| Author |
Message |
    
mjc
Citizen
Username: Mjc
Post Number: 260
Registered: 10-2004
| | Posted on Friday, February 18, 2005 - 4:27 pm: |     |
Anybody want to suggest a way to solve this puzzle for a low-tech poster?
For the last few weeks, I have not been able to successfully send e-mail from my office to my or my husband's home e-mail address. After a few hours or a day I get (at work) a "delay" message, then after another few hours or a day "undeliverable." The home e-mails are @verizon.net. My office e-mail is @(company name).com. There was no problem until maybe a month ago.
My husband has no trouble e-mailing the home accounts from his office, @(other company name).com, and we have also continued to receive e-mail at home from various other sources.
Final clue: a friend (whose e-mail address is @aol.com) also has been getting Undeliverable notices when she tries to send e-mail to me at home.
Where to begin??
TIA and happy weekend all!
MC
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Earlster
Supporter
Username: Earlster
Post Number: 989
Registered: 8-2003
| | Posted on Friday, February 18, 2005 - 4:29 pm: | |
Call or write an e-mail to Verizon support. For some reason they might have these sender e-mail account on some kind of spam blocking list. |
mjc
Citizen
Username: Mjc
Post Number: 261
Registered: 10-2004
| | Posted on Friday, February 18, 2005 - 4:51 pm: | |
Thanks E, I'll try to reach them.
(love your photo!) |
Tom Reingold
Supporter
Username: Noglider
Post Number: 5576
Registered: 1-2003
| | Posted on Friday, February 18, 2005 - 5:15 pm: | |
I've had this problem with Verizon. They never took me seriously.
I'm an expert at debugging email problems. If you send the entire bounce messages to me at noglider@pobox.com, I can take a stab at it, but it does sound like this belongs in Verizon's lap.
Do you have this problem with all messages, or only when you send attachments? When I had this problem, it was with messages with large attachments.
I recommend you stop using verizon.net as your email address. You may choose to change ISP's one day, and you will have to tell everyone. There are portable email addresses, such as at yahoo (https://mail.yahooc.com) and gmail (http://www.gmail.com). I can hook you up on gmail if you'd like to try it.
If you prefer using Outlook or a program like it (over web mail) you can pay pobox.com $20 a year. I like their service a lot. |
mjc
Citizen
Username: Mjc
Post Number: 262
Registered: 10-2004
| | Posted on Friday, February 18, 2005 - 5:26 pm: | |
Well Tom, if they didn't take you seriously, they sure won't take me seriously as I stumble and fumble with the terminology.
If you're really volunteering, I will forward a couple of the bounce messages to you. The problem is with all messages. I don't think any have had attachments.
Thanks for the advice about switching addresses. It's tempting, if only for privacy. The current setup allows anyone to read my e-mails, but requires me to enter a password in order to send.  Outlook would be tempting since that's what I use at work, if it wouldn't affect the rest of the home computer arrangements (which I don't want to touch).
Thanks and happy weekend!
MC |
Tom Reingold
Supporter
Username: Noglider
Post Number: 5580
Registered: 1-2003
| | Posted on Friday, February 18, 2005 - 6:07 pm: | |
Yes, it was frustrating. At my last job, I was postmaster (for email) for the company. We had a business need to send mail to Verizon, and the guys I talked to didn't want to talk to me because I wasn't a Verizon customer. Well, luckily, I had Verizon DSL at home so they would talk to me, but that should not have been necessary. I described the problem, they suspected all sorts of impossible things, and then they just dropped the ball and never got back to me. I don't know if they closed the ticket, but they sure didn't solve the problem. Later, our business need to send to Verizon went away.
If you run Windows XP at home, you can keep other people out of your stuff by creating accounts for each family member. We like this arrangement very much in my home. |
Carrie Avery
Citizen
Username: Carrie33
Post Number: 121
Registered: 1-2005
| | Posted on Friday, February 18, 2005 - 6:14 pm: | |
It is my belief that "verizon.com" has been in the process of switching over to "comcast.com" for the last two years. Outlook is an excellent way to go, as well as having various email address's in differant types if possible ( for eg, hotmail, aol, comcast, yahoo, compuserve..etc) Better to be safe than sooorrryy. |
Tom Reingold
Supporter
Username: Noglider
Post Number: 5603
Registered: 1-2003
| | Posted on Monday, February 21, 2005 - 10:35 pm: | |
mjc sent me her bounced message, which provided no clues as to the reason for the bounces.
