Problems sending e mails to anyone with AOL address

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Hi there

Does anyone else have this problem. I have friends in France and the u.k. with AOL e mail addresses and my mail does not seem to get through, I can receive from them but not everything just sometimes, but whenever I reply my friends say they don't receive anything, it isn't being sent back to me by the postmaster so where is it going?

 

Is it because America and France don't like each other.

 

I am with tiscali.fr who apart from this have been brilliant I have been with them for years.

 

Please don't make any replies too technical !! I am allergic to that sort of stuff.

 

Ann

[Racerbear02]

Hi

I had exactly the same problem when I used Tiscali, it appears that AOL have decided that Tiscali are a major source of spam and block all mail from their servers, sometimes it works but most times it doesn't, there is no error message, the mail just does not arrive.

Only three options available really:

1.get everyone in the world to kick AOL, that is the best in my opinion, AOL is a typical uncaring multinational monolith who wont listen to anything you say, and for them to blame anyone else for spam is really quite ironic.

2.You could set up a hotmail account for yourself for those people you speak to who use AOL and wont change,  

3.You have to change ISP in France, I have used both 9online and wanadoo now wiith no problems of connection to AOL

Good luck

 

[Will]

It is indeed AOL periodically, and apparently randomly, blocking all mail from certain other internet providers, of which Tiscali France is probably the main one.

The spam excuse looks like hypocrisy of the first order - spam from tiscali.fr addresses pales into insignificance alongside the amount of rubbish received from AOL addresses. I am sure it is completely unconnected with the fact that AOL couldn't sustain its unlimited internet access offer in France and hence lost a lot of real and potential customers to Tiscali, which does make it work.

If users are happy with the idea of their ISP deciding with whom they can communicate by e-mail then I am sure AOL is fine for them; it sounds like a good reason for changing ISP to me. Meanwhile, those on the other side of this ridiculous dispute have to have another e-mail account to use for communicating with AOL.

I suppose, in fairness to AOL, I do experience the same thing with some non-AOL addresses, particularly in the USA.

[IAN_S]

I had this problem earlier this year and resolved it to a degree by setting up a La Poste webmail account which is free and can be accessed through Tiscali. The only problem is if people reply to the La Poste address it means I have to check more than one email account, easy enough I suppose.

[Russethouse]

Had a problem yesterday with BT and aol 'not talking', in the end I resorted to my hotmail account - always handy to have in reserve !!

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Hi All,

 

Thanks for the replies, I think I had better set up a hotmail account - can anybody tell me how to do this and please not too technical, remember it brings me out in a rash.

Thanks

 

Ann

[Baz]

Go to this site and then click on Hotmail at top of page:

http://uk.my.msn.com/

Just follow the instructions which are easy. Once you have established your email address, you will see on your hotmail page at the top right hand corner "Options" go there and decide how you wish to personalise your account. I suggested you firstly look at "Junk email Protection" and then look at other areas such as contacts and safe list.

Baz

 

[Iceni]

For business users there is an alternative solution and that is to set up a secure SMTP account. I use http://www.smtp.com and it costs $49.99. This is great for me as all sent mail is secure and it really does get to AOL, Compuserve and Earthlink (both I think AOL now) and other addresses which used to get bounced. I can also send from any Outlook or OE account by setting up the outgoing server and then deleting after use.

I also have a domain host which comes with webmail - so I can send to AOL via the webmail as it does not go through Tiscali. Just to prove I am doing my bit for defeating the world domination of AOL, I have managed to persuade my two AOL clients to change to other ISP's.

[IAN_S]

I know Hotmail has been around for a long time but I am afraid that I have any email originating from a Hotmail account deleted automatically as nearly all the scams, spam etc I used to get came from these. Now I get maybe 2 or 3 a week.

[Baz]

Interesting comment Ian, however I wonder if you have recently looked at Hotmail. They have improved their site in the last couple of years with massive protection and many additional benefits to their subscribers. I very seldom receive spam now, having previously suffered 30 to 40 a day all this is down to the filters in Hotmail and their scanning before it reaches one's address. Strangely, if I wish to look at my Junk Mail folder I cannot remember when I last saw one from Hotmail. A lot of this must be down to ones ability to automatically report directly to Hotmail  any junk or spam email as Junk and also  block.

I do have other email providers but have stuck mainly to Hotmail because of the many facilities provided to manage ones emails.

 

Baz

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Like Iceni I tell my clients to avoid AOL like the plague - although their international coverage of dial-up numbers does take some beating for the jet-setters. I use a similar small service provider for secure email, SPAM filtering and a number of other features including registered email, so you can tell if an email has arrived even if your recipient doesn't return a read receipt.

As far as where email comes from - the IP address is the most reliable indication of actual source (even this can be forged) - the apparent from address will most likely never be the true source. Filtering on IP address and common text words/phrases are reasonably effective in keeping your inbox clear.

[Mpprh]

Hi

I use AOL as an ISP. But I don't use AOL mail or any other of their services except AIM.

Despite all their claims, about 95% of the mails I receive in my AOL box are spam. At the bottom of the page I have the choice to click spam or delete. And this, I think, may be the problem. It is very easy to clear a page full of inbox mails by hovering over the spam button & clicking until the inbox is empty.

Presumably that marks down senders as spam and they are rejected in the future ?

I've found Yahoo mail to be pretty good at filtering out spam.

Peter

[I1]

I read on one web site home page a statement about problems with AOL mail. They were saying they could receive mail from AOL users but that a lot experienced problems receiving their replies. It went on to say about an option in your AOL account settings that enables/disables receipt of e-mails from non-AOL users/addresses).

Their comment was:

A MESSAGE TO AOL USERS

If your mail program is not set properly, we may not be able to reply to an email you have sent to us. Sometimes, when we try to contact an AOL customer, a bounced message is returned telling us that you are "NOT ACCEPTING MAIL FROM THIS SENDER." If you set your mail options to accept mail only from AOL-users, anyone who is not an AOL-user will be unable to contact you. If they try to send you a message, they will also receive a bounce notice telling them you are "NOT ACCEPTING MAIL FROM THIS SENDER".How to correct your AOL mail preferences if they are not set properly to accept mail from all users:1. Go to Keyword: mail controls. 2. Set them to accept mail from non-AOL users. 3. Be sure the controls are not set to only accept mail from the people you specify on your list.

The site was http://www.loirevalley-property.com/presentationuk.html

By the way this site is nothing to do with me and I am not sneaking in a advert - so do "pull the URL" if you want (and I will not be offended).