THANKSGIVING HOLIDAY BUSINESS HOURS

OUR OFFICE (SALES, SUPPORT, BILLING, ETC.) 
WILL BE CLOSED ON:

THURSDAY NOVEMBER 26th
FRIDAY NOVEMBER 27th
SATURDAY NOVEMBER 28th
SUNDAY NOVEMBER 29th

REGULAR OFFICE HOURS WILL RESUME AT
9:30AM ON MONDAY NOVEMBER 30th.

WE WISH YOU A SAFE AND ENJOYABLE HOLIDAY.

 

Dear Members, Due to reasons out of our control, the vendor of our current Intouch branded Anti-Virus software has decided to discontinue the support of this product. Effective November 1st, 2009 - the Intouch Anti-Virus subscription software service will NO LONGER FUNCTION.    more »

Just an FYI for those interested:

Here's some interesting info about the dangers of Facebook.  One's a article from Switched.com and the other is an FBI press release. 

http://tinyurl.com/fbwarning-1

http://www.fbi.gov/pressrel/pressrel09/networking_100109.htm

 

The necessary repairs, maintenance, and upgrades have been completed and everything is functioning correctly now.

If you experience any issues with an IntouchMI.com hosted website or with our online customer management interface; please contact our office by email (operations@intouchmi.com) or by phone (1-866-929-3278).

We are currently experiencing issues with a Web Server and Database Server.  Some websites hosted on our network may not be viewable on the internet at this time.  This error is also effecting our online customer management system.

This problem does NOT effect our Dial Up Internet service.

We are looking into the problem and will have corrections made soon.  Check back here for updates later in the day.

Over the years of talking to our customers about the good and bad things on the internet; all the software that all the websites want you to download, read the privacy statements, etc., I've pretty much summed it up with "how much can you TRUST the website asking you to do that?".    more »

OUR OFFICE HOURS FOR THE UPCOMING LABOR DAY WEEKEND ARE AS FOLLOWS:

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Friday, September 4th - 9:30AM to 4PM
(closing early)

Saturday, September 5th - CLOSED

Sunday, September 6th - CLOSED

Monday, September 7th - CLOSED

Tuesday, September 8th - 9:30AM to 6:00PM
(regular hours)

 

8/26/09 The server has now been stable for more than 24 hours, so I feel comfortable updating this notice. Our customer account database had to be restored from a backup. Payments received on Friday the 21st, Monday the 24th, and Tuesday the 25th had to be reentered into the system today. Any invoices that might have generated over those days were also regenerated today. Some customers may be seeing payment receipt emails for payments you have already received a receipt for. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us. We would like to thank everyone for their patience while we corrected this problem.   more »

Due to the Vassar Chamber of Commerce car show happening in downtown Vassar this Saturday, our office (including technical support) will be closed.

Starting at around 6am, downtown Vassar will be closed off and all traffic will be routed around the downtown area.  The city streets will be taken up by entries in the annual car show and thus our office will be unaccessible during the entire day.

We are sorry for any inconvenience this may also cause our customers.

Regular hours will resume Monday August 3rd at 9:30am.

MySpace and Facebook are such a big thing these days. Many of our members have accounts with one or both of these so-called "Social Networking" websites. But please be warned: They are one of the largest contributing factors to getting a virus, spyware, malware, or scareware infection on your computer!   more »

Do you recognize these icons? If you have Windows XP you'd be looking for a Yellow Shield with a Black Exclamation Point. In Windows Vista it's a blue software box with the Windows "flag" logo on it. Take a look at the start bar "system tray" which is normally located down in the bottom right corner of the screen.    more »

WE WILL HAVE REDUCED HOURS FOR THE FOURTH OF JULY HOLIDAY WEEKEND.

FRIDAY, JULY 3rd - CLOSING EARLY AT 2:00PM
SATURDAY, JULY 4th - CLOSED

WE WILL RESUME REGULAR HOURS ON MONDAY, JULY 6th.

Have a Safe and Enjoyable weekend!

For more information about Independence Day in America visit:

The History Channel

or

Wikipedia

 

Dear Members,

A couple of weeks ago we began staffing technical support for several hours on Saturdays.  At this time we've decided to go ahead and work Saturdays into the official open hours schedule for technical support and in-store computer repair.

