Sometimes I send email to people and they do not receive it. However, I use a "receipt" system to insure that email is sent correctly. Everytime I send you an email, a copy is sent by a parallel method to one of my mailboxes. This way I can be sure that the email really was sent to you. If you didn't receive an email, check again. First make sure you are looking at the email account whose address you gave me. Then check your folders, especially if you use some kind of sorting method. If you still cannot find it, consider that, if this is the first time, you may have misspelled your email address on the web form. Unlike some web pages which force you to write your email address twice to prevent errors, I'd rather not insult your intelligence that way. However, some people do make mistakes, or even forget their email address. If you gave me an incorrect email address, your email will bounce and I will then place your name and zipcode at the top of this list. You must email me again to give me the right email address.
In other cases, the email really is lost. In almost every case this is because your email provider
is using a "blackhole" spam blocker. If an incoming message
is deleted because it is thought to be spam, most spam blockers send a notice to the sender (me).
If I receive such a message, I try to send the email again, perhaps
using a different email server. However a "blackhole" spam blocker is different. Such spam blockers will
delete incoming email without sending a notice to either the sender or the receiver. This is
very bad, because you do not receive the email and I never know that my email was deleted - instead,
I incorrectly assume that you got the email and decided not to reply. If you made an order and were expecting an email
invoice, you would not receive it, and I never know that the invoice was deleted by your email service. "Blackhole"
spam blockers cause severe problems because they delete legitimate, non-spam emails that you wanted to receive.
I urge you to never, never rely on email from an email service which utilizes "blackhole" spam blocks. If more than
48 hours have passed since you placed an order or sent me an email which required a reply, it is likely that I did
reply but your email service destroyed the reply. If you think this might be the case, simply send me email saying
that you didn't receive the expected reply. I will then try to use alternate methods to try to get the email to
you, sending by other SMTP servers, or stripping out all html and exclamation marks and links, etc. But I will only
do this once, because it is a lot of trouble - if your email service is deleting incoming email meant for you without
notice, you are being deprived of email you have a right to receive. Change your email address to one
which does not use blackhole spam blocking, THEN write me and ask for me to change your account's email address
to the new one. I do not send spam, nor is spam sent from any of my SMTP servers. This is entirely the fault
of your email provider.
There are many email providers which use bad spam detectors or blackhole spam blocking. Some of the worst are:
If you have additional questions, please read the FAQ/Homepage completely. Most questions are answered there.
Barbara