Wanadoo to NTL world users

[bobwils]

Having recently signed up with Wanadoo ADSL I have found that it is not possible to send E-Mails to any NTL world address. The messages comes back saying 'user not recognised' or similar. Has anyone else had this problem and does anyone know a way to overcome this problem without resorting to sending from a 'Hotmail' account or similar.

[Iceni]

There is quite a lot about this in the archives - if it is business I would suggest paying $50 a year for a secure SMTP account (www.smtp.com) - otherwise it is hotmail or another free e-mail address. AOL and Tiscali do this on a regular basis - drives me round the bend hence I pay for an address that goes through alternative servers so avoids the problem.

Hope that this helps

[Will]

I am finding that ntlworld has been bouncing back Tiscali.fr e-mails for the past week or so - my alternative wanadoo address seems to have got through OK on a couple of occasions. If find NTL almost as bad as AOL in this respect. I believe that it should be up to you, not your ISP, from whom you choose to accept or reject messages.

[Ron Avery]

[quote]I am finding that ntlworld has been bouncing back Tiscali.fr e-mails for the past week or so - my alternative wanadoo address seems to have got through OK on a couple of occasions. If find NTL almost ...[/quote]

Will

It would not be so bad if the messages got bounced straight away, they come back after a  week  I believe wanadoo.fr to Tesco.net has similar problems.  For these contacts I have to use Hotmail.

[Teamedup]

I have had this problem with NTL, but my most recent problem has been sending things to a friend with an addy at laposte.fr.

[Ruth]

Have suddenly found that my e mails to a friend on NTL aren't getting there after 2 years of successful  contact. Don't get any message to say it wasn't received. This has happened since Tiscali changed to Alice...any connection? My friend thinks it's my fault but is it? Solutions please.

[Nev]

I have the same problem too! It's very frustrating. It takes about a week for the error message to be returned (error 452).

My understanding is that NTL hold Wanadoo responsible for loads of spam messages and now refuse to accept any Wanadoo traffic.

I've also found that using a hotmail account isn't a guaranteed way of getting messages through. Your IP address is part of the message and of course that IP address is allocated by Wanadoo on your broadband connection.

I don't know hwat to do. There is no alternative ISP for broadband where we live but we'rereally annoyed about not being able to chat to friends back in UK.

I've tried contacting Wanadoo support but got absolutely nowhere.

Nev

 

[Iceni]

Please see my mail above regarding www.smtp.com - these accounts can send from their servers to any ISP. I know it costs $50 a year but if you really want to make that e-mail there really is no other way.

I did a track on an e-mail that I had not had a reply from and found that someone had given me an incorrect e-mail address - you can track the delivery of mails for 2 months inclusive in the price - I HAVE  NO FINANCIAL INTEREST IN THIS COMPANY - but without them I doubt I would have a business.

No point in moaning - you just have to pay up or risk your mails not getting through.

[Ron Avery]

[quote]I have the same problem too! It's very frustrating. It takes about a week for the error message to be returned (error 452). My understanding is that NTL hold Wanadoo responsible for loads of spam mes...[/quote]

You can log in to wanadoo.fr and send messages from any PC in the world, its not your ISP address that frightens NTL world, its the wanadoo.fr bit.  You can sign up with Hotmail or Yahoo using any log-in name you choose to and send messages from anywhere,  I have no trouble with using my Hotmail account to Tesco and NTLworld users from France

[Deimos]

I’m sure I read somewhere that the problems are related to NTL (and others) considering wnandoo.fr (and others) a source of excessive spam. In the case of wanadoo.fr they may be right and wanadoo.fr sell your e-mail addresses and when you complain to them about spam sources they do absolutely nothing about it. Don’t know about other ISPs.

Things would probably be easier if ISPs were more responsible about dealing with spam. However, that costs money and at the end of the day it would be us, the customers who pay – which I guess we would not like.

Nev: “I've tried contacting Wanadoo support but got absolutely nowhere.” My experience as well – both with regard to spam and pretty well everything else. E-mails are ignored and telephone calls to premium rate numbers ineffective. I guess you get what you pay for and the price charged by ISP is such that they cannot afford good support, policing spam, etc as it all costs money (via people ?)

Ian

[Nev]

Di

The SMTP.COM method is very interesting and I decided to give it a try. There is a 'family' option for 29.99$ (about 25€) but I couldn't get the sign-up form to work. It expected a state (US?) and ZIP code in order to validate the credit card details. Normally I'd leave out the fields which don't apply in France, but this one insists on having them.

How did you sign-up?

