What to do if you didn't get your newsletter(s) ...

1. Check the List of Newsletters Mailed to see if the newsletter you are expecting has actually been mailed.

2. Check the List of Delivery Problems to see if your email service is reporting any delivery problems to BPN. Current biggest problem: Yahoo (April 2008)

3. Check to see if your email is on the BPN list. See the section below How can I find out if I am still subscribed?

4. If your email address is not on the list:
• If you subscribed more than 5 days ago, and you've never received any newsletters, then you either gave us an invalid email address (you'll need to subscribe again), or you didn't meet the requirements for joining the list (see who can join the list?). If you subscribed 5 or fewer days ago, then we probably have not processed your subscription yet.

• You may be on the list under some other address. Many people continue to receive BPN at their old addresses without realizing it because it is forwarding to their new address. Please try any email addresses you've used in the past. You can change your address here.

• Your email service may have refused delivery of one or more BPN newsletters because it thinks BPN newsletters are spam. We are seeing a lot of this recently, especially for smaller email services and "vanity" email addresses. This is not usually a problem with the large email services such as yahoo, gmail, and berkeley.edu, but it does seem to happen with smaller services. If you are repeatedly being dropped from the list, and you have email with an email service that is not widely used, this could be the reason. You should either talk to your technical support, or subscribe under a different email address.
5. If your email address is on the list:
   Did you check to see if your email service is on the Delivery Problems list? If you are missing some newsletters that have been mailed, and you didn't find your email service on the Delivery Problems list, and you have confirmed that your email address is on the list, then the most likely reason for missing newsletters is a spam filter on your email account. This may be a filter you set up yourself, or your email service may be filtering mail before it is sent to your mailbox. In either case, BPN can't help you with this, and you will need to contact technical support at your email service for help. Please read Junk mail and spam filter settings below for more information.

6. If you've checked steps 1-5 above, and you are subscribed, but you still don't know why you aren't getting all your newsletters, you need to contact technical support at your email service. We are mailing newsletters to you, but something is happening to them before they get to you. This is a problem that is happening at your email service, and there isn't anything BPN can do. Sorry! The only thing we can suggest is that you use some other email account, and fill out the Change of Address form to change you address on the BPN list.

My newsletter was cut off mid-way through

• Click "More Options" and then "Show Original." (gmail user)

• Click "View Source"
  "In the right-hand corner of each message there is a [View Source] link and it does display all the text." (comcast user)

• Click "View" (users from AOL, unex.berkeley.edu , portoakland.com, ggu.edu)

I am getting more than one copy of each newsletter

When are the newsletters mailed out?

Why does my newsletter arrive so late?

How can I find out if I am still subscribed?

Why did I drop off the list?

I am getting some newsletters but not all of them

1. The newsletter you are expecting has not been mailed yet. See the List of Recently Mailed Newsletters.
2. Some of the newsletters are being blocked by your spam filter (see Junk mail and spam filter settings)
3. The missing newsletters were overlooked or accidentally deleted (see the List of Recently Mailed Newsletters)
4. Some newsletters are mailed much less frequently than others (see List of the Newsletters for when they are mailed.)
5. You subscribed to Teens or UC Families, but not BPN (see How can I find out if I am subscribed?).

Junk mail and spam filter settings

1. Check to see if there is a spam filter on your email account, either one that you set up yourself, or one that your email service provides for you. Note that these filters can be triggered by words in the email that seem suspicious, so some BPN newsletters (like Announcements) might make it through the filter, while others do not (like Advice, which often contains potty and sex words). Some spam filters look for web and email addresses in your mail that have a history of sending spam. Newsletters like Marketplace and Childcare contain dozens of subscribers' email addresses, some of which may be one of these, thus triggering your spam filter.

2. Your spam filter may be sending some of the BPN newsletters off to another folder that has a name like "Trash" or "Spam" or "Junk" or "Bulk". Check there to see if you find the missing newsletters. However, there could also be a setting on your account that deletes mail automatically once it's been determined to be spam. This is not good - no spam filter is 100% accurate. We strongly recommend that you change your settings to allow you to screen all spam before it is deleted.

