My employer keeps a CPanel equipped reseller account for in-house "back door" communication and odd little projects.

We'd done pretty well with one reseller. We had no problems with email addresses getting banned, but we quit after waiting two years for them to deliver on their promise to mount Spam Assassin.

The new reseller account with another outfit is good in every respect *except* that their mail server IP keeps getting banned at Spamhaus. It's happened countless times in the last two months. Each time they get the ban lifted; but, it's only a matter of days until the server's banned again.

In over 6 years we've never had any of our dedicated servers banned, so I gather this particular reseller host has us sharing a mail server with a bad actor who keeps getting the whole server banned.

Should we "dump the chump" or is there something we can do to get our email through (short of being tacky by using ISP addresses or opening up free email accounts)?

Should we dump the reseller host? Any suggestions for avoiding a repeat of this baning on the new reseller account?

Comments are welcome!

Aza D. Oberman

Should we dump the reseller host? Any suggestions for avoiding a repeat of this baning on the new reseller account?
Unfortunately, the only way to not be on a RBL is to have your own dedicated mail server and then you can still get listed if one of your clients sends out spam. (Reseller accounts typically share a mail server.)

The reseller host should find out who is causing the blacklisting and either kick them off or something around those lines. If they don't, then moving would be your only option. Also, it could be a script causing the blacklisting... like a contact form being used by spam bots. That is a bit harder to find if the spam bot is tricky enough.

The new reseller account with another outfit is good in every respect *except* that their mail server IP keeps getting banned at Spamhaus. It's happened countless times in the last two months. Each time they get the ban lifted; but, it's only a matter of days until the server's banned again.
I think you are sharing the server with a spammer.
As you're happy with other aspects of the reseller account, maybe you should give another chance for a week or so and move on if it continues getting blocked.

You could always use a dedicated machine for your mail servers instead or ask for a mail server with a different IP. Really, the provider should be willing to work this out with you. Its something that you as the end-user simply shouldn't have to deal with. That's part of the reason of reselling in the first place.

Should we dump the reseller host?You could push the current host to do a thorough investigation on what's happening. Maybe they can find one or two users who are repeatedly and often the root cause of the blacklisting incidents, maybe a tighter hourly email sending limit would help etc. You could also ask to be moved to a different server. Both requests could be denied or otherwise disregarded, in which case changing hosts may prove to be the only hope of improvement.
There is no guarantee that a new host will mean no such trouble, but a thorough research should bring evidence of such issues.

Keep in mind that having issues 3 years ago, doesn't mean the problem's still there, as the host may have found a solution by now. It's also easier to find complaints about bigger hosts. A host with 4 servers will have a certain chance of getting in a serious blacklisting situation. A host with 1000 servers, will have about 250 times more -- without the company being essentially any worse. :)