I need to speak with a person.

This forum is the official Thunderbird support venue. There is no phone support for Thunderbird.

My ISP is not recognized by Thunderbird.

If the new account wizard fails to detect the correct settings for your email provider run 'Manual Configuration'. https://support.mozilla.org/kb/manual-account-configuration

Note, prior to this you'll need to obtain the required server settings from your email provider.

Thunderbird does not recognize the IMAP server that my ISP insists upon.

You'll need to tell Thunderbird to use IMAP for the Incoming Server when manually setting up the account.

Christ1 Thank you--I will follow your advice!!

Kathy

Thank you again, Christ1. Receiving and sending email is once again possible. The Time-Warner tech complicated the original problem (not being able to send email) by having me change in-coming and out-going accounts. For awhile I could not receive or send. Once I deleted the in-coming account he created and changed my master password, everything began to work normally.

Sorry to go on so long. THANK YOU!