Dolphin:
Sorry to have been so late in thanking you for that neat summation of Scarlet vs Gray last weekend. Ordinarily, my brother-in-law in Coshocton would have given me the scoop . . . and therein lies a tale . . . somewhat related to this thread.
Sorta, kinda, meybe a leetle OT
Beginning about 6 weeks ago, I was experiencing severe (and finally total) frustration with bounced e-messages I had dispatched to family members living in a small town in SE Ohio, whose local ISP is part of a larger entity called CoreComm Limited.
For some reason, CoreComm decided that my outgoing server’s IP address (SBC, ferheavenesake) was spamming SE Ohio. Riiight.
The principle buried in there is a hoary one: ‘Tis far, far better that 1000 innocents suffer than ever to allow 1 guilty person to go free.”
I checked with CoreComm’s Tech Support - - three times. Each person responding said they could do nothing (Huh?) it was, presumably, SBC’s responsibility. Mind you, CoreComm is the only ISP in the galaxy to bounce my several dozen daily e-messages.
With statements revealing, shall we say, questionable validity, I decided to follow my own advice, often suggested to friends with “problems” with corporations. “When in doubt, start at the top.”
I wrote the President/CEO, whose name and address was readily available on the 10K filing papers on the corporation's web site. I was absolutely polite, totally accurate, but also candid.
Result: the bouncing stopped within 5 days of my dispatching the letter to 57th Street in NYC.
Recommendation: Take heart. There are solutions out there, often starting where the power lies.