Very displeased and disappointed about limit on Identities

FromLine · 20 Apr 2002, 03:51 AM

I have not been at this forum lately, however, I just attempted to add an email address in the "Send From address" and, without and prior notification, I was told that I must "upgrade" to add more personalities.

The main reason I joined Fastmail.fm was to have the ability to send from multiple email addresses. I now have 5 domains, additional aliases with fastamail (not to mention the ability to use sub-domains), forwarding email addresses for various purposes, and commonly use disposable email addresses for temporary use.

Before premium services were offered, I once emailed Jeremy and informed him that I had many email addresses in the FROM line set up and asked if there was a limit. Jeremey responded stating the following:

Quote:

Jeremy Howard wrote:
There's no limit. Knock yourself out!

I later joined Fastmail.fm and paid $20 for a Full account expecting the full benefit of this service.

I don't know why you are limiting the number of Send From Addresses all of a sudden. This is an extreme problem for me, it was implied that there was no limit when I paid for Full membership, and you have decreased the value of my service after I joined.

I have to say that up until now, I have been very pleased with your business practices, but i see no reason to pay $20 more to increase my number of "Send From Addresses" from 5 to 20. Even 20 is not enough!

With personal domains, extra fastmail aliases etc., I probably need more than 20.

This is not something that should increase your operating costs and quite frankly, this seems similar to Yahoo! Inc's recent practice of not improving service, but taking something away and asking customers to start paying to get it back.

Before I joined as a Full member, I had unlimited. When I joined as a paying member, I had unlimited - hence, this was probably the key reason I joined. Being limited to 5 From addresses is simply NOT ENOUGH!!!!

If you're going to set a limit, be reasonable and set it at 50.

This is extremely aggravating and infuriating that I can no longer quickly create an email address and send from it on a whim. Especially after the recent discussions about combing our domains with Zoneedit forwarding.

I would appreciate your restoring this service back to where it originally was when I paid for my Full Account membership when it was clearly implied that there were no limitations upon this matter.

The ability to set up multiple email accounts is probably the most essential part of this service and I feel I've been betrayed on this matter.

**psalzer** · 20 Apr 2002, 04:04 AM

That's a problem all right. I do think the information was there. I signed up for an Enhanced account almost as soon as sign-ups for paid accounts were possible and the reason I chose Enhanced over Full was pretty much entirely because of the number of From addresses I could have. I don't think that Fastmail decreased the value after you signed up, but more that you might have missed it when you signed up. Now, the question is what to do. With 5 domains, it sounds like a big problem, but it doesn't have to be the end of the world. If two of them are for the same site - the .net you just got to go with your .com - you can send out e-mail from one address for the site even if you have several of them coming to you. I mean, how many times have you sent an e-mail to support@somethingorother. com and got back one from jdoe@somethingorother.com in answer. You can still have all the addresses that you want forwarding to your Fastmail account.

theDuke · 20 Apr 2002, 04:06 AM

As I pointed in the other other thread about this problem.
I don't concidder this option as very special.

and don't see why members and higher should have so little @adresses.

Bookmarks are special, mail forwarding is special, this only requires a other sentfrom tag....

Just my opinion.
The rest of the service is just great

...just this item...

nic76 · 20 Apr 2002, 04:12 AM

i also don't understand why the number of possible from addresses is set so low

FromLine · 20 Apr 2002, 04:22 AM

You are correct that I can have unlimted email addresses forwarded to fastamail.fm.

For now, the .net domain is used with Yahoo! Personal Addresses in the FROM line. However, Yahoo! only allows you to send 3 files as attachments, so when I need to send more than 3 files, I send from fastmail using one of many of my .net aliases depending upon where I'm sending from.

Also, with mulitple domains, there are multiple aliases for each one.

Also, I'm an active user on www.craigslist.org which gives us forwarding email addresses for craigslist use and gives us anon-ID@craigslist.org . With a few Craigslist ID's, I've had a few craigslist email addresses set up in fastmail too.

