Has anyone else had a problem with the email addresses of 'would be' clients?
We have just recently had 3 enquiries from clients for next year (through Owners Direct).
When we have replied the email has bounced back saying 'undelivered'. This maybe because they have their email set to only receiving 'known' addresses or they've typed their own email address incorrectly.
Only one put a phone number on the details (a mobile so I have text), the others didn't bother.
I wondered how common it was and what you did (if anything) to get aorund it
Mouse
x
Client Contact Addresses
Some ISPs seem to block what they think are ISPs who support (or at least don't actively discourage) spammers. While anything to get rid of spammers sounds like a good thing, some large ISPs are sometimes blocked by others. Try sending an email from a Wanadoo.fr address to AOL for example. Having an alternative may help in these circumstances.
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nichthewood
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look at my post Lost Bookings. This seems to be quite a common problem. All seemed to point to wanadoo, but i forwarded the e-mail replays to my brother in England and he sent them from there, they were returned undelivered. it seems that some of our prospective clients have very strange servers and normal servers don't like them. It shows the importance of a PHONE NUMBER. If only all enquirers would include one.
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Hells Bells
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Personally, I have not had one email bounce in 4 years when it comes to my responses to booking inquiries, and that's a lot of inquiries. So my guess is that it's a relay problem, I would therefore not brush it off, rather I would try to identify the source of the problem.
I did/ do have a problem with receiving Wanadoo emails from friends. A while ago, I made a phone call to my ISP about this and found out that it's not uncommon to block Wanadoo because it is open source relay, meaning that it can be used to distribute spam anonymously and as such, it's blacklisted and blocked by some ISPs. In order to reinstate, I had to have Wanadoo white listed.
Even if Wanadoo is not your ISP, it would still be worth asking your ISP about the "open source relay" problem because if they are open source as well, they may also be on the same blacklist as Wanadoo, which could be causing your emails to bounce.
If that doesn't solve the problem, then I really don't know what the cause could be, but you are right (in my opinion) to want to get to the bottom of it.
The only other suggestion I would have is that if your choice of ISP is Wanadoo or another open source relay, then I would set up a separate gmail account to field inquiries. That seems to a good workaround for those with a similar problem.
Insisting on a phone number on the first inquiry isn't going to solve it because it's not uncommon for people to provide a fake phone number until they know with whom they are dealing.
Hope this helps!
I did/ do have a problem with receiving Wanadoo emails from friends. A while ago, I made a phone call to my ISP about this and found out that it's not uncommon to block Wanadoo because it is open source relay, meaning that it can be used to distribute spam anonymously and as such, it's blacklisted and blocked by some ISPs. In order to reinstate, I had to have Wanadoo white listed.
Even if Wanadoo is not your ISP, it would still be worth asking your ISP about the "open source relay" problem because if they are open source as well, they may also be on the same blacklist as Wanadoo, which could be causing your emails to bounce.
If that doesn't solve the problem, then I really don't know what the cause could be, but you are right (in my opinion) to want to get to the bottom of it.
The only other suggestion I would have is that if your choice of ISP is Wanadoo or another open source relay, then I would set up a separate gmail account to field inquiries. That seems to a good workaround for those with a similar problem.
Insisting on a phone number on the first inquiry isn't going to solve it because it's not uncommon for people to provide a fake phone number until they know with whom they are dealing.
Hope this helps!
well one is sorted out at least - her email is hotmail and she can set it to only receive known addresses.....this reduces spam. However it doesn't help her when she enquires to service providers!
One of the others (with no phone number) is also hotmail - perhaps its a similar story.
The final one is a yahoo address. I've had the mail resent by a couple of friends and its still undeliverable.
I think I'm with Helen on this one - if I could make phone numbers compulsory I would. Its belts ans braces.....however using a commercial renting site I have to rely on their system
Ah well! Que sera Que sera
Mouse
x
One of the others (with no phone number) is also hotmail - perhaps its a similar story.
The final one is a yahoo address. I've had the mail resent by a couple of friends and its still undeliverable.
I think I'm with Helen on this one - if I could make phone numbers compulsory I would. Its belts ans braces.....however using a commercial renting site I have to rely on their system
Ah well! Que sera Que sera
Mouse
x
Mouse,
It's funny you should raise this, because I've had an enquiry in the last few days through owners direct and had exactly the same problem. I sent an e-mail to owners direct, but they couldn't give me any more info than I already had.
There was a phone number, not it wasn't obvious which country it was in - it didn't look like a UK number (no preceding '0').
It's funny you should raise this, because I've had an enquiry in the last few days through owners direct and had exactly the same problem. I sent an e-mail to owners direct, but they couldn't give me any more info than I already had.
There was a phone number, not it wasn't obvious which country it was in - it didn't look like a UK number (no preceding '0').
On our contact form via our own website we have made a contact telephone number complusory. I had an enquiry for 7 nights in November, I sent reply saying that the dates were available and had no response. It was frustrating when I rang the number given, it was incorrect because the telephone number was either mistyped or had a digit missing.if I could make phone numbers compulsory I would.
As for emails...I have had many a mistyped email address where I have had to guess where the enquirer has made the error in their email address to get a reply back to them!!