GoDaddy turned off my email suddenly and with no notice

[Escarghost]

Basically, Godaddy said to me, without notice or warning, after years of email being included with my hosting plan, that if I want access to my stored emails and a normal functioning email address, I have to pay them for it. They are actually holding my old emails for ransom. 

I recently paid extra to be migrated to a new hosting plan that I now also pay extra for - because GoDaddy was upgrading and getting rid of the machine I was on. That’s unfair enough as it is...

but yesterday they just completely stopped my email service. 

No notice, no option to set up an alternative... it just stopped working. 

Support says I now need to pay over $100 a year per address if I still want to use my email. 

What?? #@!!%#%! I already pay that for hosting, which has always included email!

After an hour, I get a guy telling me I can use free cPanel email but I will lose all of my old stored messages, and it functions only maybe 95% of the time. Maybe 95% reliability for the email that comes with overpriced hosting.

And my old stored messages are already lost - unless I start paying for them. 

Or I can use the $59/yr Microsoft plan. Better - but still unfair, and why not give me notice so I can back up my emails?

...seriously considering leaving GoDaddy altogether. 

[PL281]

@Escarghost 

I am an end user like you. This has come up a couple times in the last few weeks. 

1) There were numerous emails which GoDaddy sent out regarding this transition

2) What is being discontinued is the FREE WorkSpace email - these were "credits" which were included with various products

3) GoDaddy is still offering Paid WorkSpace Email, as well as Office 365

4) You mentioned you were using the legacy linux hosting and now are using a cPanel server - as such you can set up your mail accounts on the cPanel server - So yes email is included with cPanel it's just built into the server vs being a separate service.

[Escarghost]

Thank you for a quick reply.

1) They did not send me any notification emails. I verified that with support last night. 

2) Yes. My free email has been discontinued, without notice, and I’m forced to pay to restore it.

3) Yes. Paid replacements for what was once free, after paying to upgrade my services because GoDaddy decided to pass the cost of upgrading on to me.  

4) They told me flat out that cPanel is unreliable - and I’ll lose all my stored emails, plus the ones I should have received since yesterday, if I go that route. 

[PL281]

@Escarghost

I’m surprised that they said you weren’t sent the notices.

Regarding the stability of cPanel they are stable and work fine. Personally I don’t like having email on the same server as the website but from a tech perspective it’s fine.

Regarding email sent after your access was disabled. I believe this is correct that the WorkSpace system is still receiving mail so anything that came in would be in that account.

I obviously can’t do anything specific for you, but hope this information at least informs you further.

[Escarghost]

Thanks. I am quite surprised at not being notified. That is my biggest gripe, I would have made preparations for uninterrupted service.

I’ve had cPanel email in the past, and it was imperfect. As I understand, on a shared server, I am subject to losing inmail and not being able to send out mail based on server load at the time, etc. also the possibility of a spammer on the server causing me trouble and my mails being given lower priority vs the paid for account using godaddy servers.

Sadly I will look into the MSFT account , esp if I can get the emails that have been sent since the outage.

But I still think it’s really dirty pool on the part of go daddy to cut me off like that and then force me to pay to get back in.

I hope they read these forums.

[SamHobbs]

@PL281 as for me, there were a total of three messages they sent me. They sent me many, many more messages saying that my free email marketing account is ending but I have never used that so I ignored those messages. I did not see the messages about the workspace email. Coincidentally, I called GoDaddy last Friday about a different problem and Kayla did the best she could to help me. I am sure that if she had seen that my free workspace email was ending that she would have told me. She did not. The GoDaddy support system failed big-time.

Whatever justification you want to use, the bottom-line is that I now must pay an additional $25 a month for something that costs GoDaddy very little.

As for WorkSpace system is still receiving mail, according to the GoDaddy representative, no, it does not. He said that since email servers typically re-send messages I am not likely to lose any messages, but the transition to a new account requires updating the DNS and DNS propagation requires time. He indicated that the messages that had already been received by GoDaddy but not downloaded by me will be lost. In my case, I download messages (using an email client) multiple times a day. He deleted my old account and created a new one. So I will lose about a day's worth of messages. Their software is sloppy; they should have a way to continue my account without interruption as soon as I paid.

[SamHobbs]

That is why I do not use online email services. I do things the old-fashioned way; I use an email client that downloads my messages to my system instead of taking up space in a host. It is too late for you now except I suggest paying what you need to pay then immediately download all your messages.

You do not have to pay yearly. I suggest pay for a month and then investigate going elsewhere. I think I have never, in these forums, suggested going elsewhere from GoDaddy but this is ridiculous.

[Escarghost]

The old fashioned way would be great if I still used a computer, but I have little to no need for one, nor space to have one always running. I download emails and cloud based files from time to time for the sole purpose of backing them up. That’s the extent of my computer use these days. 

So I went with the Microsoft account, which is free for me until August with my hosting package. They give POP & IMAP Settings, so I just changed the account info on my phone and tablet and now have a continuous thread of all my email minus the day or two they deprived me of service. 

Otherwise the Exchange or Outlook requires you have a separate account, which means you will get constant error messages if you want to keep your old email available on your device. 

Ill see after the holidays how I feel about finding a free or cheap email service somewhere - or even moving all of my 19 domains, hosting and email elsewhere.