Now, here's the other thing:

With mulitple aliases in fastmail.fm, I set up

something@ftml.net

So, I set up:

"T G" <tg@something.ftml.net>
"C L" <cl@something.ftml.net>
"Adam" <adam@something.ftml.net>

.... and this list can go on and on and on, not only with the something@ftml.net, but with my something@xsmail.com and something@ml1.net.

Not to metion setting up temporary disposalbe email addresses to avoid spam for public use.

When I signed up and paid $20 for a Full membership, there were no limitations.

To ask me now to pay an additional $20 for an additional 15 more aliases is quite disappointing.

I will also note that the way I discovered fastmail.fm was comming to www.emaildiscussions.com, posted in "Email Help Needed", asking about an email service that would allow me to put any email address in the FROM line, and Jeremy was the first one to respond recommending fastmail.fm

Ever since I became a fastmail.fm member, I was continuously adding, editing, and removing customized email address.

There was no warning for this and this was not in the pricing table when I made my Full Membership Payment.

Such a change, even though I think it's unnecessary, should have only impacted NEW MEMBERS signing up AFTER that date.

I paid when there were unlimited and the conditions of my service changed without any notification. I do not beleive this is a decent business practice.

Based on the consensus on this matter, I think this matter should be re-considered.

The key reason I recommend Fastmail.fm to others (this may soon be placed into the past tense) and have your logo and link on my web page, post on message boards about it etc. was primarily because of this feature.

FromLine · 20 Apr 2002, 04:33 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by psalzer
I don't think that Fastmail decreased the value after you signed up, but more that you might have missed it when you signed up.

Perhaps I did miss it. However, before I signed up for full, I had well more than 5 addresses in the FROM line as Jeremy stated in a personal email message, "There's no limit. Knock yourself out".

When I transfered to Full, I was able to add/modify, and for at least a couple of months as a Full member, well more than 5 were in my preferences.

I currently have well more then 5 because they were set up some time ago, I can just no longer edit or modify them or they are gone.

Outlook Express and Eudora do not limit the number of email addresses you may put into the FROM line.

I prefer to use my email web-based so this is quite a problem for me.

sterdeus · 20 Apr 2002, 04:45 AM

Stated here: http://www.fastmail.fm/terms.txt

"FastMail.FM and/or its respective suppliers may
make improvements and/or changes in the Service at any time."

Now this is no excuse, but legally they (along with every other company) can do what they want.

FromLine · 20 Apr 2002, 05:23 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by sterdeus
Stated here: http://www.fastmail.fm/terms.txt
"FastMail.FM and/or its respective suppliers may make improvements and/or changes in the Service at any time."
Now this is no excuse, but legally they (along with every other company) can do what they want.

I agree, and I wasn't presenting a legal argument, but one of the nice things about Fastmail.fm was it seemed to stand out as being more personalized rather than the "big-biz" point of view.

I'd expect this from Yahoo!, Hotmail, Lycos, AOL, etc., but it's a bit suprising coming from Fastmail.fm

I'm curious. Is Fastmail.fm in need of raising cash that once standard features are now becoming pay? Don't get me wrong, I do see the desire to make a decent living and be reasonably compensated.

Personally, I think $20 per year should entail a sufficient number of aliases and email addresses.

Interesting to note, some services even let you type in the email address in the FROM line for extremely quick modification before sending such as www.j2.com .

sterdeus · 20 Apr 2002, 05:36 AM

In this tread:
http://www.emaildiscussions.com/...&threadid=3905

Jeremy says: "We've been doing this over 3 years now and I think you can see our enthusiasm remains as high as ever! And we're making a profit and have no debts, so there's no financial reason for us to disappear."

