Having Trouble Sending Emails to Xtra?

Issues sending emails to recipients with Xtra email addresses is not unusual but it is terribly frustrating.  
 
There have been wide spread problems with Sparks Xtra/Yahoo email services dating back as far as 2008, with a resurgence in 2018.

Issues with Spark email Xtra hitting Kiwi businesses – 13th Sept 2018
 
Essentially Xtra have implemented ‘security measures’ in an attempt to reduce spam. But have been over-zealous in their approach so that legitimate mail is also blocked.
 
Rigorous testing by the the IT community has discovered that it is not just emails that may appear suspicious. Such as those from blacklisted accounts or untrusted servers, or those without a subject line, or those with attachments. No, it is actually almost ANYTHING, especially those containing financially related themes.
 
Even more unfortunate is that Xtra stubbornly believe that what they are doing is best practice. So although the problem lies with them - they are unlikely to fix it.
 
Technically the problem isn’t yours, but the reality of the problem is.

So what can you do if you have a whole bunch of customers using Xtra who are just not receiving your emails? Not a lot unfortunately.
 
Ideally your recipients ought to be the ones who contact Xtra to complain that they are not receiving legitimate emails and demand a resolution or change to a different provider. Unfortunately, most of them are not going to do this as they do not actually KNOW they are not getting emails.
 

•••

Imagine you are sending a traditional letter to a friend. You put it into an approved Dimension Lengthwise Envelope with a government issued postage stamp. You deliver it to an official post shop. Your letter is delivered by the official post man. BUT your friend actually hires someone to collect their mail each day. He throws out any pizza flyers and put the important looking stuff on the kitchen bench. But all YOUR letters have been going in the rubbish with the junk. What’s more, he doesn’t tell your friend he threw anything out.
Your friend should probably fire this guy!

 •••

The problem really lies with Xtra (Spark) to ensure delivery. What makes things worse is that there doesn’t appear to be a department responsible to help with external senders. Most online reports show a frustrating lack of success from any Spark customer service team regarding this. Mostly they say that you need to get your recipient to ‘whitelist your email address.’

But this is a poor solution really. Firstly, contacting your customers individually to try and get them to whitelist your email would be a maddening exercise. Many will not even know what this means or how to do it. Secondly, there have been tests done, where the email address HAS been whitelisted in Xtra – and yet the emails STILL do not get through.
 
We always recommend that Xtra users move to a different provider.
 
“I have also learnt that Xtra fervently believe this is all designed to make the internet a safer place. On that I can agree. If you cant send email and you cant receive email and you spend your time on the telephone to Xtra and the rest of your time filling out meaningless forms then the internet is indeed a safer place. You are after all not using it - therefore it is a safer place. Well done Xtra - you have succeeded in that goal.” – GeekZone, 2008
 
Incidentally – our own email servers (ActiveHost) do not currently appear to experience trouble sending to Xtra accounts. Whist anything could happen with Xtra in the future, we currently don’t have any email customers reporting problems associated with this.