We have a spammer who is spoofing a domain we manage. And they are doing the spoofing through Earthlink. So I send an email to abuse@earthlink.net and instantly get a response:
Hello, Thank you for submitting a report to the EarthLink Network Abuse Department. We have received a number of reports regarding this issue, and are already conducting an investigation. Unfortunately, due to the high volume of reports that a single incident can generate, we are unable to respond personally to all reports. The EarthLink Appropriate Use Policy, Users Agreement, and Privacy Policy are available at: http://earthlink.net/about/policies Sincerely, EarthLink Network Abuse So I get an intant automated that shows no one read my letter. So how is it that they know my problem is the same one they have, "received a number of reports regarding this issue, and are already conducting an investigation"? Or are they so fucked that they have problems with and are investigating every possible problem out there?
I've done it.
1. It's hit or miss with their abuse dept. Sometimes they rock, sometimes they suck.
2. They only have maybe 1-5 people for abuse.. And last I knew, they were volunteers. They actually wore other hats within the company. (Ie: Customer Service or Net Admins)
3. They have an autoresponder as well as a number of boilerplate responses. So don't be too surprised if their first few email responses to you look generic.
Keep in mind they have a metric assload of users. Somewhere around 5 Million. Many of these users are retards and wreak havoc all over the place. I wouldn't be surprised if, along with all the spam, their abuse role account gets a few thousand mails per day.
I have a few recommendations: Keep all emails, responses and everything well documented. Always have a copy of all the email headers on handy. (Especially the ones with the spoofed From: address.) You can be concise, but don't be rude. Those usually just end up getting you ignored and/or blocked from emailing them. Oh. And things take time, so it's probably safe to say it'll take more than 24 hours between responses. I also don't believe they work weekends. ;) -lou