On 2 Mar 2001, at 9:46, Stephens, Larry V wrote: >AMEN, AMEN, AMEN, and it's amazing how many people won't believe you, and >how many providers point the finger somewhere else. Then suddenly, A >MIRACLE! Their email (after complaining to their provider, who insists it >has to be listserv or the list owner, or anything but them) starts pouring >in. I hate "me too's" but I've seen this to an extent that makes me wonder if I'm hallucinating. One of the worst, Concentric.net, appeared to be using a BS tracking system that would step complaining subscribers through a checklist of lies ("no problem", "problem with the listserv", "we blocked spam from Listserv", "we defensivily limited volume from Listserv") so rigidly that subscribers could crib from each other and send rebuttals along in anticipation of the canned responses they still got anyway, from a half dozen people sharing two female names. The upshot was that Concentric refused to lift THEIR block until we had OUR management authorize it (I had to confirm this repeatedly over the phone because part of my brain simply refused to accept it). This next one wasn't malicious, but last month ATT kept insisting that SJU was blocking ATT because maelstrom.STJOHNS.edu kept refusing to relay messages to maelstrom.edu. This was traced to a bug deep in the bowels of ATT that was supposed to strip the "stjohns" off of an obscure part of their mail system called stjohns.att.net. And so it goes. -Kary