I have been having thought's!!

soggy · Post by **soggy** » 17 Jan 2007, 09:45

Right chaps, I decided on the vatsim route,went to sign up with them yesterday and got a message saying i cant join from the email address provided,Never had a problem with my address before (its aol by the way).

I have emailed the support staff who said to try another email provider,although they can't recommend one that will work,they suggest googling for one!!!.

If anyone knows of an email provider that will definatly work please let me know as ireally dont want to sign up to loads of different companies in the hope that one works at random. :roll:

The alternative is to buy radar contact,and learn to fly choppers.

Cheers,

Pete

ianhind · Post by **ianhind** » 17 Jan 2007, 11:00

I wonder whether Gmail or Hotmail work? They are both free.

If you want a Gmail account, you have to be invited.

I can send you an invite to join (send me a PM, I have loads of invites left).

Ian

Chris Trott · Post by **Chris Trott** » 17 Jan 2007, 15:02

Hrm... dunno why your AOL account wasn't accepted. Lemme do a little checking. I know some of the admins over there.

1) Did you use any capitals in the e-mail address?
2) Did you get the AOL address for free or did you get it by being a paying member?

Free account providers won't work either. VATSIM had issues with people using free accounts to setup user IDs and then cause all sorts of problems on the network, so they banned that by banning free e-mail address usage on the network. So far, it's worked really well.

soggy · Post by **soggy** » 18 Jan 2007, 10:35

Ian,

Cheers for the offer,Check your Pm's.

Chris,

If you could find out why i would be grateful,Aol is my internet provider,so its a genuine email address,in fact its the only one i use for everything(apart from a hotmail account so i can use MSN messenger).

Thanks

Pete

Chris Trott · Post by **Chris Trott** » 18 Jan 2007, 22:05

I'm still trying to figure it all out. There is a note in my e-mail about there being a reply to my message on the VATSIM forum about the issue, so hopefully we'll get some resolution. The initial response was "Well AOL put us on their 'spam' ISP list so we couldn't contact members. So to ensure we can contact our members, we blocked AOL."

I know VATSIM is free, but that's a cop-out if I've ever heard one, so I'm pushing harder to get them to fix it. I know that the http://www.flygma.com domain was on that list for a while too due to a glitch in our e-mail server software. All it took for me to get us back on the "good" list was a call to AOL and let them know what happened and give them a link to our website to let the see that we're a legitimate website and orginization.

Chris Trott · Post by **Chris Trott** » 19 Jan 2007, 05:19

Okay, I have gotten a response. It appears that the staff member who responded to your query was wrong. If you could provide me (via PM or E-mail) that staff person's name, the VATSIM guys would be appreciative so that person can be corrected on the proper procedure.

AOL accounts are not blocked wholly. They are instead subject to manual verification. I will get back to you on who to contact directly to have this procedure taken care of.

DanKH · Post by **DanKH** » 19 Jan 2007, 06:47

soggy wrote:(apart from a hotmail account so i can use MSN messenger)

Hi Pete. In fact you don't need a Hotmail account to use messenger, just a valid mail address. I haven't got a Hotmail account and my messenger works perfectly alright

Chris Trott · Post by **Chris Trott** » 19 Jan 2007, 16:49

Okay, here's the procedure Pete -

Take all the information asked for on the application page (pasted at the bottom of this post for ease). Put it in an e-mail. Send said email to this e-mail address - gpap (at) vatsim (dot) net

George will take care of you.

First Name:

Last Name:

Email address:

Confirm e-mail address:

Age:

Password Reminder Word: (maximum 20 characters)
This word will be used to verify your identity concerning any changes to your account.

State or Province:

Country:

I am: (An enthusast, A Pilot in the real world, An ATC in the real world, or A pilot and controller in the real world)

Select your preferred region: (Europe in your case)

soggy · Post by **soggy** » 22 Jan 2007, 01:53

Sorry it's took so long to reply gents.

Chris, you are a legend mate, Cheers for going to the effort of sorting this out for me.

Dan,For some reason when i first set msn up,it kept telling me my email address was already in use :shock:,So it was just easier for me to set hotmail up as the address for msn.

Thanks again for all the help and advice,I hope to do my first online flight on tuesday evening.

Pete