Nev

[Nev]

Ian

Yes, I was on a call with the 'support' people for 50 minutes trying to resolve this problem, in the end they only proved that I could send emails to myself!!! The cost of the call was astronomical. I'll change ISPs as soon as there's another one available here. It's a monopoly at the moment.

----------------

Ron

I can assure you that it IS the IP address (not ISP address) that NTL use to decide whether to accept or reject emails. I thought I was getting away from all this stuff after 35 years in IT.

You can read about it here http://www.nl.sorbs.net/ and then try your IP address here http://www.nl.sorbs.net/lookup.shtml but you'll need an account to do it. I have an account and I've checked it today (again) and my address is currently blocked. The records show that a whole series of addresses, any of which can be dynamically allocated to you when you connect to the internet, are blocked.

NTL refer to this list and strictly speaking should not do. Most other ISPs do not use this method of verifying the source of the email.

The action required is for Wanadoo to get themselves de-listed, but that won't happen until 1) they get themselves sorted out (they have an appalling record for sorting out spam and abuse problems) and 2) actually make an effort to request a de-listing.

The situation is likely to stay unresolved until sufficient pressure is brought to bear. A few individual users like us will have no effect whatsover.

Di's solution, using SMTP.COM seems to me to be the easiest way round it if there is no other ISP in your particular area.

-------------------

Nev

[BJSLIV]

Nev

It's a monopoly at the moment

Is that because you have signed up for a long term deal with Wanadoo?

[Nev]

Erm... no, a monopoly means that there's only one, and it's operated by the ISP arm of France Telecom, namely Wanadoo.

I have no complaints about the reliability or speed of the internet access, I'm on a 2mb broadband service, but this ianbility to send emails to our friends in UK is a big minus.

I was previously on dail-up with Tiscali andwas eagerly anticipating getting back to the sort of service I had in UK.

To answer your question fully, I have signed up for 12 months, this was a requirement in order to get 6 months at a reduced rate.

So, it's fast internet access and limited email with Wanadoo, or dial-up speeds plus email with Tiscali.

Other ISPs will be along soon I'm sure.

Nev

[BJSLIV]

Nev

You can delete your duplicates by clicking edit then deleting.

Im sure that there are already alternative suppliers available, even if you cannot access the full degroupage bargains. When you are coming  the end of your tweve months, make sure you give notice to cancel promptly to avoid any automatic renewal, and be poised to move. Hopefully by then you won't have too long an interuption of service between wanadoo and your new supplier.

I have found that the degrouptest type sites tend now to concentrate on full degroupage and ignore the suppliers who provide alternative services using the FT network.

In the meantime you can continue to send emails to "problem" friends accessing your Tiscali address using your wanadoo broadband via their webmail interface (ie just like hotmail) , and then automatically picking  up any replies through your outlook express. Bit messy , but at least it avoids dial-up.

 

[Iceni]

"It expected a state (US?) and ZIP code in order to validate the credit card details"

Nev, I'm a big confused

When you typed yr dept name in the "State" field and your 5 digit post code in "Zip" what was the message ? I would be surprised if these are validated fields.

John

not

[Nev]

Thanks for the advice an deleting my accidental multiple posts.

John, on entering my credit card details I started with a blank address and added fields when it rejected something. Usually on credit card transactions only a couple of fields are mandatory but this insisted on a full address, with a street, city, state zip and country. I did try my departement in the state, unsuccessfully. I also emailed SMTP.COM with my problem and they suggested using 'france' in the state. It rejects my 'street' and 'zip'. It's surprised me too!

I'm awaiting a response to another email to SMTP. If I get a successful response I'll post the solution on this thread.

Nev

[Iceni]

We have just been upgraded to ADSL in the deep wilds of a high and windy hill in rural Lot and to my amazement we had the option of Wanadont, Alice and about three or four others. We went with Alice as I already have Tiscali dial-in and not only is Alice/Tiscali cheaper we get free VOIP calls in France. We also have our FT line so can use our cheap alternative service when we phone the UK or my clients in other countries.

It seems that Alice/Tiscali pay FT for the ADSL bit of the line as doing a search on FT for the status of my line gives an error message and they say that it is not possible to give this info. The other sites show 4 to 6 mbit speed but as part of our phone line is currently tied to the farmers fence down the hill where the wind brought down the phone poles I am just grateful that we speed along at 1 mbit.

Do check again if you are unhappy with Wanadoo when your renewal comes up as Alice seems to have been able to do a deal with FT and are available in even very rural areas.

[Deimos]

Unfortunately the problem “comes and goes” and is not exclusively with wanadoo.fr (but also includes tiscalli/Alice).

