Drowning in Bigpond - Never use a bigpond email address !!

Many businesses and individuals continue to make the serious error of using a bigpond email address in their business communications.

It is only years later, when they realise how overpriced Telstra services are, that they find that they are trapped. They either continue with Telstra overpricing or lose their important widely known business email address. 

Surely they can just cancel the ADSL or other internet service and pay Telstra for the email only ?  On its website, Telstra advertises email accounts under “dial up casual” that cost $25 per year. Cheap !   Of course, google, hotmail and others offer the same service to billions of people completely free, but, hey, this is Telstra !

Telstra does not like the idea of you leaving.  When I tried to move a business, they informed me of some neat rules that punished the company.

They insisted that downgrading from ADSL to dial up internet connection is really a cancellation of the account (including the email).   In reality of course, the email account has nothing to do with the internet service offered, it is just a name used to identify the account. Indeed often, there are two or more email accounts supplied, the "main" account authorised to make changes, and "additional accounts" for other fmily members.

BUT, by insisting this downgrade was a full account cancellation, they informed me of their rule whereby the email address must be put into limbo for 5-7 years (when I rang, the time in limbo varied with the accent of the call operator).

They would NOT reassign the same email address, no matter what proof I provided.The business just had to keep paying the full ADSL account charges or lose a longstanding email address for 5 or more years !!

If your business can't afford the $20 per year for your own domain name, then create a gmail account (hotmail and yahoo do not have as good a range of services but they are also a better choice.

If you need help, I (and probably any adolescent you know) can do the whole thing for you with no ongoing charges for less than A$100 !

For pity sake, don’t ever use a bigpond address for your business....

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