Carrie, I don't understand anything in your post, right above this one. Could you please clarify? |
Joan
Supporter
Username: Joancrystal
Post Number: 4999
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Tuesday, February 22, 2005 - 1:33 pm: | |
mjc:
If you want a gmail account, send me a private line with your e-mail address enabled, and I will send you an invite. |
Carrie Avery
Citizen
Username: Carrie33
Post Number: 137
Registered: 1-2005
| | Posted on Tuesday, February 22, 2005 - 6:41 pm: | |
Tom,
We used to have an account that was "name@verizon.com"
We were informed two years ago that verizon was switching over to "Comcast"
If you are afraid of not having enough privacy, room in your account, or the fear of a hacker, have several accounts.
Make more sense?
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monster
Citizen
Username: Monster
Post Number: 569
Registered: 7-2002
| | Posted on Tuesday, February 22, 2005 - 9:06 pm: | |
???????
Verizon is a totally different entity than Comcast, two separate companies. Perhaps this is why Tom is confused, I am too.
Maybe it was some type of spam or phishing scam sent to you, did your address ever change, without you having to do anything?
Maybe you used to have Verizon, answered this email, and just like the way phone companies used to switch your account over from AT&T to MCI without you knowing it, BAM! you were switched, or not.
MJC, it sounds like the IP address, or a range of IP address's that you companies address fall in, has perhaps been blacklisted.
That means, someone was either sending a lot of spam out within that block, or it was spoofed, and your companies IP address was put on the blacklist and circulated around.
Have you asked your IT dept. if others have been having the same problem?
maybe it's a problem with the mail server, they may not even be aware of it.
If Tom couldn't find a problem in the headers of the emails, then one of the two things mentioned above may be the cause, I doubt if I could offer any insight that Tom couldn't on the headers, but I would take a look also, make sure that you view the entire email header of the returned email, copy and paste that into a new email, if you want.
Monster |
mjc
Citizen
Username: Mjc
Post Number: 467
Registered: 10-2004
| | Posted on Monday, April 25, 2005 - 3:25 pm: | |
monster and Tom, this finally became an issue at the office, since e-mails to clients @verizon.net also bounced. The work you did in tracking down the problem has been much appreciated by our IT guys. Apparently you were right on the money, that our company was in a block of addresses suspected of spamming because there was (maybe) spam from others in the block.
Thanks again for your "pro bono" help! I stand in awe.
MC |
campbell29
Citizen
Username: Campbell29
Post Number: 146
Registered: 4-2002
| | Posted on Wednesday, April 27, 2005 - 11:19 pm: | |
I have the exact same problem with my verizon.net account, is there any way I can tell if my client is on the "bad list". He keeps getting the verizon.relay.net timed out message when he tried to email my verizon account. Unfortunately, he is in Sweden, so its not so easy to conference him with verizon to try to solve the problems.
And - of course, when I've tried to work with verizon they have sworn up and down that its not their problem. |
mjc
Citizen
Username: Mjc
Post Number: 478
Registered: 10-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, April 28, 2005 - 10:25 am: | |
campbell, as I understand it, it's verizon blocking the incoming mail because some entity somewhere in the chain from the sender is on some blacklist verizon is using. You might try to talk to verizon about "whitelisting" your client, or as Tom R. suggested above, get a different e-mail provider. I wonder if it would motivate verizon at all to mention that switching is your only recourse if they can't fix it, since your clients can't contact you?
best wishes from (the very non-techy)
MC |
Tom Reingold
Supporter
Username: Noglider
Post Number: 6502
Registered: 1-2003
| | Posted on Monday, May 2, 2005 - 12:58 pm: | |
Yeesh, reading this makes my negative opinion of Verizon stronger. I really think their email service is in the stone age.
