Friday, August 1, 2014

AOL Email Issue

For the past few days, emails from the Matrix system to AOL users have been blocked by AOL.  They have put us on their blacklist because too many Matrix emails have been marked as Spam within AOL.  Obviously, this can happen if the recipient physically marks the email as Spam.
 
Additionally, an email can be marked as spam by AOL when the To: and From: addresses are the same.  This happens if a Matrix user who has an AOL email address on file with CMLS send him/herself an email from Matrix to that same AOL address.  Emails that have the same address in the To: and From: fields is a big red flag and most email programs (not just AOL) see this as suspicious behavior and will automatically block it/mark it as Spam.  
 
A lot of Matrix users like to send themselves emails from Matrix first, and then forward those emails onto their customers.  This is likely a major contributor of us being blacklisted.  We strongly suggest that, if you still wish to vet the listings that you are sending your customers, set them up on Auto Email and use the Concierge feature- this sends you the email first, and you can pick and choose which listings get sent on to the Contact.  If you insist on sending the listings to yourself first and then forwarding them on to your customer, do not send to the same email address that you have on file at the CMLS.  Otherwise, we will continue to experience blacklist issues in the future.
 
At least for the short term, if you are trying to email someone at an AOL address, it will likely not arrive.  Try to get an alternate email address from them.
 
We appreciate your patience and cooperation.

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