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Incoming mail bounced back as spam....when it's not

Bobins99
Newbie
Posts: 3
Registered: ‎28-09-2017

Incoming mail bounced back as spam....when it's not

I should receive a newsletter from a specific sender but it is being bounced back to them as 522 SPAM.

After a number of tests, I have determined that if I send an e-mail to my plusnet mailbox that contains nothing more than a hyperlink to their e-mail address, it gets bounced irrespective of any other content of the e-mail.

Why?

It's not the senders address/domain that's the problem (it gets bounced from any sender address) but the e-mail is being rejected at the front door because of it containing a specific e-mail address in the message body.

That's not what the description of spam filtering says.

"With spam filtering turned on, emails sent from mailservers with a bad SenderBase reputation will be rejected and bounced back to the sender. Emails that pass this first check are scanned and given a spam rating. What happens then depends on the settings which follow".

This say nothing about bouncing based on containing an e-mail address.

The senders domain does not show on SpamHaus as a problem domain.

How can this get fixed?

 

3 REPLIES 3
spraxyt
Resting Legend
Posts: 10,063
Thanks: 674
Fixes: 75
Registered: ‎06-04-2007

Re: Incoming mail bounced back as spam....when it's not

You need to contact Customer Services via chat or phone, report the false-positive rejection and ask them to get the spam reputation of that email address reset. They might want to see the original source(headers and content) of a bounced message from your tests.

Unfortunately spam protection is not an exact science and newsletter senders are prone to ending up on bad guys' lists if someone reports their content as spam. Sad

David
Bobins99
Newbie
Posts: 3
Registered: ‎28-09-2017

Re: Incoming mail bounced back as spam....when it's not

Hi David,

Fully appreciate that a sender can end up on the bad boys list however why does that extend to an e-mail NOT from the bad sender?

It appears that simply mentioning the allegedly bad senders e-mail address in the content of an e-mail causes it to be bounced. Surely that shouldn't be the case?

 

spraxyt
Resting Legend
Posts: 10,063
Thanks: 674
Fixes: 75
Registered: ‎06-04-2007

Re: Incoming mail bounced back as spam....when it's not

I guess this counts as rejection by association. Restricting publicity for senders with an alleged poor reputation seems fair to me. Unfortunately there's far too much spam about.

However resetting that reputation is an option receivers have.

David