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Blacklisted email servers
For several months I have experienced problems with one email sender who advises me that his emails are being returned 2/3 days after despatch, with the comment "....unable to deliver". No other explanation was given. Needless to say I was unaware of this but when advised I examined my security set up and found nothing wrong (Norton Internet Security 2005 listed the sender's email address as OK to receive)
Two weeks ago a further sender had all mail bounced back followed by another last week.
I asked my ISP (tesco.net) if there was any filter being applied and was told that I should go to a site address within tesco.net and remove a 'spam' filter that had been applied to my internet address. This had been done without my knowledge. It was suggested that I remove the 'check' against the filter and try again.
I next asked one sender to send me a simple line of text to test that I could now receive OK. The test failed with the email being returned.
I again approached tesco.net support services as I was still at square one. Tesco’s Their reply is shown below and I wonder if their action is legal and what Microsoft's reaction is likely to be given that Hotmail is blocked.
Personally I am annoyed that no warning was given that this blocking was to take place and therefore I could not alert any of my addressees.
The email just rec'd from tesco.net:-
“Unfortunately Tesco are blocking emails from Wanadoo, Yahoo and Hotmail. These domains are blacklisted by the third party mail filtering service that we use, as sources of SPAM. We are unable to remove the blacklisting. It is the responsibility of the blacklisted ISP to clean up its act and ensure that their domain is not a haven for spammers. Once this has been done they will be removed from the blacklist”
January 27, 2006 in Vent your spleen! | Permalink
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Comments
Its not just Tesco.
NTL have also blocked hotmail emails, this week.
The only folk who suffer are the innocent users
Posted by: Phil Murgatroyd | 27 Jan 2006 18:50:01
NTL and Tesco Share the Same Servers and have been working with each other for over 12 Months.
Posted by: Steve H | 27 Jan 2006 20:12:38
Now all becomes clear..(ish)
I tried to book B & B by email three times with an address in france, and finally rang them.
(expensive & inconvenient)
They had vacancies for my dates, and said that wanadoo.fr would not accept emails from ntlworld.!
Posted by: john | 27 Jan 2006 21:51:43
What justification have ntl got for using a system that stops their users receiving legitimate e-mails. It doesn't stop the spammers only hurts the people who don't receive their messages and probably don't even know they are going missing.
They have given users the option to have suspected spam deleted or put into a spam folder or put in the inbox with a spam flag so they should leave it to the users. It would be alright if they only stopped genuine spam but if the sending server can be used to send legitimate mails isn't interfering with peoples messages illegal ? If not it should be.
Posted by: Clive | 27 Jan 2006 23:06:40
my server in portugal, clix, justs tags [probable spam] to each suspaect mail and sends it on. a user can then make his own decisions or write outlook rules. works well
Posted by: colin | 28 Jan 2006 13:53:05
Blacklisting an ISP does rather seem like taking a sledgehammer to crack a nut.
If you use Outlook Express,
I've found that creating a few basic message rules in the Tools/mail menu can rid you of most spam and you even have the option of deleting them on the server.
Posted by: Alan | 28 Jan 2006 16:25:06
Surely its time for a UK wide petition against this absolute lunacy.
Posted by: Mr P | 30 Jan 2006 23:19:51
This is truly silly!! My daughter (tesco account) was sending me emails to my hotmail account. Obviously when I replied to her emails she did not get them!! When I found out why and told her she was shocked!! Not like Tesco warned her or anything! Bad business practice if you ask me !!!!!
Posted by: Rasta Nick | 31 Jan 2006 12:28:10
I am having the same trouble with NTL blocking Wanadoo MSN hotmail.
I live in Spain and E-mail a cheap alternative to the telephone enabling me to keep in touch with my family in the UK and elsewhere My family are going to change their ISPs because they are not able to keep in contact with me, this is what others should do as it is unfair to consumers to deny contact!!
Regards Geoff Thomas
Posted by: Geoff Thomas | 1 Feb 2006 09:26:26
Ever since a friend on Wannadoo as an ISP allowed members of the family unfetterd access to her PC over Xmas, I have been receiving rejections of my emails to her. Despite my insistence that she (her PC and ISP) was blocking my emails she was adamant nothing had changed and she resisted my complaint up until I got mad and she went thro' her settings and found what I had been telling her. She lifted the Blockings that had been created by her (braindead) adult family members. However, because Wanadoo have a policy of deleting anything in the pipeline that is not delivered within 5 days, despite the lifting of the blocks, still deleted the one remaining email that was in the pipeline. The fact that they warn the sender of their intention is no excuse. It is tantamount to the postman burning mail so as not to bother with shoving it thro' the mailbox. Since emails are valid in courts of law in some circumstances this action is surely illegal. And if it isn't it should be. I use Connectfree as you can see from this message. This site allows 5 additional alias type email addresses. Because one of them was being bombarded with spam and filth I ceased using it for about 9 to 10 months. However, when I did eventually look into the account I received 482 emails to download. Having deleted the lot I killed off the email address that was being plagued and have had no more trouble using it since. The moral is if Connectfree can store mail longer than 5 days, Wanadoo should also do so. Finally, I went looking for Wanadoos FAQs etc and found the website is non existent, temporarirly or otherwise. In short they give no worthwhile service and should be avoided - irrespective of the legaility of what they are doing about blocked messages.
