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MailChimp deleted my account with no warning

blog.rongarret.info

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191–200 of 267 posts

Re: MailChimp deleted my account with no warning

#191

Post by balls187 »

We were evaluating using MailChimp for our email campaigns, but I am going to raise this with the boss.

Having ToS issues is one thing. Deleting/banning accounts without any notice is another.

Unacceptable.

Major shout out to Stripe. They believed we were in violation of their ToS, notified us immediately, and gave us 7 days to find an alternative including a competitor that would accept our business.

Once I contacted their support, I was able to confirm with them, that in fact, we were in compliance, and the crisis was averted. But had they just shut us off without warning, that would have been a disaster.

Re: MailChimp deleted my account with no warning

#192

Post by ghostly_s »

briandear wrote: post #134
jrockway wrote: post #52

We've had a similar experience. We use them for both marketing mass emails and for ingesting support ticket emails (I believe that's through Mandrill). Someone sent a marketing email they didn't like (they said another one of their customers complained about it, or something; literally one complaint) and so they silently shut off our incoming email. We noticed it when one of our customers called to ask why we hadn't…

And yet I still get junk from MC senders for which I never subscribed. I report as spam, but those people still keep sending with no problems. (Anecdote, I report as spam an email sent to me@mybusiness.com, then get emails from the same sender at info@mybusiness.com, support@mybusiness.com and finally to emails that aren’t even real such as contrived first_initial_lastname@mybusiness.com (which aren’t in use but go t…

I seem to be constantly checking "I never signed up for this mail list" buttons on MailChimp unsubscribe pages. Eventually I got curious if this actually does anything and looked into it; as far as I could tell from their docs, it does nothing but inform the mailer that you are of the opinion that you never subscribed to their list. Very useful.

Re: MailChimp deleted my account with no warning

#193

Post by lisper »

beckler wrote: post #189
lisper wrote: post #156

News flash: MailChimp just reinstated my account! Thank you, HN community, for your help.

yeah, but it's sad that this is basically the only way to get them to do it.

Indeed. Once the dust settles I plan to write up a detailed post-mortem. There's more to say.

Re: MailChimp deleted my account with no warning

#194

Post by keithpeter »

elliekelly wrote: post #169
discreditable wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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/

Awesome, thanks for the recommendation! I just ordered a copy for me and another for my sister as a Christmas gift.

Excellent book in a journalistic style. Good present. You will (both) have your own views on Krebs' strategies to make complex issues accessible to 'civilians'.

Re: MailChimp deleted my account with no warning

#195

Post by massaman_yams »

ghostly_s wrote: post #192
briandear wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet I still get junk from MC senders for which I never subscribed. I report as spam, but those people still keep sending with no problems. (Anecdote, I report as spam an email sent to me@mybusiness.com, then get emails from the same sender at info@mybusiness.com, support@mybusiness.com and finally to emails that aren’t even real such as contrived first_initial_lastname@mybusiness.com (which aren’t in use but go t…

I seem to be constantly checking "I never signed up for this mail list" buttons on MailChimp unsubscribe pages. Eventually I got curious if this actually does anything and looked into it; as far as I could tell from their docs, it does nothing but inform the mailer that you are of the opinion that you never subscribed to their list. Very useful.

No, MC definitely uses that data as part of their anti-spam operations. Source: have attended a few presentations by MC anti-abuse people.

Re: MailChimp deleted my account with no warning

#196

Post by FlorianRappl »

I see why people like using something like MailChimp - but I would personally never do (nor advocate) doing so. Your mailing list(s) / subscribers are very valuable. Not controlling these entities and relying on MailChimp to handle them well is... well, quite a bet I would not want to take. Stories like the one referenced are quite common and even though these are outliers I would not like playing with these odds.

Re: MailChimp deleted my account with no warning

#197

Post by dan_tyler »

throwaway7312 wrote: post #124

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"…

Yeah, MailChimp support is absolutely terrible. And it literally looks like they don't care about it at this point. I stopped using them a few months back and moved to SendX. The experience with their support team has been phenomenal.

Re: MailChimp deleted my account with no warning

#198

Post by Sephr »

It seems like any MailChimp mailing list emails containing the word "crypto" set off automated systems which result in account bans.

This is an extremely poor anti-spam "hueristic" (if it even deserves to be called that) and I would never do business with a company that handles anti-spam like this.

Re: MailChimp deleted my account with no warning

#199

Post by mattbeckman »

dan_tyler wrote: post #190
mayank_25may wrote: post #188

I am appalled reading this!! How can someone keep your data hostage like this? Especially (in this case) for no apparent mistake of yours! Really sad that a company like MailChimp who knows (or should know) what an Email list really means to a business would respond in such an irresponsible manner and deprive you of your own data. I run an email marketing company called - SendX https://www.sendx.io and would be happy…

Can personally vouch for the SendX team. I moved from MailChimp to SendX three months back, and it's been absolutely great so far.

And you made a brand new HN account 12 minutes after the parent. Thank you for your personal and totally inconspicuous vouch. :P

Re: MailChimp deleted my account with no warning

#200

Post by dan_tyler »

abc-xyz wrote: post #16
sfifs wrote: post #5

Hmmm... This poster has noticed an issue on 17th, mailed support and without waiting to see if there's any reply or resolution, decided to blog publicly about it the same day... seems definitely premature, maybe borderline of questionable professionalism. It appears MailChimp has a chat option for support on weekdays for paid users but since this hasn't been used, one would assume the poster is using a free plan - no…

Assuming the author is truthful, then I'd say Mailchimps actions are a lot more questionable. Shutting the account down without a warning? Making it impossible for him to see his mailing list even if the ban was deserved? I don't know about you but I'd never want to use a mailing service if I knew that I at any time could lose access to the mailing list I had spent months/years building up..

Couldn't agree more. Any business who respects the customer would know that this type of stuff is totally unacceptable, and the list is a huge money maker for anyone. I got really pissed with MailChimp and their support for exactly these reasons and decided to move to SendX. That's it, haven't looked back ever since and I don't think I ever will unless something major goes wrong.
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