Enzo, thank you for your kind words. Somehow posting on the forums seems to have helped a little bit. At least now you have agreed to suspend my service charges until the fix is implemented, whereas during our conversation you explicitly said no when I asked you to do that... Just for your information, before subscribing to EMM I subscribed to Link2Exchange. Later on, I read so many good things about EMM that I decided to switch to EMM, and I got a full refund from Link2Exchange, including all activation fees. I mean exactly this: FULL refund. No questions asked. No difficulties at all. If necessary I can show you the evidence. Now the truth about our conversation is that first I suggested waiting 30 days for the fix and if the fix was not implemented in 30 days then you would refund me the activation fees that I had paid to EMM and would have to pay again to Link2Exchange due to technical problems on EMM's side. You said "no". Then I asked you to suspend my monthly fees until the fix is implemented. Again you said "no". Then I asked if you could cancel my service and reactivate it after the fix was implemented without charging me the activation fees again. You answered: "only if you return in 7 days". But at the same time you never committed to having the fix implemented in 7 days!!! You were very clear that you had no expectations whatsoever as to when the fix would be implemented. And nowhere in our conversation did you say that it would be "shortly", as you are now saying. So I believe that all my suggestions were very reasonable, and I gave you 3 suggestions, but apparently reasonable to you has a different meaning than to me. As you were clear, reasonable to you means charging an activation fee for a service and not guaranteeing the service at all, meaning you have the right to have a failure on the service you provide, in which case you do not have any obligations in terms of time for the solution of the problem, and even while the problem persists and the service is not being offered, you have the right to continue charging your customer! You do not compensate your customer for that in any possible way. If that is what you consider reasonable, then indeed I have nothing reasonable to propose to you. Just so that everyone can make their own evaluation, I will post below the transcript of our conversation, and I will also post the follow-up to this story. I am sure that EMM does not mind my making public the way you treat me as one of your customers, as that is one of your mainly alleged qualities. I am sure that my episode will show whether or not you will honor your reputation. So far I must say that I am very disappointed, and the conversation below will enable everyone to make their own due diligence as to who is and who is not being reasonable and fair.

Best Regards,
Alan

Conversation Transcript
Partially removed after EMM contacted me by phone and explained that there was an understanding on their part that I wanted to shift to Link2Exchange and wanted my activation fees back, which was not the case. My previous experience with EMM was great and I only activated the service with Link2Exchange to be sure that the problem was NOT with my device, because that was said to me by Alvin from EMM on Wednesday evening. I was just trying to help pinpoint the issue as having to do with EMM and not my device. I explained to Enzo that as long as EMM solves the issue I intend to stay with EMM and cancel L2E, especially due to my previous experience. But I need this resolved in no more than 30 days, which I think is very fair of my part. And in the meantime, I am up and running with L2E while I wait for a solution from EMM. Enzo said he cannot promise any timing but believes that 30 days is much more than what he EXPECTS, not guarantees. And he apologized for presuming that I just wanted to switch over to L2E and get my money back. So far, it now looks like my previous experiences with EMM. I am happy again and hopeful that this situation will be resolved quickly. I just left below the beginning of the chat session where I make clear that I subscribed to L2E just to help pinpoint the issue and I also make clear that I did not intend to cancel EMM when Enzo asked me about that...

Visitor: Alan
Operator: Enzo
Recipient:
Company: exchange
Date: 24 Nov 2006 11:42 AM


Alan:
Since Wednesday I have been having problems syncing my Calendar 2-ways with your server. Only changes made to Outlook sync to my Blackberry, but not the other way around.

Welcome Alan! Your request has been directed to the Support department. Please wait for our operator to answer your call.


Call accepted by operator Enzo. Currently in room: Enzo, Alan.

