Email server SMTP whitelisting - PIA not supporting anymore??? Please help.

not_happy_jan

Hi all.
So, following PIA's recommendation I submitted a ticket to whitelist my SMTP server so that I could send email using PIA. Here is the response I get:

" Thank you for reaching out to our customer support team.
I apologize, but we are currently restructuring our whitelisting operations, and cannot do that for you right now.
Thank you for understanding.
Please let me know if you need further assistance, or if I should close this ticket.
Thank you for choosing PIA."

Other than that, PIA has been great. Is anyone else having the same trouble?

If I can't get this fixed then I guess I will have to head elsewhere and request a refund. What other VPN's have people had good experience with?

[Deleted User]

I'm really sorry for the inconvenience here! We had some network issues due to a high volume of spam being transmitted on some of the Europe servers, so we've suspended whitelisting while we reconfigure the SMTP whitelisting process. It should be back very soon - this is in no way a permanent or long-term change. 

In the meantime, webmail functions normally if you want to send email without disconnecting from the VPN.

g00fy

Our mailserver was moved to another server and when I asked them to change the IP on their whitelist I did get the same answer. So, how long is 'in no way a permanent or long-term change'?
I am a customer for years and still you don't trust me? I just want to be able to get my mail out without having to cut down on privacy and security. That's what I am paying for.
I don't want the hassle of opening webmail clients on my smartphone.

I am really interested in alternatives for PIA also.

Regards,
Emile.

toflo99

This is the last straw for me. Having to disconnect to use iPlayer/Prime has become more frequent over the past few years. It’s now constant… regardless of UK server. I also can’t sign in or visit 4 other sites in the UK… all repeatedly reported as blocked websites.

PIA have now blocked smtp servers from the largest UK webhost (123-reg) so I have to disconnect to send an email. Hosting companies have considerably better protection in place than the likes of AOL and Yahoo who are not blocked.

I now spend more time disconnected than connected… what is the point?

p3144597

Private Internet Access say they block port 25 by default to prevent their service being abused to send spam email, but since they implemented this, I can’t access my email provider on ports 587 or 465. They clearly have an issue to fix, and impacting so many customers like that is a real problem. It sure makes me question if I now need to look for a different VPN provider, one who cares.

netaloid

Elsewhere on this website a PIA representative outlined the method for requesting that a server be whitelisted again. I sent such a request, including all the required information - and never received a reply. And my smtp server still won't work if I'm running PIA.

As a long-time customer, I expect at least an explanation. And if the service no longer includes that ability to use my email server, then it no longer is of any use to me.

RandySea

Same problem with SMTP for me.

The whitelisting will be useless for me because I do not have a fixed IP address for my domain. Even for my host's SMTP server, there are multiple severs they use with different IP addresses.

I tried to submit a ticket through the support page before I realized that everyone is having the same problem with SMTP. I couldn't even get the support page report to work. That page does not show the letters I type!

Then I sent an email to [email protected] with my problem, before I discovered this thread. I got a reply from london zendesk saying they changed support portals on May 23 and I need to wait 24-48 hours for DNS to update. That obviously didn't happen, since it's May 30.

So now the question is, where do we send our requests for cancellation of service? I would like to get a refund, too. PIA charged me for a year just before they pulled this big change with no advance or post notice.

RandySea

p3144597 said:

They clearly have an issue to fix, and impacting so many customers like that is a real problem. It sure makes me question if I now need to look for a different VPN provider, one who cares.

In looking around, it seems that you may have to reconsider how important it is that your VPN provider not keep logs at all. For me, privacy and financial data protection against hackers is the reason to use VPN.

I am not worried about the gov't subpoena'ing my usage logs. So I have a lot more choices of VPN providers. There are many who keep logs but only for a short time.

I've had very good iOS support from EncryptMe.com. Their app works very reliably. On the Windows version, there are some intermittent issues but nothing major. Plus, unlike PIA, I don't need Admin privileges to start EME up when I log on as a User. It just starts up automatically.

smasantos

Hello. Current restrictions on SMTP servers lead me to consider changing from VPN provider. Any recommendations? Do you know if these restrictions are in place in all other VPNs? Thank you very much for your opinion and help. Thank you.