Libra63
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posted on October 2, 2003 07:44:41 PM
I have 3 NPB from AOL email addresses. I have never received an email stating they received my WBN. The rest have gone through paid and items have been sent. 2 are 11 days old and one is 5 days old. What I did just now was go to eBay and send a reminder through them. Do you think AOL has such a high spam filter that certain words don't go through like eBay  . This is so frustrating as I am sure it is for other sellers. I really don't care how long it takes them to pay, just email me that you received my notice. Is that asking to much. I have changed my WBN to read.
******
Please acknowledge by using this email with your name and address so that I can get your item ready.
Thanks again for bidding and I expect to hear back from you within 3 days.
[ edited by Libra63 on Oct 2, 2003 07:46 PM ]
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neroter12
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posted on October 2, 2003 08:01:50 PM
Libra, I havent had any buyers from AOL lately, so cant confirm but I have noticed EBAY and Paypal emails not coming and wonder what is up with that?
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Libra63
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posted on October 2, 2003 08:29:02 PM
I honestly think there is to much junk going through the email system. About 6 months ago Wisconsin started a no call list for telemarketers and wow what a change that was. Imagine sitting down to dinner and actually eating instead of answering the phone. Now if they could only do that with the email system.
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stonecold613
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posted on October 2, 2003 08:33:00 PM
Here in Minnesota, the do not call list started the first of the year and worked well for about six months. That is slowly changing. I think the telemarketers have decided to simply pay the fines.
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fenix03
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posted on October 2, 2003 09:48:23 PM
Libra - I am an AOL user and I don't seem to have any problems with mail coming thru.
~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~
If it's really "common" sense, why do so few people actually have it?
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CBlev65252
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posted on October 3, 2003 04:01:25 AM
Libra
I've had a rash of NPBs lately. Some are AOL, some are not. However, I have noticed that once I flie the NPBA, they suddenly respond.
Cheryl
He has his own throne (Revelation 13:2) and his own worshipers (Revelation 13:4).
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eauctionmgnt
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posted on October 3, 2003 06:20:56 AM
Libra,
I'm also having a problem with getting messages through to AOL accounts. It has to do with the AOL mail filtering. It might be something that the users themselves can set or opt into, because every once in awhile an AOL user receives my messages fine. However... for the most part, I'd say about 75% of them are having problems.
My solution is to send them the first message through my normal mail account, (mail.com) then if they contact me again asking how to complete the transaction I know they haven't received my e-mail. So, I send a second e-mail from an alternate e-mail account (which is less likely to be filtered). Usually that gets a response. In rare occassions I have to send an eBay reminder before the message gets through.
Personally... if I was an AOL user I would be pretty upset. There have been investigations done by reporters which show that AOL filters messages BEFORE they even get to the users mailbox. In other words... AOL controls who you can and can not communicate with... I hate SPAM as much as anyone else... but don't implement filtering software unless you're sure that's the ONLY think it will block!
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Libra63
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posted on October 3, 2003 06:47:00 AM
How soon does everyone wait before you file a NPB alert. My TOS says payment expected within 10 days of end of auction. That is in the TOS of the auction sheet but I don't mention it in my WBN. Should I put it in there also?
I have been selling 3 years or so and I have filed only 1 in those 3 years because all of my buyers have paid within a week or have contacted me which is all I ask now here I sit with a group of them.
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tommysjunk
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posted on October 3, 2003 03:21:22 PM
I HAVE AOL AND HAVE KNOW PROBLEM WITH IT.I THINK IT IS THE RECEIVER THAT HAS THE PROBLEM.I SENT A JOKE TO MY BROTHER-IN-LAW
AND HIS COMPUTER WOULD NOT RECEIVE IT BECAUSE IT MIGHT BE SPAM.SOME PEOPLE HAVE PUT TO MANY BLOOKERS-FIREWALLS OWN THERE COMPUTERS.
THANKS NORMA
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stonecold613
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posted on October 3, 2003 08:54:32 PM
Maybe this thread should be renamed as, "does anyone not have problems with AOL?"