Alan:
Hi Enzo!
Enzo:
Alan we are waiting for our engineers to complete the fix we worked on on wedensday
Enzo:
the fix we implemented on Wednesday had to be partially reversed as it caused conflicts on our side
Enzo:
it will be done at a future date
Enzo:
at this time I do not have a resolution for your issue
Alan:
Ah, ok. The problem is that on Wednesday at the end of the day I noticed that BES was back up running and the problem remained on my side. So I spoke to Alvin and he said that at that point the problem was certainly with my device and we would have to call RIM support on Monday.
Enzo:
I would not want to say that at this point
Enzo:
I was here with him when he provided you that information
Enzo:
however since then, more information has come to light
Alan:
Well, I went ahead and subscribed to Link2Exchange, since I can always have my money back in 30 days. And everything is working perfectly with their server. So it definitely has nothing to do with my device...
Enzo:
Ok, so would you like me to terminate your service with us?
Alan:
Not really, I just wanted to test if the problem was with my device. Now this can help you pinpoint that the problem is for sure on your side. As I said, I can always request my money back in 30 days from Link2Exchange. So now it will depend on you guys.

Rest of chat session removed per Enzo's request.

Alan,

I am very sorry, I can see from your transcript via Chat why you would be upset. The answers come off as very cold and short...

I would simply say this.

I am sorry-

and

My engineers are working expeditiously to resolve this issue.


I am available here at my desk till 7pm EST Today and look forward to assisting you to the best of my ability. I will also be here tomorrow until 5pm EST.

516-365-3661 X 15

Thanks-

Enzo Averaimo

Alan - wow! Settle, settle! My headline advice to you would be to go to Link Exchange if you wish - that is how the market place operates and the customer's choice is how it works.

Your comments do however need put into context I believe. Life presents glitches in every walk. Do I call Bill Gates and demand my money back in full every time my windows crashes or MS "Works" doesn't work, no. Do I call Toyota after months hassle free driving my car, only to find one day it presents a problem, and demand my deposit back and petrol expenses back, no.

Things happen - we get them resolved.

Do we expect good service in seeking to get issues resolved - yes. In my experience is this what EMM provides - most definitely. Your issue was experienced after a couple months of excellent service and excellent customer support ...then 1 day an issue, and bang. I hardly think (IMO) that this constitutes EMM being inadequate and their customer care lacking.

From your pasted live chat session, IMO (again) I think it stands up to scrutiny and endorses the excellent service provided by EMM, rather than damn them! Enzo tries to resolve your query, and we can see that this is indeed being resolved, with a very reasonable approach, and even offers of credit for a (very) small part of BES with which you are having a problem.

I have always found EMM to treat the customer with respect - advising of any down time or reboots required - and giving the courtesy of explaining in lay man terms the issue they experienced and resolved.

I live in UK, and in my experience the service I have received has been better than the IT guys in work provide only 3 floors away from me! Has the thousands of miles made any difference to the service - no. Have I always received a human at the end of the phone rather than voicemail - yes. Have issues been resolved satisfactorily and efficiently - yes? Have I received activation codes urgently even outside of NY hours and in UK morning - yes.

I'm sorry but I cannot concur with your comments, and I also see them as unfair in many parts and neither would it be helpful (IMO) to be telling the world the transcript of your help calls! If you feel that strongly Alan, just leave. There are thousands of happy customers, reaching as far as the UK and humble Belfast!

I hope you dont get voicemail next time you call Link Exchange is all I would say...or whatever they are called. And try getting them 7am on Thanksgiving. This is my opinion and my thoughts - no opinion is right or wrong. You can have yours, I disagree, and that is fine. Let's just leave it there. I'm happy to stay with EMM, you go if you feel that is how you would be best served as a customer.

Cheers

Andy

Even this I find heartening and reassuring. ANY email or ANY transcript will always sound cold and short. However I don't see it as that, and didnt see the need to reply. However on the basis the customer is always right ...fantastic gesture. Only goes to endorse my views and comments on the EMM service.

Andy

Andy,

What's right is right, and what's wrong is wrong.

I made some incorrect assumptions about Alan's intentions to retain our services based on what I saw on our mail servers and a piece of a conversation. I was cold and short with Alan based on an assumption on my part. This entire issue was my fault and I appologize.