Posted by: HG Allen | 1 Feb 2006 11:01:00
I've been having problems for weeks now, sending e-mails from wanadoo.fr to various e-mail addresses in the UK, Canada and Switzerland. All of these seem to rely on the sorbs.net database to block messages from offending ISPs, which is highly incovenient. in the UK it seems to be mainly ntlworld and tesco, but btinternet also seems to be blocking recently. Highly annoying and timeconsuming. Wanadoo in France have issued a solution to this, which can be found on http://www.wanadoo.fr/bin/frame2.cgi?u=http%3A//assistance.wanadoo.fr/reponse1352.asp . I've just changed my settings and am testing to see whether the messages will get through to ntlworld.....
Posted by: AW | 2 Feb 2006 20:16:38
Like others I have had emails from wanadoo France and Casema Holland being blocked for about 90% of the time since last summer. I have many emails and had many phone calls with NTL ''experts'' but to no avail - I still have the problem. They tend to have solved the ''blocking'' then they say its servers belonging to the respective ISP's and so on. They say the blocking applies to individuals and company's alike - no wonder why UK productivity is so poor, and the rest of course. Time for a change!
Posted by: D Wilson | 3 Feb 2006 18:15:45
I have had the same problem with NTL and blocked emails for over a year now. They say the senders (and they were a lot) are on a blocked senders list. I and several others checked the blockers lists given to me by NTL and guess what no one was on the list. Now I only receive what I call corprate emails I.E. from companys not induviduals. I now use Gmail and hotmail but lose out on the features in Outlook. Maybe like others who have comments printed here its time for a change.
Posted by: Dennis Lord | 3 Feb 2006 21:05:11
I am delighted to see that I have sparked a discussion regarding Servers who block/delete emails. It has occurred to me that, as the addressee has the facility to delete emails for himself, there is no need for the creation of blocking parameters in Outlook(Express) so as to dump the problem onto the server, especially as the ISPs, software producers (Symantec, McAfee, etc) and the net in general has now got a grip on spam and the like, and that there are things like parental and password controls everywhere for anybody who wants/needs to use such things. In short, servers who delete blocked emails should not be doing so and that Microsoft in particular should remove all and any blocking facility in recognition that the intended recipient has that responsibility and the facilities available to him in abundance to make an informed decision of that nature. As I have also said above, I am incensed that they delete my posts without my authority regardless of the legality issue which does not seem to have been considered by anybody in authority at all. Does anybody know of any body that is empowered to intercede and change this appalling situation?
Posted by: Hugh Allen | 5 Feb 2006 11:26:33
They should stick to selling groceries!
Posted by: Nigel | 21 Feb 2006 09:25:49
The issues relating so SPAM will never be addressed by wholesale blocking of major ISPs. Such actions (as implemented by NTL) will just irritate users and completely mess-up e-mail. Organisations like NTL do this because it makes it appear they are being “responsible” about stopping SPAM. However, complain to them about one of their customers sending SPAM for an extended period and they will do nothing at all. Its all ISP trying to appear responsible to clients yet in practice is just marketing and “business2 with no regard whatsoever for their users/customers, etc.
I am not a customer of NTL so am totally unable to take any action. I do wish that NTL customers would “sort-out” their ISP – particularly as NTL and Tiscalli have now started similar actions. We will end up with an e-mail system that does not work (unless you start paying for e.g. Yahoo’s proposed scheme for guaranteed delivery and a cost per e-mail (more money for ISPs). Maybe that is why they are doing this – long term plan to start charging for e-mails – but that’s just a conspiracy theory with no evicense.
Ian
Posted by: | 17 Mar 2006 08:42:01
With NTL you can customise its spam filtering, or even turn it off completely - you just need to login to the Webmail service. Details of the settings are
http://www.ntlworld.com/helpsupport/spam/settings.php
This won't help with domains that are blacklisted, however.
Posted by: Kelvyn Taylor | 17 Mar 2006 13:28:45
what is wrong!
"http://interactive.pcw.co.uk/2006/01/blaclisted_emai.html"
Posted by: ha ha ha | 10 Aug 2006 18:17:25
what is wrong!
"http://interactive.pcw.co.uk/2006/01/blaclisted_emai.html"
Posted by: ha ha ha | 10 Aug 2006 18:17:36
You must understand that the only reason ISP's get blocked by DNSBL is because they have insecure servers that are used to send spam emails, there is NO EXCUSE for having a server that is open to the public for anyone to send email through, it is simply poor administration by their IT people.
Once they secure the problem servers they can apply to the various blacklist organisations to be removed, they will then test the mail servers and see that they are no longer open relays.
I think blocking entire ISP's is a brilliant thing to do since it puts more pressure on the ISP's who have been blacklisted to fix their security holes.
It's just an unfortunate side effect that lots of customer such as yourselves have to suffer in the meantime.
Posted by: Rob | 2 Jan 2007 17:00:33
