They used to be ok in my opinion but since Yahoo have taken over their email (along with other providers, Talk21 is the one I can think of off the top of my head) there have been a multitude of problems ranging back from this time last year if you plug a search into google. Looks like it was just our turn this time!

I don’t know if this is related at all to the above or your earlier post, but I’ve had my share of BT’s incompetence this week… or should that be over zealousness?

Not with the patient, courteous Mac Help Desk staff who tried to solve the problem – although it hasn’t been, sadly – but with the continued to-the-point- of-stubborn denial that my issue of not being able to receive or send mail was not because of something BT Yahoo had done.

Finally, after almost a week of emails and phone calls, their Help Team conceded my email problems might just be their fault after all. But they still managed to make me feel it’s still, apparently, my fault.

Their explanation for my email problems (after 40 minutes on the phone this morning) is that in addition to my BT Openworld account I am sending and checking email from other accounts via different servers at the same time using Mac OSX’s Mail app.

When I do this from home, they say these emails still go through the BT server and apparently they need some kind of authentication. Because the other addresses aen’t authenticated, they says this is what has caused the problems with my BT address. (I do not understand why they would as the mail is sent to non BT servers).

OK — but why then have they not contacted me to tell me this might be a problem? They have alternative email addresses for me and phone numbers. If they had just directed me to some page on the BT web site where I can authenticate the addresses, I’m happy to do this.

This also doesn’t explain why I cannot access my BT email from my workplace where I am not using my home BT connection. I’m still having the same problems sending and receiving mail from my BT account at work. (I can still log in and check BT via webmail without any problem).

BT say that because I have been sending email from my Mail app I now need to change all my other email account information so email goes through BT servers. To which my response is, why? And why would I have to do this at work, too?

For example, this would mean I would have to send work-related email through the BT server rather than our work server (where rightfully copies are kept). There’s no way my company would countenance that.

Surely the email that I am sending through a different server is none of BT’s business?

Anyway, I think I’ve been patient enough with BT Yahoo. I don’t really want to have to parp around with mail server settings (I’m sure I could switch locations, but why should I have to?)

I guess I just don’t understand enough about what could be causing this but based on discussions today it’s clear BT is causing the problems, not the Mail app as they kept claiming, and no amount of port, SMTP or password changing they’ve sugested is going to help. So now I’m just having all mail to my BT address forwarded to another one.

It’s quite clear to me that BT has made some kind of change to its server set up which is affecting only my BT mail when I try to collect it using Mail. If there is some way this can be solved which doesn’t involve huge complications I would love to hear it, but it’s down to BT Yahoo to solve this in my opinion, or provide an explanation I can understand, in writing.