I called Brazil to speak with Alan directly, sometimes peoples intentions and POV come thru more clearly by phone or in person than they do in a chat or an email...

Alan,

You are very cool to be so understanding and I think our conversation cleared a lot of things up on both sides. Thank you for your understanding.

Further: I hope you understood from our conversation that the issue you are experiencing is as important to us to resolve as it is for you to have working in your blackberry, if not more so.


Enzo Averaimo-



On a lighter note:

Ps. Alan I know you are in Brazil and more than Likely a soccer fan (futbol) and Andy being in the UK I am sure you are as well, so for both of you I'd like to say one thing....

FORZA ITALIA!!!! (World Cup Champs 2006)

Enzo,

I have edited my previous post. Thank you for calling me. Now I am seeing EMM's support as I had expected. I accept your apologies and hope we can get this issue solved in less than 30 days. As for the World Cup, I was there! Obviously my intention was to see Brazil in the finals, and I was really disappointed, but I ended up going to the match between Italy and Germany. I believe this was the best match of the whole World Cup and one of the most fantastic matches that I have been to in my life. And I agree: FORZA ITALIA!

Regards,
Alan

I hope to be able to reply to this thread shortly with a resonse indication the resolution is in place and working!!

That Game was almost better than the finals. Germany was a Machine! What a team they had!! Obviously I was happy with the results of the finals...

I am wearing out my Italian Team Jerzey now!! LOL Forza Azzure!!

-Enzo

Alan - Andy here! Glad all worked out my friend and EMM have again come good. Hand shakes all round.

By the way ....i was IN Lake Garda the night they won the world cup, travelled by caravan from Northern Ireland, great night! And Alan, being from Brazil ..I am a Northern Ireland football fan and we often chat "We're not Brazil we're Northern Ireland!"

Small, small world! Off topic a bit, but hey! Glad again all is sorted ....and sorry if I was on a high horse also! I'm just very appreciative of the quality EMM support I've received, so a bit of a believer!

Good night to you Brazil and to you Enzo in NY!

Andy
Norn Iron! (as we pronounce it)

I signed up for service at 2:30pm today and as of 11:12pm I have yet to receive any email and everyone who sends me e-mail get the same message. "The following addresses had delivery problems:

<Permanent Failure: 554_No_relaying_allowed_-_psmtp
Delivery last attempted at Sun, 26 Nov 2006 05:10:45 -0000" So I tried to call support because I got an e-mail that said "Support is available via telephone 24 Hours a Day, 7 Days a Week at the numbers listed above." that was @ 7:55pm and no call and no response. I am starting to think that EMM my not be the best choice for your hosting needs.

Update

Well it is 6:54am central time and I placed my final call to EMM 24 hours support, we will see how long it takes them to respond. I will keep you all updated. Email is still returning to sender with a "5.1.0 - Unknown address error 554-'No relaying allowed - psmtp'"

I am just doing a follow up on EMM. After I sent a email telling them to cancel my service, I received a e-mail form one of there tech support staff telling me that all was fixed and that if I wated to still cancel to let them know. Well I am a customer of EMM now and I think that I will stay with them. Nice save guys.

phippy,

Please PM me with your customer or account ID.
I was not aware of your situation and would like to further research it.

Best Regards -

Enzo Averaimo
Hosted Microsoft Exchange - Wireless Outlook Web Access Microsoft Exchange Hosting, Exchange Email Hosting

| Hosted Microsoft Exchange | Hosted BES | Hosted GoodLink | Office: 516.365.3661 | Toll Free: 888.608.MAIL | System Status: 516.365.3661 Option 3 |

Hi everyone,

As I had said that I would keep you all posted on the situation that I was having with EMM, just wanted to let you all know that this morning Enzo sent me an email saying that the fix to the BES problem had already been implemented, and requesting that I activate my device with EMM and test. I did that and so far everything has been working perfectly today. So apparently the situation has been resolved. It is important to note not only the very short time for EMM to fix the issue, but also the fact that according to Enzo the issue was probably affecting many people, although I might have been the first to notice and report it. So in case any of you experience the problem, please let Enzo know, as it might be necessary to reactivate your device, but he is well aware of the issue and of the solution to it.

