emails to yahoo addresses are being treated as spam

[mikes2400]

When I send emails from my Virgin email account (blueyonder.co.uk) to two different Yahoo users they are suddenly going straight into their Spam Folders, not their Inbox. They are perfectly normal emails with no attachments or links, and It's not happening with emails to other addresses.

I suspect that only Yahoo can fix this, but is there anything that Virgin could do about this situation?

[mikes2400]

That was what I was going to do originally - I knew Virgin would be unlikely to pursue it. But I found that Yahoo Customers Serice seem to be only contactable by their own customers - they ask for a Yahoo email reference. But if you can find a way then that would certainly help.

[Dodiegale1]

You are right that it is difficult to complain to Yahoo through their website, even if you do have an account with them. I ended up contacting them through their Yahoo Customer Care Twitter account. They immediately replied and asked me to DM them. They showed me how to label the spam message from Blueyonder as not spam so that it was moved to the inbox on my Yahoo account.  That worked fine and a subsequent Blueyonder message went straight into my Yahoo inbox, not into spam.  However, then I was told to tell my Yahoo recipients to do the same. I pointed out that this seemed to be a widespread problem and couldn’t Yahoo do something centrally. Surely they wanted to rectify the problem? No reply to that…

However, they also suggested that my Blueyonder account might be a suspicious account and emails were going into spam on Yahoo accounts because so many people had marked my emails as spam. This is a ludicrous suggestion. It is a private account, not a business one, and the recipients affected are close friends.  It looks as if this problem started after July 30 but before August 17. I can only suggest that other people affected should also contact Yahoo Customer Care on Twitter. Perhaps if enough of us do this, Yahoo will realise they have a problem with Virgin Blueyonder email…

[mikes2400]

Marking emails as 'Not Spam' doesn't seem to make any difference. The problem is that their spam filter system needs to be improved (which will probably never happen). Like you, my emails are totally innocuous - normal emails with nothing even remotely suspicious and no links or attachments.

I 'm not on Twitter, otherwise I would post something. But in the end if Yahoo is a rubbish email service then there's little we can do about it.

[Zach_R]

Hi @Dodiegale1,
 

Thank you for your posts. I am really sorry to hear that this is happening.

If a Yahoo email account is sending emails into its spam filter then that's something you would need to direct to Yahoo directly I'm afraid. As they're a third party we'd be unable to control their spam filters.

Thanks,
 

[Dodiegale1]

Hi Zach

Thank you for getting back to me.

I realise this is a problem that Yahoo will have to solve but I suspect Virgin Blueyonder would have a lot more clout to get them to look into this than individuals like me. Surely it affects Virgin? I am now going to have to use a different account from my Blueyonder one to email any recipients with Yahoo accounts.

I'm not sure how widespread this problem is. I only discovered it because the recipients are close friends and I knew they would normally have replied. That's when I came across this thread on your forum. There could be a lot more people who have no idea this is happening, especially Virgin users whose accounts are used more for business. Has Virgin tested it themselves?

All the best

Dodie

[Hayley_S]

Hello @Dodiegale1,

I am sorry for the inconvenience. 

Please do let us know how it goes when you have contacted Yahoo regarding this.

Many thanks,

[ravenstar68]

Hi 

I'm not a Virgin Media employee, but I would like to see if I can help get to the bottom of this.

Would you be willing to send me an email to two addresses I use, one owned by me personally and one a yahoo address?
I want to capture the mail headers and see what they tell me.

Tim

[jimgironde]

I have just seen this thread.

I had started a thread some days back because emails I have been sending to particular relatives have been going to spam.

I am blueyonder and I have just checked recipients email and it is Yahoo! They have marked not spam but still it happens.

I will watch this thread with interest and happy to provide any input. 

[Dodiegale1]

Hi Hayley

Thank you for getting back to me. I have already contacted Yahoo. This is the result (from Wednesday):

"...it is difficult to complain to Yahoo through their website, even if you do have an account with them. I ended up contacting them through their Yahoo Customer Care Twitter account. They immediately replied and asked me to DM them. They showed me how to label the spam message from Blueyonder as not spam so that it was moved to the inbox on my Yahoo account.  That worked fine and a subsequent Blueyonder message went straight into my Yahoo inbox, not into spam.  However, then I was told to tell my Yahoo recipients to do the same. I pointed out that this seemed to be a widespread problem and couldn’t Yahoo do something centrally. Surely they wanted to rectify the problem? No reply to that…

However, they also suggested that my Blueyonder account might be a suspicious account and emails were going into spam on Yahoo accounts because so many people had marked my emails as spam. This is a ludicrous suggestion. It is a private account, not a business one, and the recipients affected are close friends.  It looks as if this problem started after July 30 but before August 17. I can only suggest that other people affected should also contact Yahoo Customer Care on Twitter. Perhaps if enough of us do this, Yahoo will realise they have a problem with Virgin Blueyonder email…"

A couple of people on the forum have said that, even though they have marked items as not spam, it is still happening. I've just tested my own accounts again and it does seem to have worked in my case. However, it is just not practical to ask all my Yahoo recipients to go into their spam accounts and do this.

Any help from Virgin (maybe carrying out tests themselves to see how widespread the problem is?) would be much appreciated

All good wishes

Dodie

[mikes2400]

It is disappointing that Virgin continue to maintain the line that it is nothing to do with them and that it is Yahoo's problem. Speaking to the two Yahoo customers that I email, it's clear that it is only Virgin emails that are being treated as spam. So the problem IS a Virgin problem as well as a Yahoo one. Or don't Virgin think it matters how their customers are treated?