Orange Dial Up Pay as you Go

Wyndham

My mother in law had Freeserve as her ISP, who provided her with an e-mail account as well. Orange have now taken this over, and she's had various problems. She's not particularly computer literate, but is trying hard to understand it all. She wants to stay with dial up, and wants it to be a pay as you go scheme rather than a monthly rate, and given her internet usage it probably is the cheapest way for her to do it.

However, she couldn't access her e-mail. In the end she rang their helpline (0870 number, but I found the non-0870 number for her following instructions from this site!) They informed her that her e-mail had been suspended because she is a pay as you go customer. It has now been reactivated, but will be suspended again in 3 months, and every 3 months after that.

I think this is disgraceful. I assume they are using it as a cross selling opportunity, but I'm a bit bemused as to why they might.

So, my question is, has anyone else come across this? Is there a way around it? Does anyone know the thinking behind it?

espresso

Wyndham wrote:

They informed her that her e-mail had been suspended because she is a pay as you go customer. It has now been reactivated, but will be suspended again in 3 months, and every 3 months after that.

It is quite common for unused accounts to be suspended if not accessed for 90 days. If this is unacceptable, sign up for a gmail, yahoo etc. e-mail account which is independent of the ISP used.

mrJ_5

Orange, or France Telecom, has owned Freeserve for many years now - it first rebranded it Wanadoo, then earlier this year in June I think, rebranded it Orange

but this 90 day thing has existed since it was freeserve, since my email account got deactivated itself, before france telecom bought freeserve

Wyndham

espresso wrote:

It is quite common for unused accounts to be suspended if not accessed for 90 days. If this is unacceptable, sign up for a gmail, yahoo etc. e-mail account which is independent of the ISP used.

But she IS using it (at least every couple of weeks) - and they are still suspending it, and have told her it's because she's not on a monthly contract.

dieselglider

Wyndham wrote:

But she IS using it (at least every couple of weeks) - and they are still suspending it, and have told her it's because she's not on a monthly contract.

That's strange, as I have a reminder to dial up once a month to keep the account active, with no problems as yet...

My account is also an old Freeserve one.