Tiscali emails to gmail accounts are going into spam (again!)

[JohnRandCo]

Our tiscali emails, when sent to regularly used and well known gmail accounts, are ending up in spam. This has happened in the past after talktalk upgrades seem to have affected settings. I note that other people have recently reported tiscali emails to gmail not arriving, but I think they are probably in spam. First noticed on 20th Feb but could be related to the email update by Talktalk on 15th Feb referenced on Twitter.

[AlanF4]

I understand ... but that must mean

a. every talktalk customer is impacted, as gmails algorithm is based on the domain name, until recipients white list contacts

b. every customer of every ISP in the UK must be impacted in the same as all the major service providers will exceed the 3/1000 threshold?

I guess in theory every service provider could follow gmail and apply the same threshold which would then mean just about ever email including those from gmail would be directed to spam!

That of course doesn't help customers of service providers. I had an email from a contact at the weekend asking when they were going to receive some information I had promised to send. I had to find a different way to contact them and suggest the info was in their spam folder ... it was. Apparently this was the first 'good email' which had gone into their spam folder this year which again doesn't make sense as emails form other service providers should also be impacted the same way.

Meanwhile I suspect many of us will be migrating to an email provider that doesn't have this problem. Ultimately your customers will choose.

[Gondola]

The Gmail notification is DIRECTLY RELATED TO the issue. It is an incredibly low threshold for spam. Particularly when one business user reported that 80% of spam incoming to their business was spam from Gmail addresses. But Gmail don't dump their own mail into spam which is somewhat two faced.

Gmail counter all criticism by saying they're keeping spam out of Gmail user Inboxes.

[AlanF4]

So Googles notification is unrelated to the issue. Seems like a low threshold for spam ... presumably other ISP's are in the boat?  Definitely sounds like the industry needs working with gmail on this one. Obviously frutsrtaion on the part of Talktalk and other ISP customers but I would imagine Googles customers must also be pretty frustrated if lots of emails from contacts are going into Spam?

[Gondola]

You're not a bulk sender and neither is TalkTalk because all individual mail sent from the TalkTalk servers is a personal mail message. Even mail for distribution lists is limited in numbers of recipients because TalkTalk Mail is a residential mail service i.e. low personal volume mail.

So, just because TalkTalk servers send more than 5,000 messages a day for personal users Gmail is classifying TalkTalk in the same category as bulk senders / mass mailers. And if more than 3 in 1000 messages sent get marked as spam by Gmail users so Gmail reserve the right to dump the lot into Spam folders. So you tell me why TalkTalk's personal mail users are being treated with such disrespect by Google!

[AlanF4]

Why and how would this notification from Google regarding email impact emails sent by myself? I send no more than 6 emails a day to gmail addresses to definitely not considered a bulk sender.

[strider57]

Its not bulk emails that are being put into spam. Its ALL emails. 

Anyway, this is a waste of time. The regulators can decide. As it stands, tiscali domain users have a non functioning email facility that they are paying for. Let the regulators decide if thats reasonable or not. Its pointless going round in circles on here., my complaints have been accepted so we will see what happens and in any case once Ive got it sorted, its bye bye to talk talk, thank god. Im sure we will not miss each other.

[Gondola]

To reinforce Ady, all Gmail users were notified from October 2023 that the new Gmail policy would come into force in February 2024.

[strider57]

This just goes round in circles. Talk Talk tinkered with the email system in February. Tiscali domain users lost their emails for a period and now all emails are being treated as spam by gmail. Those are the facts. It was caused by Talk Talk. There can be no argument about that - it was fine before and now it doesnt work. You can twist and wriggle as much as you like, but whatever Talk Talk did caused the problem.

So instead of denying there is a problem and putting the onus on the customer to sort it out, why not do something about it in conjunction with gmail. 

If you cant do that, why not put a notice on the website and social media to highlight the problem for tiscali domain users. How hard can that be? Make it a service issue and tell people. Then gmail users might see it and check their spam folders although its a long shot. 

But do something instead of just denying there is an issue! 

The complaints manager I spoke to last week claimed that he had never heard of this and no one else had reported a problem! 

[Ady-TalkTalk]

TalkTalk mail does go to Gmail. It simply is being directed into spam by Gmail, you can still access it and read it normally.  Why would we spam all customers to tell them something that in all reality doesn't affect 99 percent of them. Aside from that less than 8 percent of those we message will even open the mail, so it would be ineffective. 

I hope that helps clear up the situation.

Ady

[strider57]

Tell me this - why can talk talk not contact all their customers and put a notice out on the website to say that tiscali domains cannot send to gmail addresses? How hard would that be to do? I mean, if theres nothing they can do about it, at least they could let their paying customers know of the problem, surely?

I know, you are going to say tell the gmail recipient that its not spam and to mark it as such. I ran that one past my labrador and he spotted the flaw in that. But they are clever dogs, to be fair.  

[Gondola]

TalkTalk are not "directing your mail to Gmail spam folders". TalkTalk are sending outgoing mail fully authenticated and expect to see that mail being delivered to recipient Inboxes. 

For any recipients that tell you your mail got dumped by Gmail into the Spam folder you can kindly ask them to select that mail message and select the Report as not spam button that will tell Gmail to do the right thing in future and place your future messages in the recipient's Inbox.

[Keith90]

I'm experiencing the same problem that I detected a month or so ago, but have only just worked out that the "automatically directed to spam" is specific to gmail. Still happening on 8th April 24

[Ady-TalkTalk]

Hi AlanF4, TT has addressed this issue. Support staff however can only provide honest answers and manage customer expectations. 

Ady

[AlanF4]

How widespread is the problem? If a high  number of TT customers are experiencing the problem TT will undoubtedly lose customers and  it will impact customer satisfaction ratings resulting in fewer new customers. i.e. it could have a financial impact in which cases senior TT personnel should be in contact with Google to get the problem resolved even threatening legal action if necessary.. While TT' s tech staff can't resolve the issue TT as an organisation can still address it. Has the problem been escalated to TT senior leadership?

[Ady-TalkTalk]

Unfortunately on this occasion its not our fault and there's nothing we can do to fix this.

Ady

[Luf92]

I have lots of contacts on gmail too,  Alan, as I organise several groups. I have given up on tiscali/TalkTalk after the funeral email was not received and now do the same as you - send all my emails from gmail, but this defeats part of the object of being on TalkTalk. The problem between TalkTalk and gmail happened a while ago as well for a short time but seemed to be solved. This time, it hasn't been solved and it's been going on for weeks, so I give up on TalkTalk.

[AlanF4]

Hi, yes I think contacts are doing that butI have a lot of contacts with gmail accounts so it is fairly laborious. As mentioned I've switched to sending emails from my own gmail account rather than my tiscali account, these are getting through OK.

[Luf92]

Been happening for several weeks and it's a disaster! Most of the people I know are on gmail so they have missed meetings I've booked and even the funeral of a mutual friend.

[Gondola]

Hi Alan

Kindly ask your recipient to select your message in the Gmail Spam folder and then select the Report as Not spam button. She'll get a pop up indicating that by marking as Not spam then all your future messages will be delivered to the Gmail Inbox.

[AlanF4]

I'm sending my emails from an email client, either Thunderbird on my PC or Bluemail on tablet and phone. I don't use webmail. Just had a gmail recipient tell me she's found an email I sent a few days ago in her spam folder.