Why are my evites being sent from me and returned as undeliverable?

[Nanisu]

Holy CR*P!!!
All my hosts evites from the website are saying they are from ME!! I cleaned out the temp files and the cookies before the host entered the names (cleaned them out yesterday night before bed, she sent them out today). The evites were sent and they STILL say they are from me! And my host sent out 26 evites today at 2:00 and at 10:00 tonight EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM has been returned to me as undeliverable--from ME!!! Not her!! She is P**sed!!!! Her show is Friday and NONE of these people have been invited yet!!! Of course it's too late to call tech support! Why are the emails coming from me??? And why are they being returned 8 hours later--once again to ME????

Why is this happening? And what do I do about it? Besides call tech support of course. This lady is one mad hostess.

 

[Kitchen Diva]

I have no idea- even though evites showed they were coming from me at best at least half the guests got the emails- they all didn't go to spam or were returned back to me. I wish I had a better idea. You could always have her go to evites.com and send invitations that way... Or, better yet, volunteer to call all her guests for her?

 

[Nanisu]

I did both of those options (great minds think alike, Kacey). She didn't have time to enter the names again, and she wasn't too keen on giving me her friends' phone #'s--which I totally understand. I m calling Tech Support tomorrow am first thing and hoping they can get sent out correctly on their end. Of course, the $100,000 question is why is the host waiting until 3 days before their show to send out evites anyway (the show is friday night), LOL? I have a feeling this show may reschedule.

 

[Kitchen Diva]

I did both of those options (great minds think alike, Kacey). She didn't have time to enter the names again, and she wasn't too keen on giving me her friends' phone #'s--which I totally understand. I m calling Tech Support tomorrow am first thing and hoping they can get sent out correctly on their end. Of course, the $100,000 question is why is the host waiting until 3 days before their show to send out evites anyway (the show is friday night), LOL? I have a feeling this show may reschedule.

Don't you just love it when someone else's last minute decision results in them getting upset with you? I'm sorry that she is even upset with you- she should be upset with herself for waiting until 3 days before her show.

Good luck with tech support.

 

[kspry]

Her show is Friday and NONE of these people have been invited yet!!!

Well, good luck. I need two week's leeway in my family schedule to make time for something like that.

Did snail mail postcards go out 2 weeks ago? These emails are just followups, right?
Time to think about host coaching....I gotta call you on it, don't blame the website.

 

[legacypc46]

After 8 years, we know you know how to run your business Nancy. Ignore the judgement passing.

Good luck with getting this resolved! (I know Ann mentioned HO was having some technical difficulties yesterday.)

 

[vwpamperedchef]

Well, good luck. I need two week's leeway in my family schedule to make time for something like that.

Did snail mail postcards go out 2 weeks ago? These emails are just followups, right?
Time to think about host coaching....I gotta call you on it, don't blame the website.

Postcards don't always work either---they get lost/stuck in magazines etc. I don't rely on this method.

GET ON THE PHONE....Call them. A personal invite is best. You and the host split the list! "call it the impromtu party"

Good luck

 

[pampchefrhondab]

Did you have her email address when you first created her show on the web site or did you add it later. I would try creating an entire new show on your web site for her.

 

[DebbieJ]

You have to log in as her with her host password in order for the invites to be from her. When you access it via CC, you are logged in as you.

 

[Nanisu]

You have to log in as her with her host password in order for the invites to be from her.

When you access it via CC, you are logged in as you.

Ummm..I didn't log in as the hostess. She did. She sent the emails out yesterday from her computer at her house logged in as the hostess. And they still all said they were from me, and they still all bounced. So I called tech support first thing this morning and they were totally surprised that the emails look like they come from me. I spoke to a nice young man named Will and told him that happens to me all the time--I NEVER send evites out for the hosts from my website, I tell them how to, and they still look like they come from me. This morning I checked my email and they all had bounced a second time about 10 minutes after the first. So at this point it's definitely a server issue on their end. But that doesn't explain the "why did it come from me" question.

As far as the post cards are concerned, she did invite SOME people ahead of time verbally. Here in California I've noticed that any of my hosts that have computers hardly use the post cards any more unless it's when they run into someone at the store or something. They are all very busy and don't want to take the time to address a card when they could just email them.

ON another note: have any of you had any hosts try to upload their address books to the website to email evites out? A couple of my hosts did, and they found it was not easy at ALL. So I went in and tried and it is hard to understand how to do it--after you click on where you want to import it from (OUtlook, etc) it asks you the file name--and that is difficult to figure out/find when it's your address book. In addition, when they do that, it automatically adds these people to MY contact list--so now every time I go to send something from my contact list all these people who don't know who I am are going to get my emails unless I go through and delete them first (and I may not know who THEY are--I do a lot of shows and add a lot of names). I personally think that is a design flaw--automatically adding them to MY contact list. I would be peeved if I were getting some consultant's emails because my friend uploader her address book to the website.

