On Saturday our email sending service SMTP.com decided to disable our account. The reason was that someone had reported our emails as SPAM. The account was disabled immediately and without warning.
We didn’t see the email until Sunday after some of you called us about not receiving emails. And from there on it took another 18 hours before we were able to get hold of someone at SMTP.com and convinced them that we are not in the business of sending SPAM.
Transfercar practices a strict opt-in only policy and otherwise try to adhere to industry standards for good email ethics so we were very surprised that we were shut down without any prior warning.
Our web service Transfercar ( www.transfercar.co.nz ) is a facilitator between the parties of drivers and rental car operators, and two thirds of all our business is conducted by emails through smtp.com. We serve 60% of the rental car industry in New Zealand and many of them rely solely on emails generated and sent out from us.
The email list that generates the most emails (about 85% of emails are notifications of new listings in our database sent out to drivers) is probably the one that some poeple would report as spam. The reason for this is the nature of the list, generating a new email for every new car listed. That means that on some days subscribers will receive as many as 30 emails. We warn users about this but still we see many complaints about it to our support system.
We have gone through our email templates today and added more information in them on why the recipient is receiving the email together with unsubscribe links. We hope that this this will remove any claims of spam in the future.
The relocation motorhome was ready to go, but first we had to sign a normal rental agreement (just as if you rented a vehicle under normal circumstances). Standard insurance was included in the relocation deal, but we still chose to upgrade the insurance to full cover. The additional insurance was $25 per day – no excess and a peace of mind but it is totally optional. Before getting on the road, the friendly staff of Jucy gave us a tour of the vehicle including how to operate the shower, kitchen and power.
Around 9 am we were on our way to Picton via Kaikura – approx 330 km. First stop was Kaikura to have fresh Crayfish at Nims’ Bin at State Highway 1. It was a fantastic day and absolutely gorgeous to sit on the beach in the middle of the winter.
Day 5, we returned at Auckland Airport at 3.30 pm. We had a great trip and spread out the driving equally on 4 days. One day normally goes with crossing the Cook Straight. Bear in mind that these campervans are not race cars. They can be difficult to get up to 100 km/h and it does take longer time to get from A to B than a standard vehicle. Normally we covered 70-80 km per hour depending on elevation and traffic.
The first thing is to find a relocation car at