From the way I see it, the underlying problem is that there are spammers on the internet and people are trying to do something about it. Different ISPs have different approaches. NTL (incl. Tesco and the like) start blocking mail from “problem ISPs” (e.g. Wanadoo and Tiscalli/Alice/others), then when their customers gripe a bit, they remove the blocks for a bit, then put then back, etc. Wanadoo try to sell people anti-spam “add-ons” (as I expect other ISPs do as well).

My over simplistic analysis is that it costs the spammers nothing to spam. Unlike junk mail where they have printing and delivery costs, for spam e-mail costs them nothing so if it is not particularly effective then “so what”, its cost nothing so they have lost nothing. Maybe anti-spam software utilities just make life easier for the spammers as people don’t act as its all automatically hidden.

Should I get SPAM I invariable act. I report the mails back to the senders (via their abuse address). If the abuse bounces I “rfcignorant” them (I also tend to “check-out” the domain and any other “failings I “rfcignorant” them). I also report the matter to the host ISP strongly, report the matter to CNIL, etc. If its via a wanadoo.fr address I have never published I send strongly worded e-mails to wanadoo.fr (to which I get no response). Maybe be coincidence or maybe through this action I tend to receive only a few spam e-mails a month. Some people tend to get loads, but not me – and I have no spam filters trapping it out. All the above only takes a few minutes so its not much to do.

I guess it is a problem that will be resolved at some point – hopefully sooner rather than later. I personally love to criticize Wanadoo, but truth be told, I have relatively little problem with them. Over time I have learnt how to get results from them. For example, where there is a connection problem I don’t call Wanadoo’s premium rate number as it costs loads and never results in anything. Instead I call France Telecom which is free and results in the problem being resolved quickly. Despite my critical comments of Wanadoo, if there were other ISPs offering service to me I would not change (and I can as I am no longer limited by contract).

Ian

[bobwils]

Having been responsible for starting this topic I would just report that I took Iceni's advise, signed up with www.smtp.com and it works fine. I took the economy package which was about 35 Euros and have sent lots of E-mails to NTL addresses and they were all received.

 

Bob Wils

[derf]

I have not been able to reply to NTL addresses from Wanadoo.fr or Freesurf.fr for some time now.

This week I needed to respond to an NTL account email, so I opened an Hotmail account to do the reply, I recieved a notification from Hotmail that the mail could not be delivered. I do know that the NTL address is valid because I had to get my daughter in the UK to forward the mails for me.

[Nev]

Bob

Success for me too!

Since Wanandoo don't wanadoo anything to help us, the solution is SMTP relaying as previously suggested by Di/John.

I had problems getting my credit card details accepted on a couple of the sites I tried, I think it's because I have a UK card but French address, but I'm not sure. In the end I've opened a PayPal account with my French debit card and signed up with www.authsmtp.com

They offer a service starting at £14 (21€). There are message number limits/total size limits per month but they send you warnings at 80% and 90% and you can upgrade to the next level, paying only on a pro-rata basis.

I've tested it out and successfully sent and received form one of my previously uncontactable friends on NTL.

Thanks to everyone for your contributions, that's me sorted!

Nev
 

[MKT]

Derf - read your post with interest as i have the same problem.

ages ago I reported the problemin this forum,  getting stuff through from wanado to ntl and in resposne to advice here i set up a hotmail account for the 'problem' people.

Last week i got the same message as you from my hotmail account toom three times - it first says delivery is delayed and then eventually failed.

moreover i couldnt last week email TISCALI.net from wanadoo, so tried the hotmail route with that too adn the same thing happened - undeliverable as it 'couldnt connect to the server' (whatever that means).

I am rather cross becuase i thought i had solved the problem and cannot imagine why my hotmail address now cant get throguh either - i dont have broadband, if that makes any difference.  soon i wont be able to email anyone if this continues.

Maria

[Jc]

I see Virgin are reported to be selling all their mobile phones/computer electronics to NTL.

[anneb]

I am using NTL and Wanadoo to get all my list mail from user groups I'm on....ie getting my list mail sent to both addresses. This is because I'm a moderator of a Yahoo list and need to see all the mails but NTL are having dreadful problems and mails are not being delivered to NTL addresses. Last week I had 73 Yahoo group mails bounced from my NTL address but none from my Wanadoo one.

I have been on the telephone to NTL about this many times over the past four weeks and they deny there is a problem. But there is and it even happens to themselves as several emails I sent their technical support department were returned to me as undeliverable.

Wanadoo are blameless !

bw's

Anne