Bouncing E-mails

• What does "bouncing" mean?
  

If a member's email account refuses to accept email from other accounts, that account is set to "bounce" email. This usually means that the message is returned to the sender with an error from their Internet service provider (ISP).

If Yahoo! Groups gets such an error message, it considers the member's account to be 'bouncing' emails.

• Why does it say my account is "bouncing"?

  If group messages sent to a participant's email address are returned to Yahoo! Groups as undeliverable ("bouncing"), the participant's Yahoo! Groups account may be temporarily disabled.
  

  Messages can be returned for several reasons:
  

1. A member's mailbox may be full -- he/she needs to delete messages from his/her Inbox.
2. A member's ISP may have a backlog of email to process -- he/she needs to contact his/her ISP.
3. A member's ISP may be blocking email from Yahoo! Groups -- he/she needs to contact his/her ISP.
   

Please note that in some cases a member will need to reactivate his/her account manually. Thus, it is recommended that moderators provide the following instructions to members who need to manually reactivate their accounts:

Request a member to:

1. visit his/her My Groups page. (see Figure 1)
   
2. look for a bounce alert, "You have a bouncing email address", near the top of the page. (Figure 1)
   
3. click the Alert link,"Go to My Email Preferences", to reactivate his/her account. (Figure 1)
4. look under Status on My Email Preferences page, and then click (unbounce) that appears under (Bouncing). (see Figure 2)
5. check his/her email and follow the instructions in the message. ( see Figure 3)

 

 

Figure 1: My Groups page where the Alert link appears under the bounce alert.

 

 

Figure 2: My Email Preferences page

 

 

Figure 3: A reactivation request has been sent to a member's bouncing account

 

Note: Moderators are welcome to copy the following paragraph on manual reactivation and paste into an email to send to a member with a bouncing account:

"There are several steps you need to do in order to manually reactivate your bouncing account. First, you need to visit your My Groups page. Then, look for a bounce alert near the top of the page. Next, click the Alert link to reactivate your account. At this point, you should be at My Preferences page. Finally, look under Status to click on the word "unbounce" that appears under "bouncing". You should receive a message with instructions to reactivate your bouncing account, within an hour."

• Other reasons a member don't receive email from his/her Yahoo! Group:
  

If the group name does not appear on a member's My Groups page, one of the following may have happened:

1. A member was unsubscribed from the group.
2. The group was deleted.
   

If the group name does appear, a member needs to check the following:

1. his/her subscription to that group, making sure it is set to Daily Digest or Individual Emails in the Deliver Options section.
2. There may be a problem with his/her Yahoo! Groups account.

If there is no bounce error message, a member needs to contact Yahoo's Customer Support team with the following information:

1. the email address he/she used to register with Yahoo! Groups.
   
2. the names of one or more groups he/she joined.
   
3. the date he/she stopped receiving emails from the group(s).

For more information, on "How to deal with 'bouncing' members, and a hard / a soft bounce", please refer to Vance Stevens's Tutorials page at:
<http://www.homestead.com/prosites-vstevens/files/efi/tutorials/evonline/bouncing_members.htm >

For Groups Members Help, please visit: < http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/groups/members/index.html >

To return to the List of Tutorials index page, go to: < http://daf4.free.fr/settings/yg-index.htm >