My shared hosting customers requested to relay their outgoing mail remotely through my hosting service. I don't want to open SMTP relay for them because it's the lost of bandwidth (most of them are business people who send a volume of attachments everyday). I suggest them to use their own ISP's smtp server but they excuse that they are too lazy to reconfigure their mail client every time they change ISP. Even worst , some customers is using idiot ISP who don't offer SMTP service (actually they have SMTP, but didn't advertise to their customers).

Now everybody turn to me. They though I can offer everything. If I open SMTP for them, the following problem will happens
- they will use this server forever instead of their own ISP even when they are statically connected in their home or office.
- customers who have no idea of how pop before smtp works will yell at me when their outlook express cant send mail at first connection.

Please give me some advice. :(

use SMTP authentification, not POP before SMTP

We offer SMTP with pop before smtp and have not had any problems or complaints.

Business customers do not want to use their ISP for sending mail. I do not blame them. They want the mail to come from there domain. It is more professional.

Chris

That is a load of crap because all they need to do is add their email address to the the reply-to field. Besides, how many people actually know how to read the headers to see where the mail is coming from? And if they do, how many take the time to do it -- and who really cares?

It's been my experience that many ISP like Earthlink/Mindspring, ATT block the use of smtp's other that there own.

Currently I'm unable to use the smtp server provide to me through my hosting company because of Mindspring. I had to go into OutLook Express and set my smtp field to use smtp.mindspring.com. My ISP told me that they do this to control spam. I dunno about that but I had to reconfigure a work around. Really no one can tell the difference because I completed the reply to field with the email address I want.

Of course if some one is snooping around and checked the source they would see a mindspring trail but I don't care.

-Kevin

There's no much difference in source address between relaying mail through remote host and local ISP. Remote Host will also record sender's IP address to the source . The most professional and efficient way to send mail is to use their own SMTP like IIS. But I can't dare to teach people this way , or I have to give at least 1-2 days to help an idiot remove the lame win9x and install win2k.