I just ordered 3 new servers from an ISP and port 25 is blocked on all 3. What should my course of action be? Do I ask them to unblock the port? How do I ask? Ask for a refund? Any help would be appreciated.
You ask them to open up the port. They will ask you why. You will then tell them why. Some will give you a lecture about mailing, abuse, and alike. Otherwise will tell you to GFY. If the latter, you get a refund and seek your entertainment elsewhere. If the former, you try and use clean data and keep your grief to a dull roar. While many ISP's claim they do not allow mailers, almost all do. Some will have a form for you to sign about best mailing practices. However, the cash and conditions must be right. You pay more, or you keep your complaints low, are compliant, etc.. You will only really run into problems if you are a churn and burn client. You plan to scorch earth their IP blocks, and just jump off to the next host leaving them a big fuck you. If you are about long term relationships, and keeping off the radar (excessive complaints, SBL's, alike), you should be fine anywhere you go. Good luck. :eating:
A big factor is the frequency of the complaints as they come in. e.g. your server is provisioned today and tomorrow you have a complaint, you're done for. Most ISPs know how to "nip in the bud" and will assume if complaints are coming in that fast in 24 hours, it's only going to get worse.
Very true. If you get the occasional complaint, most ISP's honestly do not give a rat's ass. That is assuming you handle it in 24 hours, and remove them from your list, and it stops happening. If the same complaints keep rolling in, or you are racking up 10-20+ a day, you're going to get terminated or suspended. Some ISP's will give you a break, simply suspending you for a couple of days or a week. Which allows you to fix your shit, cool off the IP's and resume. Others will terminate you outright depending on the severity. That being said, in the end it comes down to the relationships you have with the ISP's assuming you are clean, or trying. Those who just churn and burn, torch the IP's, start racking up mad complaints and SBL's before jumping to the new host will typically not be able to keep boxes live. That is just an attrition game more a less...a race against time to termination. From the ISP perspective, they are just being used and abused. The ISP is a business like any other. If you are looking for long term relationships, and keeping the gold mine open, they will continue to work with you. That's assuming the abuse is not excessive or you are doing a lot of bad shit. But if you reek more havoc then it's worth, they will terminate it like any business relationship. Once you understand this, it makes it a lot easier dealing with ISP's in general.
Thanks for the advice. I guess I will ask for a refund. This host now forces all customers to send through their email relay service. They limit you to 1000 emails per day.
Did you ever get the issue resolved. I'm curious who the host is/was. It's difficult to say whether hosting providers are just being protective of their network from a hack perspective or from an AUP / Complaint perspective. They like to blur the lines.
In general, Port25 blocks enable a cautious ISP to just blanket-lock their IPs.. they know a mailer will contact them to unblock, and hence, they can keep an eye on those ranges and react quickly if need be. Glad to see you got your refund, hopefully if enough of these occurrences happen they'll rethink this idiotic procedure.
Good to hear. It sounds like a new policy in the past year. I can't recall that in the past. :stoned:
