Bounced emails to Craigslist

[GatorRichard]

We are receiving high volumes of emails regarding bounces from Craiglist. We are aware of the issue and I contacted Craigslist yesterday to find out more information. I'm not sure what caused this but it is a new development that started sometime over the weekend.

Unfortunately, this is affecting all customers emailing to @craigslist.org and we currently have no work-around. I believe they are blocking the gateway servers but I am not entirely sure and will not be until they reply to my email.

There is currently no ETA on a resolution but this thread will be updated once I get more information, if I do get more. The last time we had this issue, I received no correspondence from the Craigslist staff and the problem fixed itself.

[GatorRichard]

So far, two days and two more emails to Craigslist and zero replies from them. This is what happened last time we had an issue like this. I'm going to try and contact them again today.

[whitewavedesigns]

Status yet?

[GatorRichard]

So far, I've fired off a few emails and called the number listed in their WHOIS but neither have gotten me anywhere. Either CL has no one checking their abuse@/spam@ email addresses or they simply aren't going to assist in fixing this issue.

[TeeJa]

When I run into something like this, where they want to ignore you, a registered letter from a Lawyer will sometimes work??

[mimi43]

Our local tv station ran a story saying that cl has a new filter program designed to filter out objectionable content. Maybe it their new filter that is bouncing the emails.

[techboywi]

Originally Posted by mimi43

Our local tv station ran a story saying that cl has a new filter program designed to filter out objectionable content. Maybe it their new filter that is bouncing the emails.

The report, if it is the same, or similar to the one I saw was referring to posts on their message boards and not to email. It is highly unlikely that HG's mail to abuse@ or spam@ would be filtered out

[txitcs]

I tend to send 10-15 emails to people on craigslist per day...this is hendering my business.

I may have to switch web hosts just because of this, which I'd hate to do. =\

[slapshotw]

What if you use your ISP's SMTP server, instead of the the Hostgator outgoing?

[GatorRichard]

UPDATE

Finally got an email back from one of CL's staffers and they sent me a rather large (re: HUGE) list of people that were 'spamming' ads on Craigslist. It looks like most of these emails are from something called Craigslist Optimizer, which is supposed to be non-imposing but is essentially a giant spam mailer.

I'm working to contact many of these people and to get Craigslist to whitelist us.

[gwyneth]

Originally Posted by GatorRichard

UPDATE

Finally got an email back from one of CL's staffers and they sent me a rather large (re: HUGE) list of people that were 'spamming' ads on Craigslist. It looks like most of these emails are from something called Craigslist Optimizer, which is supposed to be non-imposing but is essentially a giant spam mailer.

I'm working to contact many of these people and to get Craigslist to whitelist us.

I was wondering if this was the case. BTW, in answer to a forum question a couple of months ago, GatorWesley said that doing this was grounds for hosting account suspension.

[GatorRichard]

Originally Posted by gwyneth

I was wondering if this was the case. BTW, in answer to a forum question a couple of months ago, GatorWesley said that doing this was grounds for hosting account suspension.

And Wes was quite right. I've been looking into many of these emails that Craigslist has forwarded us and while they may not seem like spam to whomever sent them, Craigslist has in fact labeled them as spam and we are forced to suspend the account(s) responsible. The only problem is they sent us a TON of these emails, I believe the single sample I got has about 1000 emails in it alone.

[gwyneth]

Originally Posted by GatorRichard

And Wes was quite right. I've been looking into many of these emails that Craigslist has forwarded us and while they may not seem like spam to whomever sent them, Craigslist has in fact labeled them as spam and we are forced to suspend the account(s) responsible. The only problem is they sent us a TON of these emails, I believe the single sample I got has about 1000 emails in it alone.

This is the thread, which was about posting ads there:

Suspended Because of Advertising ?

[yegg57]

Originally Posted by gwyneth

This is the thread, which was about posting ads there:

Suspended Because of Advertising ?

I tried clicking on that link and got an error message saying:
yegg57, you do not have permission to access this page. This could be due to one of several reasons:

how can one read this info?

Thanks,
Charley

[RainbowViper]

You're still in the "Awaiting Activation" group, which has restricted access.

Once you're in the main member's group, you'll have full access to all the forums.

[GatorRichard]

UPDATE

This no longer seems to be an issue with Craigslist. I emailed them about whitelisting but received no response but I notice that most, if not all, emails are now going through.

This thread will now be closed.

[GatorRichard]

UPDATE

The problems with Craigslist have returned. Many users are receiving the bounce back/failure notification of:

208.82.236.161 does not like recipient.
Remote host said: 558 5.7.1 : Client host rejected: Blocked_due_to_excessive_spam_complaints. xabd-389 Giving up on 208.82.236.161.

I believe this to be due to the same issue as before: people spamming Craigslist. I have recently taken steps to suspend to Craigslist spammers but this problem seems to have started overnight or early today.

No ETA as of yet but I'm working on it.

[GatorRichard]

UPDATE

No word from Craigslist despite emailing a few different people. However, the last two days have produced a much lower failure rate than on the 25th. I have only had one report of failed email today and none from yesterday.

Emails to Craigslist may be spotty but do seem to be working.

[RedDem0n]

Thank you for the update, I was wondering why all my emails were being rejected from craigslist.

[GatorRichard]

UPDATE

I finally got an email back from Craigslist in reply to my email sent on 25 March 2009. They gave me a list of users that were legitimately spamming CL and which I had already informed them I had taken care of. I am now waiting for them to remove the blocks.