Unusual Emails of ValleyCat Records

Recently, a peson from another state called to report they were receiving emails like this for titles/items in ValleyCat. They have never been a borrower. What's going on? Are they being spammed? 

No, someone is not using ValleyCat to spam people. Unless we get more reports, this is most likely one person trying to harass another person by emailing them ValleyCat records.  It only happens once every few years. Actually ValleyCat isn't a very effective way to spam someone, since you can only email from the search results screen, the only thing you can change is the subject line and you can only send one record/email at a time.

Tell the person receiving the annoying emails to add the 'From' email address pictured above to their spam filter to prevent any more of these emails from reaching them. 


rev. 4/2018

Troubleshooting Problems w/ Email Notices for Gmail Accounts

If a customer with a gmail account is set up for email notices, but is not receiving them even though their email address is correct, here's some troubleshooting steps you can take:

1. Have the customer create a filter in their Gmail account. Go to Settings > Filters > create a new filter with Subject “Library Notice” with the following options check marked. 
2. Working with your customer, place a test/fake hold on their account
3. Check it into the hold shelf.
4. Did they receive an email notice for the test hold the following day after 11 a.m.?
5. If they still don't receive the email, contact Tech Support for more troubleshooting tips. 

Email Notices and SPAM Blockers

If the customer's email account has the spam blocker turned on, it may block email notices coming from the library. Their email service may be rerouting the notices to their "junk/bulk" mail folder or blocking them altogether. Either way, the customer should adjust thier spam or junk mail settings so that email from the following email addresses is allowed through to their inbox:

• frbounce@fresnolibrary.org (sends out holds and overdue email notices)

In some cases, they may need to turn down/off their spam blocker to allow one of our notices to come through. Then they turn it up/on again once the frbounce and/or noreplysjvls address is allowed through as a valid sender. As staff, you can work with the customer to place some sort of test hold to generate an email notice, have them adjust their spam blocker and the next day (after 11 a.m.) see if the email notice gets through. In most cases, this type of adjustment will fix the problem.

Email from Enterprise Catalog/ValleyCat and SPAM Blockers

In both the Enterprise catalog and ValleyCat, patrons can email themselves title records as well as items in "My List" via ValleyCat. These emails come from no-reply@sjvls.org. If a patron complains they did not receive the titles or lists they emailed to themselves, their email service may have placed them in their junk/bulk mail folder instead of their in box. Ask the patron to adjust their spam or junk mail settings so that email from no-reply@sjvls.org is allowed to come into their inbox.



rev. 7/2017