Mailchimp have an interest in their clients not spamming or otherwise contravening any spam laws or ethical practices in email marketing.
I was contacted by a Mailchimp customer asking if I could help them with the issue as described in the message as sent to them from Mailchimp (see below).
Our automated abuse prevention system, Omnivore, reviewed your account with the username (user ID: 1234567). It detected content or actions which either conflict with our Acceptable Use Policy, or present a significant risk to our deliverability.
The account has been disabled. You may log in at any time to export and back up your account data, download reports, or close the account permanently.
If you have questions regarding why this account has been shut down, reply to this email or contact us directly at compliance@mailchimp.com. For questions related to billing, please contact billing@mailchimp.com.
The issue at hand, where Mailchimp has disabled a customer account, is of course serious. Although Mailchimp don’t describe above what has caused them to take the step of suspending an account, the reasons could be one or a few of many including, but not restricted to;
- Should the client be importing known honeypot email addresses then this is a sure sign that an email list has been purchased.
- If there have been a significant number of spam complaints about a campaign then it’s fairly clear that the subscribers haven’t given their permission to receive EDM from the sender.
- The client is offering to sell illegal goods in a Mailchimp sent campaign.
Unfortunately the only people that are able to advise further if your account has been disabled is the Mailchimp compliance team.
Mailchimp disabled my client’s account before it ever sent a single email. It is a simple family newsletter with some religious themes. No explanation, nothing obvious in the list of potential violations and no recourse offered. This is the worse kind of customer service. No warnings, no flags, just a boot coming down hard after a lot of set up work. The Chimp has gotten seriously rude, if you ask me! We are moving on.