How does one complain to AT&T?

[Geek-9pm]

soybean: Thank you, that helps clarify. I like visuals.

This e-mail thing has got me bugged. I have been using e-mail for years, and I've had different Internet service providers. The issue I have with AT&T DSL service is very annoying. They do allow me to use of their e-mail accounts. But each account can be verified with AT&T DSL service B4 I can use it for outgoing mail. That is the key issue that really gets to me.
To my surprise, some of a free e-mail companies also take that kind of position. They will not let you use their SMTP service unless you register and verify which e-mail addresses are going to use. I just didn't realize.
Also, great majority of free e-mail services do not have any provision for you to use SMTP. They expect you to use only their webmail service. A webmail service is a form of  HTTP that lets you receive and send e-mail without the use of a POP server or an SMTP server. I have gone through reviews of about 50 different services, and just a few offer POP and SMTP service.
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For concise reviews of popular Enail companies, consider there items fro Wikipedia
(Note the article about Ajax in the link below has information that appears to be very off topic. It reads as a rough history of Google Mail.)
Ajax (programming)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ajax_%28programming%29
FastMail
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FastMail.FM
Gmail
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gmail
Hotmail
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotmail
Live Mail
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_Mail

For the webmail service once called Windows Live Mail, see Hotmail.
Hotmail
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotmail

Yahoo
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahoo_mail
Fastmail.FM will sell you POP and SMTP service. But I want it FREE!
That's all for today. I will monitor this thread for comments.

[patio]

But each account can be verified with AT&T DSL service B4 I can use it for outgoing mail. That is the key issue that really gets to me.

I'd really like to see a source for this as i have an AT&T account and have never, never encountered these issues at all.

I'll wait...

[Geek-9pm]

I'd really like to see a source for this as i have an AT&T account and have never, never encountered these issues at all.

I'll wait...

Patio, you are right. You can get it to work. But the problem is understandinkg how. The documentation is either out-or-date or just wrong.
Here is just one of many fellow complainers.
http://corriehaffly.wordpress.com/2008/10/03/sending-mail-in-outlook-with-att-dsl/

Sending mail in Outlook with AT&T DSL
I just killed a good part of my day trying to figure out how to get Outlook (2003) to send mail with AT&T DSL’s SMTP settings. Now, I don’t consider myself to be very savvy in terms of getting networks and internet connections and such to work, but I have configured Outlook several times in the past with various ISPs and didn’t have any problems as long as I had the proper setup instructions. We had SBC/AT&T DSL a couple years ago and email receiving and sending was fine. This time, however, I was stumped.

The handy booklet that comes with AT&T’s DSL modem has these instructions (which can also be found if you Google various phrases such as “Outlook AT&T DSL SMTP”
...
I’m still very disappointed with the AT&T live chat support that I interacted with. Is it really such a rare occurrence for someone to want to use a non-AT&T email address that they never run into this? Or was it a ploy to get me to pay for tech support? Seeing as how verifying email addresses through Yahoo was an integral part of the process and Outlook had NOTHING to do with it, my opinion of their customer support is currently very low.

This was, of course, a few years ago, Things may have improved. Hard to say. I have used AT&T for over two years, On and off.  It is still hard to get the right documentation. The quote above is from a search.

I have found some answers. I will post them when I get is sorted out, It is rather obvious, but AT&T does not tell you. You can BUY SMTP service, but I want it FREE.

Yes, there are FREE SMTP services that AT&T will not block.
They have to be SSL, which is not plain SMTP on port 26.

I will come back later with a list of FREE SMTP with SSL. I am slow, but I will do it.

I Will Return.    - Douglas MacArthur

[soybean]

They will not let you use their SMTP service unless you register and verify which e-mail addresses are going to use.

I believe I've more or less said before that this is non-sense.  And now, I say it again. 

I just conducted a test to prove what I already knew but decided to do a new test anyway. My mother uses AT&T DSL.  I exported a POP3 account provided by my ISP (which is not AT&T), emailed it to mom, established a remove connection to her computer, imported the email address into Outlook Express on her computer, and then received and sent messages from that account on her computer.  This involved no contact whatsoever with AT&T.

Sometime last year, I did this with another AT&T user.  In that case, I setup a POP3-enabled gmail account in her email client.  No calls to AT&T to "register" or "verify" which account she was going to use.

