My spam reports are suddenly blocked

[johnC]

Hi,

I've been reporting spamp message for several years, without problems. Since a few weeks, my reports are bounced back and I got the following message:

Bounce error
Your email address, <removed>[at]home.nl has returned a bounce:
Subject: Delivery Status Notification (Failure)
Reason: 5.1.0 - Unknown address error 550-'Message refused by spam filter.'

I reported this to my ISP/mail-provider, asking to unblock Spamcop. However, he answered that it's not them blocking my messages, but Spamcop itself does this.

Can anyone give me a clue as to how to resolve this issue?

Thanks in advance!

John Cornelissen.

[Lking]

Sorry for your problems John.

It is a two step issue. When SpamCop send you an email about a spam report some times your ISP will bounce those emails. This often happens when they change/update the spam filters they use to protect their users, as suggested by "Message refused by spam filter." It seems that this happens when basic filters 'see' the word spam in the header or body (which of course happens when SpamCop sends you an email about spam you have reported.

When SpamCop receives a bounce from a reporter's ISP, SpamCop sets a flag in you account and stops sending you emails so they don't have to deal with additional bounce messages. You can clear that flag by logging into you reporting account. Not speaking about your ISP, but I have notices that sometimes an ISP will say 'Not my problem' then take a quick look at their spam logs, see what is happening and fix the problem.

There may also have been a misunderstanding about whether your email to SpamCop was bouncing or the email from SpamCop was bouncing. So reset the bounce flag in you account, if the bounces continue check with your ISP again.

In the mean time, although you will not get a notice (because of the bounce) you can still login to you reporting account and process your spam reports.

User-to-user, hope this helps.