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Tech-related mystery... or is it?

Sporadic Sparkly

For the past couple of days, there has been something that has been bugging me...

I have an e-mail account that I use specifically for personal e-mails (i.e. friends and family). To avoid incoming e-mails being mistaken for spam and ending up in a 'Junk' folder, my contacts are on a whitelist (AKA safe list).

A couple of days ago, I received an e-mail in my Inbox from one of my contacts. The e-mail included a harmless and legitimate link to a Youtube video. 

It then came to light that this same contact had sent several more e-mails containing links to other Youtube videos, only I never received them in my Inbox, or even in my 'Junk' folder. According to my contact, they had been notified by the 'Postmaster' that they were blocked. This left me feeling rather baffled, to say the least.

Whilst this contact is saved in my e-mail address book, I have no idea if they have my e-mail address saved in theirs. The only logical explanation I can think of as to why those e-mails were blocked is that my contact had misspelled my e-mail address when they had sent the additional e-mails.

Unfortunately, as I've not heard from this contact since, I cannot help but wonder if they think that I had actually blocked them. However, I would like to think that they know me well enough to realise that I just wouldn't do that.

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  • Sporadic Sparkly said:
    According to my contact, they had been notified by the 'Postmaster' that they were blocked.

    What has probably happened here is that one of the recipients of their emails has flagged it as spam which can trigger a blacklisting process where different email providers will stop accepting their emails for anyone.

    They effectively get blocked from being able to send emails which would explain why they they have gone silent on the email scene.

    That is what can happen now if you send out junk email like this - one grumpy recipient can lead to you becoming a digital ghost.

  • in reply to Iain

    Actually, I recall something similar many years ago with another contact, only it was my e-mails to them that were being rejected. Back then, the friend would e-mail me from their place of work using their work e-mail address.

    The company suddenly started being inundated with phone calls from people complaining that e-mails they were sending were being rejected. It turned out that the company e-mail address had been blacklisted due to the high volume of e-mails the company sent out.

    Whilst I'm not dismissing what you have said, I find it unlikely that a handful of e-mails containing Youtube links would have triggered a blacklisting process, because as far as I know, I'm the only person they have sent such e-mails to during the past 18 months.

  • in reply to Sporadic Sparkly

    Might be an attempt to hack your email.

    Usually anything sent by a 'friend' like that was because they clicked the link of an email sent to them.

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