My Dad is over 75 and refused to hear any idea of changing over to a free webmail provider for years and years after he got Broadband and ditched Freeserve pay as you go. After all everyone knew his email address, etc, etc.
I warned him anything you buy from Dixons was bound to be a dud in the end. Everytime he had a problem with email it turned out Freeserve, Wanadoo or Orange had mucked around with a POP or SMTP server or email setting. Or the system was just down.
Beside the appalling way this was managed it leaves a huge question over Orange's basic commercial competence. If they could n't manage to run a free webmail service via advertising revenue themselves then they could of sold on all the old Freeserve accounts unsupported by PAYG or broadband use to someone who could. At least they could have maintained some goodwill and made some money.
If they couldn't think this through they deserve to all what's coming.
Truely the telecoms industry is now run by morons like failed box shifting computer company execs and other half wits who don't understand customer service or telecoms.
I think you're confusing the issue slightly. They do run a free webmail service but that's not what the deleted accounts problem is about. Those accounts are dialup accounts and they're not just webmail, they include all sorts of other features and systems they integrate with.
After all what use is an hugely profitable advertising structure on the webmail site if you can use a client to access the POP server and avoid all that? Very few webmail services offer POP access for free.
Letting another company manage free webmail for expired accounts would be a nightmare to manage. Not all the old accounts are dialup and switching them back and forth would likely cause more problems.
To clarify my Dad has not used OUTLOOK with POP mail or Orange dial up for over 6 months. And at least he saw the sense in avoiding Orange Broadband. I set up his new Win XP laptop without OUTLOOK configured at the end of last year due to the appalling service Orange provided for POPmail/SMTP. So he just used webmail access from then on so he could keep his email address.
This deleting of email accounts has ALSO included people who've stopped using anything but web mail access for some considerable time as well if my father's case is not some kind of special case. Just in case there is any confusion over that. As Orange seem unable to respond with anything but please tell us your dial up or broadband account details it's so far proven impossible to bottom out why exactly they removed the email account now. Althought it probably was an opportunity to just get rid of non-revenue earning users.
So Orange stand accused of commercial stupidity for people who do not make use of dial up or braodband access for a period that exceeds their T&Cs AND people who've just been using webmail for a long time.
There's no confusion over Orange's lack of commercial savvy - they ought to have looked at both as a commercial opportunity. One to stimulate people to make more regular use of dial up/broadband. Or find out why they do n't if they are POP/SMTP email clients with a less drastic approach to customer service and also look at making money out of long standing webmail only users. In either case they'll have lost many past, present and future customers.
The issue at the heart of Orange's actions is they are commercial shortsighted and they had more intelligent options available to them. For example make clear commercial offers to convert people to Webmail only or no timelimit on last use on POP?SMTP as premium services.
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