Icesave / TalkTalk / FSCS Fiasco

Lansdowne

parcival wrote: »

... Surely any half competent techie would envisage problems with spam filters and would have contacted TalkTalk and other ISP's in advance and said 'we are going to deliver xxxthousand emails tomorrow please allow them to pass through the system without hinderance'.

Surely the hypothetical techie might have suggested FSCS should send the emails under the Icesave email domain. By definition all customers would then receive them as the sender would be recognized.

smurf_2

Parcival - Have you tried logging in and seeing if you can initiate your claim yet. It might well be worth a try, rather than spending time chasing people up for the missing emails.

parcival

Can't initiate claim yet, however TalkTalk seem to have resolved this problem at last - just have to wait for second email. Just a pity that a little more thought didn't go into the use of email for such a large task. I particularly like the idea that the emails should have come from the icesave domain name.

Ready_2

Try clicking on tools in outlook express then options then receipts and tic the box that says request a read receipt for all sent messages. Then send a blank message to [EMAIL="icesave@fscs.org.co.uk"]icesave@fscs.org.co.uk[/EMAIL]. Thats how I got my 1st email.

parcival wrote: »

What an absolute shambles. To summarise:

parcival wrote: »

The FSCS has used a bunch of amateurs to send out 200,000 emails when the situation calls for letters which is far more secure. I used to be a Postie and whatever people might think the Royal Mail are very reliable at delivering letters.

However the chosen method is email. Surely any half competent techie would envisage problems with spam filters and would have contacted TalkTalk and other ISP's in advance and said 'we are going to deliver xxxthousand emails tomorrow please allow them to pass through the system without hinderance'.

Even if they couldn't manage to do that surely TalkTalk should be allowing them to hit the recipients email accounts but filtering them to the spam folder for the recipient to decide if they want it or not. Who are TalkTalk to decide that an email should simply be deleted from the system. I must say that this might well prompt me to finally leave TalkTalk - looks like Tiscali are cheaper anyway. Has anyone on Tiscali had any problems with undelivered emails.

Oh - and no I still have not received the first email and I do not think changing my email in Icesave is a good idea as the FSCS will have taken off a file of valid email addresses weeks ago and changing it now will get you the first email but is bound to cause problems down the line.

NonGeographicalMan

parcival wrote: »

The FSCS has used a bunch of amateurs to send out 200,000 emails when the situation calls for letters which is far more secure. I used to be a Postie and whatever people might think the Royal Mail are very reliable at delivering letters.

This is precisely why even though most local councils now let you renew your electoral registration either online or using an 0800 phone number the initial communication about renewing it is always sent by post as it will get there 99.9% of the time. Where it doesn't hear from an elector after its postal communciation a reminder is then also sent by post ensuring 99.9999% likelihood of delivery. HMRC (formerly Inland Revenue) let you file your tax return itself online but they send initial password and user name notifications for that service and the annual notice to submit a return online by post. Begin to spot a pattern here?;)

All of these organisations do this because they know what happens with email addresses as they age. People regularly change them and loads of them will then bounce. With post even if people have moved more often than not forwarding arrangements are left in place at the old address for 6 months or more either with the new occupiers or through Royal Mail's redirection service.

Those who rabbit on mindlessly here about this being an online account and email thus definitely being ok are talking utter tosh as Icesave themselves sent communications they considered mission critical like new passwords or user name re-notification by post. Why because the post is far more secure and reliable than email. Yes it is one or two days slower but that hardly matters when FSCS are keeping most of us waiting up to two months for our money does it?

I really despair of the "I'm alright Jack" merchants who tend to hang out in these forums and who without any intelligent analysis of the situation (because they seem to lack those lateral thinking capabilities) maintain that because they have received an email and their money back that makes it definitely a secure, safe and sane way to do things and that every suggests anything to the contrary is definitely wrong.

Most people had most of their life's cash savings with Icesave and it is vital that they get them back and that the government achieves this on a near 100% basis to maintain confidence in the banking system. Email is not reliable enough for that application and situation which is why it should not be used.

