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> According to the support, the notification emails to the users were sent on Feb 23, Apr 6 and May 15th. However, we did not receive those at all. If true, th

> According to the support, the notification emails to the users were sent on Feb 23, Apr 6 and May 15th. However, we did not receive those at all. If true, this is concerning. One message getting lost in spam understandable. But three over 6 months would imply they're being blacklisted and/or their mail sender is simply broken. Do serious companies not have canaries or other checks in place to ensure their notifications are correctly delivered to customers?

hrpnk 3y ago
A check on the expected migration progress and usage patterns in the region should have also rung a bell.
arp242 3y ago
If a spam service erroneously marks one email as spam, chances are it will also marks other very similar emails as spam. So it's not too surprising all three were marked. For these kind of automated emails getting all emails consistently being delivered to everyone is really hard, almost impossible. The problem here isn't really that emails weren't being delivered, it's that they seem to have tried only one method to contact people, didn't check how successful that was (e.g. by seeing how many customers were still on those regions), and seemingly never tried anything else (such as notifications on the dashboard, a temporary brown-out to alert people, etc.) – "we tried one way to contact you and that didn't work, so we just deleted your service sucks to be you lol kthxfuckitybye"
- adrr 3y ago
  It could end up in the promotions tab or update tab that no one checks.
  - ikiris 3y ago
    If you send out spammy notices, yep.
teeray 3y ago
> Do serious companies not have canaries or other checks in place to ensure their notifications are correctly delivered to customers? Even with a canary, you have no guarantee that a particular customer will receive your email. In this case, maximum CYA is a certified letter sent return receipt requested. There are services out there to mass mail those.
fbdab103 3y ago
Even if all three emails were properly delivered, that is not sufficient notice for a storage service. Why is there not also a reminder on the dashboard? A financial service I use was recently purchased by another. The company has been aggressive in keeping me on the loop about what is upcoming. Maybe six months before the actual event a heads up. Again at two months. Then at one month. Then every week, along with countdowns to the deadline. "Are you ready? This is really happening. Here are relevant docs on how to ensure your transition goes smoothly."
- tracker1 3y ago
  Even the dashboard isn't really enough... if I'm running a one-off application or many, I may not log into every dashboard for every single thing regularly. A scream test would have been most appropriate, combined with a backup and at least 30 days retention for migration.
Rapzid 3y ago
Mature ops use brownouts for this exact reason. Shut the service off for a few hours and you have the attention of anyone still using the service.
fooster 3y ago
Customers ignore emails newsflash. For our SASS service it isn’t uncommon for customers who are administrative contacts and technical contacts to spam their emails and/or generally ignore emails on all varieties of topics. If they’ve supplied valid phone numbers typically they don’t work either.
petercooper 3y ago
But three over 6 months would imply they're being blacklisted and/or their mail sender is simply broken. Plus some enterprises change their mail policy out of nowhere. I have a lot of subscribers from enterprise companies, but sometimes every mail delivered to some company comes back with something like "Your address is not on our whitelist. We only accept approved emails." and every subscriber is hard bounced off the list and that's that. (They aren't paying me, though, so less of a big deal.)

hrpnk 3y ago

A check on the expected migration progress and usage patterns in the region should have also rung a bell.

arp242 3y ago

If a spam service erroneously marks one email as spam, chances are it will also marks other very similar emails as spam. So it's not too surprising all three were marked. For these kind of automated emails getting all emails consistently being delivered to everyone is really hard, almost impossible. The problem here isn't really that emails weren't being delivered, it's that they seem to have tried only one method to contact people, didn't check how successful that was (e.g. by seeing how many customers were still on those regions), and seemingly never tried anything else (such as notifications on the dashboard, a temporary brown-out to alert people, etc.) – "we tried one way to contact you and that didn't work, so we just deleted your service sucks to be you lol kthxfuckitybye"

adrr 3y ago
It could end up in the promotions tab or update tab that no one checks.
- ikiris 3y ago
  If you send out spammy notices, yep.

teeray 3y ago

> Do serious companies not have canaries or other checks in place to ensure their notifications are correctly delivered to customers? Even with a canary, you have no guarantee that a particular customer will receive your email. In this case, maximum CYA is a certified letter sent return receipt requested. There are services out there to mass mail those.

fbdab103 3y ago

Even if all three emails were properly delivered, that is not sufficient notice for a storage service. Why is there not also a reminder on the dashboard? A financial service I use was recently purchased by another. The company has been aggressive in keeping me on the loop about what is upcoming. Maybe six months before the actual event a heads up. Again at two months. Then at one month. Then every week, along with countdowns to the deadline. "Are you ready? This is really happening. Here are relevant docs on how to ensure your transition goes smoothly."

tracker1 3y ago
Even the dashboard isn't really enough... if I'm running a one-off application or many, I may not log into every dashboard for every single thing regularly. A scream test would have been most appropriate, combined with a backup and at least 30 days retention for migration.

Rapzid 3y ago

Mature ops use brownouts for this exact reason. Shut the service off for a few hours and you have the attention of anyone still using the service.

fooster 3y ago

Customers ignore emails newsflash. For our SASS service it isn’t uncommon for customers who are administrative contacts and technical contacts to spam their emails and/or generally ignore emails on all varieties of topics. If they’ve supplied valid phone numbers typically they don’t work either.

petercooper 3y ago

But three over 6 months would imply they're being blacklisted and/or their mail sender is simply broken. Plus some enterprises change their mail policy out of nowhere. I have a lot of subscribers from enterprise companies, but sometimes every mail delivered to some company comes back with something like "Your address is not on our whitelist. We only accept approved emails." and every subscriber is hard bounced off the list and that's that. (They aren't paying me, though, so less of a big deal.)