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sparkz
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posted on October 3, 2003 09:20:24 PM
The problem is not so much with AOL as it is with some of the third rate ISP's and free email accounts that harbor spammers. When the spam to AOL users reaches a certain level from an ISP, AOL will block them. Period. These ISP's have to agree to clean up their house and jump through a few hoops before AOL will unblock them. In the meantime, any email between that ISP and AOL will simply disappear and will not be delivered or bounced. I've been on AOL since day one and have found their reliability to be excellent. To deal with the email blocking, I opened a Yahoo account from which I send a second EOA if the winning bidder has not responded within 3 days. After awhile , you learn some of the ISP's to expect problems from and you get ready to use that alternate email account at 72 hours plus 1 minute after tha auction ends.
The light at the end of the tunnel will turn out to be an oncoming train.
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gfs23
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posted on October 4, 2003 02:49:09 AM
I Have been battling with e-bay for months now and with the usual half witted replies you get from them. E-Mails get stuck on their server/s and the current record is
6 days to receive an emailed confirmation from them. 3 or 4 years ago you would see the lot come flying down the line literally seconds after listings or auction endings, now it seems to be minimum of several hours for anything and then stragglers coming in over a longer period. In a weak moment one of their operatives told me that they couldn't bother the engineers with it because they got upset with such trivia !! -- I Did point out it ain't much use selling on a "buy it now" if it was going to take hours and days to get confirmations.......All spammers ought to be turned into spam...
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neroter12
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posted on October 4, 2003 05:52:18 AM
I have an AOL account and I still receive loads of junk mail. Some you have to turn the block filter on individually.
Sparkz, I would think if they did filter mail from certain sites, Yahoo would be one they would filter. I see alot of spam from yahoo.
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AuctionAce
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posted on October 4, 2003 06:02:48 AM
AOL users may want to double check their billing statements too
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news03/aol_doublebill.html
-------------- sig file ----------- *There is no conclusive evidence that life is serious*
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tomwiii
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posted on October 4, 2003 06:41:17 AM
I will never in a million eons understand why anybody (save Pretzel-Chokers) would use such a stinky ISP as AOsmell!!??
After 3 years of yacking at my kid to switch, he finally did & now agrees that AOhell was a waste -- NTM the insane difficulty involved with trying to stop their fradulant billing practices!
 
Ralphie loves Mr Blonde:
"Are you gonna bark all day little doggie, or are you gonna bite?"
http://members.ebay.com/aboutme/vidrat/
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lattefor2
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posted on October 4, 2003 06:46:37 AM
Hi Libra, Personally I am not having a problem with AOL, 2 of my friends that have AOL are having a terrible problem receiving their email and one had to switch to a Yahoo email address to get their email, she also sells on ebay, but those porn sites still manage to pass through.
Reenie
I don't get even....I get even better Jimmy Hoffa
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tomwiii
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posted on October 4, 2003 06:48:53 AM
What a bunch of sleezy scum-suckers:
http://tinyurl.com/pp6w
Ralphie loves Mr Blonde:
"Are you gonna bark all day little doggie, or are you gonna bite?"
http://members.ebay.com/aboutme/vidrat/
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davebraun
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posted on October 4, 2003 02:09:07 PM
From: http://www.dmsiusa.com/aol.htm
This is a message I received from a fellow webmaster that was having problems getting inbound email to AOL Users! Very Good Reading!
About three months ago I had an inquiry from a customer who had sent mail to a friend on AOL and they never seemed to get it. I had had no problems with AOL mail previous to this. I checked the SMTP logs and it always indicated a clean transaction with aol's mail servers. I provided the SMTP logs to the client and told her to get her friend on AOL to get in touch with AOL customer service and ask what happens to her mail. She did...they blamed it on all sorts of unidentified things...never solved the problem...never followed up.
About ten days ago another client indicated to me they didn't think their mail was getting through to two accounts. I then sent an alert to all MY clients asking them if they had correspondents on AOL and was the mail getting to them. I was a little concerned it might be a problem with me.
