Emails not getting to several members

[russellhltn]

I’ve never been able to get emails to yahoo.com to work. They’ve always been rejected for at least 12 years on various wards and callings.

I notice the email domain on your account is unusual. Do other members of your ward/stake with "normal" domains have the same issue?

[kellymab]

Yep! I had the YW secretary send out emails and they had to individually send emails to yahoo emails. They had a Gmail email address.

[ambldsorg]

Yep! I had the YW secretary send out emails and they had to individually send emails to yahoo emails. They had a Gmail email address.

Those who are not able to receive the emails directly from LCR "Send a Message" will need to contact Global Services Department to get it resolved.

For yourself (kellymab), you should be able to contact the GSD and get this resolved. Have you done that yet? Actually, I just realized that I misunderstood what you were saying earlier. You said that you weren't able to get emails "to yahoo.com", which I suppose really means that "you as the sender" have been unable to use LCR to send emails to certain folks with Yahoo addresses. Again, I suggest that those people who are unable to receive the messages contact GSD. It's the only way it can be resolved if they want to continue using the email address that they currently have for Church communications.

[kellymab]

Those who are not able to receive the emails directly from LCR "Send a Message" will need to contact Global Services Department to get it resolved.

We did contact GSD, they were the ones who told us yahoo blocks the emails. There was nothing they could do because on their end all the emails are sent. The irony was when my secretary who had a yahoo address couldn’t get the emails she sent herself. We were told it’s a known issue and yahoo refused to unblock lcr emails. Most people don’t use yahoo emails anymore or see the pattern.

[ambldsorg]

We did contact GSD, they were the ones who told us yahoo blocks the emails.

Did you ask for evidence or other kinds of proof that Yahoo is blocking those specific email addresses?

For example, an actual bounce message that occurred when there was a delivery attempt made to Yahoo from the LCR "Send a Message" mechanism? If yes, what did the Yahoo failure message claim was the reason for rejection?

We were told it’s a known issue and yahoo refused to unblock lcr emails.

How long ago was this? It's possible that at one time (perhaps over 7 years ago) there were serious deliverability problems to Yahoo and Yahoo may have blocked some messages, but I highly doubt that's the case now.

If you were recently told this, then, I think you should reopen the issue with GSD. LCR has gone through some major fixes to address some of these issues and I find it unlikely that Yahoo is still blocking email messages. I would pressure GSD to dig into it more rather than just spreading the "common knowledge" that Yahoo refuses to unblock LCR because I think it's misinformation.

Keep in mind that LCR uses Amazon SES to send out emails, and I would be really surprised if Yahoo is blocking that or is somehow singling out member email addresses. I've documented what I believe to be the most likely cause of email deliverability issues that members are experiencing here:

viewtopic.php?t=45138

[sbradshaw]

Keep in mind that LCR uses Amazon SES to send out emails, and I would be really surprised if Yahoo is blocking that or is somehow singling out member email addresses.

I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of members (especially less-active members, but also active members in wards whose leaders send emails too frequently) mark emails from the Church as spam. If a lot of people mark emails from a specific email address as spam (like the email address "noreply-lcr@mail.churchofjesuschrist.org", which is used for LCR messages), it would be reasonable for Yahoo or other companies to block it. Yahoo's loyalty is to its customers with email accounts, not to companies or organizations who are trying to send emails. There would be no singling out of members' email addresses – what would be singled out is the "from" email address, noreply-lcr@mail.churchofjesuschrist.org, which sends mass emails to people who may or may not want them.

[ambldsorg]

If a lot of people mark emails from a specific email address as spam (like the email address "noreply-lcr@mail.churchofjesuschrist.org", which is used for LCR messages), it would be reasonable for Yahoo or other companies to block it.

This is a fair point.

All the more reason why LCR needs to make email delivery failures more visible to those who are sending emails instead of an obscure message that states "The recipients below were rejected by the server. Please verify their email addresses". If LCR were to provide actual bounce messages or delivery status notifications that include the real reason given by Yahoo or other companies for the reason why the message is failing to be delivered, then something could actually be done about it. But leaving things the way they are---as an extremely opaque mechanism---just exacerbates the problem.

I do know at least one person who uses Yahoo and is still receiving local ward and stake messages, which suggests to me that Yahoo does in fact not block noreply-lcr@mail.churchofjesuschrist.org. If they did, no Yahoo users would be able to receive the messages. Regarding the noreply-lcr address... it's actually just a From header, and not the actual envelope delivery address that is used during SMTP and which Yahoo or other companies might use to block messages. The actual address looks more like:

Code: Select all

01000c106306cfa0-ed0eb3b9-ae2d-45d0-889b-68e4849b9b92-000000@ses.mail.churchofjesuschrist.org

Again, Yahoo could block *@ses.mail.churchofjesuschrist.org but then no Yahoo users would be able to receive Church communications. As far as I know, this is not the case.

Furthermore, most Big Corp Mail Provider don't actually reject email when a user utilizes the "This is spam" function; what they actually do is just blackhole further email communications from the sender so they don't show up in the inbox.

I'm still inclined to believe that the most likely cause of the failures is the account-level Amazon SES Suppression List, and not Yahoo. And given that the Church uses Amazon SES and has control of their account and relationship with Amazon SES, it should be possible for these members to at least confirm whether or not their addresses are on the suppression list and request that they be removed.

Yahoo's loyalty is to its customers with email accounts,

They have customers? I don't know of anyone who actually pays Yahoo for email services.

Joking aside, it's in Yahoo's best interest to not wantonly block emails in this fashion because then their "customers" will abandon their service.