cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

Spam Message Rejected

discostu
Newbie
Posts: 8
Registered: ‎20-02-2014

Spam Message Rejected

Hi Folks,
I'm receiving emails with the subject "Mail delivery failed: returning message to sender". The body contains the following followed by the rejected message header:
[tt]This message was created automatically by mail delivery software.
A message that you sent could not be delivered to one or more of
its recipients. This is a permanent error. The following address
failed:
"joeb@bloggs.plus.com": <--- Example Plusnet mailbox email address 🙂
SMTP error from remote server after transfer of mail text:
host: mx.avasin.plus.net
Spam Message Rejected
[/tt]
I assume the spam filtering is attempting to permanently reject the incoming spam by sending a "sod off" response and sending me an email as above as confirmation. I've ignored them thus far as the incoming emails that have been rejected have been spam but today three emails were rejected that were not spam. I forward my email address joe@bloggs.co.uk via 1and1 to my Plusnet mailbox joeb@bloggs.plus.com. I don't believe 1and1 do any spam filtering. Is the Plusnet spam filtering responsible for these emails or should I be looking elsewhere? There were no messages in my webmail spam folder.
Thanks,
Stuart
14 REPLIES 14
LinnPlusnet
Plusnet Alumni (retired)
Plusnet Alumni (retired)
Posts: 1,686
Registered: ‎03-02-2014

Re: Spam Message Rejected

Hi discostu,
Can you please raise us a ticket on your account with the email headers? A guide to obtaining email headers can be found here: http://www.plus.net/support/email/email_troubleshooting/obtaining_headers.shtml
We can then further investigate into this. Thank you.
garywood84
Rising Star
Posts: 302
Thanks: 10
Registered: ‎30-07-2007

Re: Spam Message Rejected

I'm having exactly the same issue, also forwarding my email from 1&1 into my Plusnet mailbox.  I wrote about it in <a href="http://community.plus.net/forum/index.php/topic,123820.0.html">this thread</a>, where there is also another Plusnet user with the same problem (also using 1&1).
In case it helps, I've noticed that this problem started since 2 February 2013.  On that date, the "return-path" header added to my emails changed, so that instead of being the originating sender's email address, it's now my own forwarding email address, which explains why we get our own bounced messages.
garywood84
Rising Star
Posts: 302
Thanks: 10
Registered: ‎30-07-2007

Re: Spam Message Rejected

@Linn K
Just to confirm, I've raised ticket #82259575 about this, too.
LinnPlusnet
Plusnet Alumni (retired)
Plusnet Alumni (retired)
Posts: 1,686
Registered: ‎03-02-2014

Re: Spam Message Rejected

Thanks garywood84. I have escalated this ticket to the correct team who will pick this up and carry out any necessary investigations. Hopefully they'll be able to resolve this for you.
garywood84
Rising Star
Posts: 302
Thanks: 10
Registered: ‎30-07-2007

Re: Spam Message Rejected

Thanks Linn.  Will look forward to their response.
LinnPlusnet
Plusnet Alumni (retired)
Plusnet Alumni (retired)
Posts: 1,686
Registered: ‎03-02-2014

Re: Spam Message Rejected

Please allow 3-5 working days for a response and do keep in mind that if you comment on the ticket again it'll put it to the back of the queue again as the team working through the tickets will work through them starting with the oldest ticket first.
bobpullen
Community Gaffer
Community Gaffer
Posts: 16,869
Thanks: 4,950
Fixes: 315
Registered: ‎04-04-2007

Re: Spam Message Rejected

Quote from: garywood84
In case it helps, I've noticed that this problem started since 2 February 2013.  On that date, the "return-path" header added to my emails changed, so that instead of being the originating sender's email address, it's now my own forwarding email address, which explains why we get our own bounced messages.

If that's the case then I'm not entirely sure what we can do about it. Sounds to me like these emails will have been getting rejected before but you'll just not have had visibility of the NDR due to the return path being set to that of the sender. Our servers aren't generating the bounce per se, they're simply refusing the message with a permanent 5xx SMTP rejection. It's the responsibility of the sending MTA i.e. 1&1 to determine whether or not to generate a bounce from that rejection.
We're not going to open the floodgates to spam and I doubt 1&1 would want to change the behaviour of their MTA's to prevent bounces. Seems logical to me that they change the reply address to what it was formerly.
Has anybody contacted them and asked them why they've made this change?

Bob Pullen
Plusnet Product Team
If I've been helpful then please give thanks ⤵

garywood84
Rising Star
Posts: 302
Thanks: 10
Registered: ‎30-07-2007

Re: Spam Message Rejected

Quote from: Bob
Seems logical to me that they change the reply address to what it was formerly.
Has anybody contacted them and asked them why they've made this change?