So it appears Fastmail isnt strapped for cash.

nic76 · 20 Apr 2002, 05:40 AM

The from addresses have been discusses before with Jeremy. I don't remember if it was me mailing with him or on this forum. What i do remeber is that they where thinking of adding a possibility to enter the from address in the 'to' field after a seperating character, so i'd be possible to sent from an unlimited number of addresses and you didn't need the address to be added through the preferences each time you need to use a new email address. At that time there wasn't a limit to the number of from addresses. I guess i'll need to upgrade from full to enhanced. But still, 20 from addresses isn't much.

When i try to add a new from address, i get an error telling me to upgrade. I'm wondering what happens when an enhanced member tries to add a 21st from address? Can anyone tell me this?

sterdeus · 20 Apr 2002, 05:54 AM

Sorry, I only have 6 "from" addresses. Although, when I try to add another domain (I have 1 already) it tells me to "You cannot add more domains without upgrading your account." So I would assume the 21st "from" address would do the same.

nic76 · 20 Apr 2002, 05:55 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by sterdeus
Sorry, I only have 6 "from" addresses. Although, when I try to add another domain (I have 1 already) it tells me to "You cannot add more domains without upgrading your account." So I would assume the 21st "from" address would do the same.

an enhanced member can't upgrade

sterdeus · 20 Apr 2002, 05:57 AM

good point.. my bad

FromLine · 20 Apr 2002, 06:01 AM

so, 20 is the max. Maybe the messsage is something like "you may not add more than 20"

How about this:

Guest - 5
Memeber -25
Full - 50 (or unlimited)
Enhanced - 100 (or unlimited)

5 for a paying member is way too low.

theDuke · 20 Apr 2002, 06:02 AM

3 for guest, 6 for members, 20 for full and 40 for enhanced
would be much better I think....or something like this..

20 Apr 2002, 04:22 AM	#5
FromLine The "e" in e-mail Join Date: Jan 2002 Posts: 2,619	You are correct that I can have unlimted email addresses forwarded to fastamail.fm. For now, the .net domain is used with Yahoo! Personal Addresses in the FROM line. However, Yahoo! only allows you to send 3 files as attachments, so when I need to send more than 3 files, I send from fastmail using one of many of my .net aliases depending upon where I'm sending from. Also, with mulitple domains, there are multiple aliases for each one. Also, I'm an active user on www.craigslist.org which gives us forwarding email addresses for craigslist use and gives us anon-ID@craigslist.org . With a few Craigslist ID's, I've had a few craigslist email addresses set up in fastmail too. Now, here's the other thing: With mulitple aliases in fastmail.fm, I set up something@ftml.net So, I set up: "T G" <tg@something.ftml.net> "C L" <cl@something.ftml.net> "Adam" <adam@something.ftml.net> .... and this list can go on and on and on, not only with the something@ftml.net, but with my something@xsmail.com and something@ml1.net. Not to metion setting up temporary disposalbe email addresses to avoid spam for public use. When I signed up and paid $20 for a Full membership, there were no limitations. To ask me now to pay an additional $20 for an additional 15 more aliases is quite disappointing. I will also note that the way I discovered fastmail.fm was comming to www.emaildiscussions.com, posted in "Email Help Needed", asking about an email service that would allow me to put any email address in the FROM line, and Jeremy was the first one to respond recommending fastmail.fm Ever since I became a fastmail.fm member, I was continuously adding, editing, and removing customized email address. There was no warning for this and this was not in the pricing table when I made my Full Membership Payment. Such a change, even though I think it's unnecessary, should have only impacted NEW MEMBERS signing up AFTER that date. I paid when there were unlimited and the conditions of my service changed without any notification. I do not beleive this is a decent business practice. Based on the consensus on this matter, I think this matter should be re-considered. The key reason I recommend Fastmail.fm to others (this may soon be placed into the past tense) and have your logo and link on my web page, post on message boards about it etc. was primarily because of this feature. Last edited by FromLine : 20 Apr 2002 at 04:24 AM.