Regards to all and congratulations to EMM for the support,
Alan

let me get this right : can i sign up for your MS Exchange Service with BES 4.0 and syncronize my emails from gmail , yahoo , etc. even though these are free accounts that DO NOT allow forwarding ??? in other words , right now i recieve my " free " email from yahoo on my Cingular BB 8700c through BIS 2.0 but if i sign up for your service , and configure outlook 2003 and OWA with your Exchange Service and BES 4.0 would i still be able to sync my outlook 2003 with these emails addy's ???

thank ,
Confused

Is the 10% discount still on for BF members? If so, I will be signing up tomorrow.

Thanks,
Ben

Yes, the 10% discount is still available. Please see the first post in this thread, and click on the link for the automatic 10% discount.

Let me try to help. These accounts that you mention are configured in your BIS account. When you use BES, BIS DOES NOT get disabled. In short: you will have your BES account PLUS all your BIS accounts on your device, as BIS continues working normally and simultaneously with BES. By the way, I have both BIS and BES on my device. Now, if what you want is to configure those email accounts in your Outlook 2003 together with your BES email account, in order to also have all your email accounts on your desktop, then I am not sure, since for email accounts other than my BES account I use Outlook Express, not Microsoft Outlook 2003. But I believe that even if this is what you want the answer is yes, because when you configure Outlook 2003 to sync with your Exchange account with EMM, you create a Mail Profile (actually there is an executable that does this for you). And then you use Outlook 2003 normally with that profile, and you can add new email accounts in addition to the Exchange email account which the profile will automatically create for you. I hope I did not get you more confused than you already were...

Regards,
Alan

Does anybody here on their mac use Apple Mail to connect to the exchange server instead of entourage? What are your thoughts?

If Apple Mail's exchange compatibility sucks, does EMM allow IMAP connections? Thanks!

Slapshotw - Yes we do allow IMAP connections..

Lately I have gotten a ton of requests for our Blackberryforums member discount link... Here it is reposted for all those who asked!

Click Here for your Discount

Thanks,

Enzo

Hi Dave or Enzo,


I have an account with you already for a pretty long time already... But I have one question.

Are there bigger discounts available for larger accounts? If I wanted to bring my company over to your service with say 50 mailboxes would I qualify for a larger percentage discount than the 10% you offer current BBForums members?

Thanks

ZD

ZD,

We offer a variety of plans for customers 50 mailboxes and larger that are not listed on our website. We can custom tailor a plan for your mailboxes size requirements and number of both mailboxes and wireless devices required.

Please Call ME Directly 516-365-3661 X 15

Enzo Averaimo

Ok, well I was told to check out this thread after I posted this:

blackberryforums.com/rants-raves-forum/61143-mailstreet-down-all-day.html

It seems like you guys know how to communicate with your customers when you have issues from what I have read in this thread-

I hope that is the case becuase I am signing up!

Ps. Mailstreet is still down, for all I know I lost all of my email-

As far as I know I did not lose any email. I'm not as unhappy about the outage as I am about the lack of progress updates between 6am and noon.

From the mailstreet site they seem to say that the restoration is still progressing.

My email inbox is working for outlook but zero OWA or BES.

progress updates??

Everytime I called them I got a busy signal-
Everytime I opened a chat window it was closed by them...
Everytime I emailed I got no response.


I switched this morning to Exchangemymail.com and so far I am thrilled.

The migration was very easy, Dave and Enzo helped me get back up and running.
I got a 10% discount for being a forum member, and I got the use of their control panel so that I can administrate my own accounts...

Nice GUYS- Keep it up!!
So Far So Good...

Thanks Guys for all the help and understanding!

