ContactOffice (and mail.be)

Tsunami · 31st May 2012, 03:10 AM

I start this topic as I could not retrieve the earlier posts about this provider. They offer paid virtual offices with webmail, and in addition they have the free mail.be service. Located in Belgium (convenient for me, since I'm Belgian)

Does anyone know if this is a reliable provider? Has anyone got any experience with the email part of their product?

drew · 31st May 2012, 03:45 AM

I know nothing but had some minutes for a test so I joined
and that where easy but now they tell me something I fail to grasp.

Quote:

Welcome to your Virtual Office

Here are some explanations to start using MailBe.
This page will automatically disappear after 5 connections.

Create your email address When you first use the Messages tool, create your email address if no address has been automatically created. You can also check external email addresses (including Gmail and Yahoo) by clicking on POP3 in the Messages tool.
Go to Messages

Fill in your personal data Some features require that your personal data are filled in and up to date.
Go to your personal data

...
If you don't connect for 60 consecutive days, your account and all your data will be deleted!

That is quite a huge demand is it not?

There is something about the logic or grammar in this text that makes it fail for me.
I have no idea what I am supposed to do.

Quote:

Create your email address
When you first use the Messages tool,
create your email address
If no address has been automatically created.

What? Can somebody explain?

drew · 31st May 2012, 03:55 AM

I get it a bit better now.
First one join using a username.
then depending on what name one give them
they are very persistent that one can not have
the username as the email address.

Maybe if one give same name for both user name and
real name. Username drewstrawberry and
then real name as Drew Strawberry then one maybe
just maybe can have drew.strawberry at mail.be as
email address. They fooled me. Nothing indicated them
would be that strict on what is okay as address.

communicant · 1st June 2012, 12:47 AM

I had the same difficulty understanding what they meant. I opened an account using the userID that I wanted as my email address, and then I was surprised to be asked to "create the email address" as an additional secondary step. I couldn't prevent the system from generating an email address based on the first and last name I had used when I registered. That address worked for sending and receiving but was not the address I had wanted as a userID. I found that the system would only allow me to "create" the address I wanted (and which I thought I had used to open the account in the first place) if I created it as an alias, but even then, I discovered that I could send from that alias but mail sent to that address bounced with a "mailbox unavailable" message. Their procedures for opening and naming accounts are very confusing. The good news is that support is responsive and replies quickly, although the rep did not seem at first to understand my difficulty. Eventually he said the only thing he could do was to "change" the email address at their end to the userID that I thought I had used to create the account in the first place. He was able to do that at the admin level but it was not an action that a subscriber could have taken independently. I thanked him and said yes, please do that. So he did, and I finally had the address I wanted, but only after much confusion and frustration which could have been avoided by clearer instructions and explanations.

I have not used the office suite or the other available services, but the email service has been reliable and I have had no problems with it, after the initial confusion noted above was resolved.

Tsunami · 4th June 2012, 03:55 AM

Did you subscribe to mail.be (which exists both free and paid) or to ContactOffice.com (who own mail.be but seem to make a distinction between those who have accounts with mail.be or directly with Contact Office) ?

Is the session encrypted entirely? Do they give notice of the date of previous sign-in?

I would usually want to know if there's any Facebook/Twitter/MySpace/chatbox etc linked to or if it's just plain email (which is what I look for) ; however when you state the email is solid while you didn't try the rest, that means that at least it's for sure possible to use the email only and not bother about the remaining services they offer.

drew · 4th June 2012, 04:24 AM

As far as I know I went here
http://www.mail.be/

Tsunami · 6th June 2012, 12:50 AM

I wonder if the free accounts at contactoffice.com directly are any different ; I do think mail.be and contactoffice.com may have some distinctions, because they are promoted as two different products despite having the same owner.

The Light version may be an option: if I understand correctly then the pricing is 5 € per 6 months which means just 10 € for a year. 2 GB for 10 euro per year only isn't bad if the support and features are matching my requirements.

I would usually watch first if the previous sign-in dates, inactivity limit, and encryption are OK but I may just as well ask the support since they're in my native Belgium anyway.

Very odd: signing up at contactoffice.com asks 5€ for 6 months for a 2 GB mailbox. Mail.be however asks 3€ per month (= 36 € per year!) for just 1 GB!

Tsunami · 8th June 2012, 11:59 PM

Is there anyone with experience in the ContactOffice proper?

The prices for paid accounts for mail.be are higher than those of ContactOffice even when the company offering the accounts is the same. But how is the eail when signing up with Contact Office directly? Is it identical or mostly identical to Mail.be when it comes to features and interface?

Webgenie · 22nd June 2012, 01:08 AM

Tsunami, I signed up for a free account and liked the way things looked - all the features like Calendar, Docs, etc. I changed my "name" in order to get the e-mail address I wanted. The e-mails worked as far as sending and receiving, and not being labeled as junk where they were received. However, I like using a client, and prefer imap. It looked to me that one could only use pop for free, but then I found out I could not even access the mail via pop. Then I tried to import my calendar from Thunderbird/Lightning, and got the message that it was too much data for the account type (free). Since I can't really test the features to see if it is worth paying for, I deleted my account.

