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yet another victim of the Verizon blacklisting

I, too, am unable to connect to pop.verizon.net or smtp.verizon.net from my current location. This is not a problem with my account as I can read email through the web interface.

It really appears that Verizon is blacklisting many portions of the internet and refusing to service email requests from there. That they are doing this indicates that there is some sort of emergency. However, it would be very useful to have some information about what is going on so that we don't spend so much time trying to fix the situation.

Comments

PaulPiusC

Today, 10/7/2014, I was unable to get or send verizon mail from Thunderbird or my Android devices. This happens a lot with verizon, very rarely with Yahoo or gmail. You say you too are having this problem. Was there another post on this subject and what do you mean by 'blacklisting many portions of the internet'. I've never seen this reported as the cause for these problems, its usually some settings that Verizon has changed.

Verizon_Support

I'm going to send you a message so we can help figure out what's going on

~Jess

mirnovo

After some lengthy discussions with Verizon technical service I was told that they had for about a month problems with international outage. We travelled to Europe at the beginning of September and we were not able to receive and send Verizon email (pop.verizon.net and smtp.verizon.net was unable to connect). No problems with yahoo mail and Gmail. I was not even able to connect to Verizon webmail. When we got back to the States we found that our past sent messages and a lot of incoming messages simply disappeared from our folders and even from Webmail. In summary it seems that Verizon is having problems with their servers. To me they called it "international outage" and they have been working on it for about a month. How many people have been affected by that I was not told. It looks like Verizon is trying to keep it quiet.

LizzieT

I don't know about "blacklisting" but I have several times had trouble accessing my pop acounts through my apple mail account. Today 10-8-14, I cannot access any verizon pop accoutns at home, through either computer. I suspect my service or router is messed up. I can access them through my browser. Would love this to get fixed!

tns2

Verizon does not maintain the BLACKLIST. They may tell those that do if they see attacks. I belive they use several of the popular blacklist services.

ThePinz

I too have been unable to receive email using Thunderbird for the last 24 hours. I entered a chat session with Verizon support last night and was told that there is an issue with their POP servers, and they are working on it. The representative disappeared from the session before I had a chance to ask any additional questions.

pfps

From the long thread at http://forums.verizon.com/t5/Verizon-net-Email/No-response-from-pop-verizon-net-or-smtp-verizon-net/td-p/746309 and other complaints, it strongly appears that Verizon cut off POP and SMTP access from a large portion of the internet, maybe including all foreign ISPa, on or about 17 September 2014.

The problem occurs when you have Verizon email but don't use always Verizon as your ISP. Without changing any settings on your computer, you can no longer access the Verizon POP or SMTP servers. The web interface to your Verizon email is unaffected. If your internet connection hasn't changed, then this would have happened on or about 17 September 2014. If you changed your internet connection, for examples between work and home or due to travel, then your inability to access Verizon email could have happened at the time of the switch.

There may have been good reasons for Verizon to make this restrict access in this way. For example, Verizon's email servers may have been successfully attacked, and Verizon then restricted access so as to stem the attack.

Verizon does not appear to be saying anything about either just the simple fact of the cutoff, the reasons for it, the hopefully temporary workaround, or when a resolution can be expected. It is the silence of Verizon that is the most severe problem, causing considerable expense on the part of its customers. Verizon may believe that its silence is helping to solve the problem, but past experience has shown that being forthright is the much better policy.

I currenntly use Verizon FIOS for cable, phone, and internet, but I am seriously considering changing because of this poor behaviour of Verizon.

tns2

@pfps wrote:
From the long thread at http://forums.verizon.com/t5/Verizon-net-Email/No-response-from-pop-verizon-net-or-smtp-verizon-net/td-p/746309 and other complaints, it strongly appears that Verizon cut off POP and SMTP access from a large portion of the internet, maybe including all foreign ISPa, on or about 17 September 2014.
The problem occurs when you have Verizon email but don't use always Verizon as your ISP. Without changing any settings on your computer, you can no longer access the Verizon POP or SMTP servers. The web interface to your Verizon email is unaffected. If your internet connection hasn't changed, then this would have happened on or about 17 September 2014. If you changed your internet connection, for examples between work and home or due to travel, then your inability to access Verizon email could have happened at the time of the switch.
There may have been good reasons for Verizon to make this restrict access in this way. For example, Verizon's email servers may have been successfully attacked, and Verizon then restricted access so as to stem the attack.
Verizon does not appear to be saying anything about either just the simple fact of the cutoff, the reasons for it, the hopefully temporary workaround, or when a resolution can be expected. It is the silence of Verizon that is the most severe problem, causing considerable expense on the part of its customers. Verizon may believe that its silence is helping to solve the problem, but past experience has shown that being forthright is the much better policy.
I currenntly use Verizon FIOS for cable, phone, and internet, but I am seriously considering changing because of this poor behaviour of Verizon.

