locked out of email

[iamnobody]

I am locked out of my email by the company that I pay money to have it, it is a big name internet company.

They say I need to have a mobile phone to text a code to or an alternate email address.

I do not have a mobile phone nor an alternate email.

Of course it is all for my safety, it isn't about them collecting data about every other device a person has and tying the info all together on them.

I have a nasty head cold right now and in no mood to spend hours on the phone with some 3rd party in farawayland.

For the old days when you could walk into their local office and deal with them face to face.

[papaof2]

Get that second free (advertising supported) email - mail.com has about 100 "xxxxx.com" domains - all their domain names are listed here: www.mail.com/mail/domains/
You could be almost anything you might want: "[e-mail]" or "[e-mail]" or "[e-mail]" or "[e-mail]" or whatever strikes your fancy.

Or you could set up your own website and email service for about $120/year - then only you (and the NSA) have access to your email and it's done with no ads. You could be "[e-mail]" or "[e-mail]" or "[e-mail]" or "[e-mail]", etc, etc.


I've dealt with "support" in "farawayland". Among other jobs I've had after I retired (the first time), was computer support for a company that set up serious database systems for companies of many sizes and at one point all their laptops and printers were from HP (later they changed to Dell). I spent a ridiculous amount of time on the phone with one of HP's off-shore "support" people - trying to give a US shipping address for some in-warranty replacement pieces to the "not-quite-an-English-speaker". I then spent the better part of an hour documenting my experience with their "support" in great detail and sending it to HP's "Contact Us". I suspect I wasn't the only one who had those problems, as the next time I called HP support the person who answered the phone understood a joke about a US sports team - and had no problem with taking down an address the first time I gave it.

Tracfone has some $100 - $125 refurbed "smartphones" (Samsung Galaxy A10, A51 and others, some very basic refurbed phones for under $50 - or some very pricey refurbed iPhones) and the basic service is about $120/year if you use the phone intelligently - that works out to $10/month for service. I spent the extra $20 or so to buy their "Triple Minutes" plan (one-time cost) some years ago so the $120 for "400 minutes talk time and one year of service" gives 1200 minutes of talk time plus 1200 texts plus 1.2GB of data - and the unused talk, text and data all roll over from year to year. Right now, I would seem to have "unlimited" talk time because it's into the thousands of minutes. Other than the medical and financial connections online that require "two-part authentication", I probably don't spend more than a couple of hours a year on the cell phone - but that phone is there if needed, I can get connected to the doctor, financial, etc. online and I'm available to my better half when needed - and I have the Kindle reader on that phone so I have reading material whenever I'm stuck somewhere waiting ;-) It also means there's a camera at hand if needed and those pictures can be shared by email or text (within limits).

I've worked in locations that effectively blocked cell phone signals - not intentionally, but the work area was RF shielded because of the interference all the equipment running in there generated. At that point, I carried an inexpensive digital pager ($15/month) because the pager signal could get through - the pagers can work using much lower signal levels and much worse signal-to-noise ratios. That was in the days when my (refurbed) Motorola flip phone was considered impressive ;-)

[feralferret]

GMX mail is also free and easy to use. I've been using it for over ten years. Go to GMX.com to sign up.