ireland.com Service Discontinuation

Time

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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...

28064212

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

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

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

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?

28064212

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

keithclancy

Reported.

Elysian

granturismo wrote: »

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

To be honest there are quite a few ways to do it and most of them are incredibly simple.

For example, say I owned Elysian.com. I just log into my domain provider (I'm currently using Godaddy to host my .com address), go into my domain manager and click on email fowarding. This brings up this screen:



In the Forward This box I can put in any email address I want ending in @elysian.com, for example admin@elysian.com

Then in the To box I can add all my gmail/hotmail/outlook/yahoo email accounts.

Then finally I need to go into my gmail/hotmail/outlook/yahoo accounts and set them up so that their reply address is admin@elysian.com.

That's it, you now have a professional looking and future proof email address all set up in a matter of minutes.

podgeandrodge

A previous poster mentioned that Tourism Ireland could have considered ireland.com email addresses as a selling point and retained the feature. It really is a great email address to have and it is sad that it's going.

A lot of us on here might be happy setting up our own domains and emails but a lot of folk out there, mothers, fathers and grandparents have these emails for years and this will be a right pain for them trying to let their contacts know and set up new addresses. The solution is not for all these people to "just get a domain yourself". Ireland.com seemed a safe enough bet and Tourism Ireland should do the right thing.

At the very least a longer period should have been allowed to move things over.

OU812

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

do you not have to buy hosting with that too ?

Elysian

OU812 wrote: »

do you not have to buy hosting with that too ?

Nope, you can either use a forwarding service like I've showed two posts up (which comes with your domain name), or some web-mail providers like g-mail will host your account for free http://www.coffeecup.com/help/articles/set-up-gmail-for-your-own-domain/

keithclancy

podgeandrodge wrote: »

A previous poster mentioned that Tourism Ireland could have considered ireland.com email addresses as a selling point and retained the feature. It really is a great email address to have and it is sad that it's going.

A lot of us on here might be happy setting up our own domains and emails but a lot of folk out there, mothers, fathers and grandparents have these emails for years and this will be a right pain for them trying to let their contacts know and set up new addresses. The solution is not for all these people to "just get a domain yourself". Ireland.com seemed a safe enough bet and Tourism Ireland should do the right thing.

At the very least a longer period should have been allowed to move things over.

Your assuming old people are stupid, in fact older people know that you get nothing for free.

Certainly I don't know one elderly person that would pay for an e-mail address.

podgeandrodge

keithclancy wrote: »

Your assuming old people are stupid, in fact older people know that you get nothing for free.

Certainly I don't know one elderly person that would pay for an e-mail address.

No, not stupid. But not as technically competent. Most of my older relations and friends have wanted me to set up their (free) email addresses. This change is an added inconvenience to them because they and their friends will get confused (and they will) about the new adress when sending emails. A lot of people still think Google is the doorway to every website and wouldn't even know what the address bar is.

Anyway, as has been said, Ireland.com are entitled to do what they are doing. Only was saying a bit more notice would have been helpful and that Tourism Ireland should realise what a good think these email addresses are for Irish people all over the world.

trad

How about Boards.ie setting an email service like the Irish times did.

It's not a bad name, most of us are here every day at some stage so we believe in the brand. They have the premises, staff and IT infrastructure to roll it out very quickly.

Doesn't have to be free (would be nice) but don't mind spending a modest fee to have an Irish email address.

I have 3 ireland.com addresses so its going to be a huge pain in the neck to change over so I only want to do it once.

So how about it Boards.ie

Elysian

trad wrote: »

I have 3 ireland.com addresses so its going to be a huge pain in the neck to change over so I only want to do it once.

So how about it Boards.ie

If you don't want to risk having migrate your email service again then I wouldn't go with a boards.ie email account. Just like Ireland.com there would be no guarantees as to how long they would/could provide that service for.

Cabaal

trad wrote: »

How about Boards.ie setting an email service like the Irish times did.

It's not a bad name, most of us are here every day at some stage so we believe in the brand. They have the premises, staff and IT infrastructure to roll it out very quickly.

Doesn't have to be free (would be nice) but don't mind spending a modest fee to have an Irish email address.

I have 3 ireland.com addresses so its going to be a huge pain in the neck to change over so I only want to do it once.

So how about it Boards.ie

Boards.ie used to offer a e-mail service as part of its subscriber service, it didn't get used much and eventually it was dropped...I don't believe its available anymore.

If you want a .ie domain for your e-mail and you don't mind paying...then buy youself a .ie domain for 20 euros a year