Microsoft blocking our mail

[Peter van Es]

If you have a Microsoft e-mail account, e.g. ending on hotmail.com, msn.com, or outlook.com or one of the international variants, you will currently not receive any e-mail from sl113.org.

Microsoft in its infinite wisdom has decided to block our system from delivering mail to any of its properties after the two newsletters we sent out in october and november. I am trying to get the block lifted, but so far Microsoft is valiantly resisting my efforts. If only Bill G had a Pagoda and was a member here...

What this means if you have one of these kind of accounts:

• you will not receive notifications of subjects you follow, or new personal messages
• you will not receive reminders of membership expiration

Peter

[Pawel66]

Sorry for that...

Any idea as to why they had an issue with us and the newsletters?

[sandcrab59]

Peter:
I agree with Pawel. What is the problem with the newsletters.
Was there slander against Microsoft?
From
Your favorite Agitator.
Tom

[mdsalemi]

Every day, every email host is doing what they consider their part to prevent "spam" or unwanted emails.
We've already had an issue with email going to aol.com accounts; the Microsoft hosted ones are new.
The front on this battle is changing daily and the rules keep changing. I've repeatedly encountered situations where mail from my personal email (which is an aol.com email) is rejected from incoming email services that simply detect enough spam from aol.com accounts, that they block ALL mail from ALL aol.com accounts.

Just like Peter VanEs is constantly battling to keep our site free from "invasive species" so to speak, the email landscape is changing all the time.

I guess you can say dealing with this is just the "cost of doing business".

[Pawel66]

I see. Well, the more appreciative I am for all the efforts of our management!

[Peter van Es]

I guess you can say dealing with this is just the "cost of doing business".

Currently it's free... it's just costing me time and aggravation... You all received the newsletters, sent out by our president. However, the problem with these is that if anyone marks them as 'spam' in their Outlook e-mail client, this would get back to Microsoft.

After Microsoft denied my unblocking request I sent them this e-mail:

Dear Microsoft,

we are a car club with an active forum. We have 2500 members from all over the world, of which some 1080 pay for an active subscription. We stay in touch with them through our website and:
- infrequent e-mail newsletters
- notifications of topics that they have subscribed to
- notifications about their membership expiring or being up for renewal

Of the 1080 paying members, some 117 have Microsoft, outlook.com, hotmail.com or msn.com (or hotmail.it or hotmail.co.uk) e-mail addresses.

We recently sent two mailings. On 27th of october to inform them of a board policy change. And on 2nd of november to inform them of an election of board members.

On that date you blocked our mail server from sending to these members of ours. Even though there was a complaint rate of <0.1%

As a result new members with Microsoft related accounts cannot sign up for our club (I currently have 6 of those in our membership queue which we cannot reach). Members do not get notified when their membership expires.

Please unblock this IP address. It is not blacklisted with any of the other spam blacklist services.

Peter van Es
admin@sl113.org

I received the following response on the 24th of November. I am now in "wait and see" mode.

Hello,
 
My name is Sachin and I work with the Outlook.com Deliverability Support Team.
 
We will be looking into this issue along with the Escalations Team. We understand the urgency of this issue and will provide an update as soon as this is available. Rest assured that this ticket is being tracked and we will get back to you as soon as we have more information to offer.
 
Thank you for your patience.
 
Sincerely,
 
Sachin
Outlook.com Deliverability Support

[FGN59]

Peter,

On behalf of all of us, thank you for dealing with time consuming quirks and unintended consequences of security measures in the IT world. But the Microsoft guys seem to be relatively reactive for such a big organization, so let’s not criticize them too much (yet). Better to have some monitoring and barriers, even if not perfect, than having to deal with all the unfiltered crap being sent around on the Internet (including commercial or malicious intent).

[mdsalemi]

Peter,

By "Cost of doing business" I didn't mean literal cost, like dollars or Euros, but in precisely time and aggravation. Once you solve this issue, another one will pop up with another email, or something similar. Or, someone will spoof our email and someone totally unrelated to our group will complain. That's why it's "never ending" and you don't rest on this...

It is quite akin to anti-virus work done in the IT world. As soon as they kill one virus, some hacker somewhere else creates another...they cannot rest.

[Peter van Es]

After my intervention with Microsoft, they have now cancelled their blockage and we can send to these accounts again.

Peter

[FGN59]

Hail to the chief IT officer!

Many thanks on behalf of all of us.

[Pawel66]

Thank you!

[Cees Klumper]

Thanks Peter, well done!

[sandcrab59]

Peter:
Good job.
I was in the process of contacting a relative who deals directly with  Microsoft  and knows people, to see if he could expidite the process.
Now I do not have to pursue the avenue to assist in resolving this problem.
Once again good job.
Tom

[Mike Hughes]

Here is a great example of how much behind the scenes effort goes into keeping an entity like ours at the top of it's game.  The membership Pagoda SL Group is indebted Peter and Michael and Cees and Garry and Dan and Alex and Tom and Joe and Dieter all the others who have contributed to making this organization what it is today: simply the best!

[FGN59]

Second that (and very well phrased)