SpamCop Email Service Changes

[ViRGE]

That makes me wonder what happens to legit mail identified as spam? If that tab wont work then there wont be any way to clear it. Surely that's a mistake and he means only in the webmail client?

Presumably it's like any other filtering service at that point: it gets discarded. Unless they're going to send everything through and just tag it as spam.

[Dave_L]

I've been using the SpamCop email service for so long, I can't remember how SpamCop worked before that service was available.

Was "Held Mail" an innovation of the email service, not available to reporting-only users? Or was there a way of diverting spam to a "Held Mail" area for all users?

[djporter]

IIFC the reporting-only service just reports anything you submit as spam. You decide what's spam before you report it, so no need for Held Mail.

[DavidT]

-->

QUOTE(Darren B [at] Aug 10 2014, 05:03 PM) 89491[/snapback]

I'd like a refund of the period after your terminating my services please. If you don't I will just make a paypal claim against you.

I think that if the owners don't specify a refund policy, that there will be a number of claims against them filed with PayPal. I'd been on the receiving end of such a claim (a bogus one, at that) and it's not fun, but they will take the money back from the vendor.

DT

[mschmitt]

I have decided to move to hushmail it's basic premium account is only $4.95 more than spamcop.

POP/IMAP access is $50/year.

[Dave_L]

FastMail looks significantly less costly than Hushmail, unless there are other considerations.

[svanslyck]

IIFC the reporting-only service just reports anything you submit as spam. You decide what's spam before you report it, so no need for Held Mail.

And how exactly do you report anything conveniently if it's automatically forwarded to another email account? I haven't reported manually in years. I transfer everything there and then report as spam from within heldmail in horde or by navigating to http://www.spamcop.net/reportheld?action=heldlog in my browser.

[svanslyck]

IIFC the reporting-only service just reports anything you submit as spam. You decide what's spam before you report it, so no need for Held Mail.

Is to. That's where filtered mail goes!

[TakeshiKovacs]

>- Will there still be a "held email" at SpamCop

I don't think so. Not sure.

Once this settles out, it looks to me like the Email Service will end up being an email forwarding and spam filtering service.

Hard to say. Too many details still to be worked out.

- Don D'Minion - SpamCop Admin -

- Service[at]Admin.SpamCop.net -

Does this also mean that we lose the greylisting facility as well? I regarded that as a very useful facility and found that it stopped a significant amount of spam.

Currently, my account is purely used to forward email on with spam filtering etc.

Once the webmail facility is removed, how will it be possible to change the forwarding email address if ever needed?

[silentlarry]

Does this also mean that we lose the greylisting facility as well? I regarded that as a very useful facility and found that it stopped a significant amount of spam.

...

Once the webmail facility is removed, how will it be possible to change the forwarding email address if ever needed?

More random guesses from me...

Spamcop uses the Horde email platform for web mail. Obviously they've cobbled on extra things to that software, like the entire "SpamCop Tools" menu. My prediction is that the "SpamCop Tools" menu will survive, either as a stripped down Horde email client - with the email part removed, or as a stand alone control panel. Either way, same effect.

It's a good question about greylisting, I have no idea how closely that is tied to the email hosting. My guess is; anything that works with forwarding now, could potentially still work once the hosting goes away.

In any event, no one would use a mail forwarding service that did not allow you to easily change the forwarding target, so it's a given that it will be changeable. Likely the all the filtering controls will survive too. E.g.; you really need to be able to administer a white list when using aggressive email filtering.

The bigger question, as others have asked; now that we know for sure there will be no more VER page, what happens to spam-filtered email? If it just disappears - well that's another thing that's not good for those using aggressive filtering. Hopefully the "Tag Only" option would remain, allowing you to handle treatment of spam tagged email down the line from spamcop filtering.

IMHO, it really sucks that we are left to play guessing games about this stuff. Bad enough to have the service abandoned; the least they could do is be SPECIFIC about the above, the forwarding subscription fee, refunds, etc.

Sigh...

EDIT 8/12/14:

Well the announcement on the other thread regarding filtering has proven my above guesses to be worse than random; they're wrong. I didn't think things would get worse but, ta-da! They did.

Edited August 12, 2014 by silentlarry

[TakeshiKovacs]

This pricing page makes for interesting reading:

http://mail.spamcop.net/pricing.php

In a nutshell, it states:

"Refunds are cheerfully given upon request if you find that you can't use the system for some reason."

I'd say withdrawing the service that's been paid for would be a pretty good reason then, as we won't be able to use the system as intended.

[DavidT]

"Refunds are cheerfully given upon request if you find that you can't use the system for some reason."

...and the copyright tag on that page is from 2001.

DT

[Wookie]

FastMail looks significantly less costly than Hushmail, unless there are other considerations.

I haven't tried Hushmail, but I'm using Fastmail now and I like it. The web interface is better than Spamcop's, and for $40 a year I get 15 GB of storage (more than I need) and the ability to use my own domain name, if I have one. Registering a domain name (which is optional) costs me $15 a year, for a total of $55. That's more than Spamcop cost, but I get a better web interface, my own custom domain, and the security that comes from knowing that my email provider won't suddenly disappear.

Spamcop.net email was great. I signed up over 10 years ago, and for the first 7 years, I literally did not get a single spam message. Not one. (I remember being disappointed when I got my first spam, because then I couldn't tell people I never got spam.) Regardless of what's happening to the service now, I wouldn't trade those years for anything.

I'm disappointed that the service is ending. I'm also kind of excited that I finally get a decent webmail interface with Fastmail.