Think about it.  Why would an ISP require some kind of registering and approval procedure to setup some non-ISP POP or IMAP account in an email client?  The only valid reason for such a requirement would be to prevent serious cases of email spamming, and they can probably detect that with account monitoring tools.  The ISP's role is to provide Internet access, which would include a full range of uses (http, ftp. pop, imap, etc.); their role is not to rigidly police how customers use their Internet access.   

I agree with you on one point - AT&T support is usually awful.

[patio]

Biggest Red Herring of the Year Finalist...

[BC_Programmer]

... And Then I said, "Oatmeal, are you crazy?"


I think that summarizes this thread.

[patio]

Are there bananas in the oatmeal ? ?

Cause that would be crazy...

[Geek-9pm]

I am not through yet. And what does Oatmeal have to do with it?

As mentioned, it is not the POP that is at issue here. You can POP all you want with AT&T DSL. The issue is when you reply or send a mail in Outlook Express or Thunderbird using the SMTP instructions provided by AT&T.

 If you ignore the AT&T documents construction and do your own thing, you can make it work.  I have done that, and I want to make a list of free services where you can do that without giving any money. I can do it with the SMTP I got from FASTMAIL.FM, but I had to pay for it and use their instructions, not the AT&T instructions.

[soybean]

The issue is when you reply or send a mail in Outlook Express or Thunderbird using the SMTP instructions provided by AT&T.

You still don't get it.       Why would you seek SMTP instructions provided by AT&T to setup a non-AT&T email account?  That's absurd.  What you need to do in such cases is seek the outgoing server info from the email account provider, not AT&T.  When I performed the test described in my previous post, the account I imported into my mother's computer is one that uses smtp.embarqmail.com for the outgoing server.  I had no contact whatsoever with AT&T about this.  The outgoing server coding comes from the provider of the email account I was using, which happens to be one provided by my ISP (not AT&T). 

[Geek-9pm]

You still don't get it.       Why would you seek SMTP instructions provided by AT&T to setup a non-AT&T email account? 

Because that is exactly what AT&T says to do.

[soybean]

Because that is exactly what AT&T says to do.

You're being mis-lead.  AT&T tech support is lousy.  Again, do not call them for assistance with setting up an email (POP/IMAP/SMTP) account unless it's an AT&T account.  For any non-AT&T account, you need to get the account settings from the email provider, not AT&T.

[Geek-9pm]

You're being mis-lead.  AT&T tech support is lousy.  Again, do not call them for assistance with setting up an email (POP/IMAP/SMTP) account unless it's an AT&T account.  For any non-AT&T account, you need to get the account settings from the email provider, not AT&T.

You said it, soybean. I will allow that I am sometimes not too bright. Now in my defense, let me say that AT&T and Yahoo have got a look of people fooled. Here is a direct quote from a support area in the Yahoo mail stuff.

http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/smallbusiness/bizmail/pop/pop-12.html
Yahoo! Small Business > Yahoo! Small Business Help > Business Email > Using POP Access
I use SBC Dial or DSL and cannot send email from my POP client. What happened?AT&T and its partners have implemented a program aimed at combating unsolicited commercial email (spam). AT&T now filters port 25, which means that many of its users are now required to send email through AT&T's own SMTP servers. If you use AT&T to gain access to the Internet (via a dial-up or DSL connection) and have purchased a Yahoo! Small Business plan that includes email, you will likely need to replace the Yahoo! SMTP server address in your POP settings with an SMTP server address specified by AT&T. See the list of settings.

You may also choose to opt out of AT&T's port 25 filtering program. If you opt out of this program, you will continue to use Yahoo!'s SMTP servers to manage your outgoing email. To opt out of the AT&T port 25 filtering program, simply make your request using AT&T's designated online form. Within 12 hours you will receive a notification from AT&T that you can once again use Yahoo!'s SMTP server to send email.

For more information about AT&T's SMTP requirements, please visit the AT&T help center or contact AT&T DSL support at 877-SBC-DSL5 (877-722-3755) or AT&T DIAL support at 866-SBC-DIAL (866-722-3425).

Is that true? Is it out of date? Can't they give customers the correct information? Why is it so hard to tell them to use another method that does not user port 25. Many mail services allow SSL over port 465. But don't expert AT&T to even hint that you can use another port and protocol.

Some most free email does nnot have SSL. The certificate costs money. So do not expect it from a free service. But there are some. I still searching.