Adieu, Earthlink!

Well I've had it.

What happened to Earthlink Tech Support? They used to be great. Unbelievable.

I was having trouble configuring Apple's Mail application to work with my earthlink email account. I could receive email with Mail, but I couldn't send email with Mail. So last week I gave Earthlink a call to get some help with configuring Mail.

Alas, the tech support jockey I got was absolutely clueless. Just really really bad. I knew more about this stuff than he did. (For instance, I'm pretty clear on the difference between 'Incoming Email' and 'Outgoing Email,' but I had to explain this to him.

After about forty five minutes on the phone with him, he turfed me, telling me that I had to contact Apple since the problem was with their software. Like, I'm so sure.

But then things really got weird. I would open up Mail to check my email, and I wasn't getting any. I mean, not even ENLARGE YOU%$R PENIS SATISFIE HER 2NITE email.

Huh.

So, I went to the web-based email site. I typed in my email address and password, and... why... what's this? "Invalid. Please try again."

So I tried again.

Same deal.

Perhaps some problem with my account? I jumped over to the My Account page. I tried to sign in, and this time they got nasty and called me Unauthorized.

Uh oh. Time to call Tech Support.

But first, let's try their Tech Support Chat feature. I've had great luck with this in the past. It's brilliant. A little chat window.

I opened up a chat window. In moments, I got:
"Charles P. writes: Hello. This is Charles P. How can I help you today?"

I typed in a description of my problem to Charles P. and hit [Send]. By way of a reply I got, "You are no longer in a chat session." I went back to go and started over several times, and each time got the same result. As soon as I would speak up, I got "You are no longer in a chat session."

So I dialed the phone.

Oh man.

On Friday night and tonight, I spent a total of Four and a Half Hours listening to hold music. No one picked up. It was obscene. Tonight, I decided to hit the numbers for buying Earthlink products and services instead of for Tech Support. Folks tend to be quicker to pick up if you're ready to give them money.

Twenty minutes later, I was still on hold.

So no more Earthlink for me.

Thus, I have a new email address. You can now reach me at krrrush-at-Mac-dot-com. Note that there are three r's in krrrush.

Please make a note of that. Better still, send me email. That way, I can email you back, and then you'll be in my address book.

Cool?

Cool.

And if anyone out there knows what the hell is up with my former friends at Earthlink, please enlighten me.

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