Continuing annoyance with GMX
 

A few years back, I opened a GMX account.

Then something happened. At some point it refused to open. I was a bit frantic, as I was using it for something important, and I tried to reach the American GMX offices both by letter and telephone(!). To no avail.

Now I tried again, because it was a back-up verification email and it was easier than opening a new one elsewhere. I tried it, and it didn't surprise me that it said "no such address," because I figured it would have expired long ago. But when I went to start it up again as new, the site claimed I couldn't have it because it was already in use.

So, one screen says there's no such account, and another screen says it already exists.

What would you do? I mean, other than giving up on GMX entirely and telling people never to use it?

:mad:

What would I do?

Well, I'd choose a well known and respected provider, and give them my mobile telephone number for any necessary verifications.

Well, the question really is, what would you do in my situation? As it happens, I don't have a mobile, but even if I did, I'm looking for a company with no verification. I'm not the only person here who is looking for providers that don't collect information. And my impression has been, by the way, based on how GMX is mentioned in articles, that it is indeed a respected and well-known provider.

But I'm still wondering about the original puzzle, with one screen telling me the account exists, and one telling me it doesn't.

Well, it happened to me, to both of my Gmail and Hotmail accounts. So my accounts are actually locked up indefinitely (Gmail wise was because I closed the account accidentally, Hotmail was because I attempted to login multiple times until they have locked it). In the end when I check the validity of both my accounts elsewhere they get no such account error but when I tried to signup again it said account exists. I believe the same happened to your GMX account.

Not every provider "recycles" email addresses of expired accounts. So it may very well be that your account is indeed expired and no longer existing, but that the username is not made available for new registrations. That could be an explanation for your issue.

What surprises me here is that even by telephone they are unreachable.

I would classify GMX as a well-known provider, although there seems to be a distinction between GMX in the German-speaking countries (gmx.de, gmx.at, gmx.ch) and GMX in the rest of the world. Apparently the version in the German-speaking countries is different, and very reliable. I never used GMX myself but I've met many Germans who do, and who are very satisfied. But it is apparently not the same service as the international one.

You mean, they just leave the handle in limbo, not accessible either by the original person or anyone new?

With the telephone, it was so long ago that I don't remember, but I think I managed to track down a U.S. number for a co-company or subsidiary or corporate owner - and they pretended they never heard of GMX, even though it was also at the same address.

I've now sent them an internal email, with no result.

See if you can contact their support team as they should e able to help out. In fact they are a good tam, I had contacted them a couple of times.

As it happens, I decided to experiment by sending them a query every few days. My notes just say that I created this email long ago, that I'm getting contradictory messages from their own website - and could they please "unblock" it?

I think I've sent about five so far, over a period of about two weeks. No sign of life so far.

You know, of all the ways that emails are analyzed, I've never seen a comparison of which are most/least responsive to pleas for help.

Do you have an email for contact for GMX? I've just had to fill out an online form.