Support is now available from 10:00am until 3:00pm on Saturdays.

Thank You

Intouch Internet Services, Inc.

Dear Members,

Mail services have been restored to normal.  The offending account has been disabled and the mail bottleneck seems to be reduced to a nominal size.

If there are any other issues as a result of this problem, we will update this announcement at that time, but we expect that the situation is fully resolved.

We are currently experiencing email delays and other related issues due to a compromised user mailbox.

We are working on the issue and will continue to monitor the email services throughout the day.  When we are confident the situation with the user has been contained, we will post another update here.

Thank You for your Patience.

Sincerely,
Charles Partridge
Intouch Internet Services, Inc.

 

Dear Members,

The problem with our Account Administration Interface and our Credit Card Processing Interface have now been resolved.

Credit Card payments can now be made online.

We are aware that there are issues when you try to make a payment via credit or debit card using our online payment interface.

These issues are related to some maintenance we performed last Friday afternoon and thus online payments have not been able to be processed over the holiday weekend.

We hope to have the issue resolved by mid-day on Tuesday May 26th.

If you would like to call our office to make a payment, please feel free to do so during our normal business hours beginning Tuesday.

Thank You,
Charles Partridge

Our office (sales, tech support, billing, etc.) will be
CLOSED on Monday, May 25th, 2009.

For more information about Memorial Day in America,
please click the links below:

http://www1.va.gov/opa/feature/celebrate/memday.asp

or

http://www.usmemorialday.org/

 

Dear Members,

As of around 1:00PM today our Vassar office has been closed due to a major power outage in Vassar.  It appears someone decided to cut down a VERY LARGE tree without first thinking about WHERE the tree would land.  Unfortunately, the tree landed on a power line behind our office (in downtown Vassar) which then took out several transformers and damaged a few electric poles.

Since approximately 1:00PM we have been without Power and Telephone service at our office.  If you have attempted to call us, you are most likely getting a "fast busy" signal during the call.  I have spoken with one of the DTE linesmen that are now on the scene, and he has expressed that the repairs will take a "very long time" in order to get power restored to a large portion of the downtown area.

Because of this issue we closed our office early today.  We will check the status of the power situation in the morning to determine if we will be able to re-open at 9:30AM under our normal hours of operation.  If there is any problem with the power in the morning I will post an update here on the Members page.

We are sorry for any inconvenience this may cause any of you and hope that everyone understands that this situation is well beyond our control.

NOTE:  THIS POWER/PHONE OUTAGE DOES NOT EFFECT ANYTHING RELATED TO OUR INTERNET SERVICE CONNECTIONS.  IT IS STRICTLY AN ISSUE WITH OUR VASSAR BUSINESS OFFICE.

Thank you for your patience.

Sincerely,
Charles Partridge
Intouch  Internet Services, Inc.

 

Well...April 1 went by quite uneventfully.  We didn't even have one single computer come in for repair due to the Conficker worm!

As always; just practice safe 'surfing', keep your Windows software up to date, and maintain an up to date anti-virus program and you'll experience little to no interuption due to viruses on your computer.

- Charles

**********************************

Dear Members,

Funny enough, nobody has really mentioned anything to me about the so-called "April Fools Day Virus" that's been talked about in the news over the last few weeks....until TODAY!!

Now that my phone is done ringing about this for a little while; I figured I'd share a link to the Microsoft Corporation page that discusses the Conficker Virus.

You can view that information here:http://www.microsoft.com/protect/computer/viruses/worms/conficker.mspx

NOTE:  One very interesting characteristic of this virus is that is can potentially block infected computers from visiting ANY Microsoft websites!  It can also block viewing of most of the major Anti-Virus company websites too!  This is an important function of the virus.  It does this so that the user with an infected computer cannot receive any security updates for Windows and/or an Anti-Virus Definition update.

If you are unable to view the website at the link above, there is a chance your computer is already infected by the Conficker Virus.  If you do experience this problem, try visiting the following sites...if they all give you problems; immediately disconnect from the internet and shut off your computer.  Take it to your favorite computer repair shop (like our office here in Vassar!). 

