"We are not ignoring you."

Before we explain how an email can go missing we better explain the basics of how email normally works.

You read and send email using an e-mail client. These include Hotmail, GMail, Yahoo, Outlook etc.

Some of these already come equipped with anti-SPAM (Junk or advertising email) and virus filters. Other e-mail clients can have add-on or inbuilt programs that provide filtering and protection.

When you send an email (out going email) to your friend it must first go to an email server using SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol). You will have an account and password to use your email server. Often it is provided by your ISP (internet service provider) or web based like Hotmail, GMail, Yahoo etc.

This email server will look at the domain in the "TO: " field of the email.  If you are sending an email to Smith@hopgmail.com then the email server will send the email to the "hopgmail.com" incoming mail handler.

Incoming mail is handled by a POP3  (Post Office Protocol) or IMAP (Internet Mail Access Protocol) server. Using the example above, the "hopgmail.com" server, will hold the email for "Smith@hopgmail.com" until Smith logs in using their name and password to either view or download their messages.

Your message is received! or is it?

So how can email go wrong and your emails go missing?

Well.. it would be a near perfect system of text communication, however the amount of SPAM and Junk mail being sent does clog up and cost email servers and ourselves a lot of extra bandwidth and time. This is an ever growing problem.

Users like ourselves use special software to save our time by sorting out SPAM from regular email.

Email servers also run their own ANTI-SPAM and ANTI-VIRUS software. They look at the data contained in the email and where the email came from.

Email deleted because of the contents

Using a very complex formula, using keywords and email structure, a score is given to an email. If the score is above a predetermined value then the email is classed as SPAM, which could be then deleted, placed in a "Junk" or "Deleted" folder or even marked as possible SPAM in some way so you can delete it yourself.

How this can affect you..

This is not a perfect system and sometimes good emails you wish to receive are marked as SPAM and "deleted".

Also you will find that some SPAM emails can still get through these filters.

If an email has a virus in it. It may be cleaned before being delivered.

Email deleted because of where it came from

If a lot of SPAM is being sent from a single IP address (from a single location) then it may be determined to be a SPAM server. In this case the IP address can be blocked, and in some cases the adjacent IP addresses too.

An IP address can be blocked for a few hours or permanently.

How this can affect you..

Spammers love non-fixed (Dynamic) IP addresses as they change every time they connect into the internet with their ISP (Internet service provider). They send out their SPAM from their "random" IP address, it eventually gets blocked. They log out and then back in to get another IP address to continue with the SPAM.

Next time you log in, you could be given an IP address previously used for SPAM which if still blocked may mean your emails will be blocked. It will remain that way until the block is removed (hopefully just a few hours) or you get given another IP address.

Why should I need a SPAM filter?

If you have ever published your email address or your email address is available online then you may need filtering from SPAM.

Little "spam spiders" travel the internet looking for email addresses. They collect them and then send you lots of junk email.

Some sites offer you something for free in exchange for receiving your email address. But what are they going to do with your email address?

Always read their site "Privacy Statement" and know how they will use your email address. They could be selling it to a third party for direct marketing purposes.

I personally get 2000+ SPAM emails a week. Because I do not have the time to actually read all my emails, I use a SPAM filter to remove the ones I do not want. Making my list of emails to read much shorter.

"How do we contact Home of Poi?" or "You did not reply to my email?"

This seems to be happening more often now with emails failing to arrive because of the above reasons.

"We are not ignoring you."

Rest assured that if your email arrives all the way to us then we do respond within 2 working days.

If you wish to contact us please use the online contact page.

You will use online forms that directly contact us. Once submitted the form will also send you a copy of your enquiry. This should arrive within a few minutes.

If you do not get a copy of the enquiry then you will most likely not receive our reply either.

Please check your "Junk" and "Deleted" email folders and SPAM filters within your email client.

If you still can not find the copy of your enquiry then consider phoning us during working hours or alternatively using the private messaging system located in the discussion forums to contact myself, Malcolm Crawshay, or Chris Hobbs aka Combi Guy (our customer support manager)