Argos Fast Track Email never arrived?

If you order Fast Track items online at Argos.co.uk then you’ll know you can pay in advance and Argos sends an email with your Fast Track reference number and collection code, along with confirmation of your payment (a Receipt, in other words). Then you pick up your order from your chosen Fast Track collection point. Generally I have found this works flawlessly and it’s an efficient way of ordering goods for collection at a time to suit yourself: better than waiting in for a van to arrive, too. I have yet to try their same-day delivery service though.

However the Argos email is the only proof of purchase that you receive, and the cheerful and helpful Argos counter staff will repeat the mantra that the email must be retained for future reference in case it’s needed for returns or warranty claims. So the Argos email is sacrosanct, as without it you have no proof that you purchased that particular item on that particular date.

So when I recently ordered some (not cheap) Christmas goods online in the usual way, no email arrived. This was very strange as the SMS message arrived instantly like it normally did, and usually the email arrives soon after, but even after checking mail for an hour, my Argos receipt email did not materialise this time round.

It was only because I had an SMS with the reference numbers that I was able to collect the goods at all. (It does worry me that there are no ID checks, so anyone can rock up and collect your order if they know your FT and collection codes.)

I asked my ISP to check the mail server logs as I suspected a spam filter was deleting mails, and sure enough, it turns out that the Argos mailserver IP address is presently blacklisted by some powerful third party services that ISPs use to filter spam – so even if the Argos email was sent, it would never be received.

For any technical folks reading this, here’s what my ISP (Swift Internet) found:

Dec 19 14:10:14 swift26 postfix/smtpd[21597]: NOQUEUE: reject: RCPT from unknown[142.0.69.42]: 554 5.7.1 Service unavailable; Client host [142.0.69.42] blocked using zen.spamhaus.org; https://www.spamhaus.org/sbl/query/SBLCSS; from=<argosonline@argosgo.com> to=<my.address.here> proto=ESMTP helo=<tournai.argosgo.com>

You can check the status of the Argos mailer IP address using MX Toolbox here:
http://mxtoolbox.com/SuperTool.aspx?action=blacklist%3a142.0.69.84&run=toolpage

This is direct evidence that emails sent by Argos might not be received by customers. This email problem isn’t our fault nor Argos’s really, but it’s down to Argos to get their IP removed from the spamfilter databases to ensure their emails are not intercepted this way.

Meantime all you can do is keep a note of the SMS for the future, particularly the FT and collection code numbers as these are critical: my store confirmed they could track back the order through their system using these numbers. Do ensure an SMS is sent to your phone otherwise without the email you have no way of progressing your order at all.