It is quite ok for something as unimportant as an update message on a forum post but even with those I find that some of them sometimes mysteriously do not arrive proving just how unreliable mass automated emailing is as a way of communicating with people if one needs to 100% reliability.

I wish the small number of Icesave depositors who have actually got their money back or are about to (having successfully initiated a transfer of funds out of their account) would just leave it at that instead of putting others down for suggesting the overall process is not reliable on the basis that as they have got their money so everyone else who has not must be doing something wrong.:mad:

suesie999

Ready wrote: »

Try clicking on tools in outlook express then options then receipts and tic the box that says request a read receipt for all sent messages. Then send a blank message to [EMAIL="icesave@fscs.org.co.uk"]icesave@fscs.org.co.uk[/EMAIL]. Thats how I got my 1st email.

yes but did you actually get the read reciept as opposed to the email with content?
Also did you get a read receipt when you replied with your blank email to their 1st email? I have that facility on mine and did not get the actual read receipt

pennineman

The FSCS publicized the process here.

They had a procedure in place (phone) for those who didn't receive the first post by a given date.

Seems fair and sensible.

Re changing email addresses - if you change your email address then surely it is part of the process that you notify all people / organisations who need to know of the change?

Spam filters?? Get a reliable ISP?

Bottom line is that Icesavers are scheduled to get all of their money back. The FSCS is handling this carefully and well. We should be glad that this is the case.

Blah99

suesie999 wrote: »

yes but did you actually get the read reciept as opposed to the email with content?
Also did you get a read receipt when you replied with your blank email to their 1st email? I have that facility on mine and did not get the actual read receipt

Read receipts are extremely unreliable. They are processed as extension options by the recipient mail client, so it's trivial to stop them being sent. Many corporate mail systems automatically strip the receipt option from the mail header before delivering it to the recipient.

web_ferret

The issue is Talk Talk.
Lets just say when it comes to broadband and email you get what you pay for...

And if you pay nothing expect nothing in return!

NonGeographicalMan

web_ferret wrote: »

The issue is Talk Talk.
Lets just say when it comes to broadband and email you get what you pay for...

And if you pay nothing expect nothing in return!

What utter rubbish. Whilst I would be the first to accept that TalkTalk have many things to be criticised for as a telephone company and especially a broadband ISP (especially if you want to download large amounts of tv programs or video from the net) preventing customers being hit from torrents of unwanted spam on their email free of additional charge is not one of them.

It is widely reported about 50% of the emails were blocked as spam across numerous ISP email services not because those spam filtering services were deficient in their construction but because the email house used for this email - https://www.hearfrom.com - are mainly associated with sending large bulk unwanted commercial emails and this has led to them emails being presumed to be spam by the majority of the major spam filtering houses. However knowing perfectly well this was the case hearfrom.com did nothing to approach all the major ISPs in advance to say that in this case they were sending a legitimate email that was agreed with ISPs to be pre-cleared to be let through spam filters and FSCS made no effort not to continue to use Icesave's old commercial promo email sender (hearsay.com) instead of recruiting an emailing house reknowned only for sending responsible wanted communciations and so not widely classed as a spammer. I also understand that various things hearfrom.com did in terms of the headers in the email and its format further aided and abetted its classification as spam.

All the flame mongers here who try to put all the onus on the customer to receive the email ignore the fact that is FSCS's regulatory duty to get this money back to ALL investors in Icesave and not just a percentage of them (i.e. its not a commercial email shot selling something where even 1% response would be great) and the most reliable way to communicate with ALL of them is using the last postal address. Timeliness of post vs email is not an issue as 1 to 2 days is not significant in the total payout period by FSCS and nor is the cost of sending a postal email any more than tiny fractions of 1% of the total money to be paid out by FSCS on the Icesave claim. The payout itself should still be by online login (unless that process does not work) but the communciation to inform depositors of the process should be by post because postal communication is very reliable in getting through and email communication is not.

This forum is unfortunately inhabited by a significant number of unthinking yes men who would clearly make good corporate ladder climbers and just enjoy ticking off other posters on the basis that everything the FSCS does is always clearly right whilst lacking the lateral thinking abilities to properly consider if FSCS could and should have done things considerably better.:eek::mad: