The Totally UN-authorized SASSIE Gmail Workaround
for the Totally Heinous GET SHOP OFFER EMAIL problem

Background:

Shoppers with this problem: we hear your pain! While we're working on improving the situation, we wanted to try to do something to help you immediately. So, we offer this guide to a workaround that may solve the problem for you. Please check it out and see if it's something you might want to try!

Symptoms:

• All of My SASSIE accounts have suddenly stopped receiving shop offers ... and keep getting shut off even after I turn them back on.

• I've received an email from SASSIE saying that my shop postings have been turned off.
  
  

  Hello.

  This auto-generated email has been sent to let you know
  that you should no longer receive Mystery Shopping shop-posting emails
  at this email address.

  This is because we received notification that you consider
  the shop-posting emails to be 'spam'.

  You can resume getting shop-posting emails by logging into
  your Mystery Shopping account and enabling them.

  Thank you.

  
  

• When I go to a SASSIE account, my GET SHOP OFFER Emails setting has been set to off:

Problem:

SASSIE may automatically switch all of your SASSIE Accounts to OFF if any of the following occurs:

• Your email provider (AOL is by FAR the worst offender) has automatically sent SASSIE an email demanding that we stop sending email to your address.
• SASSIE has repeatedly tried to email you on multiple consecutive days and your email box has repeatedly been unable to accept the email (note: the occasional MAILBOX FULL or MAIL BUSY message is OK, we just look for a repeating pattern over days and days)
• You report an email coming from our servers as SPAM - this includes:
  • Any shop postings from any SASSIE company
  • ANY email from any company using SASSIE sent through the SASSIE system (including recruiting emails, etc.)
  • Emails from JobSlinger or JobSlinger Plus
  • Emails from SurfMerchants.com or DemoZilla.com (very unlikely that you've received many emails from these domains)
    

Note: Contrary to some conspiracy theorists, JobSlinger Plus does not somehow diabolically shut off your Sassie GET SHOP POSTING EMAIL settings. While we would be happy to take credit for being Eeeeee-VIL GENIUSES, the boring truth is that it's more likely that you (or your email provider) reported a JobSlinger posting as spam and we received a demand to shut of all emails coming from our systems. Sorry!

You jerks! Why did you shut off email to ALL my accounts ?:

We don't WANT to shut off email to ANY your accounts, but in order to abide by SPAM regulations we are REQUIRED to stop sending email to an email address when we receive a message to stop sending email to you (or if it appears your email address can't receive email to us, e.g. your mailbox has been deleted)

Well, what are YOU doing about it?

1. We're trying to work with AOL to get on their "WHITE LIST" so they'll stop blocking emails. It's not easy, though. We joke that it's easier to get into the White HOUSE than the White LIST! OK, we didn't laugh at that one either.
   
   
2. We're buying a new server to send JobSlinger mails and miscellaneous mail from SASSIE companies - this way we can separate those emails from the shop posting emails.
   
   
3. We've developed alternative ways to get notified about shop postings other than email, like Text Messages, Personalized Job Boards (We call it "Target Express") and Desktop Widget Applets that notify you when a job YOU want has become available. If you're a cutting edge type person, you might want to check out JobSlinger Plus for a month and see if it's worth a few bucks a month to you.
   
   
4. Every full moon, we sacrifice a live goat to the Email Gods (well, it's more like a stuffed Webkin ... the Email Gods are pretty gullible).
   

Wahhhh! What can I do about it?

1. Avoid reporting anything from SASSIE, SASSIE-using companies or JobSlinger as spam.
   
   
2. You can fill out this very short survey and help us collect data to analyze the overall problem. You can also opt to help us prove to AOL and other email providers that SASSIE shop postings are wanted by shopper and are NOT spam:
   
   http://sassieshop.com/bnc.php?M=240&TP=7&S=10022&L=16579&C=610b70f6bd
   
   
3. You can switch the email address in your SASSIE accounts to something OTHER than AOL or Mail.com or Verizon or whatever email address that is causing this problem. Google's Gmail works great with SASSIE, for instance. This is painful, but is the best solution. (Later we'll show you how to get a new MSPA certification code and how to add your new email address to Paypal, which allows up to 8 email addresses).
   
   
4. You can cry to AOL or whomever is making your life miserable and tell them to unblock our email ... but it probably won't help. You can cry to US as well, but we'll just cry along with you.
   
   
5. The GMAIL WORKAROUND : You can "bounce" your SASSIE email through Gmail to your current email address. Now you can get around your email provider's nasty blockers AND keep you current email address.

What are the steps for the "Gmail Workaround"?

1. Sign up for a Gmail account and set it to forward all email to your current email address
2. Change the email address in all of your SASSIE accounts to your new Gmail account (JobSlinger Plus can assist here)
3. Change the GET SHOP OFFER setting in all of your SASSIE accounts back to ON(JobSlinger Plus can assist here)
4. If you are MSPA certified -> Get a new certification code based on your new Gmail address
5. If you use Paypal -> Add the new Gmail address to your Paypal account (you can have up to 5 email addresses).

This "Gmail Workaround" sounds great! Should I do it?

• It sounds great ... but honestly, it's kind of a pain. But it's probably LESS painful than logging into dozens of SASSIE accounts, flipping the GET SHOP OFFER EMAIL setting back to ON ... and having it all flip back to OFF eventually. You'll have to determine for yourself if you're into "short term pain for long term gain" or if you're just into... um .... "long term pain".
• Although it SHOULD definitely work, it's totally unauthorized by SASSIE. We don't control all of the factors in this workaround, so we're not going to cut you a check for pain and suffering if it doesn't work.