(no subject)

[hatman]

Comcast is ticking me off. I'm not getting emails. I don't know how many. Why? Because they have a setup which bounces messages at the gateway, and it does it without notifying me in any way.

So... Person A sends me a message. It leaves her ISP, gets passed along from one computer to the next along the internet, and then reaches the gateway. Normally, the gateway would look over the message, see whom it was intended for, and then pass it along to the appropriate mail server. Then the mail server would check my whitelist to see if the message was from anyone I'd explicitly marked as someone I whose mail I wanted to see. If not, it would try to figure out whether or not the message looked like spam. If yes, the message would go to my spam folder so I could glance it over and make sure there hadn't been a mistake. Usually, it's right, but I don't want to chance missing out on something valid.

Instead, the gateway has a blacklist. One I have no control over. One I think is made by a third party. If the sender is on the blacklist, the message just gets bounced back. Return to sender. Sorry, we don't take mail from you. Before the regular filters even have a chance. And the blacklist seems to cut a broad sweep, sometimes banning entire ISPs.

It turns out that mail from some good friends of mine has been bounced in this way. I didn't know until they managed to get a hold of me at another address. I complained, and was told that there's a form. The sender has to get her webmaster (the guy in charge of a fair portion of running the ISP) to come over to Comcast to fill out the form to ask them to please not block them. And then someone at Comcast will consider the request. Right.

This has to change. I refuse to accept it. Except... I don't know how to go about it. They aren't going to listen to just me. I need to get the support of a lot of Comcast customers, and I'm just not sure how to reach them. Or how to organize things. I suppose I could start an online petition, but I don't know how much weight that would really carry. And, again, I don't know how to get the word out.

So... what do you think, flist? How many of you are Comcast customers? How many of you have had trouble with emails that never showed up? And what can I do?

Comments

[brianamj.livejournal.com]

This is actually a fairly common issue, and one that happens to and with a lot of providers. Many of them use the RBLs and SBLs. It takes a few days to get off the blacklist, and usually has to be requested by the mail admin. It depends on if they're blocking the sender's IP or the mail server itself.

[pgwfolc.livejournal.com]

They're blocking way too much. It's supposed to be my primary address, but I can't use it if 1/3 of my incoming mail vanishes for no reason. And how easy is it go get your ISP's mail admin to go over and fill something like that out? Especially for an overseas ISP? And how do I even know who's being blocked? I can't tell what messages I haven't received. At least give me some notification? Put the message into my spam folder, if that's what I've asked them to do?

[beansideirae.livejournal.com]

i'm with AT&T. they're stupid, but not in that way.

good luck getting something together!

[doranwen.livejournal.com]

My parents are Comcast customers; I haven't heard of them not getting some of their e-mails, but they might take awhile to figure out, and they might not have e-mails from the same IPs you're having issues with. I hope you're able to sort things out and get them to nix their blacklist on your e-mails!