AOL complaint
"Complaint" emails from AOL
The mailbox for support@ilovefreegle.org receives about 250 emails a day that are simply a forward of an email originally sent by Freegle Direct, with the subject changed to "Email Feedback Report for IP 5.28.62.25".
AOL doesn't explain why an email was forwarded as an "abuse report". The Freegle Support team's working assumption is that the email ended up in the member's "junk" folder - either because the member marked it as junk themselves, or because of a mail rule, most likely a mix of general rules and rules specific to that AOL address.
The disadvantages of this include:
- the member being unable to find Freegle emails
- the member thinking Freegle emails are spam
- AOL applying the same "junk" rule to other members
- AOL cutting off all Freegle emails altogether
Past approach
In the past, a more complex process was tried, including contacting members and moderators directly.
Current process
All these emails are scanned automatically in an attempt to identify the complaining AOL member. So far, 29,513 AOL emails have been processed, and a complaining member's email address was found in 29,289 of them.
Most complaints come from people who only reported a handful of times, and these are ignored. Where a larger number of complaints comes from the same member (currently 25), that member is removed from all their communities. Their membership stays on record and they aren't banned, so they can rejoin any community if they wish.
Because of a computer crash, there's no exact record of members removed before April 2018. A rough estimate is about 75 members, none of whom ever complained to support about it.
