miner2049er Posted July 16, 2004 Posted July 16, 2004 In this post all times are Pacific Standard. I am looking at various companies to host my website, and on the following Total Choice Hosting webpage: http://totalchoicehosting.com/contact-web-host.html I found a list of email addresses with the caption above them: "Feel free to e-mail one of our web hosting departments!" So on Monday July 12 at 3:55 PM I sent an email to: support@totalchoicehosting.com with some pre-sales questions. By Wednesday July 14 1:45 PM I had not heard back, so I sent an email to: presales@totalchoicehosting.com It is now Friday July 16 11:30 AM and I have yet to receive any replies. Many other web hosts got back to me very quickly after I sent them an email, sometimes within hours, but usually by the next day. Incidentally, I like to contact companies by email, rather than by web-form entry, so I can keep a record of emails sent. What is the usual time to get an email response from Total Choice Hosting? Simon.
HCSuperStores Posted July 16, 2004 Posted July 16, 2004 I find that TCH responds well to pre-sales questions in these forums and you can always grab the text later if need be. Give that a try!
miner2049er Posted July 16, 2004 Author Posted July 16, 2004 Email is a more efficient form of communication (= time and $$$ saved) for asking quick questions directed to the right department, and for getting responses. What if I'm on the road, and only have email access, such as with a Blackberry? So my question still is: how long does it take for TCH to respond to emails? Simon.
TCH-Dick Posted July 16, 2004 Posted July 16, 2004 Without knowing your name or e-mail address I cant look up any of the e-mails you sent to see if they were replied to. I tried looking with just Simon but didnt find anything except for a few that were 5-6 months old, so I'm pretty suire they werent from you.
miner2049er Posted July 16, 2004 Author Posted July 16, 2004 My email address is in my Forum Profile - because when I signed up with the Forum I was sent an email which I had to click on to activate my Forum membership. So you should have my email address on file, and have access to it.
miner2049er Posted July 16, 2004 Author Posted July 16, 2004 Apparently, emails to support@totalchoicehosting.com won't get answered. Here's a transcript of a Live! conversation I had with sales on Wed July 14: miner2049er : how long does it take for you to respond to an email? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ** You are now speaking with Aromal, Sales Department. ** miner2049er : Anybody there? miner2049er : I sent an email with questions Mon 7/12/2004 3:55 PM (Pacific) but no reply yet. Aromal : hello Aromal : did you send a support request miner2049er : It was an email to support@totalchoicehosting.com miner2049er : As I just said Aromal : if so , please give me the ticket id and i can update you on the status miner2049er : Please read my msgs. It was an EMAIL sent to support@totalchoicehosting.com miner2049er : No ticket ID miner2049er : (well none received anyway) Aromal : you need to post tickets from https://ssl.totalchoicehosting.com/supportdesk/ Aromal : and not email support@totalchoicehosting.com miner2049er : How was I to know that? Why do you have that email on your website? Not a good start when I'm choosing a web host... Aromal : i'm extremely sorry about it but we handle requests which come in via the support desk as it logs directly into our ticketing system miner2049er : Other web hosts allow emails to start off a support session, with an associated ticket miner2049er : I need a web host that allows me to send emails - so I can keep a copy of my first email sent. miner2049er : Anybody there? miner2049er : Then you need to remove the erroneous information from your contact page: http://totalchoicehosting.com/contact-web-host.html Aromal : you can start off the session from our support desk and the responses will be recieved by you as emails miner2049er : So you folks were never going to answer my email? Aromal : yes i know..i shall make a note of it and pass on the message to the authorities concerned miner2049er : That's not too good. miner2049er : I'm going to send my questions to presales@totalchoicehosting.com to see if I get a response from that email address Aromal : okay Aromal : if you have any support/technical requests please post it via the support desk miner2049er : That is not obvious. Bye. Aromal : Bye, sorry for the trouble
TCH-Dick Posted July 16, 2004 Posted July 16, 2004 There is one message from the e-mail address thats in your profile. It was answered within 2 minutes of being recieved. simon ***** Posted on 14 Jul 2004 10:33:37 PM Live Support Message Delivery: ------------------------------------------- Does your hosting integrate with the Zend debugger? Edit View Email Headers Email: simon@editedout.com Aromal Posted on 14 Jul 2004 10:39:57 PM Hello, We do not support zend debugger on our servers. Tell me if you have any more queries. Thank you for choosing TotalChoice Hosting ------------- Regards, Aromal Technical support services Edit Email: aromal@totalchoicehosting.com
miner2049er Posted July 16, 2004 Author Posted July 16, 2004 That was NOT an email - it was a Live Support session (like my previous session transcript I posted.)
