Overzealous inbound Spam filtering

[#1]

A friend of mine (sending emails via BT Internet email address) is having a similar problem, and has been for months. She frequently receives this (below) when sending me perfectly normal non-SPAMmy messages. I have no idea what to do about it! 

Subject: Delivery Status Notification

- These recipients of your message have been processed by the mail server:
name@plusnet.com; Failed; 5.3.4 (message too big for system)

   Remote MTA mx.avasin.plus.net: network error


- SMTP protocol diagnostic: 552 Spam Message Rejected

Moderator's note by Mike (Mav): Changed thread title to reflect issue after split to its own thread.

[#2]

This looks like a BTinternet issue. Their forums are rife with this sort of issue. The excuse given is to try to resend the email without any links or attachments to start with, which is simple crazy of course. Another "idea" was to keep changing the subject title and resending the email!

Moderator's note by Adie (Dvorak): Full quote of preceding post removed as per the forum rules

[#3]

Thank you for your suggestion, but I'm not so sure - I found this comment - "Despite what you've may have been told, the above error indicates that our inbound mail server has rejected the message based on either it's origin (i.e. the server it's been sent from), or the content of the message itself" - by Bob Pullen on an Apple thread https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7070623 so I was hoping I could get some help with it by posting here. 

[#4]

I've just had another email from a colleague regarding my 'over zealous' Spam filter at Plusnet. I have no idea how to help my colleague get emails through to me - can anyone help please? 

[#5]

@bigblueamazon

The problem you are reporting (inbound message rejection by the spam filter) is different from that of all the other posts (rejection because the sender domain is incorrectly claimed not to exist). This is not helping your problem to get attention.

I think it would help if the mods split messages #23 and #26 to #29 (this one) into a separate topic entitled "Overzealous inbound Spam filtering". I'll make that request.

[#6]

Thank you so much, David. I had no idea there was such a precise etiquette necessary for seeking help. 

Very much appreciated 

[#7]

Moderator's note:

Several posts split to their own thread and title changed to reflect issue.

[#8]

Thanks Mods for splitting the posts out from a topic which seemed to have similarities to this, but were in fact different.

@bigblueamazon The other topic is showing increased activity again now which would lead to posts and replies related to the present issue getting buried. Having it separate avoids that. It also makes it easier for staff to find since I think their intervention will be needed.

A quick bypass for this problem would be to turn off spam filtering but that defeats the object of it being there in the first place. It might result in you getting lots of annoying spam.

A better approach is that suggested by Bob in the Apple forum post you mentioned

It would be helpful if you could send one of the messages that's being rejected to a non-Plusnet hosted email address, and then provide our support team with the full headers and content of the received message. This allows us to check both the content of the email and the route it's taken which might give us a clue as to where the problem lies.

I don't mind taking a look for you if you can provide me with a support ticket reference or similar.

Are you able to gather that information which @bobpullen could follow up?

[#9]

How kind of you David, thank you.

I don't use a Spam filter on my computer, although I presume you're talking about Plusnet's Spam filter. 

I've just requested that my colleague send a rejected email to my Gmail address so that I can forward it Plusnet. Ironically, the same thing is happening when she sends emails to a mutual colleague, so having this fixed would help us all immensely.

I'll post again when I have received a 'problem' email to my Gmail account.

Many thanks for your help. 

[#10]

By the look of it, I'm having the same problem. I put my post about the problem in the section "Tech Help - Software/Hardware Etc" cos the last time I had an email problem, I put my post in "Email" but then someone moved that post from "Email" to the Tech Help section - I wish they would make their mind up where subjects are dealt with. Anyway, I am getting the so-called spam emails coming through now rather than just being deleted by the PN Spam Filter (I changed the PN Spam Filter setting from Reject to Put it In A Folder so it goes to the Webmail Junk Folder in my Webmail).

(1) If I get an email that the PN Spam Filter has decided is spam to PlusNet for them to investigate, what address do I send it to?

