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BYTE.com > Chaos Manor > 2003

Scams, Bugs and Surly Service

By Jerry Pournelle

March 31, 2003

(Scams, Bugs and Surly Service :  Page 1 of 1 )



Column 272 (Continued from the Previous Week)

The EarthLink Saga

Let me begin by saying that EarthLink has been my means of Internet access for ten years and more, and I have no plans to change that. EarthLink continues to host my wife's web site, where you can find out about and order her reading instruction program. I don't keep my web site there because the volume of traffic is far too large for their non-commercial accounts, and I get special attention and service from the Rocket gang. They also run SpamAssassin, which is effective, and respond quickly when I find false positives. I get a lot of press releases that look like spam. (My web/mail hosting providers aren't currently looking for new clients, so I won't recommend them, but you can find them at linuxmuse.net.)

But we have used EarthLink for years as our Net access system, and we've been satisfied: considerably more satisfied than most of the people I talk to have been with their providers. I have used EarthLink to log on from France and Italy, and some years ago from Finland and Brazil, and so far wherever I have gone in the United States I have found a reasonably close local dialup number and have been able to get my mail and update my web site.

Roberta has had the same experience, which is what makes this story important as well as surprising. It's a grim saga of employee mistakes, good intentions gone bad, and just plain coincidences. It all turned out well; and note that this kind of thing can happen to anyone.

Pay Up Now!

The story began when Roberta got a nasty dunning letter from EarthLink billing. It had the subject line "Important: Final Past Due Notice," and claimed "we have previously sent you invoices and a past due notice but we have still not received a payment to bring your outstanding balance current. This is the final notice we will send you. We have scheduled your EarthLink account for inactivation on 03/19/03 unless payment in full is received before that date."

 Page 1 of 1 


BYTE.com > Chaos Manor > 2003
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