Neopets Emails being blocked?

Sun Jun 26, 2005 5:03 pm

If this is not the right place, I do apologize. But I thought this was something important that I just found out about last night.

I haven't been getting any emails from Neo lately - no leaving the neolodge, no merchandise (Ltd. Too stuff), no monthly freebie/news. I didn't think much of it, to be honest. Just thought it was some weird thing.

If you use AOL, they are blocking Neopets' IP. What does that mean? As an experiment after reading this on the premium board last night, I requested my password on my lab account (yes, I do know the password). I never got an email - and it's been about 10 hours.

This means if you do lose your password, you won't be able to get it emailed to you. It probably means if you write to Support you won't be able to get a response. And it means that if you say, Fine, I'll just change my email -- you won't be able to, as a confirming email is sent to the OLD email address. It probably also could be why some people aren't getting their activation emails when they try to set up a new account!

So, this is bigger than simply not getting the "junk" type emails we all know and expect from just about any site.

The person who brought this to our attention said they'd been in touch with AOL, that Neopets IP had been banned due to "complaints" and that Neopets has to contact AOL to get off their banned list. Why AOL would ban emails from Neo I don't know.

At this point I would change my email just to make life easier, but since the confirming email would be sent to my AOL, well, I can't!

Anyone who uses AOL or any ISP and aren't getting their emails may want to see if they are being banned.

And Neopets has to be sent reports about this so someone will finally see it and do what's needed to get it fixed.

Sun Jun 26, 2005 6:51 pm

I had this problem with my ISP, Netcommander. Last Christmas, I changed the password, and then promptly forgot it and didn't play for a few months. When I wanted to start playing again, I couldn't remember it, and I used the "send password" form over and over. I didn't realize that it was my ISP blocking the email, and I figured that someone had figured out my password and gotten into my account. I did think it was a little strange as they hadn't logged in for months, and the password was pretty random until I made a new account with the same email address and the activation email never arrived. It took two or three calls to the ISP to get them to forward the email so I could get my passworld.

I switched my email address to a different server immediately. I would advise anyone who uses AOL to be sure they have their password actually written somewhere, or else to use a different email for Neopets. I'm not sure if contacting AOL would do any good or not, but it might be worth a try.

Sun Jun 26, 2005 7:22 pm

EC, is this happening even if you put neopets.com on your safe list and/or contacts list?

I had a similar thing happen with my hotmail account. I just got premium and decided to test out my neomail.com account. So, I sent an email from neomail.com account to my regular hotmail email account. And, nothing showed up. I did it a few times and still nothing showed up. I finally had to add neomail.com to my contacts list before it went through.

I do get all emails from neopets.com on my hotmail account. However, I added it to my contacts lists a while ago. Makes me wonder if I would get any if I decided to take it off of my contacts list.

Sun Jun 26, 2005 10:42 pm

AOL might have taken the action because of the monthly free items emails that Neo have taken to sending out. The unsubscribe doesn't work on these and if you want to stop them the easiest way is to block them and report them as spam to AOL. I'm not talking about on the email account that you are currently signed up to Neo with. Neo is sending them to any email account that has ever in the past been signed up to Neo even when you have inactivated the Neopets account that was associated with that email.

On the self freeze page it says that you will never hear from Neo again only now once a month they are spamming these old email addresses. With a non-working unsubscribe option on the spam. Hence the complaints.

Sun Jun 26, 2005 10:57 pm

I've had this problem with Operamail. Apparently the reason to them is "Spam related issues."

I was locked out of my account for about a year and a half until I realized that Neo had a new report form feature. I had enough informaiton to get my email through an email from Grace.

Sun Jun 26, 2005 11:44 pm

Morningstar, it has nothing to do with my own spam list - I've checked that repeatedly. And I'm not the only person having this problem. There's a topic on the premium charter board about it.

Here's what they found out:

Current Topic: AOL mail has blocked the Neopets ISP

and im doing my best to get neo to pay attention to this as pretty much all neomails have been ignored. Basically for the past week I have not been receiving my word reminder emails for my spare account. I couldnt figure out why. Now before you say it, not is not going to my spam folder, it has nothing to do with spam, as neo is in my addy book, and i check my spam folder often CONTINUED

Well come to find out.. the emails are bouncing back ( learned this by testing the theory on my fiances account) and when contacting aol with the error message they have stated that the ISP that neopets is using to send those emails had been blocked due to complaints from other members. Unfortunatley they said only neopets can fix this by contacting them.

The person I spoke with at aol said that they could fix it, but that they need neo to contact them.

The person who started the topic did a copy and paste of the information they got:

EXPLANATION:

This error message indicates that a block has been placed against your IP address because we have received numerous complaints concerning mail coming from that IP address.

SOLUTION:

Please have your ISP or server administrator contact AOL for assistance. The mail administrator should request a feedback loop that will alert them to reported spam from their network. You can access the Feedback Loop request form

I know I haven't gotten any emails from Neo in awhile, and the test I did last night asking for my password just to be sure it wasn't just this person's problem - then seeing other people post that they were having the same problem with aol and Neo ... well, it's something I think people should be aware of.

What if your account gets scammed/hacked/frozen - there's no way after you fill out the form that Neo can actually contact you! Can't get your password emailed to you, can't get anything.

It may just well be those monthly emails Neo is sending out. I don't know, I have never gotten one.

Mon Jun 27, 2005 12:06 am

Well with banning AOL IP's, you get the chance of being caught in the IP bannign range, so that can be the problem people are having. When you IP ban someone for spamming or whichever, the people with about the same IP can get banned too.