Anti-Virus Sites:www.Symantec.com
www.Grisoft.com
www.Avira.com
www.Kaskpersky.com
www.McAfee.com

ANOTHER NOTE:  The primary "reason" for viruses now-a-days is as a tool for criminal enterprises to obtain identity and credit/banking info about the infected computer users.  If you ever see a "anti-virus" program suddenly appear on your screen that informs you of thousands of infections on your computer....no matter how fancy or "real" it looks - don't trust it if you don't remember ever seeing that program come up on your computer before.  These fake anti-virus programs (or "ScareWare" as they are now referred to as) are trying to steal your credit card information.  They are NOT real programs.  They are simple animations (everyone that gets it sees the exact same scan results!) that try to trick you into "upgrading" to the supposed "full version" of the program.  It always seem like a good deal too, in the $24.95 range.  But if you put in your credit card info; I assure you that you will not receive a legitimate anti-virus program and you will have just shared your credit card data with the bad guys.

Any questions...let us know.

Thank You and Happy April Fools Day!

- Charles Partridge

 

Dear Members,

Yet ANOTHER round of bogus emails claiming to be from us (intouch or blclinks) have been noticed by some of our customers and our technical department.  Again, this message is NOT legitimate! 

I cannot stress enough that you will NEVER, NEVER, NEVER receive this type of email from our company.  NEVER respond to this type of email.  Always feel free to contact us if you have any questions about messages like these.

To help you understand better WHY you may receive a message like this, I'll explain.  The bad guys that send out all the worlds spam/junk/unsolicited email need to have access to an email account to send their garbage out from.  For years now these bad guys have been "faking" email account information and tricking email service providers into allowing mail to be sent.  As companies like ours continue to increase the security of our mail computers, and new techniques for catching these fakes continue to advance; the bad guys are having a hard time getting their messages out.  If YOU respond to this email, the bad guys will then have DIRECT ACCESS to YOUR EMAIL ACCOUNT.  Then, they will start blasting out the junk email as if it had come from YOU!  This approach usually gives them a window of a day or two before YOUR account gets shut off by your service provider.  The bad guys can send out BILLIONS of these junk messages in a matter of those couple days of having access to a legitimate email account.

Here is an example of the most recent version of such a bogus email:

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Dear valued customer,

 

We are currently performing maintenance for our

Digital Webmail Customers. We intend upgrading

our Digital Webmail Security Server for better

online services.

 

In order to ensure you do not experience service

interruption,Please you must reply to this email

immediately and enter your password here (******)

and Check out your new features and enhancements

with your new and improved Blclinks Account,To

enable us upgrade your Blclinks Account for better

online services please reply to this mail.

 

Thank You For Using Blclinks Account

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

 

Dear Members,

We've been looking into the options available for us to be able to provide High-Speed internet service to our customers and would like some help from any of you willing to provide us with your opinion.

On the TOP of the RIGHT column on this website we have added a link to a "survey" page with just a few simple questions.  If you are interested in being a part of this survey, please click on the link provided.

Thank You.

Dear Members,

Oops.  I forgot to put up an update last Friday night.  Credit Card processor updates were successfully completed late Friday evening.

We will be unable to process credit card payments (both phone in and do it yourself payments on our website) for a little while this afternoon as we perform updates to the Credit Card Processing systems.

We do not expect this interuption to take long and an update will be posted here upon completion of the maintenance.

Thank You for your Patience.

THIS PROBLEM HAS BEEN RESOLVED. If you have any continued issues with this problem, please contact our office.    more »

