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MailChimp deleted my account with no warning

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Re: MailChimp deleted my account with no warning

#121

Post by owaty »

ravenstine wrote: post #92
hippich wrote: post #13

To people mentioning public shaming. I had a mailing list with them removed with all contacts lost and account banned without even notifying me. Customer support indeed responded, but with something like your account was banned because you are involved into cryptocurrencies (i had hashcash.io - no selling or buying of crypto is even close) and we completely wiped all your data. Only after a hint about possible public…

How difficult was it to set up an SMTP server? I know that merely installing and configuring the software isn't that hard, but the common opinion of late seems to be that setting up things like MX records(I really don't even know how those work) is too onerous. If it's not that difficult, then there really should be fewer people/orgs relying on services like MailChimp.

Setting up MX records isn't hard at all but also irrelevant here—it's needed to receive mail.

As for sending out mail, one of the difficulties that MailChimp and similar services take care of is keeping the servers' IP addresses out of spam lists.

Re: MailChimp deleted my account with no warning

#122

Post by crankylinuxuser »

abc-xyz wrote: post #65
cmorgan31 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What drives the assumption that their mailing lists would always be available to you even if they went out of business or that they are almost perfectly secure? Is it due to standards set by large companies or just an idealized desire?

Because I assume they use Google/Amazon cloud services which are designed for 99.99999999% durability, just as I assume they often make backups (it's not like it would be expensive for them to backup mailing lists every hour or so). If they went out of business then I would also assume they would give customers at least several months to export their mailing lists. Edit: for some reason I'm not allowed to post new co…

Sure.. FAANG has insane 9 uptimes. Good for them.

What about when accounts are locked for users due to $reasons? What do those downtimes look like? I've heard enough horror stories to be wary of any one provider.

Re: MailChimp deleted my account with no warning

#124

Post by throwaway7312 »

Our business was on MailChimp years ago.

We were on a paid tier. In 2012 we decided to try sending our own email via arpReach + SES. Once we set this up we asked MailChimp how to pause our paid account. We wanted to stop sending email and return to a free account until we needed MailChimp again.

Their response was that there was no way to do that... I recall it being something like "we do not like" or "do not allow" customers to return to free accounts. You could either keep paying, or delete your account and everything in it.

We'd already moved our MailChimp-collected emails over to arpReach (on our own server). At that point, I just opted to delete our MailChimp account.

Everything was fine while we used them. But that strange incident left a really bad taste in my mouth; it was one I never forgot.

Re: MailChimp deleted my account with no warning

#125

Post by Thaxll »

Operyl wrote: post #117
Thaxll wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you comply with the link I sent?

Yes. It’s probably best to not assume malice here.

Sorry I don't believe you, the reason why is I worked in that industry and we definitely wouldn't close an account for a single complain or even many, for every email campaign there is a % of bounce rate / open / complain, obviously all those companies would be out of business if they would close accounts for complains. The only reason I see are those explained here: ( we had the same one )

https://mailchimp.com/legal/terms/#Rules_and_Abuse

Complains are normal business, people don't care if there is an unsub link they will complain no matter what.

So it's most likely not about the complain your account was shutdown but something else.

#1 content of your email

#2 compliance of the email ( unsub link ect ... )

#3 where / how did you acquired the emails

Re: MailChimp deleted my account with no warning

#126

Post by baldfat »

LanceH wrote: post #94
cmiller1 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lie "A lie is a statement used intentionally for the purpose of deception" I don't think you can prove it was a lie.

The company is set up to deliver a lie, even if the last person telling it is doing so unintentionally.

Mailchip seems to be in the wrong, but ignorance isn't the same as a lie.

I bet you people just assume or their manager doesn't know either.

Why was my account suspended -

https://mailchimp.com/help/why-accounts-get-suspended/

Re: MailChimp deleted my account with no warning

#127

Post by Operyl »

Thaxll wrote: post #125
Operyl wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. It’s probably best to not assume malice here.

Sorry I don't believe you, the reason why is I worked in that industry and we definitely wouldn't close an account for a single complain or even many, for every email campaign there is a % of bounce rate / open / complain, obviously all those companies would be out of business if they would close accounts for complains. The only reason I see are those explained here: ( we had the same one ) https://mailchimp.com/lega…

Are you speaking on behalf of MailChimp? Are you aware of their internal practices? Are you an official spokesperson? If so, I’d love an official response. Otherwise, I think there’s a ton of evidence here (from people I trust even) that disagrees with you.

1) project updates

2) in full compliance with their documentation

3) no preseeded list, users signed up on their own accord

Re: MailChimp deleted my account with no warning

#128

Post by thaumaturgy »

josefresco wrote: post #91
mkhalil wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Way to patronize someone trying to be self-sufficient. Just because you read blog posts titled "DON'T HOST YOUR OWN MAIL", doesn't mean you shouldn't. People are scared of hosting their own mail servers because they a) are told they shouldn't b) don't understand SMTP. I am all for decentralizing this hyper-centralized internet.

Sorry, I'm old enough to have come from the era of "DIY" mass emailing which transitioned (rightfully so) to using providers like Constant Contact/MailChimp. I've seen first hand the drawbacks of emailing thousands of people via your own SMTP server. Blacklists, legal threats, deliverability issues, proper unsubscribe, formatting etc. And this was early 00's when much of the legal framework around email marketing was…

I've provided "backyard" shared hosting for a handful of customers for about a decade, some of whom have mailing lists sizing up into a thousand recipients or so. I do encourage them to use proper mailing list services, but for the most part, shipping it all through my mail server works fine and there really aren't that many headaches.

Some basic good hygiene and some effort put into gently educating customers on how email works has gone a long way.

My biggest headache today is in receiving mail, not sending it. Because so many other people have followed advice like yours and jumped onto one crappy mail service or another, the originating network for an email is no longer a good signal for whether it's spam or not.

Re: MailChimp deleted my account with no warning

#129

Post by megous »

cmorgan31 wrote: post #79
abc-xyz wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because I assume they use Google/Amazon cloud services which are designed for 99.99999999% durability, just as I assume they often make backups (it's not like it would be expensive for them to backup mailing lists every hour or so). If they went out of business then I would also assume they would give customers at least several months to export their mailing lists. Edit: for some reason I'm not allowed to post new co…

Thanks for answering! I think your perspective is becoming more common. It's not like MailChimp is a start-up, so these assumptions aren't inherently crazy.

At some point people started expecting unreasonable things from random free services on the internet. I still think it's ridiculous.

I hope that in the future, schools will also teach some basics of computer hygiene in IT classes, and how to behave on the internet.

Things like what internet services are, why backups are important, and how to practically do them, how to evaluate risks when communicating on the internet, how people are harmed on the internet (typical scams, phishing, running untrusted programs, ransomware,...), what privacy is on the internet, how to choose passwords, etc.

Re: MailChimp deleted my account with no warning

#130

Post by discreditable »

elliekelly wrote: post #102
chrisshroba wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a good starting point is to take the existing process and add a more formal appeals process for people who feel their accounts were unjustly terminated.

My little sister works in customer support for a fairly large email marketing company that competes with MailChimp. From hearing her talk about some of her conversations with users booted from the platform I think a good number of spammers sincerely believe they have a legitimate business and are confused to hear they've been flagged for spam. A lot of these people seem to only know enough about the internet to be da…

> I would love it if a publication profiled a few spammers. I suspect they're very different from how most people imagine them.

You might like Spam Nation: https://amzn.com/dp/B00L5QGBL0/

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