Man-Corporate Interface: A True Parable of Our Times

In the interests of advancing public insight and assisting any future chroniclers of our times, I have elected to publicly exhibit certain recent communications with a corporation which capture many essential elements of the contemporary consumer Zeitgeist.

The corporation involved is Bell Canada, a company whose business is all about communication. It is the main subsidiary of Bell Canada Enterprises, Canada's largest communications company (according to its website), and it provides "local telephone, long distance, wireless communications, Internet access, data, satellite television and other services to residential and business customers through some 27 million customer connections."

Bell Canada offers High Speed Internet Access service through a corporate unit known as Bell Sympatico. I am a customer.

The communications I've received from this communications company may astound and appall you. Please bear in mind that what follows is not just one man's experience, but something that highlights the contemporary condition. I am clarifying your world.

Satisfaction not guaranteed.

BACKGROUND

I'd been using the address tomrsn@sympatico.ca for some time, but once it began receiving excessive spam I decided to delete it and create a new address which I'd use from then on.

After deletion, of course, the address tomrsn@sympatico.ca was no longer valid, and I received error messages on attempting to retrieve mail sent to that mailbox.

Question: What should happen if Joe, not knowing of my address change, sends email to tomrsn@sympatico.ca after I have deleted the address?

Answer: Bell Sympatico's system should bounce back with an automatic response so that Joe ends up getting a message like: Your message was rejected -- tomrsn@sympatico.ca is not a valid address. Otherwise, Joe will assume his message will reach me.

I'm spelling this out awfully painstakingly so as to be accessible even to the granny generation, but really, my dears, all this is utterly elementary in the Internet world.

Anyway, that's the problem here. No bounce-back is happening for messages sent to my defunct tomrsn@sympatico.ca address. There is something wrong with the Bell Sympatico system.

I inquired about the technical issue on the comp.mail.misc newsgroup (my original post 28 Jun 2005 16:12:34 -0400; discussion reproduced here and here, among other places). Several people with much more sophisticated knowledge of email technicalities than I have responded. Their views varied a bit, but generally the experts agreed that, as one put it succinctly,

Sympatico, as usual, is full of sh*t.

More specifically:

• Bell Sympatico is violating RFC 2821, the Internet email protocol. (In particular, Section 6.1, "Reliable Delivery and Replies by Email," which states: "When the receiver-SMTP accepts a piece of mail..., it is accepting responsibility for delivering or relaying the message. It must take this responsibility seriously.... If there is a delivery failure after acceptance of a message, the receiver-SMTP MUST formulate and mail a notification message.")

• The explanation offered by Bell Sympatico's "Executive Office of Customer Relations" -- that what they're doing is an anti-spam measure -- is misguided.

Below are my communications with Bell Sympatico people, wherein I attempt to bring them news of this problem.

• Communications with Technical Support personnel

• Communications with Executive Office of Customer Relations

Communications with Technical Support personnel

• The unwieldy Issue ID (KMM11316087V28510L0KM), suggestive of an ocean of customer issues the beleaguered company is attempting to track;

• The unceasing solicitations to partake of a Member Satisfaction Survey (as if one would be needed to find the reasons for dissatisfaction);

• The seemingly random glitch lines appearing in most of the messages from the company, which are actually unintended detritus left behind by the clumsy system which corporate representatives are using to insert boilerplate text. Thus "*****RRC:etimoreinfo,LID:mlacroix*****", for example, represents
  • the internal label for boilerplate text requesting "more info", and

  • the name of the corporate representative -- M. Lacroix -- who has prepared the message.

  Representatives' names are probably supposed to be confidential, but several are exposed in this way.

The correspondence follows:

From Uriel to Sympatico

Greetings. I deleted my <tomrsn@sympatico.ca> address today. But messages sent to it are not bounced back.

I found this because I did not receive a bounce back to my <uw@urielw.com> address, as I should have because of the message shown below (sent 1:45 PM).

Please advise!

Thanks,

Uriel
[customer ID]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Uriel Wittenberg" <uw@urielw.com>
To: <tomrsn@sympatico.ca>
Sent: Friday, May 13, 2005 1:45 PM
Subject: hi

From Sympatico to Uriel

Hello Mr. Wittenberg,

You have reached Bell Internet Services, my name is Luke and I appreciate the opportunity to respond.

You can not change the parent email account. Therefore even if you remove it from Outlook Express it is still a valide email account in our files.

Do not hesitate to contact us again.

NetAssistant* is a free service that delivers leading edge, diagnostic and repair tools directly to your desktop. The program will detect and fix problems on your computer related to your Internet connection, e-mail or Web browser. You can also chat with a live Sympatico representative 24/7 via NetAssistant.

Download NetAssistant today at:

http://download.sympatico.ca/netassistant/netassistant.exe

Thank you for choosing Bell and have a nice day.