People are accustomed to getting email from their ISP. You don't have to do this! Verizon DSL is fine. If it's a good deal for you, use their DSL, but don't use their email. |
sac
Supporter
Username: Sac
Post Number: 2112
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Monday, May 2, 2005 - 3:36 pm: | |
I am the webmaster and email administrator for my church which has Verizon and we have had similar problems on occasion. Another problem I have with the verizon email is that for their lower cost service (which is what we have as a nonprofit on a budget), there is little or no spam/virus checking on their email server. When I complained, they just suggested that we upgrade our service to the more expensive level because they have filtering/screening "on that server." I think that this is unacceptable. Spam filtering and virus checking should not be a "premium option" but a base service for ISPs. Unfortunately, if we want to have our email addresses on our domain, which is hosted by Verizon, I think we have to use their email services, don't we? |
Tom Reingold
Supporter
Username: Noglider
Post Number: 6504
Registered: 1-2003
| | Posted on Monday, May 2, 2005 - 5:20 pm: | |
Not at all. All you would have to do is pick an email provider, tell Verizon to update your MX record in the DNS for your domain, and your mail now flows to the new provider. The trouble is, 1. you'd have to get Verizon to do the change, 2. they may drag their feet or resist or not understand your request, and 3. you would be paying two providers instead of one.
If you want, I might be able to dig up hosting companies that can do what you want, but I'm don't have first-hand information.
For the technically oriented, an MX record is a DNS entry that says which system (or systems) handle your mail. Humans do not normally look at this information. You can do a lookup of any domain and get all sorts of technical information by plugging the name into the web page at http://www.dnsreport.com
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sac
Supporter
Username: Sac
Post Number: 2113
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Monday, May 2, 2005 - 5:40 pm: | |
I think #3 is what will keep us with what we have, warts and all. Verizon was far and away the most reasonably priced dsl for us since we have to get business (as opposed to residential) service. And the price included the hosting and email as well. Although the spam and viruses are a royal pain, we have current antivirus software on our computers which seems to catch it all, so they aren't actually costing us extra money and that makes it hard to justify going to a higher level of service or decoupling to get multiple providers. |
woodstock
Supporter
Username: Woodstock
Post Number: 982
Registered: 9-2002
| | Posted on Monday, May 2, 2005 - 10:54 pm: | |
If your church has a server, you could also host your email locally. It's not as complicated as it sounds. I run a mail and web server in my basement, on my Speakeasy DSL. Of course, if Verison doesn't let you have servers on your line (many ISPs don't), you're stuck. |
Tom Reingold
Supporter
Username: Noglider
Post Number: 6511
Registered: 1-2003
| | Posted on Monday, May 2, 2005 - 11:25 pm: | |
I'm pretty sure Verizon has a policy against that, and they make it damned hard, too, because they change your IP address often, sometimes several times a day. At least with comcast and cablevision, it changes only every few weeks or months. |
monster
Supporter
Username: Monster
Post Number: 727
Registered: 7-2002
| | Posted on Tuesday, May 3, 2005 - 10:18 am: | |
Check out, http://www.no-ip.com/
FAQ here, http://www.no-ip.com/faq/catid/3/lang/EN |
Tom Reingold
Supporter
Username: Noglider
Post Number: 6518
Registered: 1-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, May 3, 2005 - 10:33 am: | |
Yeah, there's also http://www.dyndns.org. But maintaining this stuff seems tricky, though I could be wrong. Furthermore, it often violates your ISP's terms. I suppose that's OK for a personal server, but not an organization, such as a church. |
sac
Supporter
Username: Sac
Post Number: 2116
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Tuesday, May 3, 2005 - 2:08 pm: | |
I'm good with computers, but not that good. And I don't want to be "on call" to fix things when they go wrong, I'm afraid.
But I do appreciate the suggestions.
If anyone knows of a good DSL provider (with web hosting and email) that will serve non-profits at rates comparable to residential rates, which is what we have now, I'm certainly interested. I just wasn't able to find any other options that didn't cost twice as much a few years ago when we set this all up. And, although Verizon can be a pain, it isn't bad enough to justify that kind of cost difference for our circumstances.
Apologies to mjc for the thread drift ... |
mjc
Citizen
Username: Mjc
Post Number: 484
Registered: 10-2004
| | Posted on Tuesday, May 3, 2005 - 2:59 pm: | |
No problem, sac, my purpose for the thread was handled a long time ago by monster and Tom R, and all of this is educational (to the extent I can understand it).
cheers, and hope you find the service you need -
MC |
Tom Reingold
Supporter
Username: Noglider
Post Number: 6538
Registered: 1-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, May 3, 2005 - 2:59 pm: | |
Why does it have to be DSL? I mean, you don't care where the web and mail are hosted, right? The fact that the hosting and the connectivity to the church are under one bill is incidental, right? Conceivably, if you had cable modem plus remote hosting, you wouldn't care as long as the overall cost didn't go up (much), right?
How much are you paying for the whole deal now?
And may I ask what your domain name is? |
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