Should you use the phone instead?

If it's really important - you may need to just give them a call. More and more users are finding that with the increasing number of anti-spam services analyzing each email, important email is sometimes going missing.

Almost all messages are subjected to a server-side spam remover. Sometimes certain network traffic is even blocked at the router.

From there, email may get caught by a company's filter on a local server. Exchange now has extensive spam filtering functionality. Many companies have also adopted client-side filtering. These filters usually offer a way to review blocked mail, reducing the problem of missed email.

Some users of the Microsoft outlook spam filter have reported problems with false positives. The mail client moves any messages it thinks are unsolicited to a special folder. Like other client-side solutions, caught messages can be recovered easily. The user just has to drag the email back into their inbox.

There isn't any built-in Outlook Express spam blocker. However, users may have their own custom filters to block mail defined. I had one case where a customer claimed I hadn't sent them a receipt, even though I had repeatedly. Turns out their own custom Outlook Express spam filter was deleting it.

With all these barriers to mail getting through, using the phone doesn't seem like such a bad idea.

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