It’s not my fault!

The last 2 weeks there has been an increasing number of blocks on servers I work on, AOL, Yahoo, Hotmail are all on some kick to simply block domains, IP’s, whoever the feel like.

In a email trouble ticket I had open with Hotmail, I asked to see an example of the Spam I was apparently sending out, but they could not produce anything, and as I bounced around their techs I even had one say “Your not blocked!” and then suddenly 5 test mails I had sent from Hotmail showed up in my inbox on my server, and I could magically send to Hotmail again.

It’s getting old, because MY customers are getting angry at me for something I have no control over, granted when it comes down to the IP owner, and the server administrator who needs to contact AOL/Yahoo/Hotmail - that is me, folks are getting very frustrated with me and other companies admins who I work with on their systems. Some would say “Well it’s your problem!” well as much as I wish it was, it’s not. If it was my issue, trust me, I’d be awake for a week working on things to get it ironed out, but in these cases I have no control which sucks - and it’s not a automated process for removal, it’s not “Fill out this form with the domain/IP and we’ll send a confirmation” - it’s a human process, and while I am not saying that that their staff are jerks, its just pulling teeth to get information, but thankfully some folks have been very helpful in helping us comply with new “requirements” for SPF/SenderID/DomainKeys from the various providers, but that kindness is not across the board.

So I guess for now until some of the spam volume comes down, it will continue to be my fault, but I wish it wasn’t, as I’d really like mail to once again just work.