I'm an abuser

Ten days ago I got an email from my ISP saying that my account had
been flagged as possibly being abusive. I exchanged several emails
with them after that. I cut my usage from the 15 hours a day to SEVEN,
less than half. This morning my service was suspended without any
further warning, and I've been told that they CAN'T restore it until
the 1st of August. Obviously that's not acceptable. So I told them to
cancel. Interestingly, I paid for a year in advance and they say it
will take 6 to 8 weeks to refund the money.

Right now I'm using free Juno access (and Google Groups), but it's
very slow and the time is limited. I'm also looking for a new ISP.

SHRIEK

"Marsha L" <ThoseEyes48@**********> wrote in message
news:d3b743c8-a2ca-4eef-993b-7626037843a8@u36g2000pro.************.com...
> Ten days ago I got an email from my ISP saying that my account had
> been flagged as possibly being abusive. I exchanged several emails
> with them after that. I cut my usage from the 15 hours a day to SEVEN,
> less than half. This morning my service was suspended without any
> further warning, and I've been told that they CAN'T restore it until
> the 1st of August. Obviously that's not acceptable. So I told them to
> cancel. Interestingly, I paid for a year in advance and they say it
> will take 6 to 8 weeks to refund the money.
>
> Right now I'm using free Juno access (and Google Groups), but it's
> very slow and the time is limited. I'm also looking for a new ISP.
>
> SHRIEK

Newsguy.com

I set up an OpenDNS connection for Juno, so it's considerably faster
than the one their provider makes. But I'm obviously not going to
spend a lot of time on either.

I gave in and signed up with Cox, so it's just a matter of time until
they send whatever it is that they're sending so I can self install.

If anyone knows where/how to report an ISP for abusing their own TOS,
I'd love to hear it!!

On Jul 23, 9:36 am, "jrogow" <JRo...@Newsguy.com> wrote:

> Newsguy.com

That's not the part that's a concern. They just arbitrarily cut me
off. I can't get to the email account I had on their service and have
no idea who I gave that address to. When I dropped AT&T I spent a long
time changing addresses. While most were changed to Gmail, some
weren't. That means I'm off of some email lists, but as I said, I have
no idea what. I tried sending a test message, and didn't get anything
back, but when I tried to sign in, I got a suspended account notice. I
would have had to pay for the rest of this month (without service)
just to get to the beginning of next month in order see what was in
that mail box.

The lesson here is to use an email account that's separate from your
ISP all the time, not just some of it. I was lazy with a few things...
my Gmail account has my full name, rather than first initial and last
name, so the one with the ISP was shorter... plus it was .net (which
is what the AT&T one was), rather than .com. I'd also given it to
people, also because it was shorter to write.

People who connect via cable (broadband) or DSL are usually 24/7, but
I've been using dial-up. That means a regular phone line and the
computer literally dials the connection each time. There are programs
which will dial any time the connection is lost, and I understand that
they would object to that, but my computer wasn't doing that.

Looks like I'll be solving my phone issues soon too... I've been
saying that the only reason I had a land line was for the computer...
now I have to decide if I want some version of VoIP (Voice over
Internet Protocol), not have anything... etc. So many choices...
SunRocket (are they Cox now?), Skype, MagicJack, Vonage... I never
really looked at any of them, because I knew I couldn't use them.


On Jul 23, 11:14 am, "DocTCW" <doc...@********> wrote:
> Forgive me, Marsha, because I am not that computer literate (though a lot
> more so that Tom in CT who BARELY knows how to use webTV), but how can one
> "abuse" a provider? Most people I know leave themselves online 24/7.

On Jul 23, 1:12 pm, "Vickster" <a397...@webnntp.invalid> wrote:

> Marsha - Personally, I do see where they are coming from. Using a dial-up
> connection you're vying for a modem port of which they have a limited
> amount of ports and a huge number of subscribers. Their "perception" of
> dial-up is basically a user of a few hours a day. That's why they
> implement the "idle time" rule, so no one dials-in and stays on just to be
> connected (or block random telephone solicitation calls). I think we're
> moving, as a techno society, to "always on" connections - cable, DSL,
> wireless, satellite. Once you go DSL, you won't go back (IMHO). It's like
> watching a movie on a new 50" HDTV with a Panasonic Blue-Ray player versus
> a regular RCA TV and a VCR player. There's no comparison.
>
> We had the same "wrong number" problem like you have when we got a new
> telephone number that hadn't aged long enough. My solution was to use CALL
> BLOCK. I can block up to 15 numbers and I do. I believe your provider
> could have handled the situation differently, but that's where customer
> service is headed these days when dealing with minimum wage service reps
> (which is a whole different thread).
>
> Good luck with you decision. Vic

My position was, and is, that their TOS says "unlimited usage". it
they said 3 hours a day, I would never have subscribed to them, but
that appears to be what their idea of unlimited is, unless it's even
less than that!