Tsunami · 25th June 2012, 01:05 AM

But you liked the webmail? (because I mainly, almost exclusively, use webmail)

Does it show the log of previous sign-in dates? Is there chat/Twitter/social networking etc included or is it just basic but reliable email? Not too many ads making the interface hard to manage?

I am basically not minding paying (and the pricing of ContactOffice are very reasonable) but then I do demand my criteria being met. I don't need Documents or Calendars or Chats or so, just very reliable email. So as long as that's OK, then it meets my demands to large extent ; the dates of previous sessions being shown is quite important for me too.

When you find a service providing all you look for for a decent price, then sure no issue for me to pay (as long as the pricing is reasonable ; I am unsure if ContactOffice meets the discription above but if it would... then I'd say the pricing is reasonable enough to be a very serious option for me)

Webgenie · 25th June 2012, 01:17 AM

Tsunami, you should try it out. If you use webmail mostly, you will probably like it. I don't remember if it showed the sign-in log. I don't see ads because I block them, so I wouldn't know how it looks with ads. Another thing I've found that people should check out with e-mail providers that aren't well-known is whether their e-mail is marked as spam by the recipient. That's a reason to send e-mail to yourself, and hotmail tends to block certain providers. I don't mind paying, either, for a good product, so it's too bad they don't give more in the free version or a trial of imap/etc as Runbox does. I can't blindly buy something when I don't know what I'm going to get.

Tsunami · 25th June 2012, 01:39 AM

ContactOffice is on the list of candidates for my new main email host, others being EuMX, Polarismail (once the log of previous sessions is launched) ... but ContactOffice would of course be convenient due to its Belgian location and helpdesk in my mothertongue.

If only Safe Mail were a tiny bit cheaper I'd just upgrade my free account there without even thinking twice.

Anyways, I believe you have to get the ContactOffice free version first and then decide to keep and pay or drop it. So maybe I should indeed give it a test ride. I like to ask things such as the log of sessions and the encryption of the entire session beforehand because there's so many services to try out that you have to cherry pick a bit (for example: forget about the services without log of previous sessions or encryption, and you already have narrowed the options to try a bit ...)

31st May 2012, 03:10 AM	#1
Tsunami Master of the @ Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: in between the bright lights and the far unlit unknown Posts: 1,555	ContactOffice (and mail.be) I start this topic as I could not retrieve the earlier posts about this provider. They offer paid virtual offices with webmail, and in addition they have the free mail.be service. Located in Belgium (convenient for me, since I'm Belgian) Does anyone know if this is a reliable provider? Has anyone got any experience with the email part of their product?

6th June 2012, 12:50 AM	#7
Tsunami Master of the @ Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: in between the bright lights and the far unlit unknown Posts: 1,555	I wonder if the free accounts at contactoffice.com directly are any different ; I do think mail.be and contactoffice.com may have some distinctions, because they are promoted as two different products despite having the same owner. The Light version may be an option: if I understand correctly then the pricing is 5 € per 6 months which means just 10 € for a year. 2 GB for 10 euro per year only isn't bad if the support and features are matching my requirements. I would usually watch first if the previous sign-in dates, inactivity limit, and encryption are OK but I may just as well ask the support since they're in my native Belgium anyway. Very odd: signing up at contactoffice.com asks 5€ for 6 months for a 2 GB mailbox. Mail.be however asks 3€ per month (= 36 € per year!) for just 1 GB! Last edited by Tsunami : 6th June 2012 at 12:53 AM. Reason: Added pricing difference between mail.be and contactoffice.com

22nd June 2012, 01:08 AM	#9
Webgenie Senior Member Join Date: Feb 2004 Location: CA USA Posts: 115	ContactOffice Tsunami, I signed up for a free account and liked the way things looked - all the features like Calendar, Docs, etc. I changed my "name" in order to get the e-mail address I wanted. The e-mails worked as far as sending and receiving, and not being labeled as junk where they were received. However, I like using a client, and prefer imap. It looked to me that one could only use pop for free, but then I found out I could not even access the mail via pop. Then I tried to import my calendar from Thunderbird/Lightning, and got the message that it was too much data for the account type (free). Since I can't really test the features to see if it is worth paying for, I deleted my account.

31st May 2012, 03:55 AM	#3
drew The "e" in e-mail Join Date: Jan 2006 Posts: 2,460	I get it a bit better now. First one join using a username. then depending on what name one give them they are very persistent that one can not have the username as the email address. Maybe if one give same name for both user name and real name. Username drewstrawberry and then real name as Drew Strawberry then one maybe just maybe can have drew.strawberry at mail.be as email address. They fooled me. Nothing indicated them would be that strict on what is okay as address.