Much to my surprise it seemed that some was getting through and some was not. The SMTP logs on our side always indicated a clean transaction with a confirming sent. I was a little alarmed...what the hell was going on? Before taking the matter further I contacted Hector Santos to ask him if indeed the SMTP logs indicate "sent" that the mail was sent to the receiving SMTP server. He said yes.
I then decided to get in touch with AOL, thoroughly satisfied I was holding up my end of the bargain in the mail transaction. Well AOL's customer service is useless as we all know....One call to talk with a supervisor resulted in the statement "our system is operating normally"...implied something is wrong with you!
I looked up the administrative contact off the internic registration of AOL at www.networksolutions.com whois.
I called that number and got an answering machine ...and surprise the first two selections of the voice mail dealt with "are you having problems getting mail into AOL's system"
I left a message. I had a call back from a bright woman ********** about 2 hours later. She identified herself as one of 3 technical leads in email.
The first thing she did was to verify there was no open relay on my SMTP server as she said they won't deal with anyone who has open relays. I emailed her the logs of the "disappearing" mail as we spoke plus I tried to send a message to her on aol.com and aol.net. The latter she received. Mail addressed to her at aol.com did not get through. She said she would call me back.
Indeed she was true to her word and called back a couple of hours later. How long have you had that ip? 8 months I responded.
Well the upshot and confession from her was this. AOL unilaterally blocks WITHOUT ANY NOTICE whole ip address blocks that they may or may not have associated with spamming in the past. There is absolutely no way you would know this or be able to know if you are on those blocked ip blocks. Since we do not spam or allow our clients to spam I was very surprised that ONE ip address would be blocked without any notice just because I fell into a BLOCK that others might have used for spamming.
Moreover I expressed my amazement that the mail was not bounced but simply goes down a black hole with the sender outside AOL's system and the receiver ( a customer of AOL) none the wiser that their mail was being killed.
She solved the issue very quickly for my system once she released the block.
HOWEVER, I indicated to her that what AOL was doing in effect was unilaterally denying service to their own customers. I had clients who had valid mail for AOL users and they weren't getting it. I indicated to her that it was incredible that AOL did not bounce the messages to a blocked ip address...she indicated they did not do this because the spammers were so smart that if they bounced the spammers would take another track immediately. In other words if the AOL customer had the misfortune to have a correspondent on a system such as mine that somehow got associated with a spamming block, then that AOL customer HAD NO IDEA that mail destined for him was "radically excised" as she put it, even though it was valid and good mail.
I have thought about this for 5 days. The implications are enormous. Ethical? Legal? AOL has implicit in its customer relationship a duty to deliver mail to and from that customer and to notify that customer if there is a possibility he might not get all his mail and that AOL does indeed destroy some mail unilaterally.
I don't think this is very ethical and I'm not even sure if it is LEGAL. I know I take my responsibility in handling my customers' mail in a very serious light and would never consider destroying mail without letting that customer know I was doing it. ...and in fact if I unilaterally destroyed mail from a sender to a recipient on my system with complete knowledge I was doing so, I'm pretty damn sure my customer could sue me to the ends of the earth.
Given AOL's size and apparent dominance we all face the possibility they may even attempt to close out small isps from their system. What was going on for me, is going on for others I'm sure. It may be a permanent block, an intermittent block (like me) or a random block but as they say a block is a block.
As I pointed out to Ms.******** how would AOL react if every piece of mail coming into my system from AOL , I decided to unilaterally "radically excise".
I am so angry and upset over this that I think I am going to take it to the Justice Department in Washington. I'm Canadian but my business extends into the US and I feel this challenges the entire internet. If people cannot know that their ip's are blocked in certain systems and there is no easy method of verifying you are blocked in a system then the entire email system is threatened.
We all know the problem with spam. We all recognize it. But most of us also know that the real problem with spam comes from systems that are poorly managed and attended. Smaller isps identify and kill spammers quickly (at least I do)...I do allow responsible mass mailings to verified addresses for businesses using my system but an individual who wants to send out 10 million get rich quick schemes gets no leeway from me. It is ironic that a good deal of the incoming spam I deal with originates out of mass mailings in AOL!
