Email Horror Stories

The email horror story saga begins. I have a new tale of terror for you today. I would love to hear your comments.

First some quick news: I am still completing work on the revised and updated You’ve Lost Mail! report that I promised to send to everyone who participated in the experiment at no charge. It’s only a few days away now.

What’s the holdup? Crap keeps happening that is too good to leave out. I have to draw the line somewhere but — get this:

We just heard from Go Daddy, our domain name registrar for many of our domains, that we are in violation of their anti-spam policy. We don’t host with them. They don’t handle our email. We only registered our domain. Because we routinely buy brokered email lists of only opted-in people and use CAN-SPAM-compliant emails to promote a domain that Go Daddy handles, we’ve been notified that someone complained we were sending spam.

It doesn’t matter if you follow all the rules. Some people forget they signed up for  a list, fail to look for or bother with the “remove me” link, and simply hit the SPAM button. This person went so far as to turn in a complaint to Go Daddy.

Oddly enough, This action followed within just a couple of days following a call we received from Go Daddy about some domains of ours that we had decided to let expire. Obviously a sales call, they were pressuring us to renew 10 domains we had already decided not to renew. They didn’t seem very pleased when we told them in no uncertain terms we weren’t going to renew.

And – it follows within weeks of my Great Email Experiment.

It could all be coincidence. Then again…who knows for sure?

Go Daddy’s reponse?

You’ll have to read the report. It’s about as ridiculous as a situation gets, including what is, in my opinion, extortion of the highest level.

And it’s not resolve yet.

I’ll keep you posted here. And I’ll let you know as soon as the report is finished…by sending you a link to get yours free.

— Alan R. Bechtold

I don’t know if I told you but I’ve written a book that’s coming out from John Wiley and Sons May 26 of this year. It’s called “Will Work For Fun” and it’s all about the power that the Internet brings to average people. When properly tapped, as I detail in the book, virtually anyone can easily and inexpensively turn any hobby, favorite activity or pastime or experience into a sizeable source of revenue that could even replace the average job.

It’s all about financial freedom and I wrote the book to spread the word that this is indeed possible for anyone. I hope it does well.

One problem — without reliable email (not for spamming people, just for working with those you’ve attracted to your business, to stay in touch and build a relationship), the “inexpensive” part of my equation is less inexpensive and takes a lot more effort and time. The system still works — but you have to augment it with direct mail and other costlier and, thus, riskier, elements.

I’m fighting this battle to improve email because I want reliable email to be something we can all count on and because it is one key to financial freedom that is currently being cut off from many people who have limited funds but still want to escape the 9-5 world.

Email SHOULD be reliable or the people providing it should stop. Period.

Here’s a great example:

I am also producing a movie based on my book. I plan to have it ready for release a couple of weeks before the book comes out. My co-producer is working feverishly right now to complete the script, which I have to have to complete shooting the final footage we need for the movie by the end of the month.

My co-producer has comcast email. He wrote me yesterday to send me his latest version of the script for my approval or suggested changes. I wrote him back FOUR TIMES, using an email address I have specifically set up to send to people with “troubled” email addresses like those that Comcast seems to provide.  ALL of my emails to my co-producer were RESPONSES to emails he’d sent me. They came from him to me. I hit REPLY and responded, so they went back to Comcast as RESPONSES.

I waited all day to hear back from my co-producer. But, until I wrote to him using my Gmail email account, he wasn’t receiving anything at all from me.

Just now, I received the first of my four emails to him, bounced by Comcast because it apparently decided my emails were spam.

This is ridiculous! Outrageous! Anyone with half a brain realizes a RESPONSE to an email FROM a customer is something that customer might want to receive — yet Comcast has decided to simply pitch my emails and throw them back to me as undeliverable because the system has for some unknown reason decided it was spam.

Wow.

This Experiment is REALLY necessary. VERY necessary!

