Fastmail / Operamail account question

[goky]

This information doesn't seem to be available anywhere on the Fastmail site, I looked pretty hard.

I've got several (Operamail) Fastmail accounts, some paid (ad free) some not. I make a point of logging in to all of them on a regular basis so they don't die.

In the middle of my list that I go down to login one of the free accounts got "Login Disabled". This seemed odd since the free one above and the free one below on the list were still live. While it wasn't a very important account (online magazine), I decided to contact Fastmail support, just to see what was what.

The response: "Sorry, but your account was deactivated due to excess inactivity. Guest
accounts are deactivated after 45 days of inactivity." (they call the free ones "guest accounts" now it seems)

Now the last information I had (from the "FastMail.FM newsletter") was that

"Existing Guest accounts continue to work, and we will not cancel active accounts. However, if a Guest account is deactivated because it has not been used for 120 days, it will not be reactivated."

...which seemed to me indicated 120 days. So I asked on that...

> Which time period is correct? 120 or 45?

Fastmail support: "Its 45 days for "Guest" accounts and "120" days for the one time paid accounts."

And they went on to say:
"Since we no longer provide "Guest" service level that we used to, we
cannot reactivate your account:

http://blog.fastmail.fm/2012/10/18/c...ervice-levels/ "

That page they pointed to also says: "120 days" not 45.

Since their answer didn't seem to be in line with the newsletter, the webpage they referenced, or with the how often I had checked my free accounts (I'm guessing about every 2 months or might be longer). I decide I'd ask here...

How often do I need to log on to fastmail.fm to keep my accounts active? Both free and paid. All are from operamail.com.

Is there anywhere that such information (and changes) is posted?

The Fastmail Terms of Service:
https://www.fastmail.fm/help/overview_terms.html
indicate "The Service Provider may also terminate or suspend your account for inactivity, which is defined as failing to sign-in to the Service for an extended period of time...The amount of time that the Service Provider currently considers as an "extended" period of time may be viewed from the Help link." But the Help link DOESN'T, and I don't think it's listed anywhere on fastmail.fm or fastmail.wikia.com.

To not be able to find a consistent answer for this type of basic Terms of Service type question seems like a bad sign. And assuming they did change from 120 to 45 days: I realize that free accounts (even with the ads) aren't money makers but to not inform folks of changes like this seems very anti customer service, especially since they say they won't reactivate even if you pay. A quick newsletter (ala the one above) would take care of it.

I'm hoping it's still 120 days, but whatever it is I'd like to know.

[Terry]

I thought it was changed to 45 days....just spend a few $ and you won't have a problem.

[goky]

Originally Posted by Terry

I thought it was changed to 45 days....just spend a few $ and you won't have a problem.

I'm not saying they can't change it (hey it's their sandbox). I'm just saying:

A. They should let people know. Preferably in a way that is easy to find.
B. All their people should have the same answer.
C. If they are going to kill accounts (especially without telling people about the new time limit) they should have a way to bring them back with contents intact.

As far as the money goes: You (Terry) send me the $$$ and I'll do it . I've got over 20 of the free ones, so at $5 a year that makes around $100+. Tell you what, you send me enough for 10 and I'll cover the rest

And since I can just hear the "why?" coming: As an anti spam method, every time I signed up for another magazine, website (of little interest), or annual convention I just gave them a new email. If they went spam nova I just stopped signing in. If they were interesting I sign in once every few months and read (3 months = 12 issues of a weekly email). No fuss, no bother. I just set up bunches: box101@operamail + box102@, box103@...

The deal for most of the free email services is you look at the ads, they give you the box. I guess Fastmail didn't like that. That's fine. But LET PEOPLE KNOW before you kill their email, it's basic customer service. And even if it's a "free" email box, word of mouth + potential paying account = customer.

So now, given the writing on the wall, "Let's quietly keep changing things until these leeches go away" and combined with the various other things that over the years have made Fastmail a pain (most recently my auto logins died when they killed operamail.com WITHOUT WARNING), I have to decide which websites etc. link to the Fastmail boxes (both free and paid) and move them to my "real" email provider. Runbox in case anyone cares. It's a pain.

So a simple warning / prophesy: Any company that makes changes, without warning, that hurts some of their customers and doesn't see a problem with it = a company that will hurt ALL of their customers sooner or later. Probably by shutting down with no forwarding address.

[FredOnline]

Just checked my (not often logged into) @operamail.com account at FastMail.

There's an e-mail titled: Notification of forthcoming operamail.com account closure.

Quote: This message is to let you know that your operamail.com account
"xxxxxx@operamail.com" is scheduled to be closed soon, because you
have not used it for some time. Non-paying and one-time fee accounts
are closed after 120 days of inactivity. If you wish for us to
close your account, just do nothing and we will delete it in 14 days.