Regards,

Luke
Electronic Customer Care
Sympatico Member Services

================================================================
We hope that you were satisfied with the service that you have received via e-mail. In an on-going effort to provide the best possible Customer service, we invite you to take our Member Satisfaction Survey. We are continuously looking at ways to improve our service and we would appreciate your comments and feedback.

http://eccsurvey.sympatico.ca/

================================================================
Save yourself time and visit our Internet Tips, Technical Support and Account & Billing pages to see if we already have a solution to your problem.

http://service.sympatico.ca/

From Uriel to Sympatico

You have misunderstood the problem.

I did not attempt to change the parent email account.

The main email address is [an address different from tomrsn@sympatico.ca].

I deleted an extra email address I'd added to my account:
<tomrsn@sympatico.ca>

From Sympatico to Uriel

Hello Uriel Wittenberg,

You have reached Bell Internet Services, my name is Michel and I appreciate the opportunity to respond.

*****RRC:etimoreinfo,LID:mlacroix*****

Your message does not contain the information we need to efficiently troubleshoot. To help you remedy this issue, please try to answer as many questions below as possible:

- What email program are you using?
- What is the exact problem you are having?
- What operating system are you using? (Windows 98/ME/2000/NT/XP, Mac
which OS version?)
- Is your computer connected to a network or through a router?
- Is your computer running firewall or anti-virus software?

Upon receipt of this information, we will be able to assist you further.

I trust that I have answered all of your questions or concerns regarding your email problem. Do not hesitate to contact us again.

NetAssistant* is a free service that delivers leading edge, diagnostic and repair tools directly to your desktop. The program will detect and fix problems on your computer related to your Internet connection, e-mail or Web browser. You can also chat with a live Sympatico representative 24/7 via NetAssistant.

Download NetAssistant today at:

http://download.sympatico.ca/netassistant/netassistant.exe

Thank you for choosing Bell and have a nice day.

Regards,

Michel
Electronic Customer Care
Sympatico Member Services

================================================================
We hope that you were satisfied with the service that you have received via e-mail. In an on-going effort to provide the best possible Customer service, we invite you to take our Member Satisfaction Survey. We are continuously looking at ways to improve our service and we would appreciate your comments and feedback.

http://eccsurvey.sympatico.ca/

================================================================
Save yourself time and visit our Internet Tips, Technical Support and Account & Billing pages to see if we already have a solution to your problem.

http://service.sympatico.ca/ ================================================================

[Note: The repeated items, which appear in each message from Sympatico Tech Support, are edited out of the remaining messages below for clarity.]

From Uriel to Sympatico

This is unbelievable. Please READ my message and THINK about the problem. Don't just copy and paste irrelevant questions. I've supplied ALL THE INFORMATION YOU NEED.

From Sympatico to Uriel

Hello Uriel Wittenberg,

You have reached Bell Internet Services, my name is Kevin and I appreciate the opportunity to respond.

Please accept my apologies for any inconvenience and confusion our previous message may have caused.

It can take up to 72 hours for the mail server to update an address after it has been cancelled. I have just tested the account in question and received the following error message:

"tomrsn@sympatico.ca was not allowed by the SMTP server: 550 Invalid recipient: <tomrsn@sympatico.ca>"

This address has now been cancelled fully and anyone attempting to send something to this address will receive this message.

I trust that I have answered all of your questions or concerns regarding this inquiry. Do not hesitate to contact us again.

Thank you for choosing Bell and have a nice day.

Regards,

Kevin
Electronic Customer Care
Sympatico Member Services
*****RRC:etfapology,LID:kehuxham*****

From Uriel to Sympatico

At last someone has actually read my query! Thanks Kevin.

Seems to me however your system doesn't work as it should. Messages sent during those 72 hours don't reach me -- AND the sender gets no notice. Those messages just go into a black hole. That shouldn't happen.

From Sympatico to Uriel

Hello Uriel Wittenberg,

Thank you for your reply. It's Kevin again from the Bell Internet service. I appreciate the opportunity to respond.

Your comments and suggestions are well-taken. Please accept our apologies for the frustration and inconvenience you have recently experienced with our email service.

I have taken the liberty of passing this to our Development Team for review. If feasible, they will factor this type of feature into future server updates.

Thank you for choosing Bell and have a nice day.

Regards,

Kevin
Electronic Customer Care
Sympatico Member Services
*****RRC:etfdev,LID:kehuxham*****

From Uriel to Sympatico

Hello Kevin,

Contrary to your advice, it is NOT the case that "anyone attempting to send something to this address will receive this message."

I got not bounce-back after sending the test message shown below.

So ------- THE PROBLEM STILL PERSISTS AS OF NOW.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Uriel Wittenberg" <uw@urielw.com>
To: <tomrsn@sympatico.ca>
Sent: Monday, May 16, 2005 12:35 PM
Subject: hi

hi

From Sympatico to Uriel

Hello Uriel Wittenberg,

You have reached Bell Internet Services, my name is Sal and I appreciate the opportunity to respond.