Yes, I've spent quite a lot of time discussing this with 1&1.  Its response is that it hasn't changed anything, and that it's Plusnet that's adding the <return-path> header, not 1&1's servers.  From what I've read online about how the headers work, that does sound like a reasonable suggestion.  I've also tested this informally, by adding another non-Plusnet email inbox to the forwarder I have with 1&1.  This means that messages sent to my 1&1 address are now being delivered both to my Plusnet mailbox, and to an Outlook.com mailbox.  Only the Plusnet mailbox is generating the failed delivery reports problem; I don't see bounce messages resulting from deliveries to the Outlook.com mailbox.
So, I'm inclined to believe 1&1's suggestion that the problem is with Plusnet's mail servers.  It seems to me that we need establish whether any changes were made to Plusnet's mail servers -- intentionally, or otherwise -- on 2 February that would have resulted in the <return-path> header now being set to the forwarding email address, rather than the originating sender's email address, as was the case before 1 February.  If so, that change needs to be reversed to resolve this problem.
discostu
Newbie
Posts: 8
Registered: ‎20-02-2014

Re: Spam Message Rejected

Hi Linn,
I saw you'd added a reply on Tuesday requesting I raise a ticket and provide sample email headers. Unfortunately, on Tuesday evening BT decided in the interests of safety to chop down a telegraph pole which has been leaning quite noticeably. Hence, no internet. The BT engineers returned on Friday afternoon and have temporarily reconnected the phone lines until a new pole can be erected.
Many thanks to Gary, who in the meantime, has raised a ticket describing the problem.
Gary, obviously your assertion that the configuration has changed, possibly by accident, makes more sense than my assumption that the rejection emails were being sent as confirmation which is almost as bad as receiving the spam in the first place. Doh!
Linn, I'm happy to provide the sample email headers if necessary.
Thanks,
Stuart
garywood84
Rising Star
Posts: 302
Thanks: 10
Registered: ‎30-07-2007

Re: Spam Message Rejected

A further update on this.  I've done some more testing, and no longer believe that this is a problem at PlusNet.
First, I set up a mailbox with 1&1 and set my forwarding email address to forward mail there as well as to my PlusNet mailbox.  Looking at the headers of the messages delivered to the 1&1 mailbox, they too had the <return-path> set to my forwarding address rather than the address of the originating sender.  This suggests that the problem is on 1&1's part after all.
Second, I set up a forwarding email address on a different domain, not hosted with 1&1.  This was set to forward messages to the same PlusNet mailbox as my 1&1 domains do.  The headers for these messages show the correct <return-path> of the originating sender, exactly as mail forwarded through 1&1 did until 2 February when the issue we're experiencing began.
Accordingly, I've passed this back to 1&1's support team and asked them to investigate further.  To be honest, I don't hold out much hope, though, because they seem really against acknowledging that the problem could be on their part.  I'll give them a few more days and see what response I get, but I think the solution may unfortunately have to be moving my domains from 1&1 to another provider, because that's the only way I can take control of the situation if 1&1 won't help.
worm
Grafter
Posts: 51
Registered: ‎03-08-2007

Re: Spam Message Rejected

I'm also having this issue (which I've never had before) and I'm also a 1&1 customer - so it is likely to be a 1&1 issue.
Should be relatively easy to resolve though (I would have thought) - if 1&1 acknowledge that it is their issue.
Warthog
Newbie
Posts: 4
Registered: ‎15-02-2014

Re: Spam Message Rejected

Hi,
I've been going round in circles with 1 and 1, with numerous people in their 'Customer Service' dept acknowledging my requests for a resolution, requesting copies of the offending bounced mails and then doing nothing of any significance. Clearly it's no longer just Gary and myself that have noticed this infuriating problem, but I have yet to see 1 and 1 step up to the plate and sort it.  Anyone got the contact details of Robert Hoffmann, the 1 and 1 CEO?
Warthog
Newbie
Posts: 4
Registered: ‎15-02-2014

Re: Spam Message Rejected

Now starting to loose patience with 1and1. In desperation and a hope that other people will get on their backs, here's my last email back to them..
Hello XXXX,
quote
'it shows that the email address that is causing the error is actually not the 1&1 email address since it is only a forwarding email address and it has been forwarded to the email address xxxxx.plus.com.'
unquote
and it's taken 1 and 1 over a month and 18 emails to work that out!
quote
'What you can do to resolve this issue is to contact the provided for that email address and provide to them the bounceback messages.'
unquote
Been there, done that. Along with many of your other customers who are suffering exactly the same problems with your email forwarding since the beginning of Feb 2014 when 1and1 automatically changed the reply to header in the forwarding address from the original sender to the recipient we have been getting these bounced messages. It has been investigated by Plusnet and the change has been positively identified as a 1and1 issue.
1and1 are aware of these problems as many of your customers have raised issue tickets with you.
Attached is a selection of the most recent bounced messages.
A month on and still no resolution. At this rate it's not going to be long before 1and1's reputation is tarnished by it's very poor practical customer service support.
Regards
********************************
All my previous bounced messages have been sent back to 1and1 oat their request 'for investigation'
In less than a month I'm now up to 90 bounced emails.
Is this a record at poor customer service?  Angry
drj
Aspiring Pro
Posts: 1,118
Thanks: 45
Fixes: 1
Registered: ‎30-03-2011

Re: Spam Message Rejected

I've been following this topic since I had domain name problems with 1 and 1 a long time ago - probably ten years or so - and their customer service was diabolical so I transferred out to another provider. Seems like there's no improvement.