Results 1 to 11 of 11
  1. #1

    My emails to "moderators" bounced as SPAM?!?

    I went to sign up for this forum but decided I didn't like the username I chose (went with random letters and then realized it will be visible, not just a password, and might be difficult for people to refer to me by username" in reply posts when getting personal). So, when I got the email with the password that says to "click here" to activate the membership, I instead sent an email to moderators@webhostingtalk.com forwarding that email and explaining that I wanted to change to a new username, and why.

    Weeks went by with no reply, so I finally registered/activated the username I originally chose.

    Then, I sent another email to moderators@webhostingtalk.com to let them know I did so -- in order to avoid confusion in case they eventually got to my first email requesting a change of username. The next thing I know, that email gets bounced back to me with a message saying it was bounced as "spam" and to go to dsbl.org. I tried again to send just an empty "test" message and the same thing happened! Dsbl.org does not have my IP blacklisted, and there's no reason anyone should have my IP, nor my domain, nor my ISP blacklisted there. My ISP is Eart***** -- I doubt THAT'S blacklisted!

    Can anyone explain to me what's going on?!? Or help me get to the bottom of this? As someone running a business, it's obviously a huge concern that I'd suddenly be seeing this occurring.

    Thanks!

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Jan 2001
    Location
    Illinois, USA
    Posts
    7,175
    My ISP is Eart***** -- I doubt THAT'S blacklisted!
    It's possible. Webdev will have to look into this, but try emailing mods@webhostingtalk.com.

    If that doesn't work, then PM me explaining what you need to get done

  3. #3
    Thanks for the quick response. FYI, I sent an email to MattF about this through the forum, too... just to let you know so we can avoid some redundancy. You can imagine my concern over the thought of being blacklisted, which is my main concern now -- far more than the issues I was trying to address in my originally emailing the moderators! Being erroneously blacklisted from emailing the forum moderators isn't so bad, as long as it doesn't mean I'm on some universal blacklist as well! That's what I'd most appreciate help with resolving, please.

    I just tried to send an email to "mods@webhostingtalk.com" and got the same results:

    host mail.webhostingtalk.com [207.218.223.171]:
    550 5.0.0 Rejected SPAM - Complain To: http://www.dsbl.org/ - IP:207.69.200.110

    Please send me a private/direct email address to someone who can get to the heart of the problem here, where I can send all the details, so we can ensure that I'm not compromised unjustly in any way.

    Thanks!

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Jan 2001
    Location
    Illinois, USA
    Posts
    7,175
    you can PM the member "webdev" for help with the blacklist issue

    http://www.webhostingtalk.com/member...o&userid=12516

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Apr 2001
    Location
    UK - Wales
    Posts
    2,170
    i think this needs to be taken up with mindspring, one of their smtp servers is blacklisted:

    http://dsbl.org/listing?ip=207.69.200.110
    www.microsolder.uk - Microsoldering Services in the UK

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Apr 2002
    Posts
    1,018
    Originally posted by XTStrike
    i think this needs to be taken up with mindspring, one of their smtp servers is blacklisted:

    http://dsbl.org/listing?ip=207.69.200.110
    Agreed, this is no glitch, I put in a spam filter system to keep the mods from being bombarded with hundreds of pieces of spam. If it rejected your email, then it's blacklisted.

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Jun 2001
    Location
    Kalamazoo
    Posts
    33,412
    Originally posted by WebDev
    . . . . . . If it rejected your email, then it's blacklisted.
    Then just because it's blacklisted, doesn't mean it deserves to be. Sure, this don't help and is a whole other thread, but blacklisting sucks.
    There is no best host. There is only the host that's best for you.

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Apr 2002
    Posts
    1,018
    Unfortunate casualties of the system, that's why it emails them and lets them know it was rejected though and why instead of just toasting it. All in all it's rejected 1500 pieces of spam since I put it in place Thursday, probably a few percent of that was legitimate, but I know the other mailserver I receive mail from on there, I've received almost no spam in the last few days, but still get a ton of my legit mail. Most of what's blacklisted was blacklisted for a reason at some point. I didnt use any of the hardcore lists that want to charge you for removal, etc.. I chose the ones with some of the better track records.

  9. #9
    Let's see if I got this right. Mindspring, owned by Eart*****, one of the largest email providers in the world -- and the one that took a lot of flack a couple years ago from disgruntled users for their having blocked port 25 in an effort (beyond most of the rest of the industry) to prevent spam from coming from their system -- has been blacklisted as an entire domain? Or part of the Mindspring SMTP system? Does this make any sense whatsoever?

    This is an example of why the spammers are winning -- the lack of any "sensible" solutions to the spam problem. What about just staying with spam filtering services that receive and "verify" given addresses as being sources of spam, or even entire domains that are "blatantly" guilty of supporting spammers -- which I can't for the life of me imagine Mindspring (or any SMTP portion thereof) is even remotely guilty of, or ever has been.

    This revelation is extremely disheartening -- unless I'm missing something.

    Well, thanks for letting me know where to go to deal with it.

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Apr 2002
    Posts
    1,018
    It is disheartening, but they are measures we have to take to keep our boxes from being flooded everyday with crap, unfortunately a few innocents dont get through, but that's why the system emails them and lets them know, rather than just trashing it and moving on. It's amazing how much less spam I've gotten since I put it in, I ONLY have gotten legit mail in my box lately.

  11. #11
    Eart***** tech support just told me to change my account settings from using smtp.mindspring.com to using smtp.eart*****.net, and that seems to have made it to moderators@webhostingtalk.com without being bounced. Cool.

    Okay, so having gone through this fiasco, maybe we can turn grapes into wine and perhaps you would be so kind as to give me a bit of direction on spam protection and web hosting (yes, I know those are huge questions and, yes, I have been doing a ton of searching around, which is why I registered with this forum in the first place). Thought I'd take a shot under the circumstances. I can't afford to miss any legitimate email. I'm trying out MailWasher but it seems like a ton of work and the bouncing feature seems useless since most spammers forge the origination info and they'll never see the bounces and they change their forged origination info as fast as we can list them. I'm thinking a service like dsbl.org but with a more stringent "verifying" procedure. For web hosting, well, I've been all over that forum but just the same, well, feel free to toss out a few names as suggestions if you care to.

    Thanks so much!

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •