2009-09-18

Police with no clue about email?

I see it on vans on the motorway, a van with big sign writing, lets say Company Name and a web site such as www.companyname.co.uk and then you get the email address companyname@aol.com or companyname@btinternet.com or cn1024@hotmail.co.uk.

WHY?!? They have the domain after all, why not info@companyname.co.uk ?

As if that is not bad enough, I was just handed the business card for a police officer. Lets call him PC Fred Bloggs to save him some embarrasment.

PC Fred Bloggs
Police Constable

Bracknell Police Station
The Broadway
Bracknell
Berkshire RG12 1AD

Tel: 08458 505 505
Fax: 01344 823 419
E: Fred.Bloggs@thamesvalley.pnn.co.uk
Web: www.thamesvalley.police.uk

Talk about unprofessional!
They have a nice domain thamesvalley.police.uk. Why on earth is it not Fred.Bloggs@thamesvalley.police.uk

And worse, pnn.co.uk is actually owned by the ISP (Commerce Internet Ltd) not even the police. So not registered and managed by an ISP whilst owned by police, no, actually owned by the ISP as the registrant.

And worse still, the ISP uses uk.net subdomains themself (major fail for an ISP) and their name servers, but the name servers are AWOL. So the email won't work.

DNS check results for thamesvalley.pnn.co.uk:

16.7% of queries will end in failure at 193.111.200.7 (ns0.cerberusnetworks.co.uk) - failed to resolve ns1.commerce.uk.net due to 193.111.200.7 - no such domain

16.7% of queries will end in failure at 193.84.87.10 (ns1.cerberusnetworks.co.uk) - failed to resolve ns1.commerce.uk.net due to 193.84.87.10 - no such domain

16.7% of queries will end in failure at 216.218.244.58 (ns2.cerberusnetworks.co.uk) - failed to resolve ns1.commerce.uk.net due to 216.218.244.58 - no such domain

50.0% of queries will end in failure at 213.219.35.202 (ns2.commerce.uk.net) - query timed out

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3 comments:

  1. UnknownSaturday, 19 September 2009 at 08:39:00 BST

    To be fair I think this is a printing error on the business card. All UK police e-mails should be in the format:

    @*.pnn.police.uk

    So

    Fred.Bloggs@thamesvalley.pnn.police.uk

    ReplyDelete
  2. RevKSaturday, 19 September 2009 at 09:02:00 BST

    Ah, maybe it is. Slightly odd having pnn in one and not the other I suppose.

    Though I do use a personal email address and company web site on my cards I suppose.

    ReplyDelete
  3. AJStevensMonday, 21 September 2009 at 13:06:00 BST

    Oh yeah, see it on vans all the time, I'm guessing it's not that big a deal to those not in the know, an email address is an email address, probably get most business by word of mouth if they're a Plumber/Plaster/etc. professional.

    ReplyDelete

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