Tiscali / AOL e-mail

[bill]

Hi all.

I was one of the original subscribers to screaming.net and when we moved over the channel reluctantly stayed with Tiscali as it is the only ISP offering unlimited access in France (AOL offered it for a while but it didn't last long). However all Tiscali France mail accounts have now been blocked by AOL which is causing all sorts of difficulties here.

Conspiracy theories abound, naturally., AOL says it's due to the amount of spam originating from Tiscali servers. That's crap of course as Yahoo, Hotmail/MSN and AOL itself are far worse in terms of spam. And lets face it the average French internet user wouldn't have a clue how to send spam.

I was just wondering if any of you had any knowledge of what is going on, and if you can send to AOL e-mail addresses?

[twolions]

Yesterday evening AOL started bouncing my Tiscali emails to AOL members. I used Tiscali anytime for personal & business & upgraded to Tiscali's broadband recently when they said I was a heavy user. So as not to lose customers I wanted to keep all my email addresses. This morning I sent an email to a friend who's on AOL and he didn't get it and I received NO bounce message. I've complained to Tiscali via help pages, and blasted off letter to PC PRO about this, but didn't know about France.

Now I'm sorry I didn't choose another ISP for broadband and am locked into 12-month contract. I've set up another dial-up ISP just for mail to AOL people!

Maybe people should boycott AOL until this mess is sorted out!

[gem]

Welcome to The Scream! bill and twolions.

twolions. What's the point of complaining to Tiscali if it's AOL who are refusing to accept emails sent thro' Tiscali? It's NOT Tisclai's fault! You should be complaining to AOL!
Oh, and I'm NOT sticking up for Tiscali.

You should be aware that there is some kind of problem with Tiscali email (that includes Screaming Net and WOL) as I have had trouble sending/receiving on my accounts for a few days. I note that the Tiscali Status page makes no mention of problems, nothing new there then!

[Ann]

Status page is now here:

http://www.tiscali.co.uk/cgi-bin/status.cgi

Ann

[Pisces]

There is a thread on the Tiscali Forums re AOL emails. Tiscali say they are aware of the problem.

I, also, have had trouble receiving emails, thanks for the status page Ann.

[genius]

I'm France based as well and another Tiscali user (although not for long considering their isdn all inclusive deal has just tripled in cost).
I have several websites and intend to put up warnings asking site visitors to use non aol mails if they are making enquiries or whatever - Sick of the aol bouncers
It's just an anti tiscali scam.
I was with aol when they were the first and only to offer an all inclusive in france, they didn't have the capacity to cope with the customers they took on, constant disconnections, long periods when you couldn't reconnect and a speed on an isdn line that seemed to be about 7ks ! They were taking a dishonest gamble on grabbing the market while they did not have the goods to sell and couldn't honour their contracts, they lost a lot of court actions here in france over their all inclusives.

Rob

P.S. Signing up now with http://www.9online.fr their prices look ok and i have read nothing negative about them.

[sneakysnake]

After moving from my old Cix dial-up account to Tiscali Broadband. I can only say I'm disappointed, emails take hours to arrive (if they arrive at all) it takes ages to log in, if you want to moan to Tiscali then you pay a premuim rate call. What ever happened to service!!!!!!!!

[gem]

If you want service DON'T use Tiscali.
A number of ISP's have been having problems with their email of late, Virgin is one I'm aware of (but now resolved) and currently Tiscali. I have not had quite the same problems today (invalid username/password or disconnects from server) but SOME emails are still slow to get thro'

[Neil Marr]

Unlike some unlucky earlier correspondents, I've no grouse at all with Tiscali fr. The only problem I've ever encountered in all the time I've been with them (a heavy user) has been this AoL hitch. And, of course, no amount of complaining to either ISP prompts the slightest sensible or constructive response. Am I right in thinking only Tiscali fr (France) clients suffer or do Tiscali users elsewhere also find their outgoing AoL email blocked? Anyone know of any move afoot to solve the problem? Thanks -- Neil (France)

[Andrew666]

Could be the content of your subject line?

Had a lot of email bouncing trouble with Freeserve recently. After a LOT of correspondence with them, this was their reply:

Thank you for your email.

The question which you raised, "Who do you think you are to decide which
emails I may or may not receive?"

As a responsible ISP, we endeavour to give the best service possible, so
when viruses come out like MY DOOM virus, then we have to try and combat
this and endeavour to protect our Freeserve Members.

Yes "Hello" is a common email subject and that why people send out
viruses with simple subjects like Hello etc.

We are here to help your self and others to keep from virus free, but in
the last few weeks there are more viruses, so we have to try to combat
the situation.

All ISP's Have to block subject line like the list below.

Test
Hi
Hello
Mail Delivery System
Mail Transaction Failed
Server Report
Status
Error

As the DOOM virus contains these headings, we do apologies for any
inconvenience caused.


If you have any further queries then please do not hesitate to get in
contact with us again.

Kind regards



Well, I've now forked out a bit more money on a POP3 mailbox so I don't have to use Freeserve's POP servers. And nothing gets blocked

As I said to Freeserve, if I wanted my hand holding I would have used AOL ...

[Neil Marr]

Thanks Andrew, but I don't think this answers my question. Most clued up email users know not to confuse the issue by using generic or ambiguous subject lines. Again ... anyone know if there's a move afoot to end the AoL-Tiscali war? Neil

[Andrew666]

Hi Neil,

It wasn't actually an attempt to answer your question (because I don't know the answer ). It was just a thought ....

[Neil Marr]

Thanks Andrew. Didn't mean to bite your head off, just to say that AoL blocks all Tiscali fr mail from its clients regardless of subject line or content. It's an arbitrary lockout. I'm in France and my working partner is in Germany. Almost a full time job for her just passing on my outgoing AoL messages. Cheers -- Neil

[Zer02004]

Tiscali UK (I'll use the word "allegedly" here) were running an open relay on server six at least up until quite recently. Many ISP's blocked them for one simple reason; they were (Are?) spammers. The AOL problem was probably intensified because they operate a rather strict policy when it comes to spam origination.

[Neil Marr]

This thing is getting out of control -- and I don't give a damn whether Tiscali or AoL are to blame. One, other or both should act responsibly and iron this out. It's now got to the stage where AoL clients are having to go to the trouble of opening free secondary accounts elsewhere to be sure they're not losing valuable messages sent through Tiscali. AoL -- the biggest thing in the history of communications -- is deliberately sabotaging the very facility they promote. And don't you feel so bloody helpless these days as a mere customer -- remember them ... those things squirming at the bottom of the pond? Cheers -- Neil

After moving from my old Cix dial-up account to Tiscali Broadband. I can only say I'm disappointed, emails take hours to arrive (if they arrive at all) it takes ages to log in, if you want to moan to Tiscali then you pay a premuim rate call. What ever happened to service!!!!!!!!

Originally Posted by sneakysnake

I find the same problems with Tiscali also line rental with talk included signed for FREE LINE RENTAL ONY TO BE CHARGED ANYONE ELSE WITH THIS PROBLEM

AOL is being a pain in the ^&%$ to me at the moment - Problem is
1) There are peeps on "AOL" out there I can't send an E-mail to
2) There are peeps on "AOL" out there that can't send E-mail to me
I have no problems with any other ISP.
Now I have been told that the "AOL user" needs to change some settings
I'm on "tiscali/talktalk" so could some extremely kind sole out there please tell me what I should get these people to change/alter (and I don't mean swap ISP) in very very very simple three year old's language
Thank you
and thank you again
Adi
PS as far as I know AOL is owned by Talktalk as is tiscali