Given my line of work, I wouldn’t consider myself to be stupid… so why is it that tech support workers often consider me so???

This is one of those things that from time to time bugs me senseless so I figure its about time for me to write about it. The case in question relates to mail messages I have been receiving recently. Its happened before, but the last time it was only one or two messages… the current problem has been on going since the middle of September.

I’m receiving bounce messages from MTA’s all over the place… the current batch are coming from Hotmail. Nothing strange in that… send a message, mail address is full, doesn’t exist… whatever… you get a bounce message. Only one problem… these messages are apparently originating from a non-existant address on my personal email domain that I’ve had for donkeys years.

So, since I use this domain for my personal mail like job hunting and such, I figured I’d drop my service provider a line and see if there is anything they could do.

Heres the original message I sent to them.

Hi,

This isn’t an urgent technical issue, but I do need some advice.

In the last few weeks, I’ve been receiving more and more emails concerning messages that couldn’t be delivered. It appears that someone is spamming with my ???? domain. Is there anything I can do about this? The initial messages have been deleted, but I’m keeping the new ones, if you need to see a copy.

My concern with this is that my legitamate emails start getting blocked or I end up on a blackhole list somewhere. Is there any thing ???? can do about this, or do I have to handle it myself? If I do, can you offer any advice about who to contact, what to say etc?

I hope you can help.

Now, I thought that explained the situation quite clearly. Someone is spamming with my domain. This is the reply I got….

Thanks for your e-mail,

As a ???? customer you’re protected by the Brightmail anti spam filter which protects you from most of the spam messages.

Meanwhile you could try installing an antispam software such as ‘mailwasher’ ( www.mailwasher.net) or Norton anti spam. This would definetely reduce the number of spam messages you are receiving and would filter those spam, which have slipped through the Brightmail filter.

Unfortunately there is little we can do to stop these troublesome emails. Much like bulk unsolicted email (spam) and virus infected mail ???? suggest that you filter any unwanted messages via message rules.

As Virus and spam is a part of internet its not possible to stop them completely however secure a system might be, I
hope you would not defy or mar this fact.

What you could do is log on to ???? webmail (URL Removed) and if you do not need that email you can delete it from there.

To access webmail you need to have a pop3 password.
To ensure that you have a pop3 password please visit this site:
(URL Removed) and set a new pop3 password.

Yo dont have to worry about your email address been listed as a spam because we at ???? have a regular check on the
network to see if a ???? customer is listed as a spammer,and if you are been listed as a spammer we will intimate you
and help you resolve it.

Firstly, there are some glaring english errors in this mail. In fact I would go as far as to say, generally in this mail the understanding of english sentence structure etc is bloody appauling. Certainly, it should be better considered this is the view many people will have of your company. Secondly, whilst people maintain that view (Virus and spam is a part of internet) the situation won’t get any better. For someone in a major ISP to be making that statement is wrong. Its NOT part of the internet. Its a result of security holes in numerous pieces of software that allow thousands of machines to be compromised (* me waves at Microsoft *). As for the closing part of this statement “I hope you would not defy or mar this fact.” ??? Did you translate this mail from martian to english with Babelfish or something… that doesn’t make any sense… as for whether I would deny it… I JUST HAVE!!

I think you’ll agree, that the majority of this reply centers around me filtering incoming mail for spam… erm HELLO! I didn’t ask how to stop spam.

So I sent another message…

Hi,

I know how to filter spam from my incoming email. This was not what I was enquiring about. My query centered around the action I or ???? can take if some one is sending spam that claims to be from a mailbox on my ???? domain.

I have been receiving bounced messages claiming to be sent from (Address Removed). Since I am the only person with access to my ???? account, this is clearly the work of some spammer. My concern is that legitimate emails from me or to me get blocked as a result of this spam that apparently originates from my ???? domain.

In light of this, is there anything you or I can do to stop the illegitimateuse of my domain?

Reiterate the problem. Maybe they’ll get a clue and write a meaningful response.

Thanks for your e-mail,

If you could install the anti spam filter, namely mailwasher. You can get a help by getting rid of these mail.

WTF???? WAKE UP… READ THE FRICKIN MAIL!!! I KNOW HOW TO FILTER SPAM… I WANT ADVICE ABOUT WHAT I CAN DO WHEN SOMEONE IS SENDING SPAM THAT CLAIMS TO BE FROM MY DOMAIN!!!!!

Apologies for the language, but these aren’t the only techies I’ve had dealings with… the staff at EA customer support leave a lot to be desired to. Overall, the quality and service provided by frontline tech support staff (at least the ones I’ve had to deal with – With one noteable exception… Dedipower… the hosting company we use… their guys are fantastic) these days is absolutely bloody awful.

When the support takes the form of emails, the language is to be perfectly honest absolute crud. I know primary school children who can speak more clearly and make less basic grammatical errors than these supposedly well educated intelligent people.

I would go as far as to say that if these people worked for me, I’d fire them. Their replies are littered with glaring grammatical errors and generally they don’t answer the question.

Anyone else have similar problems? I’m sure there are lots of people out there who do. The big players need to sit up and take stock… if the service provided by their support staff sucks, people will take their custom elsewhere.

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 15th, 2005 at 10:33 am and is filed under Wind Ups. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.