About a week or so ago, I started having DNS problems so I sent an email to my ISP. Periodically, I could resolve some hosts, but not all hosts. This was an intermittent problem for about 2 days. Finally after Joe from Valuenet didn't respond, I decided to call in and leave a support message on his machine. Upon connecting to his IVR system, I find out that I need to update my DNS server's ip address and that will fix my problem. What a pleasant way to let your customers know that something is changing. Shame on you Joe! For the life of me, I cannot understand why he couldn't make this transparent by routing the original IP's traffic to the new IP.

Now that I have updated the DNS server's IP Address, I browse the web and fire off a couple email messages using my mailserver that I've had for over 3 years. To my surprise I get a bounce notification that my IP Adress is part of a block that are being used by verified spammers. My email server is not an open relay and 0 spamm messages have ever been transmitted through it. I email Spamhaus, the company that has my ip block flagged, and request that remove me and plead that I am not a spammer. They reply stating that Valuenet is a known problem to them and that Joe will have to call them to get this taken care of. Remember Joe, he is the jerk that won't return his customers support calls.

At this point in the game it's 4th and 40 and time to punt. I contact SpeakEasy.net and ask about the policies about customers running servers off their DSL service. They respond in an hour and say, we would love to have you as a customer and encourage our users to do this sort of thing. I was pleasantly surprised and end up signing up with SpeakEasy.net. The sign up process was simple and they give you a step by step status on where you are at in the process. What a nice alternative to jerk off Joe. Can't say I'll miss him or his customer service(or should I say lack of customer service).

If any of you are having problems with your ISP, please check out SpeakEasy.net. If you use this url, I get a kickback from SpeakEasy for referrals. Besides my appreciation for you being referred by me, it's also another perk to joining SpeakEasy.net. Heck, I didn't even mention that SpeakEasy is $5 less than Valuenet.

Now I need to figure out how to cancel my Valuenet service. Since I can't call in, I'm thinking of changing my credit card number. Once jerk off Joe calls to tell me there is a problem, I will let him know that I fired him with the same elegance he answered my calls! Other suggestion's are welcome, so use please my comment section :)

Responses[10]

Posted by Mike Shoemaker on July 14, 2004 10:39:41 AM CDT #