AOL Blocking our mails

*JMT* · 11-19-2001, 12:39 AM

I run a site for a local youth athletic association. We had tryouts this last weekend for girls volleyball and notified the girls whether they made a team or not through e-mail.

Everything went fine until I started getting phone calls and emails on a hotmail account that AOL users were not getting their emails. It appears that AOL is blocking anything from our domain (eastview-evaa.org on Rasmus) regardless or whether I send it from EZMLM or from Outlook.

My question is:

What should/can I do about it?

Should I have the AOL users complain?
Can I complain?

This is a serious problem for us because we use email to communicate with our players and their parents. We save several numdred dollarsa per year on postage and reproduction costs.

Right now I have some unknown number of girls wondering but afraid to call.

**Terra** · 11-19-2001, 01:06 AM

Hello JMT,

Complain - and complain loudly to AOL, Inc.

FutureQuest, Inc. has absolutely no control over AOL's mail systems, and any time we have tried to open a dialog with them - we are simply ignored...

I just checked their sanctioned Spam Block tool, located at:
http://postmaster.info.aol.com/index.cfm?article=8

I cannot find any of the following IPs which would affect your service:
63.144.24.43 (jmtservices.com)
63.144.24.3 (DEEDEE Server)
63.151.147.251 (QuestMail Server)

Nor do I see any error messages from AOL while our mail servers pass mail off to theirs... What we receive is a '250 OK' status code, meaning that AOL has accepted the mail and will handle all further delivery from there... What happens from there is one of the darkest and deepest secrets of the Internet... Countless explorers have gone to investigate this strange anomaly, yet none of them have ever safely made it back...

Sadly, the only answer to AOL's monopolistic attitude and poor customer service, is too simply stop sending them money... I would imagine AOL will listen to a decrease in revenues and bottom line profits especially if a mass exodus were to begin...

Until someone with Authority from AOL, Inc, that can actually *DO* something about the problem, instead of just *StoneWalling* the issue, then I'm afraid there is little we can do...

No one makes rules for AOL, except for AOL - which in turn is passed down to the rest of the Internet (ISPs/WebHosts/etc...)...

--
Terra
--Last I heard, AOL was still sending their management memos on stone tablets--
FutureQuest

*JMT* · 11-19-2001, 01:38 AM

I tried using the link that was posted in the reponse but with the IP address of the domain (eastview-evaa.org) and the search responds with a match. I interpret that to mean I am in the database and am blocked.

Assuming that is correct I'm not sure about the next steps. I looked at the page and tried to follow their links but they are no longer functional.

The page in particular talks about open relays but I didn't think that I had any control over the setup of the mail system.

My suspicion is that some random spam filter didn't like something and blocked me.

I would appreciate any suggestions about what what next steps would be appropriate.

Thanks

*JMT* · 11-19-2001, 02:03 AM

OK - I followed the instructions on the information page about dealing with blocks and reported the issue to the techncial contact address (domains@aol.com) but I'm not sure if that was the best place to send it.

They sure don't make it easy. It would be nice if they returned a case or ticket number. Then I could have all the users who are blocked send in a complaint referencing that ticket.

*sheila* · 11-19-2001, 02:14 AM

The best thing to do, is to have the AOL customers themselves, the parents of these girls, complain that they cannot receive email from their daughter's volleyball coach.<edit>changed sport.

</edit>

AOL is far more likely to listen to their own customers than they are to listen to you. (Unfortunately.)

Maybe you could make some kind of outline of a letter that the parents could send. Like, a list of pertinent facts and details. (But don't write a form letter for them. You want each one of them to write their own letter from a only a sketched outline of facts that you provide.)

Good luck,

**Terra** · 11-19-2001, 02:15 AM

Quote:

I tried using the link that was posted in the reponse but with the IP address of the domain (eastview-evaa.org) and the search responds with a match. I interpret that to mean I am in the database and am blocked.

I double checked, and your interpretation is incorrect... 'eastview-evaa.org' is not on their blocked list as there are no results being displayed other than the heading:

Quote:

Search for: 63.236.215.28
Matches Found:

(There are no results here)

Copyright 2001, AOL Time Warner, Inc.

Case in point: aol.com has the following IP addresses:
64.12.187.25
64.12.149.24
205.188.160.121
205.188.145.215

I ran all those IPs, and the same results as above were returned... I seriously doubt that AOL has themselves on their own Spam list...

Quote:

I would appreciate any suggestions about what what next steps would be appropriate.

Contact AOL, Inc. and inform them of your situation...

Have your clients, whom you send email to that have an AOL address, also complain to AOL, Inc... Maybe with enough inertia - someone will listen over there...

--
Terra
--You rarely ever hear anything good about AOL, Inc. - yet millions of people still send them billions of dollars a year - go figure--
FutureQuest

**Deb** · 11-19-2001, 02:42 AM

Quote:

I seriously doubt that AOL has themselves on their own Spam list...

You are thinking of the same AOL that I'm thinking of right?

Deb
- Nothing Surprises Me.

*Marbledog* · 11-19-2001, 10:02 AM

Another idea for making noise about AOL is to get some of these complaints in the media. Most local news shows have a consumer affairs reporter who does reports on Big Companies Doing Bad Things. All the private complaints in the world won't hold a candle to negative publicity in terms of getting AOL's attention.

*squillo* · 11-20-2001, 08:15 PM

For what it's worth, I noticed this same kind of behavior when I emailed 20 people (in the To: field) about a month ago. Three of them had AOL addresses, and all three had the message returned by AOL. When I then sent out the message individually, they each received it...

AOL anti-spam technology, I guess.

best!
Squillo

*teach1st* · 11-20-2001, 09:25 PM

I've got an AOL account that comes in handy for mailing students on AOL - many have mentioned that they aren't getting all my mail from pb5th.com (on Six).

I've been e-mailing test posts to my AOL account for the past two days, both from pb5th.com and from my Roadrunner account. The best I can say is that most of the posts have made it, but not all. I'm missing test posts from both pb5th.com and Roadrunner.