Yes they were attacked. Many customers were getting their ID's locke by these attacks. Yes they may have to whitelist your ISP or IP address. They initially blocked all overseas, but will whitelist as they are contacted by customers. They are currently suggesting you try the MYFIOS app (if you have it) to see if you can access your mail.

@If you use the Yahoo interface YOU MUST now add @verizon..net to your userid.

If you cannot access try contacting them directly or if you cannot, PM one of the Admins on the boards. NOTE, NOT THE CL"S, we are not Verizon employess but just peers like yourselves.

pfps

Whitelisting is not a solution at all when you are travelling, as you change IP addresses and ISPs just about every day.

Whitelisting is a bad solution in general for this kind of problem. Is every Verizon customer supposed to spend hours to figure out what is to be done, and then wait days to be unblocked?

Verizon needs to get its act together here. I am actually surprised that there have not already been articles in the trade press on this fiasco.

pfps

Jess: I never received any message. The problem is a known one, at least so far in that Verizon has cut off access to its POP and SMTP servers from a large part of the internet. What is not known is why, why the problem has not yet been fixed, and why Verizon is making it so hard for customers to find out what is going on. Given the number of posts in various places and the number of people known to be on the various trouble tickets, I would estimate that several thousand people have been so affected that they spent considerable time trying to find out what is going on. That results in a lot of lost time, and Verizon is likely to end up losing a considerable amount of money in the end - a loss that could have been mostly avoided with only a little bit of effort on the part of Verizon.

Verizon may be making the cynical calculation that few people are going to drop Verizon because of email issues. I don't think that this would be a valid calculation, as email is the last sticky bit of Verizon's entire service package.

pfps

TNS_2: This is a different kind of blacklist. Verizon is not accepting POP and SMTP connections from a large part of the internet. As far as I can tell, it is only Verizon that is acting this way and Verizon has complete control over which portions of the internet that they are blacklisting.

djb5

Re:
"TNS_2: This is a different kind of blacklist. Verizon is not accepting POP and SMTP connections from a large part of the internet. As far as I can tell, it is only Verizon that is acting this way and Verizon has complete control over which portions of the internet that they are blacklisting."

And Verizon most certainly has control of their Support site (and support staff) and has chosen to not publish this as a known issue so customers wouldn't have to spend so much time and frustration trying to figure out why they can't get their email.

[Deleted User]

Please see the announcement here:

http://forums.verizon.com/t5/Verizon-net-Email/Email-Account-Password-Lockout/m-p/744863

PHB-Oz

Well, it took me some months to finally find out what was happening to my emails when I tried to retrieve them from Australia. It took many calls to tech support before my insistence to speak with a supervisor eventually yielded a reluctant acknowledgement that my access had been blocked because of a 'hacking problem.'

Why did Verizon find it necessary take action that significantly reduced service without notifying its customers openly and immediately? More interest in corporate image than truthfulness, I suspect.

This blog is the most complete explanation that I have found so far concerning the extent of Verizon's 'punish the customer' approach to their security problem.

Any one have any better experience with another US ISP, at least one that notifies its paying customers when the cut their service?

Cheers

rbpeirce

@pfps wrote:
I, too, am unable to connect to pop.verizon.net or smtp.verizon.net from my current location. This is not a problem with my account as I can read email through the web interface.

It really appears that Verizon is blacklisting many portions of the internet and refusing to service email requests from there. That they are doing this indicates that there is some sort of emergency. However, it would be very useful to have some information about what is going on so that we don't spend so much time trying to fix the situation.

Ditto. I can connect with no problem in PA but am unable to do so in VA. This is purely an IP problem. The same problem existed last month when I was here and my ISP put me on a different IP block. It isn't available this month so I am back to the old block. My ISP says this is 104.244.160.0/22, but my assigned IP is {edited for privacy}.

I can go to a public, non-Verizon, wi-fi hotspot and connect with no problem so it is clearly the IP block I am on at this location.

I can't even figure out who to contact at Verizon about this. I have submitted whilelist requests without any response. Last month I tried phone calls to Verizon but none of the CSRs seemed to have any idea what I was talking about. I really need an inside contact of some sort.

This is amusing but I checked email me if somebody replies. Then I realized I wouldn't get it so I changed to a non-Verizon email address that does work!

pfps

As of today, Verizon email is available in Canada, at least for me.

Of course, no information on Verizon about the change.

rbpeirce2

Me too in VA. I have Verizon DSL in PA but use a local service in VA. I put in a Whitelist request every time I come to VA. Today, I just fired up my computer and it downloaded my Verizon mail.

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