*****RRC:etineedpass,LID:smukbil*****

In order for us to troubleshoot further, we will need you to provide us with your account password. Once we have this information, we can escalate the issue to our Network Department.

Regards,

Sal
Electronic Customer Care
Sympatico Member Services

From Uriel to Sympatico

You want me to email you my account password?

Please phone me for this at [...]?

From Sympatico to Uriel

Hello Mr. Wittenberg,

You have reached Bell Internet Services, my name is Marc and I appreciate the opportunity to respond.

*****RRC:eticallus,LID:mfrappier*****

I understand you don't want to give us personal information.

In this case, to better assist you, I suggest you call our Technical Helpdesk at 310-SURF (7873) in Ontario and Quebec or 1 (800) 773-2121 in other parts of Canada.

From Uriel to Sympatico

Marc, this should be EASY TO UNDERSTAND.

I DELETED my address, tomrsn@sympatico.ca.

When I now send a test message to that address, THERE IS NO BOUNCE-BACK indicating it's an invalid address.

Surely you don't need my PASSWORD to investigate this problem.

From Sympatico to Uriel

Hello Mr. Wittenberg,

You have reached Bell Internet Services, my name is Joseph and I appreciate the opportunity to respond.

I apologize for the inconvenience this issue may have caused you. You are right, your email address tomrsn@sympatico.ca is still active. The reason is that the database linked to your selfcare tool is down. I suggest therefore to try it later.

From Sympatico to Uriel

We're listening

Dear URIEL WITTENBERG,

Thank you for letting us know about the technical problems you were experiencing. Bell Canada values your business and is committed to providing our Sympatico customers with excellence in customer service. We're continually evaluating our business and looking for more efficient ways to serve our customers. Your continued support helps us to achieve this goal.

If you feel your concerns were not addressed directly, or if you ever have another question, don't hesitate to let us know. That's why 310-SURF (310-7873) exists. It's there to help us help you.

As a special thank you for being such a loyal customer, we would like to offer you $10 of FREE downloads from the Sympatico Music Store, powered by Puretracks(TM). Just click on the link below to receive it. http://memberservices.sympatico.ca/cgi-bin/ca.exe?wts:pid=60&sid=eg&epid=70988266&a=1275182500&b=153101

Thanks again,
Your representatives
at Sympatico Member Services

NOTE

Communications with Executive Office of Customer Relations

I emailed Roger 3 times over the next 10 days pointing this out. He never responded.

Eventually I made the call to Marco Lanoue, a person who works at that purported "Executive Office." He agreed to investigate and email me within a couple of days. After 2 weeks, with some further prodding from me, he produced this:

From: Executive Office of Customer Relations
To: Uriel Wittenberg
Sent: Tuesday, June 28, 2005 11:18 AM
Subject: Re: Sympatico bouce messages

Mr. Wittenberg,

We were informed that all Sympatico customers on the MSN enhanced email platform will experience this issue. Microsoft has implemented this feature as a spam prevention method. This way spammers cannot update their spam lists as they cannot know which email address are valid and which are not.

We thank you for your understanding in this matter

Regards

Executive Office of Customer Relations
Bell Sympatico Internet Services

I responded:

From: Uriel Wittenberg
To: Executive Office of Customer Relations
Sent: Wednesday, June 29, 2005 11:57 PM
Subject: violation of email standards

I don't know what you mean by "MSN enhanced email platform." What is the name of the software you're referring to?

This is not the right way to foil spammers, and I doubt that up-to-date Microsoft software is violating email standards in this way. There seems to be a misunderstanding. Could you put me in direct touch with someone technically informed?

But the effort already expended by Mr. Lanoue had left him too exhausted to reply. I gave him a week's repose, then tried again:

From: Uriel Wittenberg
To: Executive Office of Customer Relations
Sent: Wednesday, July 06, 2005 11:18 AM
Subject: PLEASE RESPOND

I've received no reply to my June 29 message below.

Sympatico's email handling violates the Internet standard documented at http://rfc.net/rfc2821.html. Excerpt:

------------------------------
6.1 Reliable Delivery and Replies by Email

When the receiver-SMTP accepts a piece of mail (by sending a "250 OK" message in response to DATA), it is accepting responsibility for delivering or relaying the message. It must take this responsibility seriously. It MUST NOT lose the message for frivolous reasons, such as because the host later crashes or because of a predictable resource shortage.

If there is a delivery failure after acceptance of a message, the receiver-SMTP MUST formulate and mail a notification message.
------------------------------

But, again, I'm being ignored. And the strategy has worked. They've worn me out.

If you like, you can see this issue for yourself. Just invent some random address @sympatico.ca that's unlikely to exist, e.g. axut2982479@sympatico.ca, and send a message to it. You too will get no response.