PLEASE READ! what can i do about 150 to 200 lost mail from hotmail?

[digme1]

Ok, please don't flame.... but i didn't know better than to post it in this section.

About four months ago, about 200 to 300 messages disappeared from my hotmail for no reason (AND THIS WASN't DUE TO SPACE LIMITATIONS)..... I've complained numerous times, and everytime they are telling me they can't retrieve them at all.....ive got credit card and login info's amongst the mail not to mention other important stuff.....
SO WHAT CAN I DO? WHERE CAN I COMPLAIN, IF I CAN... just for a bitter taste here's what the last email to the support line said:

Dear ,
Thank you for wriiting to MSN Hotmail .

This is Cristina and I am writing in response to your inquiry about your lost
mails.

First of all, I would like to apologize for the delay in answering your mail.

Unfortunately, we have done all the best to restore as much information as we
could and if you have not found the mail you are referring to, I'm sorry but
there's nothing more we can do. I suggest you to create a back-up through your
hard drive to avoid losing important files.

I understand how important these mail are to you. I apologized for the
inconvenience you've experienced and I assure you that this will not happen
again.

MSN Hotmail has comprehensive online help available to you. For more
information on Hotmail features, functions, and issues, click the Help button on
the horizontal navigation bar.

Sincerely,

Cristina S.
MSN Hotmail Customer Support



--- Original Message ---
From: @hotmail.com
To: "MSN Hotmail Support" <support_x@css.one.microsoft.com>
Sent: Sat Jul 21 21:53:42 PDT 2001
Subject: RE: CST37856705ID - Broken / Other / Other


OK, Hopefully this is the last time for the insult, as if I don't know jack
about computers, i hpe it would stop with this one...damn, after all, i
think one with a degree in EE just about a year ago should not be treated
this bad.
Ok, enough said about the emails for support that I have gotten from you
people. The situation goes, about two months ago (everything is documented
down below), my e-mail messages disappeared from my inbox and my messages
disappeared. After two days that happened or so, I emailed the support for
hotmail, (which by the way to say the least is extremely cumbersome since
one has to go through a maze of the so called "help" links to write 'html'
mail)and they told some shady answer saying "we are evaluating the problem."
The rest of the story I have documented below, but before you see this, I
would like to see if i can get a response about the following questions:
1) how come nobody followed up to notify me about what the conclusion from
the evaluation was
2) Don't you think it is extremely cumbersome to not have to deal with one
CSR to do Help Support?
3) How important do you think are emails to people, esp. web based emails, &
if you do think their importance is high, how come there was no backups to
retrieve my messages from?
ONE IMPORTANT THING THAT I WOULD LIKE TO MAKE SURE I COMMUNICATE WELL IS
THAT MY MAILBOX SIZE LIMIT AT THAT TIME WAS NOT OVER THE LIMIT. SO SPACE WAS
DEFINTELY A PROBLEM.
4)And finally and Most Importantly, Where the hell is my mail? PLEASE READ
THE FOLLOWING LOGS.....
..other emails to support line ...

 

[Workin']

There's not a damn thing you can do. You have no recourse whatsoever. Chalk it up to experience and next time remember that you get what you pay for. Leaving important stuff on a free server with no local backup on your own machine wasn't too bright, and that's probably what they were thinking when you were ranting at them about your EE degree and so on.

Sorry.

 

[ricerx]

I know you probably don't want to hear this but I'm afraid that there's probably no way they'll be able to retrieve your lost mail, if it's not on their system anymore. You can try complaining to them but it might go unanswered.

 

[digme1]

i don't think it's a big deal of accomplishin a stupid paper for ee but, here's why i was enraged: this is one of the things that they sent me when i asked them about retrieving the messages...ofcourse this won't solve anything i realize now, but just for the point,
I am suspecting that they lost my data due to them switching to the new page format and all, somehow, because it just seems to be me only against the whole 66mil subscribers that they have

This is Sharon and I am writing in response to your lost mail inquiry.

With regard to this, it is possible that you have sorted your email according
to date which would mean that all your new mail are at the buttom and what
appears to be on screen are the old ones.

>>> To sort your e-mail messages

- On the top of the message list, click one of the four column headers:
"From", "Subject", "Date", or "Size".
If you click "From" or "Subject", your messages are sorted alphabetically,
according to the text in the "From" or "Subject" line. If you click "Date" or
"Size", your messages are sorted in order according to date or size.
Note: To sort your messages in reverse order (changing A-to-Z to Z-to-A), click
a link twice.

You may also try to adjust your mail display settings. To change your setting:

1) click on "Options" found on your horizontal navigation bar

2) click on "mail Display Settings" under the Additinal Options column


3) choose your desired messages per page

4) click on "ok" to save the changes or

"Cancel" to undo such changes.
:disgust:

 

[Souka]

hehehe... I like how the MS rep said "I understand how important these mail are to you. I apologized for the
inconvenience you've experienced and I assure you that this will not happen
again."

This will not happen again?? Um.... would they like to put money on it?

Anyhow....yer screwed....and good thing too....putting Credit card numbers on the site???? Are you crazy?!?!

For an easy backup, use outlook express....setup local folders and drag-drop email there.

Of course, you'll want to make copies of these "local copies" since they will not be on hotmail.

 

[digme1]

thx souka for the info..... i ve ofcourse learned and now use outlook