back to article TalkTalk ups the (dis)satisfaction ante as UK folk wake up to borked email

TalkTalk's customers woke up this morning to find the UK broadband provider's email service was still fast asleep. The Brit telco celebrated its terrible customer service scores in Ofcom's annual survey by removing the ability of customers to complain about it by email this morning. Customers took to social media to vent …

  1. Anonymous South African Coward Bronze badge
    Trollface

    The Register has contacted TalkTalk for more information and will update if anything is forthcoming.

    via email?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Carrier pigeon, it'll be faster.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Obligatory IETF link

        https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1149

        1. Anonymous Coward
  2. Lloyd

    Oops, this is what happens when you try to login

    HTTP Status 500 -

    type Exception report

    message

    description The server encountered an internal error () that prevented it from fulfilling this request.

    exception

    java.lang.RuntimeException: java.lang.OutOfMemoryError: unable to create new native thread

    net.cp.ps.sdk.http.servlet.ServerServlet.handleRequest(ServerServlet.java:285)

    net.cp.ps.sdk.http.servlet.ServerServlet.doPost(ServerServlet.java:222)

    javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:637)

    javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:717)

    net.cp.ps.sdk.http.servlet.filters.gzip.DynamicGZIPFilter.doFilter(DynamicGZIPFilter.java:57)

    net.cp.ps.sdk.http.servlet.filters.progress.ProgressFilter.doFilter(ProgressFilter.java:27)

    net.cp.ps.sdk.http.servlet.filters.pools.PoolsFilter.doFilter(PoolsFilter.java:52)

    net.cp.ps.sdk.http.servlet.filters.session.SessionFilter.doFilter(SessionFilter.java:91)

    net.cp.ps.sdk.http.servlet.filters.monitor.MonitorFilter.doFilter(MonitorFilter.java:68)

    net.cp.ps.sdk.http.servlet.filters.sharing.SharingFilter.doFilter(SharingFilter.java:56)

    1. Mr Dogshit

      Re: Oops, this is what happens when you try to login

      Eh?

      How did you get Outlook to do that?

      1. Lloyd

        Re: Oops, this is what happens when you try to login

        Webmail. I'm surprised that they use Java, I'd have thought that was a bit advanced for them, I was thinking more cgi.

  3. thosrtanner

    I think the people on screaming.net may just have ended up with a provider that matches the name

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Tiscali

    which was once an ISP with excellent reputation and, oh the irony, _superb_ customer service. Then came a big gorilla, sat on it, and improved the quality beyond recognition...

    1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: Tiscali

      "which was once an ISP with excellent reputation and, oh the irony, _superb_ customer service."

      Hmm. I started off with Nildram. Nildram were taken over by Pipex who were so pleased (and rightly) with the Nildram CS that they decided to roll it out over all their brands.

      Then Pipex were taken over by Tiscali. The Nildram support was replaced by something which included an email system apparently operated by something along the lines of Eliza; if there were real people there they failed the Turing test. Still not too bad because there weren't any real problems. When TT took them over and the script monkey system just couldn't cope.

  5. Craigie

    ISP email

    Wait, wait, wait, some people still use email addresses provided by their ISP?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Big Brother

      Re: ISP email

      Yes, people who don't want their private email 'slurped' by the likes of Google and/or Microsoft still do...

      1. dbgi

        Re: ISP email

        Except if you use Virgin, which is/was provided by gmail anyway.

        1. Rameses Niblick the Third Kerplunk Kerplunk Whoops Where's My Thribble?

          Re: ISP email

          ...or BT which is provided by Yahoo!, which I suppose could almost be amalgamated into BooHoo?

          1. Commswonk

            Re: ISP email

            ...or BT which is provided by Yahoo!, which I suppose could almost be amalgamated into BooHoo?

            Not entirely true. Some BT email is provided by Yahoo, some is not. Mine is in the latter category.

      2. Lee D Silver badge

        Re: ISP email

        So you'd rather the people who have your credit card, telephone number and home address run your email, rather than the people who you just signed up to a free account for with no details required.

        (P.S. Don't make me prove that you can get a GMail address with no personal info again, I was able to create one in ten seconds last time someone asked, without providing real name, any address at all, nor phone number, backup email or anything identifying beyond - presumably - my IP address).

      3. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        Re: ISP email

        "Yes, people who don't want their private email 'slurped' by the likes of Google and/or Microsoft still do"

        You keep a Google or MS email address as a spam bin.

        You then get your own domain and allocate addresses in that as required. You don't actually have to run your own server. There are registrars and third party providers who will do that for you. For this you pay a fee but email addresses are independent of ISP and mail service provider. You can shop around and ditch any who are taken over by the likes of TT or who turn out to have long term problems of their own without being taken over. With a little checking you can also ensure your email provider isn't hosted in the US.

    2. K

      Re: ISP email

      That was my thoughts at first...

      But saying that (and I may be stereo-typing here), but I suspect these are the same people who don't shop-around a lot (Broadband, energy, phones etc), it does what they need, why change?

      Personally I do.. but live and let live..

  6. anthonyhegedus Silver badge

    Like I've said before, the sort of people who persist in using the email address given to them by their ISP (especially a long-dead one like tiscali) are the sort of people who just cannot grasp how stupid they're being. It's not *their* email address. It's their ISP's hook into them.

    And when you use talktalk's webmail, you get more adverts than google can throw at you when you use gmail.

    1. yoganmahew

      Why on earth would you use webmail???

      You might want to refine your stupidity list...

      (Says the man still using an 18 year email address from a long dead telco for social meeja sites like Elreg).

    2. katrinab Silver badge

      My lineone.net address still works[sometimes], and I haven't used them since ntl cabled the street I was living in at the time, about 17 years ago.

      You don't get any adverts if you access it using imap.

      Having said that, my main email server is located under my desk.

  7. Protocol

    Also be aware aol.com is under the TalkTalk umbrella in the UK, and imap.aol.com has similarly fallen over.

    A temporary workaround is to use pop.aol.com,995,SSL and truncate "@aol.com" from your username. This may / may not work with other ISPs if the issue is similar. It's the not knowing that makes it so exciting!

  8. DenTheMan

    The immobile email

    It makes little sense to use @talktalk.co.uk for email.

    You get locked into the broadand that way.

  9. LeahroyNake

    Nildram

    Guess it's so old that they forgot about that one, gits.

  10. Nick Kew
    Facepalm

    Email contact

    ... by removing the ability of customers to complain about it by email this morning

    You mean they were previously contactable by email?

    Sheer luxury! Virgin Media victims can only dream of email contact when our service needs fixing.

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