Thanks for answering the phones on a saturday!!! (new experience for me)

I switched my accounts over the weekend to exchangemymail as well.

The process was exactly as easy as AverageJoe describes.

1. Open new account with exchangemymail - easily done via the web signup. Exchangemymail has done a great job automating this process.

(Note: I went with the 5 user business account for $45 after discount (discount link is on the forum)- which provides 2.5 gig of data storage - if you're using Outlook/Exchange for business the storage creeps up FAST) - I haven't found this good a deal elsewhere. They also include spam filtering for free (more on that later)

2. Pointed my domain mx records to exchangemymail (they provide all the instructions in their knowledgebase).

3. Once I observed that email was flowing correctly (which it was within about 10 minutes) -- I decided later that day to activate my Blackberry. (Note to lurkers: Have to wipe the BB first if you are switching from one hosted provider to another)

Worth noting that I signed up for the Blackberry at 10:03 pm on Saturday. At 10:17 pm the BES activation email came. By 11:00 everything was all set up on exchangemymail and so far as I can tell the device is working perfectly.

Since there may be others who stumble upon this thread who are Mailstreet users looking for another host, here are some summarized thoughts pro/con on exchangemymail.

PRO of Exchangemymail
-better pricing for those with multiple boxes
-easier control panel to manage exchange
-great faq for common questions
-support lines appear to be answered and issues resolved in much the same way mailstreet used to do before their acquisition a year or two ago
-less need to call tech support - much of the information is contained in their KB which is readily available


CONS of Exchangemymail
-the jury may be out on the effectiveness of the postini spam filter. Mailstreet has a VERY robust spam defense. While exchangemymail includes Postini for free, its effectiveness may be less than mailstreet. I received a bunch of SPAM right after signing up however I can't tell whether that's an initial configuration issue. Since that bunch came through I haven't received any more. I also bumped the filters up to the most aggressive setting. I will know more on this after a week or so of usage.

I made the switch mostly because of annoyance with the Mailstreet multi-day outage (well, I'm not sure how many days it was out totally but sporadically from a Thursday night around 10 until Saturday email was up/down and Blackberry didn't come on again until last).

My business is very heavily dependent on email. Yet we cannot afford to have technicians in the office monitoring exchange servers -- so we do the next best thing and outsource the hosting.

I'm hopeful that if there are issues with downtime, that they are posted fast so that subscribers can make plans to be without email. For the mailstreet outage we were being told that recovery was coming soon....which apparently translated to the end of the day for partial and Saturday for full.

Mas90guru -

I believe you will have great results with postini as all of our users do. Their spam and virus filter is the top of the line..

Please let us know if you have any problems or suggestions. In some cases depending on how each account is setup, some minor adjustments are necessary regarding domains, and email aliases.

If you need assistance, please email us at our support email address.

I subscribed to exchangemymail online on saturday morning and within 10 mins of filling in the online form, Jim from exchangemymail had called me on my phone.

I found my initial experience with exchangemymail very positive- it's rarer to get this sort of feedback from an internet provider.

So far I am very satisfied with exchangemymail service and I'm hoping that doesn't change. I've been testing the system, migrating my messages/contacts/calendar/etc and setting up server-side rules and although have a couple of bugs on my end to work out, so far the exchangemymail system is working perfect for me.

Thanks!

Shane

I've been using Exchangemymail all this week. So far the spam filters have caught nearly everything. It looks as if the Postini spam defense is as good as Mailstreet's in terms of keeping out spam. The interface online is a lot simpler.

A simple quetion (and I appoligize if this has been asked already in this thred)

Does your BES include BIS/MDS hosting too? I just checked with a different provider and they do not. If you do not, do you have any suggestions of anyone that does?

Our BES includes MDS. As for BIS, you get that with the carrier and is included with the BES plan which you must have in order for the wireless sync to work, and yes you can use both on our system.

Hope that help.