For example,

123.45.67 spams/scams and gets IP banned.
123.45.68 didn't so anything but got caught in 123.45.67's IP range.

Here's an exact quote that can explain better than I can from Ezboard's FAQ

IV.Problems with IP Banning:

Some users get a different IP address every time they connect and you will have to ban multiple IPs or even a range of IPs. Unfortunately, this may also ban "innocent" users because they happen to use the same Internet Service Provider (ISP), same IP address or similar IP address. AOL in particular has very dynamic Ips and it is not always possible to ban an AOL user without also banning many other AOL users. Some users may also be able to mask (fake) their IP address using proxy services or other means.

Mon Jun 27, 2005 12:27 am

Well I could give people GMail referals if they want. Although I don't know whether Gmail blocks TNT too. I use a home based email so I don't have to worry about hacking (not much anyways) or not choosing who is blocked.

Mon Jun 27, 2005 1:02 am

everconfused wrote:Morningstar, it has nothing to do with my own spam list - I've checked that repeatedly. And I'm not the only person having this problem. There's a topic on the premium charter board about it.

Wow, so even if neopets.com is on your safe list, the emails won't go through? That is bad--very, very bad.

Mon Jun 27, 2005 2:05 am

Magica, I kind of understand what you're saying (technically challenged here!), but this isn't a case of Neopets IP banning someone ... it's a case of AOL banning Neopets IP.

An update (and yes, this is long, but has lots of info that you more technical people may understand better) - I just logged into my spare, the one I had requested the password from. Found a neomail from TNT that said:

26/6/2005 (time removed by me)
Subject: E-mail message has bounced!
Folder: Inbox
Message:

[Report Message] A message sent to you at mailto:XXXXXXXXX@aol.com was not delivered. The message from the other server is ''554-: (RLY:BD) http://postmaster.info.aol.com/errors/554rlybd.html
554 TRANSACTION FAILED''. Check http://www.neopets.com/faq.phtml to find out what you can do to fix the problem.

So, click on the Neo FAQ page and see this:

I received a neomail from theneopetsteam about an email that failed to be sent

If have received the following message:

"A message you sent to _____________ was not delivered. The message from the other server is ''550 No such user here''. Check http://www.neopets.com/faq.phtml to find out what you can do to fix the problem."

You have received this because of the following reasons.

You spelt the username of the email address incorrectly.

The username simply does not exist in the domain.

Now it would be pretty hard to simply not exist when I've had the same email for I think 9 years? and I HAVE gotten emails from TNT before - on that email. Plus, if you've ever sent a form to TNT, your email that you signed up with is just there - you're not typing anything. And for password retrieval, you're just typing the Neo username and clicking. And actually their 550 error is NOT what aol users are getting ... it's the 554 error.

So then I click the other link, the 554 (RLY BD), and get this page:

RLY:BD
http://postmaster.info.aol.com/errors/554rlybd.html
EXPLANATION:

This error indicates that your message has been blocked. The characteristics of your message match those of spam reported to AOL.

SOLUTION:

Please have your ISP or server administrator contact AOL for assistance. The mail administrator should request a feedback loop that will alert them to reported spam from their network. You can submit a request online using our Feedback Loop request form .

and this from the feedback loop information page on AOL http://postmaster.info.aol.com/fbl/fblinfo.html

Feedback Loop Information

Feedback Loop Information
When an AOL member clicks "this is spam" for a piece of email sent from one of your IPs, this is considered a "complaint". If you are having difficulty with the number of complaints you are receiving a feedback loop would benefit you. Once you have requested a feedback loop you will be notified when a member clicks "this is spam". The email sent to you from mailto:SCOMP@aol.net will contain the complete email and header information. Due to our member privacy policy we cannot include the email address that it was originally sent to. You can sign up at the Feedback Loop Request Form. Below are some suggestions on how the feedback loop can help you.

***snip***

Customize your email.

We suggest using custom email headers or a custom remove link in the email to help you determine what part of your member base may have subscribed in error.

What to do with the information

Mailing lists

We suggest removing members from your list who have marked the mail as spam. If they continue to receive the email and mark it as spam it will continue to generate complaints.

Network Security

Detecting and stopping sources of spam on your network is crucial. These sources can stem from viruses or problems with network security.

When you must have this information.
If you have submitted a request for the whitelist, using the feedback loop is a requirement for approval. This will assure us that you are aware of complaints against your email and that you are taking steps to correct them.

So, like I said, it's not my email that's misspelled (believe me, I checked), and it can't be everyone else who uses AOL that's misspelling their own email names. This is definitely Neopets being blocked by AOL.

I don't know what to do! I'd change the email, at least on my spare just to test it, but with confirming emails going to the old email - an AOL email - and those not even getting through, I'm a bit afraid to do much of anything. Besides what I've done.

Which is probably giving some poor person in Support a massive headache when they read the form I submitted with all the above information and more!

Gmail I am not certain about. Yes, some people are using that for Neo and it's fine which almost makes no sense, since roadrunner.rr.com and mail.com emails cannot receive emails from TNT at all. I'd think gmail.com would count as a mail.com. Grr, this is so frustrating.

Mon Jun 27, 2005 2:10 am

Duke of Earl wrote:Well I could give people GMail referals if they want. Although I don't know whether Gmail blocks TNT too. I use a home based email so I don't have to worry about hacking (not much anyways) or not choosing who is blocked.

From what I can tell with Neo's monthly mailing list, Gmail seems to work fine (I use it for one of my spare accounts)