As for my phone number, it's been at least five years since that
chiropractors office closed. They were dropped from the telephone
directory pretty quickly, but I'm still finding them in some on line
ones. I write to whoever I can get to have the listings dropped, but
some lists don't have any contact info.

While I personally haven't had broadband, or DSL, and I've obviously
heard lots of people rave about it, I haven't been impressed with what
I've seen... I'll know more once the modem gets here.

"Marsha L" <ThoseEyes48@**********> wrote in message
news:c5360bb8-a8ec-4a70-af24-5451e941d54b@y22g2000prd.************.com...
> On Jul 23, 1:12 pm, "Vickster" <a397...@webnntp.invalid> wrote:
>
>> Marsha - Personally, I do see where they are coming from. Using a dial-up
>> connection you're vying for a modem port of which they have a limited
>> amount of ports and a huge number of subscribers. Their "perception" of
>> dial-up is basically a user of a few hours a day. That's why they
>> implement the "idle time" rule, so no one dials-in and stays on just to
>> be
>> connected (or block random telephone solicitation calls). I think we're
>> moving, as a techno society, to "always on" connections - cable, DSL,
>> wireless, satellite. Once you go DSL, you won't go back (IMHO). It's like
>> watching a movie on a new 50" HDTV with a Panasonic Blue-Ray player
>> versus
>> a regular RCA TV and a VCR player. There's no comparison.
>>
>> We had the same "wrong number" problem like you have when we got a new
>> telephone number that hadn't aged long enough. My solution was to use
>> CALL
>> BLOCK. I can block up to 15 numbers and I do. I believe your provider
>> could have handled the situation differently, but that's where customer
>> service is headed these days when dealing with minimum wage service reps
>> (which is a whole different thread).
>>
>> Good luck with you decision. Vic
>
> My position was, and is, that their TOS says "unlimited usage". it
> they said 3 hours a day, I would never have subscribed to them, but
> that appears to be what their idea of unlimited is, unless it's even
> less than that!
>
> As for my phone number, it's been at least five years since that
> chiropractors office closed. They were dropped from the telephone
> directory pretty quickly, but I'm still finding them in some on line
> ones. I write to whoever I can get to have the listings dropped, but
> some lists don't have any contact info.
>
> While I personally haven't had broadband, or DSL, and I've obviously
> heard lots of people rave about it, I haven't been impressed with what
> I've seen... I'll know more once the modem gets here.

Cable internet, I don't know what I'd do without it. We get a great deal,
called the "GeauxBox" by having a LSU employee in the household.
I didn't know that dial-up still existed??

On Jul 23, 5:30 pm, "BR Eagle" <goc...@yahoo.com> wrote:

> Cable internet, I don't know what I'd do without it.  We get a great deal,
> called the "GeauxBox" by having a LSU employee in the household.
> I didn't know that dial-up still existed??

There are quite a few companies that provide dialup service, so there
must be plenty of folks using it. It's going to cost me 5x as much for
broadband and I can't imagine how the value of my Internet connection
could possibly increase exponentially. That's why I hadn't done it in
the past, but I'm just so very annoyed at this point... in fact, I got
so annoyed that I spilled something on my mouse... I washed it and it
mostly works, just doesn't scroll, so I guess I'll have to get
(another) new one some time soon.

Cameron,

If you're refering to an accelerator, they vary. AT&T had one that
seemed to cause more problems than it fixed. Toast had one which
seemed to work okay. In both cases they were included in my service.

Marsha

On Jul 23, 6:42 pm, "CLM in ND" <camarv...@************> wrote:

> I'm on cable internet now, but I was on high-speed dial up.  A few years
> back when I was still doing dial-up. my local provider said for a one-time
> $15 fee, I'd get a disc to load a high-speed dial-up program.  I did it & it
> was much better & faster than regular dial-up.
>
> Then one day I got a letter stating that their licensing agreement with the
> company providing the software for the high-speed dial up was expiring & I'd
> have to go back to regular dial-up.  I couldn't go back to regular dial-up,
> so I got cable internet.
>
> Cameron

[Rik Brown]

My position was, and is, that their TOS says "unlimited usage". it
they said 3 hours a day, I would never have subscribed to them, but
that appears to be what their idea of unlimited is, unless it's even
less than that!

Reminds me of the old Dennis the Menace routine where Margaret is selling Kool Aide at "5 cents for all you can drink." Dennis buys a glass at 5 cents, gulps it down and says: "More!" to which Margaret responds: "That's all YOU can drink!"

Hope you find a better deal. -- Rik