Dear Members, Beginning tomorrow (December 13th, 2008) there will be a few changes to our billing procedures as described below: 1.  Statement notification period has been increased from 10 days to 14 days prior to the next service period. Example:  If your monthly service period starts on the 20th of each month, you currently receive your next statement on the 10th of the month and it is due 10 days later (on or before the start date of your service period).  Under the new changes, your statement will be sent to you 14 days prior to the start of your next service period.  In this example your statement would be sent on the 6th of the month.  The payment is still due by the start day of your billing/service period (the 20th). 2.  Internet Access accounts will now fully convert to "prepaid" service accounts.  Under the changes that were implemented at the start of 2008, all payments were converted to being "due on or before the first day of the service period."  We have allowed 11 months for our customers to get adjusted to this new policy and now will implement the final phase of converting to prepaid internet services.  Effective January 1st, 2009 any account that has not yet had a payment applied to a current service invoice will be suspended until payment is received and applied to the account. Example:  If your service period (and billing "due by" date) is the 1st of every month and your payment for services is not received on or before the 1st of the month that the invoice is associated with; your account will be suspended until that payment is received.  Suspension's will not be processed until after all payments received in our normal USPS daily delivery have been applied to accounts, and all Credit Card Auto Pay accounts have been processed. Credit Card "Auto Pay" accounts will also be suspended on the first day of the service period if there are any issues with monthly auto payment being approved by the credit card processing service. Example:  If your Credit Card information on file is no longer valid (expired) or if your Credit Card authorization is declined by the bank, payment will not have been applied to your account and thus your services will be suspended until payment is received by us. It is very important that all Internet Access customers understand their billing/service cycles.  Account information including your current balance can be viewed by visiting our Customer Portal site at: https://backoffice.intouchmi.com/custinfo/ You can log into your account information by entering your Dial Up account Username and Password.  If you need help with that information or wish to speak with us directly about your account status, please do not hesitate to call or email us at "billing@intouchmi.com". Sincerely, Charles Partridge Intouch Internet Services, Inc. operations@intouchmi.com

Our offices will be closing at 5:00PM today (Wednesday December 3rd, 2008) due to a training session.

Regular hours will resume tomorrow (Thursday December 4th, 2008).

We are sorry for any inconvenience this may cause.

We've added a new link on the left side menu related to local weather.  Click on the "Weather Link" option and you will then be able to enter your ZIP code, click the SEARCH button and a new window will open with the weather.com local weather page for your ZIP code.

Dear Customers,

We have seen evidence of a bogus email having been received by some of our customers that APPEARS to be from our company.  This email is asking you to send a reply which includes your account password.

DO NOT REPLY TO THIS MESSAGE.  IT IS NOT AUTHENTIC AND DID NOT ORIGINATE FROM OUR COMPANY.

We will NEVER ask you to provide your password via email.

If you have any questions regarding this email, please feel free to contact us.

Sincerely,

Charles Partridge
Intouch Internet Services, Inc.

Our office hours, including computer repair and technical support, will be adjusted as follows for the holiday:

Thursday August 28 - 9:30AM to 4:00PM
Friday August 29 - CLOSED
Saturday August 30 - CLOSED
Sunday August 31 - CLOSED
Monday September 1 - CLOSED
Tuesday September 2 - 9:30AM to 6:00PM

Regular hours of 9:30AM to 6:00PM Monday through Friday will start again on Tuesday September 2nd.

Thank You and have a safe and happy holiday weekend.

For more information about the Labor Day holiday in America, visit:

http://www.dol.gov/opa/aboutdol/laborday.htm

 

 

Dear Members,

The phone system updates were completed mid afternoon yesterday (Thursday).  These updates could actually be better described as "downgrades".  We've removed the computerized phone system and gone to standard telephones for now.  We're testing to see if this will make things a little bit easier on our staff and customers.

Right now we do not have any provisions for voicemail, however we will be addressing that next week.

Thank You for your patience, and have a Great Weekend.

Sincerely,
Charles Partridge
Intouch Internet Services, Inc.

 

Dear Members,

Over the last couple weeks we have heard of several of our members having issues logging into their online Credit Union accounts via our internet service.

I want to assure you all that Intouch Internet Services, Inc. is not doing anything to block the use of these online services from your Credit Unions.

We have researched the issue and feel we have found the problem which lies within the online system that many Credit Unions in Michigan use for their online interfaces.  We have contacted the vendor of that product on Friday (8/8/08) in the morning and they seemed to agree that the problem is on their end.

After several calls again today I was finally able to get someone to make the correction necessary on that vendors network.

If anyone is still having problems connecting to a Credit Union website, please contact us with the details of the error you are receiving and we will investigate those issues on a case-by-case basis.

Sincerely,

Charles Partridge
Intouch Internet Services, Inc.