The real culprits in this are more senior people in AOL who have put in place these policies to block and NOT TO DISCLOSE and its those guys watching their stock instead of their customers that get me riled.
So there you have the AOL disappearing mail story in a nutshell...I would appreciate your anecdotal and factual feedback. I am not letting AOL off the hook on this and I have email exchanges with **** that are more than a smoking gun that I'm sure Justice would find very interesting. Profit has gotten ahead of ethical and responsible behavior here.
and also from aolmailhell.com
On May 18th AOL Changed how they deal with incoming emails. They have decided that they would require all ISPs and hosting companies to meet their Email protocol standards before letting our email pass to their customers.
They did this to try to stop spam and we understand the problem with spam. We are also fighting this problem as well but AOL's actions has caused quite the cosmic stir! Call it "World Wide Web Collateral Damage" if you will, as many people have no control over their ISP's and how they have their servers set up.
This is in large part out of your ISP or Hosting Companies hands. Once they have contacted AOL and have complied with their request, that does not take the block off! On 06/05/2003 AOL removed the Email Block to the GH1.com servers. This was a long and hard process!
I do understand that they have a lot of WORK ahead of them! Just think the number of ISP's and Hosting companies they must unblock! Our problem is our customers are having a hard time understanding it all!
other references:
http://postmaster.info.aol.com/
http://aolmailhell.com/
Republican, the other white meat!
[ edited by davebraun on Oct 4, 2003 02:11 PM ]
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neroter12
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posted on October 4, 2003 06:24:51 PM
Tom, I've kept my old AOL account as a backup. The thing is, AOL is still king in the ISP market, so almost everyone you know has started there and or is still there. The kids like it with Instant Messenging and chats and what-nots. I am glad I've kept it on BYOA terms. I sometimes do a few searches at a time and flip back and forth between many open pages.
What I can't figure is, if they are that bad, why do have they still have the lions share of the ISP Market? They must be doing something right?
[ edited by neroter12 on Oct 4, 2003 06:25 PM ]
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Libra63
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posted on October 4, 2003 07:32:50 PM
I believe the reason they are "king" is because they offer free service. You talk about instant messaging well MSN has it and so does Yahoo which I find very comparable to AOL. Another reason is when you buy your computer AOL is listed on your start menu for easy access. I myself have an ISP, a rather large one with very little cost. I have had no problems and when I do I have 24 hour tech support. There has never been a voice mail or someone that doesn't know anything. I called many different times with always pleasant tech supporters. My daughter has AOL and her on time takes almost 10 minutes. Maybe Time-Warner will do something now that they own AOL. I sure hope so for the users sake.
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tomwiii
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posted on October 4, 2003 08:59:03 PM
Time-Warner is bleeding millions over their AOsmell fiasco & shoved Steve Case out the door with a kick in the tuckus!
Ralphie loves Mr Blonde:
"Are you gonna bark all day little doggie, or are you gonna bite?"
http://members.ebay.com/aboutme/vidrat/
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neroter12
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posted on October 4, 2003 09:13:19 PM
Libra, do you think AOL is not an ISP? (Internet service provider?) I am not defending AOL. Personally they all sux after awhile anyway. They just want your money.
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Libra63
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posted on October 4, 2003 09:26:25 PM
Anyone that provides internet service is an ISP. I honestly know that but they (AOL) don't provide the service that the smaller ones do. Their 24 hour tech support is terrible. Their loading time is horrendus. Oh BTW I can join AOL messenger through my ISP if I would like to but I stay as far away as I can from them. I have no idea what they charge as I haven't looked into it but I feel the smaller ones are cheaper and better run. My opinion. The just of this topic is about contacting AOL users after they win one of my auctions. It is either one of two reasons. My email doesn't get through OR bidders that don't want to own up to the winning bid...I did make contact with 2 out of the 3 and that is because I sent an email through eBay...Gets their attention real quick.
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