— Alan Bechtold

I’m hearing from a LOT of participants about problems receiving the followup emails that we send out to everyone. I just sent one recently and thought I would post it here so anyone who didn’t receive it can look for it in your SPAM or JUNK or BULK folders just in case…and so you’ll get the update if you’re not receiving email from us.

Don’t hesitate to post your comments here relating YOUR horror stories receiving the emails we’re sending as we prepare to begin the Experiment!

Here’s the email I sent out to all participants March 17:

SUBJECT: Are You Ready To Help Save Email?

Hello and thanks again for your participation in the Great Email Experiment! Exitement is building — with due reason. We’re trying to gather together as many people as possible to make the experiment carry real clout with major media. When they publish our results, they’ll help drive MILLIONS of people away from lousy Email service providers and to the good ones we’ve identified through the experiment.

This will help improve email service through market pressure — the best way to get things done in the business world.

The experiment gets underway March 24, 2008. Watch your email box for further instructions and notices leading up to starting day.

The instructions are simple:

Whitelist or add to your “accepted senders” folder the following email address:

TheGreatEmailExperiment@postmaster.goldbar.net

During the Experiment, we’ll send you three emails per week for two weeks, between March 24 and April 7. Each email will also be posted on http://www.GreatEmailExperiment.com, a blog we’ve set up just for posting each of the messages.

You should visit the blog daily over the two weeks of the Experiment, so you’ll know when we’ve posted a new email. To avoid having to visit the blog daily, you can download a special software program we’ve written. We’ll give you a link where you can download the program by March 24th, if not before. The software will place a tiny icon in your desktop system tray that blinks each time the Great Email Experiment blog is updated. You can click the icon to read the latest message that’s been sent. Then the icon will stop blinking, until the next update has been placed on the blog.

Just check the email address you used when you signed up for the Experiment each time we send one of the six emails … also check any “junk” or “spam” folders associated with your address.

If the email arrived in your “in” box — do nothing.

If it wound up in your “junk” or “spam” folder, or if it didn’t arrive at all,just visit a special survey page and enter the date, the name of your Internet Service Provider or Email Service provider, and whether the email landed in your “junk” or “spam” folder — or didn’t arrive at all.

It’s point-and-click simple.

Please be honest in your responses on the survey! This is the data we’ll be sending to the media after we’ve compiled it. Only visit and fill out a survey form if you failed to receive one of the Exepriment emails, or if one of the Experiment emails lands in your “junk” or “spam” folder.

We’ll post each message we send to you during the Experiment on the blog. Each message posted will include links to some great gifts our promotional partners have provided, to reward you for your participation and help with this bold project. There will be a new set of gifts with each of the six emails throughout the Experiment.

NOTE: During the Experiment, visit the blog at http://www.GreatEmailExperiment.com to get the links for all gifts associated with each email we send to you. Gift links will not be included in the actual email sent to your email address. We don’t want to include links in the emails we’re sending as part of the Experiment.

We’ll send you the link to the survey page when we send you the link to download the special blog reader software we’ve designed just for use with The Great Email Experiment. You’ll receive both of these by March 24, 2008 or sooner.

Also — the blog at http://www.EmailHorrorStories.com is now open! Go ahead and post your personal email horror stories! We want to hear how a missed email might have cost you money, caused a misunderstanding or confusion or otherwise had an undesireable effect on your life, whether you sent the email that wasn’t received, or you failed to receive an important email you were expecting.

That’s all for now! I just wanted to keep you updated.

— Alan R. Bechtold, president/CEO
BBS Press Service, Inc.

We’re just one week away from launching The Great Email Experiment. Over the two weeks that follow, we’ll gather specific information about the quality of service being offered by a large number of Email Service Providers.

While we’re waiting for the Experiment to get underway, let’s share “war stories.” Personal or business. Have you ever experienced difficulty sending or receiving email? Did a missed email ever cause you some misery or misfortune or embarrassment? Are you having problems receiving the emails from us ABOUT the Great Email Experiment?

Let out your frustration and share your tale of woe. Together maybe we can exchange ideas and come up with creative solutions for current email deliverability problems I never thought of.