Fastmail doesn't know how to configure a mail server
Artem TsatsinI'd like to warn you about hosting your own domain mail server with a company called Fastmail.com.
Some prehistoric info
I bought a domain name tsatsin.com and ran a self hosted mailinabox.email server on it for a while. Recently I heard about this company who will host a mail service on your domain for $50/user/year with no fuss and a headache of self-hosting your own box. This sounded like a great deal and I signed up with their service and as a loyal customer willing to work long term, bought 3 years of service in advance from them.
Following their own instructions, I changed my NS servers for my domain to theirs (ns1.messagingengine.com and ns2.messagingengine.com) and after waiting for about 12 hours I was able to read my mail in their web app. Neat! But then I started noticing that some mailing lists that I read regularly do not reach my inbox. I tried to resubscribe, but got an error that, for example debian-users ML, was not able to reach me to send subscription confirmation email. At this point I reached out to Fastmail support.
Below you'll find a full unedited screenshot of my communications with them on what first appeared as a trivial misconfiguration on their part, which they refused to acknowledge.
And here's where things got weird
The first thing they tried on me was good old "turn it on off and on again" support routine, which is annoying in itself, but all right -- modern email servers are notoriously hard to configure, so I complied with this request and tried again. To no avail, just as I expected, the Debian servers still refused to find my mail address.
Then first line of support suggested that my SPF record was incorrectly configured. To my greatest surprise, they even offered me assistance in configuring my DNS. When I pointed out the fact that I delegated my whole domain to their NS servers and any SPF or other records are literally out of my control, the first line of support escalated my ticket to a real support. Finally, I thought, a tech support that knows what they are talking about, who'll solve all my (their) problems.
How wrong I was about that
The tech support just pulled off another old routine called "it works for me", claiming that the problem is on Debian servers side, suggesting me to resolve this with Debian mail server admin. After this kind of response I really flipped.
First, I did not have had any problems with those Debian mail servers (or any other mail servers on the internet) previously, when I was self hosting my mail on this same domain.
And second, how ignorant that stance is! Saying that you won't move a finger for your customer and forcing your customer to debug your configuration mistakes with 3rd parties is just outrageous. And these people ask money for this kind of service!
Needless to say that my top priority became to get my money and data back from this scam company and move back to self hosting my mail server. After all,
If you want something done well, do it yourself
I would like to thank you for reading this far and strongly advise you to reconsider if you're hosting your mail with Fastmail.com. They are incompetent kids, who don't know how to configure a mail server and who don't put their customer first, even when you pay them.