1st June 2012, 12:47 AM	#4
communicant Cornerstone of the Community Join Date: Jul 2009 Posts: 523	I had the same difficulty understanding what they meant. I opened an account using the userID that I wanted as my email address, and then I was surprised to be asked to "create the email address" as an additional secondary step. I couldn't prevent the system from generating an email address based on the first and last name I had used when I registered. That address worked for sending and receiving but was not the address I had wanted as a userID. I found that the system would only allow me to "create" the address I wanted (and which I thought I had used to open the account in the first place) if I created it as an alias, but even then, I discovered that I could send from that alias but mail sent to that address bounced with a "mailbox unavailable" message. Their procedures for opening and naming accounts are very confusing. The good news is that support is responsive and replies quickly, although the rep did not seem at first to understand my difficulty. Eventually he said the only thing he could do was to "change" the email address at their end to the userID that I thought I had used to create the account in the first place. He was able to do that at the admin level but it was not an action that a subscriber could have taken independently. I thanked him and said yes, please do that. So he did, and I finally had the address I wanted, but only after much confusion and frustration which could have been avoided by clearer instructions and explanations. I have not used the office suite or the other available services, but the email service has been reliable and I have had no problems with it, after the initial confusion noted above was resolved.

4th June 2012, 03:55 AM	#5
Tsunami Master of the @ Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: in between the bright lights and the far unlit unknown Posts: 1,555	Did you subscribe to mail.be (which exists both free and paid) or to ContactOffice.com (who own mail.be but seem to make a distinction between those who have accounts with mail.be or directly with Contact Office) ? Is the session encrypted entirely? Do they give notice of the date of previous sign-in? I would usually want to know if there's any Facebook/Twitter/MySpace/chatbox etc linked to or if it's just plain email (which is what I look for) ; however when you state the email is solid while you didn't try the rest, that means that at least it's for sure possible to use the email only and not bother about the remaining services they offer.

4th June 2012, 04:24 AM	#6
drew The "e" in e-mail Join Date: Jan 2006 Posts: 2,460	As far as I know I went here http://www.mail.be/

8th June 2012, 11:59 PM	#8
Tsunami Master of the @ Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: in between the bright lights and the far unlit unknown Posts: 1,555	Is there anyone with experience in the ContactOffice proper? The prices for paid accounts for mail.be are higher than those of ContactOffice even when the company offering the accounts is the same. But how is the eail when signing up with Contact Office directly? Is it identical or mostly identical to Mail.be when it comes to features and interface?

25th June 2012, 01:05 AM	#10
Tsunami Master of the @ Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: in between the bright lights and the far unlit unknown Posts: 1,555	But you liked the webmail? (because I mainly, almost exclusively, use webmail) Does it show the log of previous sign-in dates? Is there chat/Twitter/social networking etc included or is it just basic but reliable email? Not too many ads making the interface hard to manage? I am basically not minding paying (and the pricing of ContactOffice are very reasonable) but then I do demand my criteria being met. I don't need Documents or Calendars or Chats or so, just very reliable email. So as long as that's OK, then it meets my demands to large extent ; the dates of previous sessions being shown is quite important for me too. When you find a service providing all you look for for a decent price, then sure no issue for me to pay (as long as the pricing is reasonable ; I am unsure if ContactOffice meets the discription above but if it would... then I'd say the pricing is reasonable enough to be a very serious option for me)

25th June 2012, 01:17 AM	#11
Webgenie Senior Member Join Date: Feb 2004 Location: CA USA Posts: 115	Tsunami, you should try it out. If you use webmail mostly, you will probably like it. I don't remember if it showed the sign-in log. I don't see ads because I block them, so I wouldn't know how it looks with ads. Another thing I've found that people should check out with e-mail providers that aren't well-known is whether their e-mail is marked as spam by the recipient. That's a reason to send e-mail to yourself, and hotmail tends to block certain providers. I don't mind paying, either, for a good product, so it's too bad they don't give more in the free version or a trial of imap/etc as Runbox does. I can't blindly buy something when I don't know what I'm going to get.

25th June 2012, 01:39 AM	#12
Tsunami Master of the @ Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: in between the bright lights and the far unlit unknown Posts: 1,555	ContactOffice is on the list of candidates for my new main email host, others being EuMX, Polarismail (once the log of previous sessions is launched) ... but ContactOffice would of course be convenient due to its Belgian location and helpdesk in my mothertongue. If only Safe Mail were a tiny bit cheaper I'd just upgrade my free account there without even thinking twice. Anyways, I believe you have to get the ContactOffice free version first and then decide to keep and pay or drop it. So maybe I should indeed give it a test ride. I like to ask things such as the log of sessions and the encryption of the entire session beforehand because there's so many services to try out that you have to cherry pick a bit (for example: forget about the services without log of previous sessions or encryption, and you already have narrowed the options to try a bit ...)