I was WRONG!
The mailing went out but I didn’t get it and neither did anyone else who uses the same ISP as I do for my personal email.
I am really upset by this and I’ll tell you why.
One of the autoresponder services I use to send out the newsletter mailings is DemandMail.com. I have used them for a couple of years and have been very happy with their inexpensive service because they allow me set up an unlimited number of autoresponder accounts for one low monthly fee AND they have fantastic tech support.
When I didn’t think my mailings were going out because I wasn’t getting them or the “mailing complete” messages I wrote tech support. I expected to wait about 24 hours to hear a response but got one in just a couple of hours.
According to them, I wasn’t getting my messages they were sending because my ISP was using Spam Cop. They had sent a message from their service, discovered the problem and had to use a different email account to respond to my trouble request.
I immediately wrote my ISP about the matter and requested they remove Spam Cop from my account. It took them about 4 hours to respond with the following – your trouble ticket has been closed and please send the error message you received so we can forward it to Spam Cop to correct the problem.
How can the trouble ticket be closed when I still have the problem?
What error message?
I, the intended receiver didn’t get an error message. I didn’t get any indication that I wasn’t getting some of my email? I checked my email account to see if they had placed my blocked messages in some special folder but found nothing.
Well, to make this long story longer:
- I have re-opened the ticket and told them to keep it that way until I find out if there was any error message to my autoresponder service.
- I have requested the error message from my autoresponder service.
- I checked into Spam Cop and found that I had to go through Alexa to find their contact information.
- I have sent Spam Cop an email reporting the problem.
- I also found out that Spam Cop doesn’t block individual email accounts or filter on words. They block messages according to the IP of the sender. In other words, if you are using an autoresponder or hosting account to send out your mail, your mail may not be getting through if they have your services IP on their blacklist.
- I also know that Spam Cop doesn’t send the email address of the person reporting spam to the service sending the email. Thus, the autoresponder or hosting service can not request proof of opt-in and can not request that you remove the person from your list. As a result, your account may be canceled even if you could have provided proof that the person had opted-in.
- I also know that some of the “big” places that offer free email accounts and where we all get a lot of spam – like Yahoo and MSN are not blocked.
- I know that if you aren’t getting all your email you may not know it. And if you do and try to find those that were blocked, you can’t find it.
There are only 8 people on my list who use the same ISP mailbox that I use. So I know those people won’t get my mailings.
But what about all the others? I have no idea which ISPs use Spam Cop so I have no idea how much of my list is not getting my mail.
Am I upset? YES!!!
I have been found guilty of sending spam to myself and others by someone I don’t know and who doesn’t give me the opportunity to defend myself. I have been blacklisted because of some report by a nameless person who may not even know they complained.
I am guilty by association with a service that provides contact information on every page and has a strict anti-spam policy. I am guilty by association because someone, somewhere reported spam sent by someone using that same service.
Was that person guilty of sending spam? I don’t know.
Was that person allowed to offer proof that they weren’t sending spam? No.
Is that person still using the same service? Probably not and here’s why:
“We get some complaints from SPAM Cop without the complainers email or name so we have no way to remove them from anyone's' list. We have had to delete several accounts from our system because of the heavy handed tactics of SPAM Cop.”
May your day be better than mine,
Susan
4 comments:
Hi Susan,
I am also blacklisted on my Comcast ISP for abuse. I
have also apparently sent spam to me from me. I get over 4000 emails daily and approximately 100 of them are actually emails I want to receive. Someone is using a ridiculous name @ bastinmarket.com and spamming everyone in the universe! I'm the lucky one who gets all the 'delivery failure' notices, porn, pills, mortgages, and the blacklisting.
I can't wait til the day comes when these idiots are found and put away.
Peg
Hi Peg,
Sorry to hear that you are blacklisted also. Fortunately, I don't get as much
email as you do, although for awhile there, I was getting a lot.
Like you, someone got my email address and was using it to send spam to me and
everyone else in the world. Only they didn't get my ISP email address, they
used the one from my hosting account. Fortunately, I contacted my hosting
service before they contacted me about the spam and because the sending IP was
not the one for my hosting account email they knew I wasn't the one sending it
even if it did carry my email address.
So, I guess we are both victims of spam - and the new services created to stop
it. And, like you, I wish they would catch all the "real spammers" and not let
them ever use a computer or the internet again.
I also have a not so nice thought about all these spam filtering systems,
especially those that have blacklists. Being an American where we are suppose
to be presumed innocent until proven guilty, aren't they violating one of my
rights? They assume everyone using an IP address is guilty even if they are not
the one sending the reported email and they don't have to prove anything to
anyone before they blacklist you and your IP.
Now I don't know why you have chosen to stay with Comcast even though they have
blacklisted you but I will tell you that as soon as I find the time to change
the personal information for some of the affiliate programs I am in and on my
PayPal account, I will be canceling the ISP that uses Spam Cop. This is
going to take me a few days and I know I will lose some money but I refuse to do
business with a company that will block my email without giving me a chance to
see if I want it blocked - that smells a lot like censorship.
Sorry to ramble on in your personal mailbox and would have posted this as a
comment but my eyes are still seeing too much red for me to figure out how to
post a comment to my own blog. Call me stupid. Call me irrational. But don't
call me a spammer.
Thanks for being a good friend and letting me rant.
Susan Carroll
FriendsWhoCare Newsletter
Wanted to give you an update on what's happening with my soon-to-be old email account.
1. DemandMail sent me the error message within an hour of my request and changed my account's email address so I would start getting their mail again.
2. iGlide removed Scan Cop from my email account late yesterday afternoon.
3. A different tech responds to every message and the last one said "I'm sorry that you didn't get some of the email you wanted."
4. I discovered while changing my PayPal email information that someone had performed an unauthorized purchase with my account. Evidentally the purchase receipt was sent while my email was still being blocked since I never got it.
5. I have requested a refund from the company that received the money since I don't know if they were the offenders or another victim. (I read the identity theft ebook.)
6. I have reported the unauthorized purchase to PayPal and stated that I had requested a refund from the company who had received the payment. I also stated that I didn't know if the company was at fault or if they were another victim of this act.
7. I have informed iGlide about the unauthorized purchase and that they had blocked the receipt so I discovered the transaction by accident. I also informed them that I was lucky enough to have a PayPal account so I could retrieve the transaction number but others may not be that fortunate if it happens to them. - That's when they said "I'm sorry ..."
Now I must get busy and change my email address in a lot of other places since I don't think I trust a company that places censorship on my email account without telling me. Of course if they told me what they were going to do - I would have changed it sooner! I guess they found another way to keep customers longer.
And of course I will have my iGlide account for at least another month unless they kick me out because they require a fax request 30 days prior to closing the account. They have one of the most user unfriendly systems when it comes to changing or closing your account.
Susan
Wow --
Great blog you got here. Hey, it look just like mine! We're twins!
Well, not this one, but another one...
Boredom on a Stick
http://boredomonastick.blogspot.com/
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