(2) Must it be a copy of the email that has gone to a non-PN account rather than my PlusNet address so the PN Filter hasn't had a chance to mess with it?

Thanks

[#11]

@penneck, you're problem sounds different. Unless I'm mistaken, you're asking how to report emails that have been received and incorrectly identified as spam. The only mechanism of doing this currently is to use the 'spam'/'not spam' icons in Webmail. This feedback isn't applied on a per user level though, so don't expect immediate results.

@bigblueamazon, the issue you're experiencing will almost certainly be due to the poor reputation of the sending email address, or something in the body of the email that's matching a spam fingerprint (typically a website address). I can look into this, however I'd need to know the sending email and a copy of the message that's trying to be sent (suggest private messaging that information rather than posting here).

[#12]

Bobpullen, Thanks for taking an interest.

My problem is that the PlusNet Spam Filter is deciding that emails heading for any of my 3 email accounts (postmaster@, <myname>@, or <mywife>@) are spam when they aren't. This has only started recently. All but one of these affected emails have been from safe sources, and we have been happily getting them for years. The one exception was a variation of that 'Nigerian General trying to get money out of his country and needs my help, please send my own money to him' type of email. I feel I shouldn't have to go looking for emails that have been treated as such and rescue them, then add that domain to the whitelist. If we don't tell PlusNet about the Spam Filter being overzealous, then they wont know there is a problem and wont fix it, with the result that people will just turn it off as more a nuisance than a help

Regards

[#13]

Bob Pullen, thank you for your reply.

I can't imagine my colleague having a poor reputation associated with her personal email address - 95% of her emails are of a simple nature with few links, and certainly very little/almost nothing that could be regarded as Spam. There are between 7 and 9 people in the group that she emails, and only 2 of us - the ones with Plusnet email address - have problems receiving certain emails that she sends (most often forwarded emails that are from businesses that deal with our kind of work). 

I have just checked my Plusnet email settings in my account dashboard and found that while Spam filtering is ON, it is set to the lowest number (1). I didn't know I could switch filtering off until just now, so at least I have that option if this is not resolved successfully.

Thank you for the invitation for me to send an email via private messaging. I have contacted my colleague to ask if she has a 'problem' email available to send to me but unfortunately she hasn't saved one recently. I will contact you as soon as we have one. Thank you!

[#14]

@bigblueamazon It probably isn't your colleague's personal email address causing the problem, but could be the server which sends them especially as I think the Apple forum topic mentioned messages from a particular device as problematical. Your comment that

---

@bigblueamazon wrote:

...  and only 2 of us - the ones with Plusnet email address - have problems receiving certain emails that she sends (most often forwarded emails that are from businesses that deal with our kind of work). 

suggests there could be several links in the messages; sometimes these can trigger problems. Being able to analyse a complete message with its headers and content helps diagnosis of the problem.

I don't think this has been spelled out but to get the information to Bob you will need to copy the "original source" text from your gmail account and paste it into a PM (using the </> Insert Code button.is best for this).

I have just checked my Plusnet email settings in my account dashboard and found that while Spam filtering is ON, it is set to the lowest number (1). I didn't know I could switch filtering off until just now, so at least I have that option if this is not resolved successfully.

The level of Spam filtering you have set won't affect rejection of the messages. That is based on reputation before the message gets to spam level assessment. However turning off spam filtering bypasses reputation and spam checking completely. But taking that action shouldn't be necessary.

[#15]

@penneck The means to report 'not spam' messages incorrectly identified as spam is using the "Not spam" button on the Spam/Junk folder display in webmail. This is the one highlighted in the following screen snip.

 Highlighting a "not spam" message and clicking the button submits a copy for analysis and moves the message to Inbox. There is a corresponding button in the Inbox display to report missed spam.

However in your case are you saying that every message you receive in any of your mailboxes ends up in that mailbox's Spam/Junk folder? If that is the case Plusnet would have to check over the email component of your account.