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Are
our emails not getting through to you?
We
have noticed that in the last couple of months (especially since the
beginning of 2010) that lots of our emails sent to our clients are not
being received by our clients. We are not talking about our email
newsletter "list" (which is a separate opt-in list), but our
regular client emails, with regular content such as:
Frustrating,
but also dangerous...
This is very frustrating, as clients sometime are thinking that we have
not sent them email that we did in fact send, but it is also dangerous
if you never get your travel documents and try to head off to the
airport without them. Even though we try to remember to "ask for a
return receipt" every time we send documents, this only tells us if
you DID get the email, not that you DIDN'T get it.
It's
getting
stuck somewhere...
We are not receiving "bounce-back" or "undeliverable
mail" messages,
so we have to assume that most (if not all) of these messages ARE being
received by the email servers at your ISP (internet service provider).
They seem to be getting "lost" or "filtered out"
between the ISP and you... Possibly,
because of the "travel-related" content of the emails, overly-aggressive
junk mail filters (filters that you may not even know that you
have) may be interpreting it as unsolicited and stopping you
from seeing it.
So,
what can be done?
-
The
first thing to do is look is your regular "junk"
folder.
-
If
our email is there, then mark it as "not junk"
and
-
make
use of the other options of "adding this email address to
your address book, or your "safe" list" (whatever
your email program suggests). This should make sure that any other
emails from us will not suffer the same fate.
If you use a
"webmail" service exclusively (where you go on to the
internet, and log-in to a particular website to check your email) this
may be all you need to do.
Desktop
email software users
But if you have a desktop email program (such as Outlook, Outlook
Express, Windows Mail, Thunderbird, Entourage, Mail for Mac etc)
these "missing emails" quite often aren't in the junk folder
that is part of that software.
You
see, all ISPs also have junk mail filters, which are regularly
"beefed-up", supposedly keeping ahead of spammers, and
"catching more spam". Undoubtedly some legitimate emails are
also being caught in these filters. And if they are caught by these
filters, you may never see these messages at all and so will never
know that you were even sent them!
This happened to me, with
my own sympatico account and I
can tell you what I had to do to fix it; something similar is probably
happening with Rogers, and any other ISPs.
My
HIDDEN junk mail folder
With sympatico I was missing mail that had been
"helpfully" (ha ha), but incorrectly, intercepted
on sympatico's servers and simply was never making it
through to my home computer to get classified by my email
program's own "junk" filter.
For
some reason, one day, I had to log into the
"webmail" version of my sympatico account - something
I never usually do - and was amazed to find a junk folder on the
web version of my email folders, which was full of messages,
including some legit emails, which I had never seen. They had
never been sent through to my home computer program at all. And,
worse, they were being "helpfully" deleted for me
every 10 days. So who knows how many legitimate emails I
just never ever saw!
To
get out of this mess - as I didn't want to have to check online
every few days - I decided to set the "rules" for this
junk mail folder to the least sensitive setting (to only catch
the really obvious spam). This allows my own desktop software to
sort out the legit from the non-legit. Since doing this a few
more junk emails have gotten through, but I don't appear to be
missing legit emails. (I still check with my webmail every so
often, just in case). |
Check
your webmail
So, if you have never checked the
"webmail" service (that all ISPs have, but that you may not
know how to access) that should be your next stop.
-
If you don't know the
webpage to log-in, start with the home page of your email company
(or ISP) e.g. http://www.sympatico.ca,
http://www.rogers.com,
http://www.videotron.ca
etc
-
From that page you
will almost certainly find a link to "webmail", or
"check my email" or something similar.
-
You will need to know
your login (usually your email address) and your password. Your
password may be hard to find if you use a desktop program
exclusively, as the software usually remembers the password for you
so you probably don't need to remember it on a day-to-day basis. If
you really can't find it you may need to call your ISPs
"help" desk...
-
Once you are
"in", you should check the junk mail folder that will
probably be there.
-
Again, if you find our
email there, mark it as "not junk" and "add the email
address to your address book, or "safe" list". (Who
knows, maybe you'll find other legit email at the same time that you
can rescue).
-
At this time, I would
suggest checking the "security" settings, or the
"junk mail" settings - I set mine to only catch the most
obvious junk mail.
With any luck, you will
now get our emails in the future.
If this all sounds like a
lot of hassle, we agree - it sure is. It's a real drag. But we can't
think of any other way to ensure that you get our emails for sure, and
if you are dealing with us by email, you do need to get our emails!
We hope that this
mini-tutorial might at least give you an idea of how to fix a problem
that you might not even be aware that you may have!
We are aware of the
possibility that the problem may be "our-end" somehow, though
our initial inquiries with our ISP do not seem to show any problems. We
will continue to check.
If this is any use to you,
please let us know.
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