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Bluehost Keeps Blocking Our Emails...

by Khovai
7 replies
If it were up to me, I'd move to Site5 or Rackspace but unfortunately, the person paying the bills really likes Bluehost for whatever unknown reason.

We're using GetResponse to send out newsletters to people who have manually opted in to client websites. However, every time we send out a newsletter, Bluehost blocks that account's capability to send out emails.

Then, we have to spend hours convincing Bluehost that they indeed blocked email and it takes being escalated through 3-4 different service reps every single time for them to finally submit it to the spam team to unblock the account.

Yes, we're following the CAN spam act
Yes, every single person who is being emailed for a client has manually opted in to receive newsletters
Our spam score on GetResponse is under 1%

This is ridiculous. Companies send out mass emails to their opt ins all the time without issue. Has anyone else run into this? I'm trying to figure out a solution since he refuses to move away from this garbage hosting service.

The service is ridiculously slow, the customer support is utterly incompetent, they're removing features off cPanel every month like PHP config (why...?), we can't access cPanel from the reseller UI anymore and if a site gets hacked, they'll lock the site and refuse to unlock it so you can clean it so they can charge you $200 to "clean" it.

Don't pay for it. They don't actually clean it, the software they run to scan for malware is hilariously bad.
#blocking #bluehost #emails
  • Profile picture of the author DIABL0
    The client could simply change who they use to send/receive email with, while keeping bluehost for hosting everything else.
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  • Profile picture of the author Steve B
    Maybe you're mailing against their terms of service? Have you taken the time to see specifically what your plan allows? Are you sending too many emails all at once? Are you sending out under multiple "from" addresses?

    There are lots of possibilities here.

    If you have issues, you need to deal with the company. People on this discussion forum aren't trained to answer your support questions as they know nothing about your account, your hosting plan, the emails you're trying to send out, etc.

    Simply ranting about your problems typically isn't a good reason to start a thread since this really is a support issue.

    If you don't like the company, change or figure out the problems.

    That's my take on it.

    Steve
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  • Profile picture of the author Sid Hale
    Sounds to me like someone doesn't know what they are doing (and it's not Bluehost)...

    Originally Posted by Khovai View Post

    We're using GetResponse to send out newsletters to people who have manually opted in to client websites. However, every time we send out a newsletter, Bluehost blocks that account's capability to send out emails.

    Then, we have to spend hours convincing Bluehost that they indeed blocked email and it takes being escalated through 3-4 different service reps every single time for them to finally submit it to the spam team to unblock the account.
    It sounds like you are trying to send mail directly from your web server, rather than from your GetResponse autoresponder. Bluehost has NO ability to block outgoing mail from your GetResponse account, because they are simply never involved in the process. They never see an autoresponder series nor a broadcast mail that you are sending from GetResponse.
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    Sid Hale
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    • Profile picture of the author Digital Hustle
      Sid is exactly right.

      If you're mailing from GetResponse, Bluehost is none the wiser. I can't see how the blockage can be directly related to you sending out a newsletter.

      If you're on a shared hosting account, more often than not the server will get blacklisted due to some other users' email actions.

      What exactly does Bluehost do to resolve the issue? Do they literally say "OK, we've unblocked you" and it starts working immediately? Or do they let you know your email will be back up in X hours or so after they've "unblocked" you (which probably means they just delisted your server from a blacklist).

      Also, do you start seeing failure notices in your inbox? If so, they tell you the reason for the failure.
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  • Profile picture of the author deekay
    Hello

    If that's how things go then use your expert advice to the client and move to another hosting site. If not then continue working there if its his choice.

    Anyway a month or two he can have this same issues on mind and force to switch.

    Thanks
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  • Profile picture of the author Khovai
    It appears that what I was told was not exactly accurate.

    1) This company has been stealing emails from other website's opt in forms. When people use a contact form, the company I'm working with set up a re-direct on the backend to capture that email.
    2) They sent out a marketing email to 6,300 random people.

    Whelp, that's what I get for trusting someone's word who's known around here and highly respected in what they do.

    I'm not going to be investigating this anymore and I don't want to be around when they get fined thousands of dollars or worse.
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    • Profile picture of the author Sid Hale
      Hi Khovai,

      Originally Posted by Khovai View Post

      It appears that what I was told was not exactly accurate.
      Thanks for clarifying.


      So it turns out that the entire rant in your OP was directed at the wrong party, for all the wrong reasons... right?

      With only one exception, you made it sound like you were the harmed party.

      "We're using GetResponse..."
      "every time we send out a newsletter"
      "we have to spend hours..."
      "we're following the CAN spam act"
      "Our spam score..."

      But in reality, you were a contracted resource with only 3rd party involvement.

      If you were tasked with trying to resolve the issue of Bluehost blocking their outgoing mail, you should have spotted the incongruity of what the client was telling you right from the outset.

      Besides misleading other members here, your statements were libelous. Not the sort of thing you want to be doing based on 2nd hand information.


      I think you may be doing it again...
      1) This company has been stealing emails from other website's opt in forms. When people use a contact form, the company I'm working with set up a re-direct on the backend to capture that email.
      2) They sent out a marketing email to 6,300 random people.
      It sounds like they are probably using co-registration with the full knowledge of the other website. While I think the co-reg practice is probably in violation of the CAN-Spam act... it's not "stealing" if the other party is purposely "sharing" the opt-ins with you.
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