OK, I think I opened a different login - trail blazers or similar. So I have now tested with my brand new outlook.com email account which THS have set up in the login screen. I tested my new outlook email first asking my husband to send me an email and I received this no problem.
Well, no surprises, my brand new outlook email account did not receive any 2FA codes. Tested several times. So, I have now tried 3 email addresses, my own domain name, and two global providers. I have emailed THS - are they going to say this is down to problems with these global provider servers? We shall see.
Thanks for both your updates. Honestly how very frustrating is this?
I can only imagine the hours that you have spent trying to sort this out when it still appears that the fault lies with THS as we thought and as your IT guy at Plusnet thought too.
It’s not as if you won’t have a busy life as it is without wasting all this time trying to sort out something which appears unsortable!
I am guessing that once again you are passing this back to THS support to see what their reply will be.
I am still being told that the ONLY way to resolve my problem is to try another email address and considering the email address I might have tried would have been a gmail one I really cannot see the point and again will be asking them to sort it from their end.
Ironically I had an alert today asking me to apply for a housesit that I had bookmarked as being interested in when the owners advertised again!
I get the alerts, I get the emails, I get the responses from the support team. I just don’t get the 2FA.
I really do feel your frustration and I can only hope that you have advertised your sits on the new platform you have joined and have had a good response.
My account with THS is not due for renewal until Sept but I will not be renewing it if this problem is not resolved - there’s no point is there?
@marsbar given you are having problems with all your email addresses I wonder if it’s your security settings on your device or PC or maybe a systems/firmware upgrade has changed things?
I’m no techy but suggest try changing your security settings to a lower filter or you add the THS 2FA email address to your email safe senders list. The 2FA email is sent from update@service.email.trustedhousesitters.com
Please let us know if either of these options work.
If you do manage to sort out this issue and decide to remain with THS I would definitely be asking them to add extra months to your membership for all the inconvenience and frustration you have experienced.
@marsbar By chance, have you been using Outlook to receive/view emails from those gmail accounts? Also: Outlook for Windows, or Outlook for Mac?
My husband & I just spent weeks troubleshooting with both Microsoft & Apple to resolve constant hard bounces whenever I tried to email him on his iCloud account Error codes were the same/similar generic & unhelpful messages THS is telling you they’re getting. We never got either company to admit the issue was on their side, but it was resolved once he created a new domain & email account for me.
The entire process was infuriating, so I feel your pain!
To MerryPuppins and other users. The 2FA authentification was finally resolved on Friday. I initially raised this issue on 9th January and resolved on 31st January. The xxxx@outlook.com email address that I created worked.
“The resolution was “Our specialists have identified that while your email was updated in our main database, our automated mailing system was still “remembering” your original private domain address. This explains why the reset emails and codes weren’t appearing in your Outlook inbox - the system was still trying to send them to your original email!
We have now performed a manual override to force the system to recognize xxxxoutlook.com. “
Also, I was using the same tab to test and was advised to use an “incognito” window which I had never heard of before.
They suggested deleting cookies but that didn’t work.
It is frustrating dealing with their support desk using email. If only we could have a telephone conversation!
The gmail account tried may have worked I guess if if was still looking for my domain name. The domain name issue was never resolved.
I have now most likely lost any possibility of a sit on 26th February as it is too late.
There is another housesitter site called housesittersuk.com which I have joined for £15 membership.
Thank you for telling how it resolved. One of my big fears is that I get logged out - paying for service that I need and cant access. So I am happy to hear the details of your case, so that if this happens to me, I now know what to tell the tech team to check in order to have it maybe resolved fast. Taking three weeks to resolve is bonkers.
@marsbar a similar thing happened to me but with my @outlook.com email address, so their “private domain email” excuse doesn’t wash. They just have a hopeless IT system or staff, that doesn’t provide a good user experience. I hope you leave factual review on Trust Pilot.
Thanks for coming back and telling us that the problem is now fixed. However in my view there should never have been a problem in the first place and in reality the original problem was only fixed by your actions ( changing email address) rather than anything miraculous that the IT team did.
I am afraid that I tend to agree with Crookie and feel we should not have been subjected to these ‘ problems’ and lengthy resolutions in the first place.
I agree, it has taken many hours of my time to resolve. They have offered me one month free membership. However, I have asked for more in view of the time, stress and inconvenience caused. I am not saying I could have got a sit if there hadn’t been a delay but I will be paying many hundreds of pounds for kennels for a week, which the dogs really don’t like and nor do we.
Just to add, recently, I have had several 2FA successfully sent to my domain email address, XX@XX.net with no hard or soft bounces. A travel company and Outlook Account, another one I can’t remember now. So it doesn’t seem to be a problem for other organisations.
(Edited to remove email address for privacy in accordance with our forum guidelines)
It’s kind of incredible to me that TH can’t figure this out. Plenty of other sites use 2FA and don’t have these sorts of issues. I’ve had to use three different email addresses now. If it’ wasn’t for the app on my phone, I’d be completely dead in the water. Sometimes the phone is just not as convenient as logging in on the website. But until they get the 2FA debacle figured out, it seems like it’ll be kind of hit and miss thing.
I have found that THS customer service agents have a huge range of competency. You might have better luck starting over with a new agent until you connect with one who has been trained well enough to help
It is fixable. I just kept being a squeaky wheel until that fixed it for me, sending them lots ofscreen shots of emails going to the correct and in correct email addresses. My issue was slightly different in that all my automated THS system messages were going to my new email except for the 2FA email, still going to the old address. They eventually were able to fix the problem so my 2FA came to the correct email address. Stand your ground and don’t accept it can’t be done.