TCH-Dick Posted July 16, 2004 Posted July 16, 2004 e-mails sent to support@totalchoicehosting.com are piped into our help desk, none were recieved from your e-mail address or they would have been answered. We have never said a customer cant e-mail sales@ or support@
miner2049er Posted July 16, 2004 Author Posted July 16, 2004 I've sent dozens of emails this week with no delivery problems. And Aromal in sales says (in the transcript) that emails would not get answered. Is everybody on the same page? I sent an email to you folks on Monday and Wednesday and NEITHER were replied to. And a few posts back in this thread you (TCH-Mike) told me that you didn't have my email address - I then told you that you DID have my email address, and then you found it. Any observations/advice from others would be appreciated.
TCH-Dick Posted July 16, 2004 Posted July 16, 2004 The only way I found your address is because I have access to the database for this forum and am able to search through the 3800+ members we have to find it. Aromal was wrong in saying those e-mails would not be answered. The simple fact of the matter is, those e-mail address are piped into our help desk, the live chat is also piped into our help desk. The message I posted above is the only message that was recieved from the e-mail address you provided. If you have any questions you can e-mail me personally or your can open a support ticket using the help desk link at the top of the page. The help desk is handled via e-mail so you will get a confirmation and copies of all replies.
vengavenga Posted July 16, 2004 Posted July 16, 2004 Hi Simon, I'd just like to reassure you if possible that these guys do take communication very seriously whether it be by email, live support, ticket or instant messaging, I know it's easy to think that businesses aren't taking you seriously, but I think that if you just give them a chance you'll see that they want to help in any way they can. Not connected with TCH in any way ... just a customer. Ali
miner2049er Posted July 16, 2004 Author Posted July 16, 2004 Latest update. It seems my emails MAY not be reaching TCH, or at least getting rejected upon arrival - for whatever reason. I just did a test and emails sent from my personal Yahoo email DO get an autoresponder email back from TCH and a ticket initiated, but after sending a few more, there are still no response to emails sent from my biz address. My current host is networksdata.com Because I'm using my current biz server for my POP and SMTP email, I would have thought my biz emails would arrive OK, but my Yahoo emails would not, because I use a Yahoo email address in the "from" field. But the opposite is happening. My biz emails are not getting through to TCH, whereas my Yahoo ones are. Any advice?
Head Guru Posted July 16, 2004 Posted July 16, 2004 Thanks Ali, You should check with your provider as we really can not trouble shoot your outbound email from another host. In the meantime simply use your Yahoo! account for communications. Bill
miner2049er Posted July 16, 2004 Author Posted July 16, 2004 Out of thousands of successful email deliveries to hundreds of different recipients, yours (TCH hosting) is the only one <supposedly> not receiving emails from me. How do I know that the emails ARE in fact reaching you, and they are just not disappearing into a black hole upon arrival? Is there any way I can definitively test at which end the fault lies?
TCH-Dick Posted July 16, 2004 Posted July 16, 2004 If you dont get the auto responder message the e-mail is never reaching our server. You got it with the yahoo address, you didnt with your business address, we dont block e-mail accounts, I just looked through the mail logs and the only mail from you reaching our server is from yahoo.
miner2049er Posted July 17, 2004 Author Posted July 17, 2004 Thanks for looking into it TCH-Mike. So, for whatever reason, my current host could be not sending mails addressed to competing hosts? Does anybody have any knowledge/past experience of this? FYI, my current host networksdata.com had a 24+ hour outage last Sunday.
