Someone has been using my domain for a number of months now and I receive thousands of bounced emails daily. I have noticed that the Return-Path on the bounces have a diamond symbol and not a valid email address. Is there a good way to filter out these bounces and basically create a filter that says that if the return path is invalid, then it will place in the trash?

Any help with filter setup would be great. Is there a doc to read about the higher up commands?

Thank you,

Adam

"Diamond symbol" or just empty <> brackets? I don't think you can filter on "nothing" .. so you'll have to come up with something else that might make them unique / or not match a vaild "it's from me" e-mmail.

1. Filters are only run when you are logged into the webmail application. If you are forwarding or popping the messages from the spamcop servers, they will not be used.

2. Wazoo may be correct, but it would seem that the rule:

Self-defined header: Return-Path: contains <> Deliver to mailbox: Trash

could work. I know that the filter is allowed to be created. Whether it works or not is something that needs to be tested and minor changes might need to be made. For instance, does the self-defned header need a colon after it or do the brackets need a space between them.

I just tried this filter on 535 messages in my trash bucket and got no hits. Not sure if I have any messages with <> Return-Path however.

I also have the same problem.

There is no single filter I found to get rid of all of them.

What I did was :

(1) Set up the first filter to checked for bounced mail from my own ISP (i.e. real bounced mail from me) and copy those to my Inbox. Check a real bounced email to get the format.

(2) Then I set up filters to Trash/Delete all the most common forms of false bounces. I found about 10 filters removes 99% of them. Usually the From contains something like 'Mailer-Daemon' or 'postmaster' and the Subject contains something like 'Failure' or 'Undeliverable' .

The only problem is that you have to log in (or use IMAP) to make this sort of thing work. One tip when checking Held Mail is to apply these filters there also. It removes a lot of the bounces, and leaves a lot less for Checking/Reporting/Deleting.

A real PITA.

Howdy all,

This seems as likely a space as any.

Where do I go to discuss the problem of spam disguised as a bounce? Spam Cop refuses to analyze and report this type of spam.

TIA
Gb

Not really. As defined in the Topic listings, this area is for setting up a SpamCop E-Mail account and issues thereof and therein ...


Had you gone over into the "Help" Forum, you'd have noticed a Pinned FAQ entry at http://forum.spamcop.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=203 that is also titled "Why am I getting all the Bounces?" That offers a description of the issue. You would then either join into an existing Topic already discussing the issue or start your own if your situation is totally different than anyone else's ... Please don't tack a new entry under the Pinned FAQ.

I have been getting a lot of <> (empty) return path bounces myself, yet they come to me, even though I am not listed in the header anywhere, or what gets listed is not my correct e-mail address...Can someone enlighten me what's going on? This seems to be a new phenomenon...

This is because your email address is in the SMTP Envelope, the right side of the "RCPT TO:" line in the SMTP Transaction. Some systems report this info after "Envelope-Recipient:", others using the "for" clause in the "Received" header line, and still others not at all. Do you have a sample header to show us?

Just to update this thread...

Self-defined header: Return-Path: contains <> Deliver to mailbox: Trash

filter does indeed work with no space between the brackets. If you have filters set to run at login, the mailbox could be cleaned as automatically as possible.