Re: Moderator note - AOL problems

["Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>]

Original poster: "Ralph Zekelman by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <gridleak-at-bluemarble-dot-net>

The following sad story may be of interest to Tesla List members
who are also victims of AOL.

Nearly a month ago my email stopped receiving the Tesla List. Panicky notes
to Terry and Chip confirmed that there was no problem at pupman-dot-com,
the problem must be with AOL. The technical problem is that AOL is treating
tesla-at-pupman-dot-com as spam.

After pestering Terry and Chip, I started in with AOL for nearly three
weeks. On the very first call they gave me 2 months of free service and a
conversation with an idiot tech who wanted to fix my modem
and connections. A few of the AOL techs blamed it on the sender or
said the sender was blocking me. No amount of explanation that it was one
particular domain that was being blocked to several AOL members could
penetrate Dilbert. It took hours and days of calls with many Dilberts to
finally reach a "supervisor" who would admit that AOL does monitor the email
and that probably my tesla mail had been declared as spam. The filters are
automatic but the monitoring is done by hundreds of their drones scattered
around the planet. One of these idiots has declared the tesla list as spam.
It's a deliberate act by one or more humanoids but a random act on a few
servers that affects a few lucky AOL members.

Not even several calls by Chip, the owner of the pupman domain,
could penetrate the AOL barriers.
No one at AOL ever takes personal responsibility for solving a
problem. The guy who explained the spamming process said he
would file a report and he told me to send an email to the AOL
CAT house. No,no, that's Community Action Team. Evidently
another loony bin of people who are supposed to handle customers who become
"difficult." When I called the number to
the CAT, I told the person to check my account for the report filed
by the first guy. She had the report with my name and user name but no
information about the problem. She helpfully asked me to explain the
problem. Hours and weeks after the first call,  that's
when I lost it--totally. Poor woman, it's not her fault but AOL clearly
refuses
to adopt any procedure allowing one person in their bureaucracy
to be responsible for solving a problem. You can never get a name,
and you can only speak to the same person twice  if you call on the same day
you get hit by lightning and / or win the lottery. No one
can ever solve a problem. With a customer base of 30 million victims they
don't have to.

I have signed up with a regional ISP. I am still working off of the
2-month freebie AOL gave me on the very first call. I very much
suspect that when I finally call AOL to close the account, the
sweetly helpful lady is going to ask me what's the problem and
offer me another 2-month freebie. I'll take it.

A very Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year
to all.

Ralph Zekelman

----- Original Message -----
From: "Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
To: <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
Cc: <chip-at-pupman-dot-com>
Sent: Tuesday, December 24, 2002 10:42 PM
Subject: Moderator note - AOL problems


 > Original poster: "Terry Fritz" <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>
 >
 > Hi All,
 >
 > Many people using AOL (America On-Line e-mail services) have reported that
 > they are having big problems getting messages from the Tesla
 > list.  Apparently, AOL's SPAM filters are sometimes blocking Tesla list
 > mail.  There is not anything Chip or I can do about this.  Many people
have
 > called and complained to AOL but I am not sure it has done much good.  Two
 > people I know of have dropped AOL due to this...
 >
 > All I can suggest is try something like Yahoo's or MSN's free e-mail
 > service as a replacement.  Or, free yourself from AOL and get a "real" ISP
 > ;o)  Perhaps someone who has AOL knows a trick or fix for this?  They
 > "should" have a way to bypass specific senders...
 >
 > Sorry we don't have a great fix for this one, but just wanted to let you
 > know that we know...  Sometimes AOL's "highly trained" phone staff blames
 > it on the Tesla list servers, but it is definitly AOL's SPAM filters
making
 > the "error" and that is totally beyond our control here.
 >
 > Of course, I realize many people on AOL will not get this either...
 >
 > Cheers,
 >
 > Terry
 >
 >