look at possible unlisted stuff....

Had an email today from DVLA informing me my car tax would be renewed automatically. That isn't on the list!!!!!!

 

[I like Skol]

Had an email today from DVLA informing me my car tax would be renewed automatically. That isn't on the list!!!!!!

Also can't instantly see how to change the linked email to that one, so will have to dig a bit deeper. And for Mrs Skol's car.

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

SOme years ago my Tesco email was terminated

I had had it since I very first had internet and had not had an actual account with them for many many years

They behaved very well - gave loads of notice
and you had access to the account for a while after it was blocked for anything else so you could see anything that was received
they also allowed you to set up a message to be sent to anyone who sent a message to the account while it was in its end game

they dealt with it very well - especially as I had been using their email server for over 20 years for nothing!!!

 

[I like Skol]

A bit OT, but how the heck are pensioners (and even tech averse younger people) ever supposed to be able to deal with this?

I'm in my early 50s and while not on the cutting edge do at least have a modicum of understanding about I.T 'stuff', but work with people who use computers for their job but wouldn't even know how to switch on a PC and open up a browser if it wasn't already there for them!

The system is rather geared against people in that situation.

 

[presta]

Speaking of linked accounts, I tried to buy something off Craghoppers yesterday, and when I entered my email as a guest is said I'd already got an account registered, so I went to 'Login', and when I clicked 'Forgotten Password' it said there isn't an account registered.

I haven't used Craghoppers before but I have used Regatta, and they now appear to be the same company, so I reckon they cocked it up somewhere when they merged the two databases. (Google tells me they've been the same company for 30 years, but perhaps they operated separately.)

 

[Psamathe]

OP's issue is the reason that for years I've taken the approach of paying for services I use. Even companies like Microsoft and Google don't provide services out of goodness of their hearts and the basis and functionality will always be subject to them seeking ever higher profits.

So I pay for and own my own domain and I route that through an e-mail provider I pay for. In reality owning the domain name is adequate protection as you can move that around between providers but eg @outlook.com and when Microsoft think of more constraints to make higher profits and you facing the same problems.

Don't do free domain registration as you must own the domain and be free to point it to whatever provider you want.

Also the reason I have two phone numbers, both mobile. One my main long term number the other a PAYG SIM I use for transactional stuff like online orders so when SCAMers get it I can just bin it, get another and avoid all the grief of changing number. Transactional stuff eg online orders are the biggest risk when it comes to SCAMers getting it (with your card number).

Ian

 

[icowden]

I like the theory, but in reality I have received minimal spam in the last 10yrs. I think the ISPs have got pretty good at filtering it out so I am not offered cheap viagra, or dates with hot russian babes, or even many offers for amazing PC virus protection, like there used to be in the bad old days. I'm naturally lazy so will do the work once now to wipe the slate clean and maybe start moaning in 10-15yrs time if/when I have to repeat the process....

Have you checked your Tiscali e-mail? I've got loads of spam in there. Sadly nothing from any Nigerian Princes. But definitely one that claims to have footage of me from my laptop camera (spoiler I don't have a laptop), and one that claims my £720 apple watch is on the way to the midlands.

One of the things I like about gmail is that it filters out spam and also occasionally asks "you don't read these e-mails from company x - would you like to unsubscribe"?

 

[Psamathe]

One of the things I like about gmail is that it filters out spam and also occasionally asks "you don't read these e-mails from company x - would you like to unsubscribe"?

A lot of these free mail services come with very limited options regarding filtering. Even iCloud (Apple) which doesn't just SPAM anything from some mail services but deletes the mail. A support group I'm a member of uses hubspot to send meeting invites, news (every couple of months) but Apple reject all mail from hubspot, doesn't even get to your Junk or Bin.

If you want control and long term stability you have to pay for service and own enough to move if provider changes terms under you (which ghey can and do).

Ian

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

A lot of these free mail services come with very limited options regarding filtering. Even iCloud (Apple) which doesn't just SPAM anything from some mail services but deletes the mail. A support group I'm a member of uses hubspot to send meeting invites, news (every couple of months) but Apple reject all mail from hubspot, doesn't even get to your Junk or Bin.

If you want control and long term stability you have to pay for service and own enough to move if provider changes terms under you (which ghey can and do).

Ian

I use gmail for most things
then access it though an email client on my laptop which gives me the control if I need it

 

[PaulSB]

We faced this problem 15+ years ago. We had BT email addresses and BT was making changes which meant we would lose our email addresses. I can't recall the details. BT offered a paid service to maintain the accounts.

Our approach was to open Gmail accounts and set up a forwarding rule from the BT account. After a year we allowed BT to close the accounts. Our logic was if we hadn't received email via BT in those 12 months it wasn't worth bothering with.

Gmail is tremendous.