pobox.com - to be or not to be their client?

[alexu2007]

Interesting enough in the light of the past events, pobox.com was one of the services I didn't get the chance to test and review until now.

From their reviews, they seems to be a reliable email service provider, with a good uptime and good support. Well, I wanted to see that for myself.

So I signed up for an account. If everything works as advertised, I might use it for business emails for more than an year (the initial signup period).

I confirmed the email verification and I logged into my account. Nice control panel, but my account status was: "Account being Reviewed". No problem, it should be some verification to check if I am a spammer or not (maybe they check for my domain reputation since I used my own domain's email account to sign up for their services, etc).

And I waited for my account to be activated to start using it.

But no.

My account has been deactivated (this is the message that is displayed right now in my control panel).

If your account has not expired, it may have been deactivated for use in conjunction with spamming or other violations of our Terms of Service, or by your request.

Well I didn't get the chance to use my account so I was not violating their TOS and I didn't requested to deactivate my account.

I said ok, maybe if I wave the 30 days free trial they will activate my account, so I clicked the Pay button to make the payment.

But instead of the payment page there is a message displayed with really big letters, like I am blind or something:

Account Permanently Disabled
Account ID:
Account Name:
For security reasons, this account is inactive and cannot be reactivated at this time. For further information, please contact customer support.

And I contacted Customer Support asking them what is going on with my account, what's wrong? But I never get an answer from them.

Maybe they don't want my business. Maybe they are a regional email service provider (as Runbox used to be until they realized that they need money from more people) and I am not on their coverage area.

Or maybe the technical meltdown they experienced less than a month ago was the first sign showing that the service they're offering is getting worse.

I will leave it as it is. I have enough paid email accounts at runbox, eumx, rackspace and others. I'm not interested in begging pobox.com to give them my money and become their client.

[alexu2007]

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Update:

several hours later I received a reply to my support request. They said that my account was flagged by security (whatever that means) and that is now activated.

Unfortunately I don't need a service where support answer several hours later. And I don't need a service where you should wait for a day to have your account activated. Email is the fast version of snailmail. I use email because is fast. That's why when I encounter a problem I need fast answer from support.

Eumx support reply faster and Rackspace for example have a live support chat. Both Eumx and Rackspace activated my account faster (less than two hours) than pobox.com.

I just canceled my pobox.com account. For me, they failed from the start.

[Berenburger]

Originally Posted by alexu2007

Update:

several hours later I received a reply to my support request. They said that my account was flagged by security (whatever that means) and that is now activated.

Unfortunately I don't need a service where support answer several hours later. And I don't need a service where you should wait for a day to have your account activated. Email is the fast version of snailmail. I use email because is fast. That's why when I encounter a problem I need fast answer from support.

Eumx support reply faster and Rackspace for example have a live support chat. Both Eumx and Rackspace activated my account faster (less than two hours) than pobox.com.

Pobox always response promptly to me. Several hours, IMO, is acceptable and reasonable.

[ST123]

I started a trial with pobox.com today and all is good so far for me.

Support has been quick and helpful. Their system seems good so far.

I've just started to the process to migrate 10GB of email from Google apps. Will update when done.

[ST123]

Google apps to Pobox - Migration seems to have gone fine.

Though can someone confirm if it is safe for me to delete the emails in Archive folder.

i.e. just keep the 'All Mail' folder?

Does 'All Mail' contain everything inc Archive?