Misery for Tiscali users

If you use Tiscali as your ISP, you would do well to check that the emails you sent in the last week actually arrived.  It is likely that they have not been arriving for more than a week - and you may be quite unaware of it, as you may well have been receiving emails as normal.

Tiscali's problem is that they have been hijacked by spammers, who have piggy-backed on their system to swamp the world with millions of emails - and this has meant that most other ISP's have taken steps to block anything coming from Tiscali.

Everyone makes mistakes, or may be subject to the work of scoundrels, but the measure of a company is how they deal with these problems when they find them.  The golden rule in crisis management is to keep you customers informed - "tell it all, tell it truthfully and tell it fast" as an expert on crisis public relations once put it to me.

Tiscali, on the other hand, told very few, in fact except for a few modest announcements on their service status page (who ever looks there?) which were of the "we apologise for any convenience caused" platitudes that we expect on delayed trains, they seem to have told no one.

And the problem isn't fixed yet.  In response only to specific Press enquires they have admitted that that although they have completed the work needed rectify its status as a spammer, the changes will take between seven and ten days to take effect, as they have to convince all the other ISPs that the problem is fixed.  This is not likely to please users - if they are even aware of the problem, as they blithely email their friends and business contacts.

If you are affected, for the time being you should use a web email company, like Hotmail or Yahoo.  You might also consider shifting entirely to an ISP that gives damn about keeping their customers informed.