Compromised Account SMS Text Messages

[sizzleme]

@licquorice Fair point, I probably should have just said BT email accounts - and others.

[sizzleme]

@licquorice I think that is quite likely but something we have no control over. 

[sizzleme]

@gg30340 I almost wrote the exact same thing about the BT security algorithm is over zealous on some accounts - at least. Thanks for your input.

I have used pretty much all of the other free email services and I would say that BT is objectively worse than the others. No IMAP/POP3 support, no passkey support, Web UI only.. but the worst is the current issue - I have never, ever seen this issue before - of constantly having to unlock the account every day.

Oh.. and.. the email account requires the user to login every 90 days, or the account will be lost. For Gmail - that restriction is every 2 years - same for Outlook.

I am of the belief that's why BT are exiting the space - they know their email service isn't up to snuff and there's now too much competition in the space. Meaning the investment to catch up isn't worth it to them. I can't blame them too much for exiting (from providing email services), but in the meantime they could maintain what's left.

I already use paid for email services, but there's not a chance I would pay for BT email. If this isn't enough to put off a potential customer - I'm not quite sure what would.

It's now a mammoth effort to login and change at least 100 online accounts to a new email address, simply because I cannot setup a simple email forward - and have it keep working.

Some sites & services don't even allow users to change the email address associated with their account, so the only option is to create a new account. Massive amount of work - all because BT basic email cannot do the basics.

[licquorice]

No, unfortunately not.

[licquorice]

It would be interesting to know if the same wrong password was entered each time rather than a brute force bot entering multiple passwords.

I have asked if the mods can investigate with the mail team, but not optimistic they will be able to discover anything.

[sizzleme]

@licquorice Yes that would tell us a great deal (same wrong password - or brute force attack).

The IP address that the unsuccessful login attempts originate from would also tell BT a great deal. Is it the same IP? What country/location is the IP address.

It wouldn't be too difficult to troubleshoot, but I'm guessing nobody technical with the relevant access is going to be assigned to look at it. I could be wrong, I certainly hope so. We will see.

[Peter_W]

@sizzleme So we can take a closer look into this one, I've popped you over a private message 😊

Peter

[sizzleme]

@Peter_W Thanks for the PM and any help you may be able to provide, I have replied to your message. Thanks again.

[gg30340]

@sizzleme 

BT do not offer support/help for IMAP and POP3 because there are so many email app/clients to choose from that they can not be trained in all of them other than the BTMail app.

BT also have no control over email app/clients as regards any problems with them in as much as they can not alter anything with them that the user could do them selves so there is little point in providing support for them. Most email clients/app have their own help/support departments or forums if the user has any issues with them.

I have not checked but I would suspect it will be pretty much the same with other free email providers.

Generally speaking if you have a problem with your email client/app and your BT webmail is working as expected the issue is one that BT can not/will not help with. As far as they are concerned they have supplied the email service that they said they would, webmail, in your T&Cs.

IMAP and POP3 protocols are both supported in as much as BT provide the server settings to allow them to be used and if there is a server problem they will endeavour to fix it as quickly as possible.

I have been using BTMail in all its incarnations for well over thirty years and I have never been locked out or hacked or had any other problems with it however I am well aware of most if not all of the issues with it for some users. I would certainly not rate it as the best email service nor would I rate it as the worst.

The 90 day deletion is not a 90 day delete policy. See the following link.

https://www.bt.com/help/email/what-is-the-usage-policy-for-bt-email-#:~:text=What%20is%20the%20usage....

If it is not logged into in a 60 day period you will be sent an email or text to remind you to log in. I think the email gets sent to the account and the recovery email address that you will no doubt have set up in your BTID profile.

You will get another reminder after 90 days of inactivity is reached and if after 150 days of inactivity it will be deleted. Personally I don't have an issue with that. If you have not used your email account in 5 months do you really need it.

As I previously stated, there is no information regarding BT doing away with BTMail but I would not bet on it being around in a few years time.

[sizzleme]

BT do not offer support/help for IMAP and POP3 because there are so many email app/clients to choose from that they can not be trained in all of them other than the BTMail app. 

BT also have no control over email app/clients as regards any problems with them in as much as they can not alter anything with them that the user could do them selves so there is little point in providing support for them. Most email clients/app have their own help/support departments or forums if the user has any issues with them.

I have not checked but I would suspect it will be pretty much the same with other free email providers.

I am not asking that BT provide support, simply enabling the feature - like every other email provider would be sufficient. Virtually every other email provider allows users to connect via IMAP/POP3. They don't provide support for issues - other than community support. I would be fine with this.

Generally speaking if you have a problem with your email client/app and your BT webmail is working as expected the issue is one that BT can not/will not help with. As far as they are concerned they have supplied the email service that they said they would, webmail, in your T&Cs.

No issue with the email client/app, currently not using one - can't use a standard email client with free/basic BT email. Unable to use email from the web UI - due to being constantly locked out. 

IMAP and POP3 protocols are both supported in as much as BT provide the server settings to allow them to be used and if there is a server problem they will endeavour to fix it as quickly as possible.

No, using BT basic email, IMAP/POP3 cannot be used.

The BT paid email service is the same price as Office 365 Personal (give or take a few percent) - which includes 1TB file storage, Office apps, 50GB mailbox, proper authentication methods and most importantly being able to sync contacts and calendars - using modern protocols such as MAPI. IMAP is an old, dated protocol that can't sync contacts or calendars and falls over, frequent freezing etc when confronted with mailboxes that are more than a few hundred megabytes. 

Don't get me wrong, it's become incredibly difficult to compete with the likes of Google & Microsoft, but that's the world BT are living in. They *may* have needed to price their service in the same region - but I don't know if there will be a single moderately educated user who will choose BT over the others.