Edited August 11, 2014 by Wookie

[Ex_Brit]

Yes Fastmail is excellent. I have had an account with them almost as long as I have with SC. I just upgraded mine to "Full" which is way more than I need really. For the time being I will stop using it as simply one of my email addresses that is forwarded to SC and instead forward SC output to it. Using IMAP I can read all the folders on my PC. If SC degrades their service any furher then I'll drop them altogether and use FM exclusively.

Pity really, SC is good at what it does, apart from the odd breakdown of course.

We shall see in the coming weeks exactly what is going to happen I expect.

Edited August 11, 2014 by Ex_Brit

[turetzsr]

IIFC the reporting-only service just reports anything you submit as spam. You decide what's spam before you report it, so no need for Held Mail.

Is to. That's where filtered mail goes!

...You misunderstood the question or the reply or both, I believe. I don't believe that the reply meant to say that there would be no value in having a facility that works like "Held Mail" does in "SpamCop e-mail," just that the way the SpamCop reporting-only system works, there are no "hooks" provided for e-mail systems (other than "SpamCop" e-mail) to use. Instead, the user must identify an e-mail as spam and submit it to the SpamCop parser either manually via the online form or to the "secret" SpamCop submission e-mail address.

[Ex_Brit]

OK I heard back from Support

I asked 2 questions:

Can you clarify what happens when legitimate mail gets labelled as spam

which does happen from time to time, will it be discarded or forwarded,

labelled as such?

Could you also advise, as I just renewed for a year, if I change my mind

can I obtain a refund and for how long after the payment date?

The answer:

I am awaiting clarification from Cisco as to whether mail classified as spam will be bounced or discarded.

I'm sorry but there are no refunds.

So I guess more to come.....??!!

[DavidT]

I'm sorry but there are no refunds.

If you paid using PayPal within the last 45 days, then you can dispute the transaction and most likely receive a refund directly from PayPal. See the link I provided earlier.

DT

[Ex_Brit]

I did and I have a few days to go yet to the 45-day mark, will wait until the last minute...am hoping they redeem themselves sufficiently to deter me from going that route.

[turetzsr]

johnsenchak's and unclewoody's posts approved for public viewing. For more information, please see my latest post in Topic "Alternatives to Spamcop."

[Keithj]

I'm a simple soul. I use (used?) Spamcop as a regular e-mail address, and logged in daily to check "Held Mail" of which there was usually a lot. Most was spam, and reported and dumped with no further ado. Some was "false positive" and needed to be released.

I can no longer connect to "Held Mail". What do I do about stuff in there, good or bad? Is there any way to tell Spamcop 2014 NOT to screen mail? I don't relish the idea of trying to e-mail all my contacts to say "Don't use my Spamcop address".

I did try a message to Spamcop a couple of weeks ago, but got no reply.

[Ex_Brit]

All settings are now at http://www.spamcop.net/ Preference tab where you can set forwarding to your address. All POP/IMAP settings should have been cancelled at SC Webmail before the change. If you had mail stored in folders at Webmail, you've lost it as the notice went out ages and ages ago and it was posted on the log-in page for quite a long while too.

Edited October 6, 2014 by Ex_Brit

[Ex_Brit]

Footnote, if you never got a response from spamcop then you sent it to the wrong address. Using the link I mentioned elicits an immediate auto-response, followed by an email maybe 2 days later on average.

[drcocktail]

I'm sure a number of people are in chaos now that the webmail interface is entirely gone, and I am no exception. I changed my settings to forward to one of my five email accounts (different addresses, different purposes) but here is where I wasn't quite sure what then to do.

I obviously have to connect directly to the particular low-spam address from my mail hosts since to receive Spamcop's filtered results, they need to go to an email address that I connect to directly, right? The cesmail address no longer works for that, right? I was afraid keeping it filtered with the other addresses would double mail emails since I would then get the original emails addressed to that account directly, and the filtered copies via Spamcop, see what I mean?

Somehow though, I'm not receiving filtered email from ANY of my accounts. Do I need to connect them all directly, and receive spam and all just to turn around and report them? Without the old Held Mail, it's looking like yes.

Please, a little guidance. I've only been getting my emails from the one address's direct connection and have to poll the email servers through Entourage to view the rest - again, spam and all. So I need to better understand how exactly it's SUPPOSED to work!

(Also, I am getting a nag screen despite the fact that I am logged in!

Thanks! --Doc.

Edited October 6, 2014 by drcocktail

[anyone8]

It sounds like you've got the idea of not causing a mail loop. In other words, if you're forwarding your_address[at]spamcop.net to your_address[at]example.com, then not forwarding your_address[at]example.com to your_address[at]spamcop.net or the mail would just be going around in circles.

However, I thought we would be able to forward any other address to our spamcop address and receive the spam-free version at our spamcop forwarding address (such as your_address[at]example.com in the previous paragraph). It sounds like you have it set up right, so I have to wonder if I'm wrong, or if the spam filter is really really aggressive.

I know the spam filter is pretty aggressive, as one of my addresses can't even send a test message through. Just a reminder, Cisco is running a different spam filter than the spam filters we enjoyed when our email was handled by CES.

Hope this helps!

[drcocktail]

It sounds like you've got the idea of not causing a mail loop. In other words, if you're forwarding your_address[at]spamcop.net to your_address[at]example.com, then not forwarding your_address[at]example.com to your_address[at]spamcop.net or the mail would just be going around in circles.

However, I thought we would be able to forward any other address to our spamcop address and receive the spam-free version at our spamcop forwarding address (such as your_address[at]example.com in the previous paragraph). It sounds like you have it set up right, so I have to wonder if I'm wrong, or if the spam filter is really really aggressive.

No spam filter is THAT aggressive. I suppose these days this is the best place to report this behavior…if anyone knows differently, please let us know. Right now I've got the flood gates wide open, because email with spam is better than no email at all.

Thanks for the thoughts. --Doc.