Conquering Vertigo

Couldn't send email. Not from personal account or work account. Not Sunday when I got home, not Monday. Called Comcast, my current (emphasis on the temporary nature of the word current) internet provider. Turns out they had blocked our access to Port 25, the main, commonly used email port for email "client" programs such as Outlook, Thunderbird, Entourage, etc. 

Why had they blocked it without telling us? They couldn't really say. Maybe we were using too much bandwidth, many be were sending so much email it looked like spam to them. A good work-around, they said, was to "upgrade" from the residential to the business internet service. Yeah, it costs significantly more, but much less chance of a "sending blockade." 

Um, yeah, I don't send that much email, don't download much in the way of audio or video files, I'm a pretty low-impact user. Unless a "spam zombie" has taken over one of our computers and is using it to channel spam, I feel like I'm being played by comcast. At the very least, they should have called us first. My phone number is on the account, next to the section where I pay my bill on time every month for "unlimited email access." 

Since this is email, I'll be going virtually postal. As long as I can't send email, I'll be telling the world what comcast is doing. 

I asked them to unblock port 25 so I can contact people, and then if there really is some problem, show me the evidence of a bandwidth activity report. Show me that I'm sending more than 1,000 emails a day, which is the threshold they list on their website for concerns. And give me a refund for as many days as this was blocked.  They said their "escalation" department had up to 72 hours to restore access. What!?! And they aren't authorized to issue a credit since "something you did" caused the red flag. Right... I've been out of town for five days and my husband has been with his dying mother. Pretty sure we've not been home sending emails. 

I'm bulldogging this. Don't shut off PAID service for a spurious reason, particularly without calling me first to let me know they think there is a problem. I've been romancing the idea of getting all my service via satellite anyway. The packages are cheaper and it looks like the product will be better. Comcast, you're about to lose a customer. And I'm going to share my story with others.