Hotmail Spam Filters

order confirmations sent to junk

[iJeep]

My site (like most others out there) automatically sends order confirmations and tracking numbers via e-mail.

I just noticed that Hotmail is sending these to users junk mail folder. I don't understand why or what I can do about it. They are just text messages.

Has anybody else ran into this?

[Essex_boy]

Yep sure ive had this happen to, go into your junk mail and click this is not junk button. End of problem.

I have also noticed this happening when I delete the orders before reading them, lesson learnt?

[iJeep]

So is the problem happening just in my mail box or all of my customers?

[Herath]

A lot of hotmail users use the "high" junk filter that will check to see if your e-mail ID is in the user's address book and if not it goes to Junk. We can't do much about it.

Also watch what you say in your subject. We simply say "Order Confirmation #".

Also, next to the e-mail field in your order placement form say "Please try to avoid free e-mail addresses (ie. hotmail)"

[jsinger]

Spam filters are worse than worthless. Just a marketing gimmick by ISPs and the like. Been using Eudora 6.0 for a month and keep finding vital emails in my junk file.

Wonder how many newbies never look thru the "junk" to pick out the important stuff.

[iJeep]

I agree. I think that spam filters can easily cause more harm than good. I would rather get a little spam than miss important messages.

I just started using Mozilla Thunderbird as my e-mail client this week. So far I have been extremely impressed with it. Especially the Junk Mail feature.

[ecommworker]

I have ran into the same problem. I can't understand why it is happening. It obviously isn't spam if the person on the other side ordered. Spam filters really need to be re-worked to help businesses trying to make an honest living.

[Sunshyn]

We've been having this problem with order confirmations. Worse than that, it's been happening to the individual emails we send when there's a problem with an order as well as with responses to customer questions. About mid-October it suddenly seemed that almost no hotmail messages were getting through. It may have been happening before that, but I noticed because it really screwed up a number of customers time sensitive Halloween orders.

[toddski07]

ijeep-

I can relate to your problem/worries. For one of my clients we added a "NOTICE" in big red text on the confirmation page that says they will be receiving a confirmation email(and other emails) from the company and the from email address would be "[e-mail]"...kind of giving them a heads up. We added some text to explain that sometimes the emails can be incorrectly sent to a "Junk" or "Spam" folder. If they don't receive the confirmation email within X hours to make sure they check these folders for the email. etc. etc.

Todd

[sem4u]

The problem is that some users set the settings to such as high level that all messages apart from those on the safe list go straight to the junk mail folder.

[Sunshyn]

Ironically enough, I just ran across an excerpt in PC Magazine called "Hotmail Unspammed" (I was rather disappointed to learn that it did not concern measures being taken to keep spammers from using Hotmail). However, it did mention that the default page for the service now only contains emails from *known* senders. I don't have a Hotmail account so don't know how it is organized, but I bet there are plenty of users who wouldn't even notice that that wasn't their entire in-box.

[derekwong28]

I got round this problem by using Group Mail Pro. You must use your own smtp server, and do not use express mode.

[jweighell]

I use Hotmail for my personal mail and I've given up using the Junk Mail filter. The number of times I've missed mail as it put it in my junk mail folder! I mean, what's the point in having a junk mail folder if I need to check it every days to make sure that the filter has done it's job correctly! I find it easier for it all to go to my inbox and then use the 'Junk' button, that way I don't miss anything and I can normally tell from the subject what is junk.