Verizon Communications customers expecting e-mail from Europe may be in for a long wait. The internet service provider has been blocking e-mail originating from Great Britain and other parts of Europe for weeks, and customers are upset about having their communications disrupted without notice.

Verizon began blocking ranges of IP addresses belonging to British and European ISPs on Dec. 22, according to the company. The blacklisting of e-mail from abroad was in response to spam coming from the region, according to a customer service representative at Verizon who identified himself only as "Gary." He said company policy prevents him from giving out his last name.

Since Dec. 28, dozens of Verizon customers have been posting their frustrations on Verizon.adsl and verizon.email.discussion-general newsgroups about being unable to receive e-mail from Britain, Germany, France and Russia. Verizon customers describe the frustrations of not knowing how many e-mails have been blocked and receiving contradictory information from Verizon’s customer service, and anger at switching to free e-mail accounts until the problem is resolved.

Aunty Spam brought this up recently with news from an inside source, which the recent reports confirm.  Aunty also brings up a very valid point:

"What about those in countries affected by the recent earthquake and tsunamis, trying to reach their loved ones or aid organizations back in the U.S.? What about our troops who are stationed overseas?"

What we also find ironic is that a huge amount of spam originates from within Verizons’ network through trojaned machines, yet their answer to spam is to simply block email originating from Europe.  So, if your client happens to use Verizon you have no chance of contacting them, if you are using Verizon don’t expect any replies from your clients!

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