20 Apr 2002, 04:04 AM	#2
psalzer Moderator Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Long Island, NY Posts: 2,654	That's a problem all right. I do think the information was there. I signed up for an Enhanced account almost as soon as sign-ups for paid accounts were possible and the reason I chose Enhanced over Full was pretty much entirely because of the number of From addresses I could have. I don't think that Fastmail decreased the value after you signed up, but more that you might have missed it when you signed up. Now, the question is what to do. With 5 domains, it sounds like a big problem, but it doesn't have to be the end of the world. If two of them are for the same site - the .net you just got to go with your .com - you can send out e-mail from one address for the site even if you have several of them coming to you. I mean, how many times have you sent an e-mail to support@somethingorother. com and got back one from jdoe@somethingorother.com in answer. You can still have all the addresses that you want forwarding to your Fastmail account.

20 Apr 2002, 04:06 AM	#3
theDuke Essential Contributor Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: The Netherlands, EU Posts: 380	As I pointed in the other other thread about this problem. I don't concidder this option as very special. and don't see why members and higher should have so little @adresses. Bookmarks are special, mail forwarding is special, this only requires a other sentfrom tag.... Just my opinion. The rest of the service is just great ...just this item...

20 Apr 2002, 04:12 AM	#4
nic76 Essential Contributor Join Date: Nov 2001 Posts: 449	i also don't understand why the number of possible from addresses is set so low

20 Apr 2002, 04:45 AM	#7
sterdeus Senior Member Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Canada Posts: 182	Stated here: http://www.fastmail.fm/terms.txt "FastMail.FM and/or its respective suppliers may make improvements and/or changes in the Service at any time." Now this is no excuse, but legally they (along with every other company) can do what they want.

20 Apr 2002, 05:36 AM	#9
sterdeus Senior Member Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Canada Posts: 182	In this tread: http://www.emaildiscussions.com/...&threadid=3905 Jeremy says: "We've been doing this over 3 years now and I think you can see our enthusiasm remains as high as ever! And we're making a profit and have no debts, so there's no financial reason for us to disappear." So it appears Fastmail isnt strapped for cash.

20 Apr 2002, 05:40 AM	#10
nic76 Essential Contributor Join Date: Nov 2001 Posts: 449	The from addresses have been discusses before with Jeremy. I don't remember if it was me mailing with him or on this forum. What i do remeber is that they where thinking of adding a possibility to enter the from address in the 'to' field after a seperating character, so i'd be possible to sent from an unlimited number of addresses and you didn't need the address to be added through the preferences each time you need to use a new email address. At that time there wasn't a limit to the number of from addresses. I guess i'll need to upgrade from full to enhanced. But still, 20 from addresses isn't much. When i try to add a new from address, i get an error telling me to upgrade. I'm wondering what happens when an enhanced member tries to add a 21st from address? Can anyone tell me this?

20 Apr 2002, 05:54 AM	#11
sterdeus Senior Member Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Canada Posts: 182	Sorry, I only have 6 "from" addresses. Although, when I try to add another domain (I have 1 already) it tells me to "You cannot add more domains without upgrading your account." So I would assume the 21st "from" address would do the same.

20 Apr 2002, 05:57 AM	#13
sterdeus Senior Member Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Canada Posts: 182	good point.. my bad

20 Apr 2002, 06:01 AM	#14
FromLine The "e" in e-mail Join Date: Jan 2002 Posts: 2,619	so, 20 is the max. Maybe the messsage is something like "you may not add more than 20" How about this: Guest - 5 Memeber -25 Full - 50 (or unlimited) Enhanced - 100 (or unlimited) 5 for a paying member is way too low.

20 Apr 2002, 06:02 AM	#15
theDuke Essential Contributor Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: The Netherlands, EU Posts: 380	3 for guest, 6 for members, 20 for full and 40 for enhanced would be much better I think....or something like this..