Hello everyone,

A co-worker of mine having a little trouble sending email and is getting a bounce back related to spamcop and I am not sure why. It's happening to two different people, that he's been attempting to email. I've posted both transcripts for your reference. This problem started last week, no new software or any changes have been done to our PCs. Any help would be greatly appreciated. If you need further information, just ask and I'll do my best to anwer.

Thanks!


FIRST TRANSCRIPT:
----- Transcript of session follows -----
... while talking to custmx.netvision.net.il.:
<<< 500 5.7.1 Blocked - see <http://spamcop.net/bl.shtml?209.239.41.159>
... while talking to mx10.netvision.net.il.:
>>> MAIL From:<XXXX[at]cjrfinearts.com <mailto:XXXX[at]cjrfinearts.com>>
<<< 550 5.7.1 Rejected: 209.239.41.159 listed at bl1.netvision.net.il
554 5.0.0 Service unavailable

SECOND TRANSCRIPT:
----- Transcript of session follows -----
... while talking to mail.acoolrealtor.com.:
>>> MAIL From:<XXXX[at]cjrfinearts.com <mailto:XXXX[at]cjrfinearts.com>> SIZE=13354
<<< 501 5.7.1 <XXXXcjrfinearts.com <mailto:XXXX[at]cjrfinearts.com>>... Sender refused by the DNSBL bl.spamcop.net

Did either of you follow the link in the first transcript? It shows that IP address (likely the IP address of the senders mail server, though it looks like it might be his host directly, 209.239.41.159 = host14.apollohosting.com) has sent email to spamtrap addresses recently. It will be delisted in ~11 hours if no new reports are made.

I don't know what the relationship is between this host your co-worker, and yourself, but someone should contact abuse[at]apollohosting.com and ask them to clean up that IP address or to provide a clean address.

That machine is likely sending non-delivery bounces to the spamtraps, as it just did with my test:

With the following result (cancelled report):
http://www.spamcop.net/sc?id=z1106702813z2...f1c0a5abcb780cz

Thanks Steven, that's the ISP. I'll contact them right away.

I hope you get some help when you contact them as it looks like they know what they are doing and do not care as I get this from a Spamcop lookup:

Parsing input: 209.239.41.159
host 209.239.41.159 = host14.apollohosting.com (cached)
host 209.239.41.159 = host14.apollohosting.com (cached)

ISP does not wish to receive report regarding 209.239.41.159

ISP does not wish to receive reports regarding http://209.239.41.159/ - no date available

That's a bad sign. It means that they refuse to receive reports of spam coming from their system. To be more specific, the hosting provider involved here is Alabanza, who in turn hosts ApolloHosting.com (Apollo leases multiple dedicated servers from Alabanza...I'm a former Alabanza customer, so I know a bit about all this). Therefore, the owner/admin of "cjrfinearts.com" should contact Apollo Hosting, explaining that the IP address for email transmitted from the server on which their domain lives (host14.apollohosting.com) is listed on multiple blocklists/blacklists, including SpamCop's (and the one http://www.uceprotect.net/en/rblcheck.php) because bounced emails from the server are hitting various "spam trap" addresses around the 'Net.

Unfortunately, I don't think they'll get anywhere, because this is how Alabanza has *always* set up their email delivery errors...they bounce them after the fact, sending them as email messages sent from the nonexistent addresses! I complained bitterly about that when I was on Alabanza dedicated servers, but it didn't do any good. Unless you can get Apollo Hosting to actually turn that lovely "feature" OFF (so that no response is sent in response to mis-addresses messages), then the users of that domain are doomed to getting listed on blocklists again and again.

Send me a PM if you'd like any further info.

DT