[communicant]

This is very disturbing to me, because a family member has an old account and depends on me to keep it from being deleted.

I remember very clearly a long time ago when the inactivity period was 45 days, and I also remember very clearly when this was increased to 120 days for all accounts, including guest accounts.

If this limit has recently been changed *back* to 45 days, there has certainly been no announcement sent to the account in question, and this account has stayed alive even though more than 45 days sometimes goes by without a login. To delete such an account without sending a warning or an announcement first would not be the sort of action or policy that I would expect from FM, especially now that the original crew are back in charge as owners.

So...

The question is very simple.

The documentation seems to indicate a 120-day inactivity period for legacy guest accounts and old "lifetime" accounts, but this thread seems to indicate that in practice this is sometimes not true.

Which is it? 45 days or 120 days?

For heaven's sake, I hope one of the Fastmail reps here will answer this simple question quickly and clearly!

[n5bb]

I have old Guest and Member accounts I still keep active, and after an exhaustive search I agree that the terms of service were never clearly communicated in the initial signup message or subsequent Fastmail staff messages I can find sent to those accounts. The current Terms Of Service mention inactivity termination in section 8, but the text indicates that the interval is stated in the online Help (where it can not be found).

There was one upgrade invitation sent to my Guest account in April 2010 stating that the inactivity signup interval was 45 days, but a Fastmail weblog entry from October 2012 stated that the Guest interval was 120 days. There are no current weblog or help entries about Member (one-time fee) accounts, and the Account Status screen for these accounts doesn't mention any inactivity period.

I just sent Fastmail staff the results of my research, and hopefully they will fix this. Although it would be good to have the answers in this forum, this information should be easy for any user to find in the Help and Account Status screens.

Bill

[goky]

Originally Posted by n5bb

this information should be easy for any user to find in the Help and Account Status screens.

Bill

Bingo!

I suspect this may be a case of notification being the lowest priority,

Or there are several conflicting rules written in different spots:

What I have experienced, in a corporate environment, is these types of policies and rules being randomly created (and applied) over time. I.e. nobody can use outside vendor program Such&Such on office machines (if you talk to Bob on Tuesday), everybody can use it (if you talk to Tim on Tuesday). And both can point to written rules that support their position. So you install it and 6 months later one IT guy comes by and removes it, 2 months after that it's installed system wide. Turned out it depended on which VP was asked, so it alternated based on their vacation schedules. Very Dilbertish.

So, what I suspect happened is that my deleted account was wiped by technician A (following 45 day policy) and the other accounts were not wiped by technician B (following 120 day policy). Or "A" does a few when he gets a few minutes of spare time. I've been amazed by how NON automated some of this stuff is in some companies.

Why, in this particular case, this is so critical is that YOUR account will be dead with no recovery (according to Yassar Ali on Thursday). Now I have a hunch, if you got the right person on the right day, you might, especially if you upgraded to a pay account (a higher price one might be a help), get your info back... But that isn't what is being stated and I wouldn't count on it.

[communicant]

As I recently posted in another thread, an Opera rep who posts here at EMD as johanborg wrote as follows in 2011 regarding the inactivity period:

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"We have bumped it to 120 days for both fastmail.fm and mail.opera.com. On mail.opera.com this means we delete the e-mail account but not your Opera account which can still be used for Opera Link or Unite or other Opera services."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Presumably the Opera references are now obsolete (?), but the first sentence seems unambiguous and would presumably apply to Guest and Lifetime accounts. Granted, a post at EMD does not necessarily have the force of official policy and is not binding on the poster's employers, but still. . .

[n5bb]

The Fastmail account service levels being discussed are Guest and Member. You can see these in the Account>Account Status>Service level field. Inventing other names for these accounts confuses forum readers. These service levels were created 11 years ago, and if you search EMD forums you can see that Fastmail considered offering lifetime accounts but did not.

The Member account was set up with a one-time fee as a way for users to get familiar with Fastmail before upgrading to a yearly subscription account with more features. The Member fee was applied to the first yearly subscription fee when you upgraded. The initial Member fee proved to be too low, and it was increased to $14.95.

The Guest account was a later attempt to get new users familiar with the service using limited advertising. As you can see by reading the old forum posts, these accounts were intended as steppingstones to Full and Enhanced subscription accounts. It's amazing that Fastmail has still grandfathered these old accounts after more than 10 years!