 

[Nanisu]

Oh, by the way, the way I found out that these things were all bouncing was last night my Blackberry was really going off--if you have a Blackberry and set it so that it notifies you when you have an email, it dings. Well we were watching TV at 10:00 and it kept dinging and dinging and dinging--um....28 times! It was kind of funny---my kids are coming out of their bedrooms saying "oh my gosh, turn that thing off!". So that part of it was kind of funny--ding ding ding ding.....

 

[DebbieJ]

As far as the post cards are concerned, she did invite SOME people ahead of time verbally. Here in California I've noticed that any of my hosts that have computers hardly use the post cards any more unless it's when they run into someone at the store or something. They are all very busy and don't want to take the time to address a card when they could just email them.

It's the same here in Chicagoland. Most of my hosts invite via email these days. I never mail postcards anymore for that reason and because they are third class mail. I have even had problems with my invites I send in #10 envelopes lately. I sent out a batch for a show and at least 2-3 people never received them.

 

[Nanisu]

Well, HO needs to work on this part of the website. I've talked to other consultants who have the same problem--evites have their names on them, not the hosts. My guy in tech support even sent himself one this morning from this lady's host site and said ''Oh, I see what you mean--the address says it's from you". So it's not me, and it's not the host's computer--it happened on their end too.

Those guys in tech support are so darn nice!! Every time I call them they are really kind. I could't do their job for any price. Hopefully they'll get this worked out.

 

[Kitchen Diva]

Oh, by the way, the way I found out that these things were all bouncing was last night my Blackberry was really going off--if you have a Blackberry and set it so that it notifies you when you have an email, it dings. Well we were watching TV at 10:00 and it kept dinging and dinging and dinging--um....28 times! It was kind of funny---my kids are coming out of their bedrooms saying "oh my gosh, turn that thing off!". So that part of it was kind of funny--ding ding ding ding.....

You can tell it not to ding. I made my chime instead and at a lower volume- but yes it is funny when a ton of emails suddenly come in and your little phone starts going mad!

 

[amy07]

I'm glad I read this. I had a host tell me that most of her out of state/town guests deleted their evites because of the same issue! They didn't recognize my name and didn't want to open an email from someone they didn't know.

 

[Nanisu]

Update: So Tech support called me this afternoon and told me they didn't know what the problem was, admitted that others had had the same issues with the evites, they were escalating it to find out why the evites also all bounced. So the upshot is we are not imagining things, and there is definitely an issue. They did send out my hosts evites from their end, but why this happens is apparently a mystery. Stay tuned!

 

[CookingwithMary]

Thanks for the update Nancy!I thought it was 'just me'...

 

[pamperedlinda]

Thanks for the heads-up on this. I hope they resolve it soon. I don't encourage my hosts to use the evites, mainly b/c they don't always get delivered. I've sent several to myself and have only received a couple of them. My hosts tell me the same thing, that when they check-in with their guests the guest never received it.

 

[ChefBeckyD]

Thanks for the heads-up on this. I hope they resolve it soon. I don't encourage my hosts to use the evites, mainly b/c they don't always get delivered. I've sent several to myself and have only received a couple of them. My hosts tell me the same thing, that when they check-in with their guests the guest never received it.

Me too, Linda - I offer it, but I don't advertise it....

I have also had a couple irate emails from guests telling me that they don't know me and to stop sending them invitations to parties.

I've had to have the host call and let them know it was a mix-up....I don't want that happening all the time, so I tell people that if they would like to use the e-invite as an reminder they are welcome to do that, but not to depend on it as the only invitation.

 

[Nanisu]

YOu guys all need to email tech support with these thoughts/happenings. The more they get it, the more they will be willing to escalate it and fix it. The guy yesterday acted at first like it was the first he'd heard of it--then they checked around and apparently "oh yeah, somone else had heard of that happening too". It's a big deal to me that the emails look like they come from me, and not the host. It is also a VERY big deal to me that when a customer uploads their address book to send evites it automatically saves all those names to MY contact list. I would be totally peeved if I received consistent emails from some random consultant I didn't know well after the party had been held. So if you are inclined, please email T.S. to let them know you are concerned about this.

 

[Grandmarita]

As far back as NC 2006, I asked tech support personnel on the floor if they could fix the program so that e-vite names did not become part of my personal mailing list. Could they please figure out a way that I could enter a Hostess as a file name, and then put the group of her guests in her folder. That way when she was a repeat hostess, I could access them and add or delete as she wished. If anyone aware of that being possible, yet?

A month ago, I had a hostess do her entire Show via e-vites. They went online and placed their orders for her show, saving them the effort of coming
to a party. Everyone was happy with that arrangement at this busy time of year. The system must have been working them. I was not on her invite list to know how it was signed. Apparently none of the e-vites bounced, at least they did not come to me.
ands

 

[Chef Bobby]

A computer guru friend advised me to not send out more than 9 invitations at a time to avoid spam filters. Also the fact that our invites have a web link in them will cause some email carriers to automaticly block it.

 

[cewcooks]

I tried Friday to log in as my host and was able to send the emails including one to myself, but I did not get it, when I went on the website from CC it went right through, I have time before my next show to make sure we get all the invites out!