eBay users who trade internationally may be having difficulties receiving email from international customers depending on the Internet Service Provider (ISP) they are using for their email account. Several articles have pointed out Verizon's new spam-blocking initiatives and report the company is banning blocks of IPs from Europe, including this Wired article http://www.wired.com/news/ebiz/0,1272,66226,00.html.

The topic hits close to home for AuctionBytes, since subscribers of this newsletter who use Verizon have been unable to receive AuctionBytes newsletters because they are sent via email from a list-hosting company in the UK.

The online publication "The Register" reported on Friday that law firm Kohn, Swift & Graf, P.C. had filed a lawsuit against Verizon on behalf of a subscriber in a civil case that seeks class action status http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/01/21/verizon_class_action), although AuctionBytes could not find a mention of the lawsuit on the Kohn, Swift & Graf Website.

A Verizon spokesperson contacted late Tuesday said he had no specific information about how Verizon's policies might affect eBay users and emailed a copy of a statement Verizon issued last week. The statement addresses the concern the company has over spam, but acknowledges in the following paragraph the inherent problems in trying to block it:

"Any spam blocking method will, inevitably, also result in the blocking or delay of otherwise legitimate email. This is yet another reason why spammers are harmful to the Internet community. If a Verizon Online customer believes they are not receiving legitimate e-mail, they should call our technical support desk for assistance and we will work with them to resolve their situation as quickly as possible."

Attempts by one AuctionBytes reader named Linda to "whitelist" the newsletter were unsuccessful despite several phone calls to Verizon's technical support department. She first contacted Verizon on January 5. In an email sent on January 18, Linda said, "I was on the phone with them over 2 hours last week trying to get the block removed. They called me once and said they were working on it, that was last week a day after." Linda has not yet been able to receive AuctionBytes newsletters.

When informed of the issue, another AuctionBytes reader said in an email, "Thank you so much for informing of this problem with Verizon and foreign emails. Unfortunately I had no idea and was beginning to wonder why I had not received emails from several opt-in lists that I had with my starband account. The major problem for me is I sell on eBay and have noticed the lack of emails from my overseas customers."

eBay spokesperson Hani Durzy was unaware of such a problem, but said he would research within the company to see if it was a known issue. He said he hoped people would be getting email they were supposed to be getting.

We will update this story as it progresses.