MSN versus Fraser Gallery Update One

Our struggle for online email survival has gone from the ridiculous to the stupifying. As reported here, we have lost access to our Hotmail account and MSN's "help" process has been incredibly lacking.

Today I received two emails from them. The first one left me speechless:

From : MSN Hotmail Support
Sent : Friday, April 28, 2006 12:13 PM
To :
Subject : RE: SRX1013084219ID - MSN Hotmail:I need something fixed

Hello F. Lennox,

Thank you for writing to MSN Hotmail Technical Support.

My name is Erwin. I am responding to your Hotmail concern.

I apologize for the delayed response and I understand how inconvenient it is for you to experience these issues. Please let me assist you on this matter.

F. Lennox, in order for us to understand and investigate your issue properly, kindly reword the issue you are experiencing and answer the questions below.

1. What is the detailed step-by-step procedure you did and where did the process failed?
2. Have you tried accessing your Hotmail account in a different computer with a different Internet connection? if yes, what happened?
3. Did you encounter any error message? If yes, kindly provide us with the exact error message you received.

You are a valuable customer to MSN and we are glad to give you consistent and effective service. We look forward to hearing from you soon.

Sincerely,

Erwin P.
MSN Hotmail Technical Support

Three things:
(a) The problem was already reported in gruesome detail to them over 48 hours ago.
(b) Good thing Erwin didn't call me "Fraser"
(c) I didn't know anyone in India was named "Erwin."

And then I get the below email from the managers at Microsoft:

From : Customer Feedback for PSS Customers managers@microsoft.com
Sent : Friday, April 28, 2006 4:14 AM
To : "F. Lennox Campello"
Subject : RE:'RTCProd=011-778-339' For Biji Balan: 1013078543

Hello Lenny,

Thank you for contacting Microsoft Online Customer Service.

I regret that your issue is not resolved.
To contact the Hotmail team, please fill the e-mail form located in the following page:
http://support.msn.com/contactus_emailsupport.aspx?productkey=hotmail&ct=eformts

After filling that form, you will receive a reply from the Hotmail team within 24 hours.

If you wish to report a Hotmail site outage, you can also call at (650) 964-7200 Monday - Friday, 10:00 A.M. - 5:00 P.M. Pacific Time.

In the meantime, if you are able to access your Hotmail account and would like to view self-help resources like FAQs, please use these steps:

1. Sign in to Hotmail, and then click Help in the upper-right corner of the web page.
2. Click on either “Find” or “All topics” option.

Lenny, I hope your issue gets resolved soon and appreciate your patience in this regard.

Thank you for using Microsoft products and services.

Senthil
Microsoft Online Customer Service Representative

If you have any feedback about your Online Customer Service experience, please e-mail my manager, Biji Balan, at managers@microsoft.com

So, they're essentially telling me to report the problem... again. Senthil clearly did not read my email detailing all the issues, nor did Senthil read the email from the "Hotmail team" that was part of the email trail sent to Senthil.