TCH-Dick Posted July 17, 2004 Posted July 17, 2004 I would hope they arent blocking e-mail sent to other hosts, but I guess it would be possible. As for the 24 hour outage, a LOT of hosts (us included) had a 24 hour outage last Sunday due to a rather large provider (approx 1500 servers) moving to a new datacenter.
hindixp Posted July 17, 2004 Posted July 17, 2004 (edited) Hi miner2049er, Personally TCH never had bad habbit of ignoring pre-sales enquiries. If someone posts their questions here, we members(Family Friend) are always there to answer those first, most of the times people get a clear view how TCH does. as For my experience as a reseller in last 1 year I upgraded my account from very basic to deluxe, would certainly buy more a/c's. and since last 1 year i never saw anybody complaining about pre-sales questions. One more thing Don't think anybody here is TCH sponsored for Sooth Sayings. Ask any of 3800+ members, you'll be glad to reach your New Home(TCH) Edited July 17, 2004 by hindixp
miner2049er Posted July 17, 2004 Author Posted July 17, 2004 The mystery deepens... Why are the emails not getting through? I sent the following to Networksdata.com: For some reason, when I send an email from <my biz email address> to any address at TotalChoiceHosting.com, they never receive it. But when I send emails to them from < my email address @ yahoo.com> they have no problems receiving. Any advice? And their reply on 7-17-2004: Email received from Support Team has responded to your help desk request. ----------------------------------------------- (Support Team) ----------------------------------------------- Time: 17-7-2004-6:19 : We don't block TotalChoiceHosting.com or any domains. Maybe TotalChoiceHosting.com blocks our mail servers, please contact them to resolve this matter. ------------- Best regards, NetworksData Support Team support@networksdata.com Thank you, Help Desk
hindixp Posted July 17, 2004 Posted July 17, 2004 Hi, please check if you have those mails on your "sent Item Folder" was the totalchoicehosting spelled right. Iam totally satisfied with E-mail traffic through and to TCH. Sometimes i was not able to send mail but that was only DUE to stupid Indian Dial up connection i have to work on. Why dont you sign up for a month and see if TCH suits you. i think starter plan is not so expensive here.
Head Guru Posted July 17, 2004 Posted July 17, 2004 It is no mystery. You have a problem with mail inbound to us. We dont block any in bound email. If your not happy with your current host then you should source a new host. However, we simply can not trouble shoot your emaill problems. Good luck with your search. Bill
miner2049er Posted July 17, 2004 Author Posted July 17, 2004 (To Head Guru) I never asked anybody to troubleshoot my email problems - I'm just asking the questions that anybody else would. I'm happy with my current host - it was a 24+ hour outage last week that made me consider changing hosts, and then I found out that TCH also had the same extended outage, because they used the same facilities. So, rather than being told to "switch hosts" to alleviate the problem, can anybody offer any suggestions on how I might be able to get to the bottom of this and find out at what point in the chain my emails are disappearing? For example, if a certain application is crashing my PC - I see what could be causing the behaviour - bugs in the app, driver updates needed etc. - I don't switch to a new computer or purchase a new copy of Windows. So regarding my matter, what questions should I be asking and of whom? What diagnostic measures can I take? I don't want to sweep the matter under the rug, but would rather find out what is happening, so I can learn from it, and possibly avoid or reduce the possibiity of it occuring in the future. Any assistance would be appreciated! Thanks in advance.
Samrc Posted July 17, 2004 Posted July 17, 2004 Since TCH has neither received the emails nor has generated the emails, it would make sense to take them out of the loop! Consider the problem is either with your ISP, or your host, or your computer. I would recommend you go back to the host you like and get advice or help tracking from them since the emails would have been processed by their server. -Samantha
DarqFlare Posted July 18, 2004 Posted July 18, 2004 The first step here is to make sure your business account is emailing out at all. Make sure you can send emails from it to other addresses, not just TCH. Try using different ports as well...
TCH-Dick Posted July 18, 2004 Posted July 18, 2004 This thread has run its course, We cant troubleshoot an e-mail account that isnt ours or our customers. If you decide you have any more pre sales questions please use the help desk link at the top of this page or send us an e-mail usung your yahoo account. Thread closed
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