Important: Do you use a Bigpond or Telstra email address?
If your email address ends in bigpond.com, bigpond.net.au, telstra.com or telstra.com.au, our reply to you may be blocked by Telstra before it ever reaches your mailbox.
Ever emailed a business and wondered why they never replied? It may simply be because you're using a Bigpond or Telstra email address.
If you have emailed us and think we have not replied, please do not assume we have ignored you. There is a very good chance we have already replied, but Telstra has not delivered our email to you.
The easiest solution is to give us another email address or your mobile number. Gmail, Outlook, Hotmail, iCloud and most work email addresses generally do not have this problem.
Why does this happen?
Like many Australian businesses, we use a professional business email service, Google Workspace, for our customer emails and replies.
Bigpond and Telstra use overly strict email filtering. At times, their mail servers reject legitimate emails sent through business email systems before those messages ever reach the customer.
This issue is not unique to Heater & Spa Parts. There are documented reports of Bigpond and Telstra rejecting legitimate emails from Gmail and Google Workspace users, including business domains using standard email authentication.
Your email to us can arrive perfectly normally. We can read it and reply normally from our end, but Telstra can then reject our reply on its way back to you.
You will NOT necessarily find our reply in your Junk or Spam folder
This is the important part.
If Telstra rejects the email before accepting it, the message never reaches your mailbox at all.
That means it will not be in:
- your Inbox
- your Junk folder
- your Spam folder
- your Deleted folder
There may simply be no copy of our reply anywhere in your Bigpond or Telstra mailbox.
If you emailed us and have not received a reply
Please do not assume that we have not answered you.
We reply to customer enquiries, but unfortunately we cannot force Telstra to accept an email once their mail server rejects it.
If you are using a Bigpond or Telstra address and have been waiting for a response, please contact us another way:
- Call us on 1300 418 299. This avoids the email problem completely.
- Send us another email and include a different email address, such as Gmail, Outlook, Hotmail, iCloud or a work address.
- Give us your mobile number. If necessary, we can contact you by text instead.
The simplest solution
If you have another email address, please use it when contacting us.
Addresses from services such as Gmail, Outlook, Hotmail and iCloud are generally much more reliable for receiving our replies.
If Bigpond or Telstra is your only email address, that is fine. Just include a mobile number as well so we have another way of reaching you if Telstra rejects our reply.
Already placed an order using a Bigpond or Telstra address?
No problem. You do not need to place the order again.
Simply call us on 1300 418 299 or email us with another email address and we can update your contact details.
If you have your order number handy, please include it.
If you want to keep using your Bigpond or Telstra address
You can. We simply recommend giving us a mobile number as well.
If you are expecting a reply from us and have heard nothing by the next business day, please call us rather than continuing to wait.
We may have already replied and, depending on how Telstra has rejected the message, we may have no practical way of knowing that you did not receive it.
If your email is forwarded to Bigpond
Some customers have another email address that automatically forwards messages into their Bigpond mailbox.
If this applies to you, please also check the original email account directly. Forwarding between different email providers can create additional delivery and spam-filtering problems.
More information and examples
If you would like to read more about the issue, the following references include examples of Bigpond and Telstra rejecting or blocking legitimate email:
- Google Gmail Help Community: All emails to Bigpond being rejected
- Google Gmail Help Community: Gmail to Bigpond bounced back with "Connection refused"
- Whirlpool: Bigpond rejecting Google Workspace email
- Telstra Support: Telstra email sending and receiving troubleshooting
- Mailtester: Bigpond & Telstra email deliverability rules
The Google and Whirlpool examples are particularly relevant because they include reports involving Gmail and Google Workspace, the same business email platform used by Heater & Spa Parts.
