Rating: - CUSTOMER SERVICE FROM HELL
When working my grandma loved it. When it went down I quickly discovered that the ISP for mailstaition was horrible. I was hung up on 4 times, the number to call them went into an endless hold loop before hanging up on you. No one at Earthlink could help and would only offer to transfer me to the mailstation number where they were hanging up on me. When I demanded a supervisor number they gave me the number for the us post office with a fake extension. I could not even get through to cancel the service. Stay far away once you have set it up it is impossible to get any customer support. The kicker is the whole time I spent on hold I kept getting messages played at me about how they have award winning customer service. All I could think is they won the gold medal in screwing you over.
Rating: - You need to know what you are doing
While these can be a very useful device you need to be careful about where you buy and what you buy. Many of the older MIVO 100 can be set up to use any dial up ISP but later ones are locked to Earthlink and it seems they are discontinuing their service. I bought two on eBay for $10 ea plus S&H - these are the models with the Yahoo function (now abandoned) and I can configure them to my local ISP. If you need support there is a Yahoo group which supports them (search for 'mailstation') where tips are swapped. Models other than the MIVO 100 are unlikely to be configurable as is, although work is progressing on reflashing all models so they can be used as a small computer as well as a mail device. BTW, they also have a send only fax system built in which can be used no matter what.
All in all a device with potential . . . . but!
Rating: - Activation impossible!
I am really not sure if the appliance works or nor, since Earthlink says they are unable to activate any accounts at the present time, and have been unable to do so now for 2 weeks, today they told me to call back in another 5 days! Every time I call I get another story - so if I am ever able to actually use the device I will try to let you know.
Rating: - A good reason to use the snail mail.
My experience with Mailstation started over six months ago. Since then I have had less than two weeks of email service. Just a few of the problems have included a Mailstation arriving with a broken screen, six weeks of phone calls to finally prove the replacement did not, would not and never would work, a month waite for another replacement to find it was in shipping, two weeks later to find no record of replacement, etc, etc. One technique is never being allowed to talk to the same person twice. "I will call you on Monday to verify it is working." "This will definitely fix the problem." "Sorry, you can not talk to a supervisor." "We will send you a refund in one month." "The refund will be posted in two weeks." "We have sent the refund to your credit card company but it will take them two or more months to post the refund." "The problem is with your credit card company. We have sent them the refund." I do not think so. The Dilbert cartoon is Mailstation.
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