Hi Andy,

Like you I'm here in the UK (London) and just got a BB8700g for my birthday last week, now being introduced to the BB world, being on Pocket PC and WM5 for the longest time. Anyway, I'm on O2 and have read the accolades EMM has been getting in this thread and I want to sign up. I want to send and receive personal email from my BB in real time. I can make calls now and send SMS as I've had the line for quite sometime but would now want to have emails too. What do I need from O2? I'm on a Mobex corporate tariff and not one of the high street ones and based on our O2 corporate helpdesk, I "can't" have emails on my BB as it is not from the company email/server. I just find this ridiculous.

As soon as you let me know and I can get to an O2 store here to get what you recommend, I'm signing up for EMM.

Enzo,

Would you know what kind of "plan" I should have from my carrier so I can sign up for your service as well and use my BB to its fullest and not just for voice calls and SMS.

Thanks!

I just bought an 8703 from Sprint as a replacement to my Treo 700p. The only thing I miss is the true push email I had using Chatter and an IMAP account.

I am the only one in my firm of 10 that uses a BB and so I can't switch my entire company's email hosting to your service. Is it possible to have single account managed through this kind of hosted BES solution? That is, can the balance of my employees continue to use our regular email host and POP3 access while I am able to use BES to synch mail, tasks and calendar?

If so, I will sign up today!

Thanks.

Tim

Tim - Yes we can do this.. actually we do it all the time. It's very common.

Although we frequent this site, and try to answer questions as often as we can, the best way to get sales and support is to contact us directly.

Thanks

Great. I will call this afternoon.

Does Exchange My Mail support Vista and Outlook 2007? That's what I'm running on my laptop, and want to know if there is any compatibility issues before I sign up for the service. I want to be able to connect over RPC over HTTPS, since I don't want to have to log into a VPN all the time.

Would anyone be kind enough to confirm if I would be able to use a hosted BES using Microsoft Entourage on OSX?

This is exactly my situation. My four other employees use POP3 access, and my POP3 forwards to exchangemymail which hosts my exchange and BB service. I have been with them for about a year, after learning about them through this site. THEY ARE OUTSTANDING!!! I am not a techie, and I don't have an IT staff. The exchangemymail team walked me through the initial installation in no time at all and without any problems. Now that I've used the BB with wireless synch capapilities through this company, I can't imagine using a BB without the BES service.

Recently, I migrated my data to their newer servers. Yesterday, I updated the OS on my handheld, and they helped me with reactivating everything. I have never waited more than one minute with a tech support call, and my issues have been resolved the first time, every time. Having said that, I have only needed to call them about five times total, and it was only when I was doing something on my end that necessitated their assistance.

Their system and service has been flawless, and I think their up time was in excess of 99.7%. Almost without exception, what little down time there was, was notified to customers in advance by email.

PS - I am not affiliated with the company in any way - I don't even know if I'm getting the 10% discount from this site - but I wanted to post to tell everyone that I recommend them without expection.

Got a question for the ExchangeMyMail folks.. I'm aware of the 10% discount for forum members but was wondering if there was any other special deal for non-profit's?

My ambulance squad's looking for a mail solution. Need 8 mailboxes, nothing overly huge as far as storage goes, with one BES user in the near future (no BES currently needed). Fairly low volume, mostly membership applications via web form and interdepartmental mail along with some vendor correspondence.

We're a bit tight on funds (in fact we had an ambulance repossessed last year due to being in the red) but we're on the mend. What it really comes down to is professionalism.. I'm trying to get them away from yahoo e-mail accounts and tripod's banner filled hosting (I registered and paid for a domain for them and am getting that squared away right now, they previously had none).

Drop me a pm with some pricing.

Sorry we haven't been around guys. Lots of changes and upgrades going on at Exchange My Mail. If anybody still needs answers to any questions please let us know..

Also, we expect to launch a fantastic new service shortly that many of you may need. Especially if you are already using your own Microsoft Exchange Server, or are attached to your companies Exchange Server.

We will keep you updated as things progress..