Bill

[communicant]

Originally Posted by n5bb

The Fastmail account service levels being discussed are Guest and Member. You can see these in the Account>Account Status>Service level field. Inventing other names for these accounts confuses forum readers. These service levels were created 11 years ago, and if you search EMD forums you can see that Fastmail considered offering lifetime accounts but did not.

The Member account was set up with a one-time fee as a way for users to get familiar with Fastmail before upgrading to a yearly subscription account with more features. The Member fee was applied to the first yearly subscription fee when you upgraded. The initial Member fee proved to be too low, and it was increased to $14.95.

The Guest account was a later attempt to get new users familiar with the service using limited advertising. As you can see by reading the old forum posts, these accounts were intended as steppingstones to Full and Enhanced subscription accounts. It's amazing that Fastmail has still grandfathered these old accounts after more than 10 years!

Bill

(1) Sorry for inaccurately calling "Member" accounts "Lifetime" accounts, but they were, after all, "one-time fee" accounts with no expiration, so it is not inaccurate in spirit to regard them as "lifetime" accounts, regardless of nomenclature. As for ancient history, if "Member" accounts were meant to be used for only one year, it would have been very simple to offer a one-year account rather than an open-ended "one-time-fee" account. That was not what was done, however, and you can hardly blame the surviving account holders for the current state of affairs.

(2) What you have written in your post is all true, but what does any of that have to do with the matter under discussion, which concerns a needless ambiguity and uncertainty about something as cut-and-dried as an inactivity period?

As long as these accounts do still exist, surely their holders have a right to know how often they need to log in to avoid a summary deletion of their accounts, do they not? That is hardly an unreasonable expectation.

If your underlying point or implication is that you believe these accounts should no longer be tolerated and that their holders have some sort of moral duty to fall on their swords, why not simply say so?

[n5bb]

As I said before, I have Guest, Member, and paid Fastmail accounts. So I'm very interested in all of those accounts continuing! I spent a long time this weekend researching the TOS, Help, Fastmail blog, EMD forum posts made by Jeremy Howard during the early days of the Member account (and later the creation of the Guest account), and notifications from Fastmail to those accounts when I set them up and at later times. I then sent a long email to a Fastmail staff member I know asking them to clean up their act.

So please don't read some motive into my posts here which is against any Guest or Member account owner. Fastmail obviously has a missing TOS detail (inactivity timeout) which they should be obligated to make clear in various places.

By the way, all Fastmail account holders should check the Account>Password/Security Settings screen and be sure that the backup email address listed there is directed toward some account which they check often. This action should prevent the account being closed for inactivity or some other cause in most cases. As you will be able to tell from my posts, I'm a proponent for personal responsibility in keeping your email account tuned up appropriately (and other actions in our lives). The main reason I like Fastmail is that we have a lot of control over our email experience.

Bill

[goky]

Originally Posted by n5bb

You can see these in the Account>Account Status>Service level field.
Bill

I only quoted the part of Bill's statement that applied to the central question:

That spot is where you can find the information! It's there! Buried about as deep as questionable pictures on a teenager's computer, but there! Wow!

:
"Inactivity period: _______ 120 _____ Number of days of inactivity after which your account will be closed"

Which means that Fastmail support misinformed me... It IS 120 days for the accounts I've checked, not 45. While tempted, I'm not going to tell them directly, they might decide to "correct" my accounts.

Thanks Bill!

[goky]

Oh BTW:

The paid accounts say:

Inactivity period: ____ N/A ____ Number of days of inactivity after which your account will be closed

So, since those are the cheapest grade of paid, I assume that means you other annual paying types are also OK (as long as you pay). No idea about the "lifetime" member accounts, if you check those please post on here for other folks.

[n5bb]

Fastmail just fixed the Account>Account Status page to show Inactivity period for all accounts. Here are comments from Rob:

Originally Posted by email from Rob Mueller

Wow, what a mess!

I've decided the best thing to do is add something to the Account -> Account Status page. There's a new "Inactivity period" row which states for your account what the inactivity period is. I've updated the TOS to mention this as well. That should roll out soon.

Having said that, I've looked at the DB, and what I found is that the inactivity period for both Guest and Member is currently 120 days. It used to be 45 and 120 days respectively, but got changed to 120 days for Guest as noted in that Oct 2012 blog post.

It's never been 180 days for Member, so if they got that from support, that was a mistake.

Internally, we actually allow an extra week of inactivity before we actually close the account, that's just to avoid any chance of errors or arguments occurring.

Cheers
Rob Mueller

Bill

[goky]

Originally Posted by n5bb

Fastmail just fixed the Account>Account Status page to show Inactivity period for all accounts. Here are comments from Rob:

Bill

Hey Bill, where are those "Rob comments" from? If it's a forum, I think it's one I might want to follow.

Thanks