3. Many email services run spam filtering on all incoming mail before it ever gets to your mailbox. Sometimes these filters tag mail as spam that is not spam, and they may not be notifying customers about the filtering. For example, in Nov 2006, Comcast started blocking all incoming BPN newsletters, thinking they were spam. It was several weeks before subscribers noticed this happening and began to inquire about it, and it took us a while to notice that we were getting an awful lot of questions from Comcast customers. If you think this might be happening on your email account, check with technical support at your email service first to see what type of filters they run and whether BPN newsletters may have been blocked.

4. Your email provider may allow you to put approved email addresses on to a "white list" or "allowed list". If this is available, you should put BPN on your approved list. See What is BPN's email address for my spam blocker?

AOL:
Are you using "People I Know" to block mail from anyone not in your address book? If so, BPN newsletters may not be getting through. Please re-set your spam control. January 2007 note: AOL is delaying delivery of BPN newsletters for as much as 48 hours because of the number of AOL subscribers on the list (about 1,000). This does not seem to happen every time. However, you should be aware of that.

Berkeley.EDU (calmail)
Subscribers with berkeley.edu addresses are not reporting any problems. New spam policies implemented in Spring 2007 seem to be working well for BPN newsletters.

Comcast:
Do you have spam filtering enabled? Look under "Preferences". Make sure this box is checked: "Keep a local copy in my Screened Mail folder". Look in that folder for missing BPN newsletters. Also read Comcast's FAQs at http://www.comcast.net/help/faq/
Note: Comcast has in the past blocked mailing lists its customers subscribed to, including BPN, because it thought they were spam. This was done without notifying its customers or the sender, so if you stop receiving BPN newsletters, be aware this may be the cause.

Hotmail/MSN:
Hotmail has in the past blocked BPN newsletters without notifying its customers. As of 2008 this does not seem to be a problem.

Yahoo/Sbcglobal:
As of 2008, Yahoo is blocking some newsletters, especially Childcare and Marketplace. Please see Current Delivery Problems for more info about this. BPN can't do anything about this, and we recommend that you not use Yahoo.
Older advice: Please check your Bulk folder or turn off SpamGuard. If you use SpamGuard, make sure you don't have it set to delete immediately. Otherwise, you will never see the newsletters and you will not know why you are not receiving them. January 2007 note: Yahoo is delaying delivery of BPN newsletters for as many as 48 hours, possibly because of the number of Yahoo subscribers on the list (around 5,000). This does not seem to happen with every newsletter. However, you should be aware of that. February 2008 note: Yahoo subscribers are complaining of missing newsletters, especially Childcare. This seems to be a combination of Yahoo holding up delivery and also incorrectly tagging them as spam.

If you have some other type of email account, please look at any spam/junk filters you might have, and also investigate what type of filtering your email service is using.

If all else fails, open a different type of email account and fill out the BPN change of address form here.

What is BPN's email address for my spam blocker?

Note: Some spam services work by intercepting all mail to their clients and then notifying the sender (i.e., BPN) that they must fill out a form before their mail can be delivered. BPN is not able to do this, because newsletters are mailed by a computer program, not a human. Also, we have too many subscribers to take individual actions like this. Therefore, if you use a service like this, you will need to make sure to add BPN to the list of approved addresses.

Problems that AOL subscribers have

Solution: use "View" instead of "Download". (see My newsletter was cut off mid-way through)

2. Email bounces when I try to post a message to the newsletter.

Solution: You should not be sending email, you should be using your web browser. Go to this page using your web browser and then click on the newsletter you want to post to. Click here: http://parents.berkeley.edu/post.html

3. Why did I stop receiving newsletters?

You may have set up Junk Mail Blocking, which causes all BPN newsletters to be refused and returned to us. This will cause your email address to be removed from the list. You will not know this has happened because our notification to let you know about it was also rejected. Please check your AOL account settings for this situation.