Missing bounceback e-mail

[#1]

I have raised this as a ticket (22846631), but wondered whether anybody could shed any light on this, because it might be nothing to do with PlusNet at all.
One of our domain names has its catchall option turned off, so e-mails to unknown e-mail addresses should be bounced (me@mydomain.com should be forwarded to my PlusNet e-mail account, but test@mydomain.com should bounced). When I send to test@mydomain.com from either my Hotmail account, or using PN's webmail, then I correctly get a delivery failure bounceback. However, when I send an e-mail to test@mydomain.com (using PN's SMTP server) using Outlook Express, I don't get a failure notice.
PN's SMTP server is definitely accepting the e-mail from OE, because I tried sending one e-mail to both me@mydomain.com and test@mydomain.com. The e-mail arrived at my PlusNet account, but I still didn't get a bounceback from the test@mydomain.com e-mail account.
I don't know how protected the forums are from Spambots, so I haven't used my real domain here.

[#2]

You are correct not to post real domain names as this forum is completely open.
As for your problem, this is detailed in PUGIT 340.
This is apparently 'by design' according to PlusNet and thus not a problem as far as they are concerned.

[#3]

Thanks for raising this Rob.
It's listed on PUGIT as an Annoyance. I see why, but personally, I can think of more appropriate (& far stronger) expressions.   
I understand why if the sending IP address is not one of Plusnet's, but the majority of business customers must send email from email addresses that are not Plusnet addresses, but are sending from a Plusnet IP address.
The worst aspect is that apart from the miniscule number who will be aware of the two posts relating to the problem, no-one will even be aware of it & be happily assuming 'no bounce - no problem'.
I'm added my vote on PUGIT & hope we get a more detailed explanation from PN.
Bob - sounds like one for you, if you are about. 

[#4]

Quote from: Simon

Thanks for raising this Rob. It's listed on PUGIT as an Annoyance. I see why, but personally, I can think of more appropriate (& far stronger) expressions.    I understand why if the sending IP address is not one of Plusnet's, but the majority of business customers must send email from email addresses that are not Plusnet addresses, but are sending from a Plusnet IP address.

As far as I know you still receive NDRs if you are sending email from a domain that is hosted on your account.

Quote

The worst aspect is that apart from the miniscule number who will be aware of the two posts relating to the problem, no-one will even be aware of it & be happily assuming 'no bounce - no problem'. I'm added my vote on PUGIT & hope we get a more detailed explanation from PN. Bob - sounds like one for you, if you are about.

I will try and revisit this with our net-ops guys when I get the chance however as has been mentioned this is by design. People also seem to be overlooking the possibility of viruses/malware on customers' machines. This has the potential to cause backscatter on the mail platform due to the payload spewing out email to invalid addresses (which would then be bounced). I've done a quick Google and it looks to me like this behaviour is what's being explained here.

[#5]

Thanks for your replies. I've added my vote as well. This explains why an old mate didn't reply to my e-mails last year. I assumed that he must have received my e-mails because I didn't get a "bounceback".
I have my account set-up in Outlook Express with the E-mail Address and Reply Address to be me@mydomain.com. A workaround would be to change the E-mail Address to me@username.plus.com. The disadvantage is when recipients add me to their address books, most programs use the "from" e-mail address, not the "reply to" e-mail address. The last thing I want is customers adding my PlusNet e-mail address to their address books.
I always keep my websites separate from my ISP accounts, so the domains are not hosted with PlusNet. Simon's suggestion about checking sending IP seems to make sense. I understand Bob's comment about viruses on PCs causing "backscatter", but why should users without their own domain names be allowed to cause "backscatter", but users with their own domain names are not? It seems that those of us who keep our domains separate from PlusNet are being penalised for doing so.
The comment that this is "by design" has been mentioned a few times. Just because a "feature" has been deliberately included, doesn't mean that this "feature" shouldn't be removed, especially if this feature is contrary to RFC2821 (as stated in PUGIT 340).
I use PlusNet's POP3 servers as a back-up to other, more reliable, POP3 servers. I have always used PlusNet's SMTP servers as my main way to send e-mails. This now seems to be a bad idea.

[#6]

I had assumed that the reason that e-mails sent from webmail got bouncebacks was because the From: address was kept as the PlusNet address, even if a different e-mail address has been set in the options, but in Outlook Express I have set the From: e-mail address to me@mydomain.com as well as the Reply: e-mail address.
However, according to the support ticket that I raised:

Quote

This will be because the relay servers are configured differently. They will not generate a bounce message, this is to stop the generation of spam through our servers. The webmail system does not use the relay servers which is why you getb the bounce from webmail.

Interesting, I had assumed that e-mail programs on PCs, and the webmail, both used the same mail servers.

[#7]

Thinking about this, I've received bounceback e-mails before. Is this a recent change for the worse?
Even BTYahoo (which I've found terrible for blocking legitimate traffic) allows bounceback e-mails when the original e-mail is sent from a non-BTYahoo account.