Forwarding vs. POPing

[PChuck]

Hello,

I am a newbie to SpamCop e-mail, but I have been reporting spam for many years.

In setting up my account and browsing through the various Options, I noticed under Options->Mail Management->SpamCop Tools, a feature called "Forwarding." Since my ISP is now forwarding my e-mail to SpamCop and I am POPing it back to Outlook Express ("OE"), it seems instead of POPing, I could just forward my e-mail back to my ISP's mail server after it is filtered by SpamCop (and I could still take advantage of SpamCop's reporting features) by using the Forward feature on SpamCop. spam Cop's e-mail client in many ways seems superior to OE, but many things about it are not intuitive, and at this point in my life, I don't want to take the time to learn how to work it properly.

Am I missing something? Is there a difference between "re-Forwarding" my filtered mail back to my ISP's mail server on the one hand, and POPing it to OE from SpamCop's mail server on the other?

Thanks for taking the time to help me out.

[StevenUnderwood]

Please do not forward or POP back to the same address (account) that is forwarding to spamcop, or you will create a loop and loose email (perhaps this explains your other post).

Pre-filtering options:

a. You can use your ISP's email address and have ISP forward to spamcop for filtering.

b. You can use your ISP's email address and have spamcop POP from your ISP account for filtering.

c. You can use your spamcop email address (not reporting address) for filtering.

d. You can use a third party forwarding service which gives you a permanent address and forward that to spamcop.

Post-filtering options:

a. You can POP directly from spamcop your filtered email either with a client on your local machine or from some ISP's (different account than a and b above, some ISP's allow multiple accounts).

b. You can have spamcop forward your filtered email to an ISP account (different account than a and b above).

c. You can read your email directly using the spamcop webmail application.

I currently use pre-filtered: d (poboxes.com) and b (yahoo) and post-filtered: a (home) and c (away)

Hope this helps

[jefft]

Am I missing something?  Is there a difference between "re-Forwarding" my filtered mail back to my ISP's mail server on the one hand, and POPing it to OE from SpamCop's mail server on the other?

Thanks for taking the time to help me out.

Yes, there's a huge difference. If you forward back to them, they'll just forward back to us and round and round it goes. That's a mail loop and you'll lose all your mail.

You have to POP from somewhere, either your ISP or us. It might as well be us, so I'd just leave it set up the way you already have.

JT

[PChuck]

Thank you, Steven, your reply is very helpful!

If I use post-filtering option (d), and POP directly to a client on my local machine, this has nothing to do with my ISP account, or does it?

I notice that in Outlook Express, under Tools, when you go to change the POP settings, it is under a tab called "Internet Accounts"->"Properties." And since I only have one account listed there, which is my pre-filter ISP . . .

Sounds like I need to get another account!

But the odd thing is, I received an e-mail notification of your response at both SpamCop and my pre-filter ISP.

Thanks again.

Regards,

PChuck

[StevenUnderwood]

If I use post-filtering option (d), and POP directly to a client on my local machine, this has nothing to do with my ISP account, or does it?

If you POP directly from spamcop to your local machine, that would work fine.

Sounds like I need to get another account!

You would probably want to stop popping from your pre-filter ISP (which if it is actually forwarding would never receive anything) and confgure it to pop from spamcop. You would only need another account if you wanted to forward back from spamcop.

But the odd thing is, I received an e-mail notification of your response at both SpamCop and my pre-filter ISP.

Are you sure you have your ISP forwarding and do not have spamcop popping from your ISP? In every configuration I have seen, to receive 2 copies, you wold have to pop from ISP from 2 locations. For example, you pop from ISP and leave it on the server, then spamcop pops and removes from the server. In this case,you would want to stop popping your ISP from your client.

[PChuck]

Aha! The mystery is solved! MMInternet was "sort of" forwarding my mail. Apparently, there were two lists they needed to add my forwarding address to, and on one of the lists, they spelled my cqmail.net address incorrectly! Well, at least they copped to it, and apologized profusely. So I could receive e-mail fine when it was sent from within their network, but when it was sent from outside their network, SpamCop's mail server (correctly) bounced it, because no such address existed on that server.

Now that MM has fixed the error, everything is working as it should.

Thank you all for your helpful, friendly, and timely advice. I am very glad I started using this service, after so many years of sitting on the sidelines, quietly reporting spam (and perhaps getting much more spam as a result). Maybe one day we will win the war.

Best regards,

PChuck

[Wazoo]

Aha!  The mystery is solved!  MMInternet was "sort of" forwarding my mail.  Apparently, there were two lists they needed to add my forwarding address to, and on one of the lists, they spelled my cqmail.net address incorrectly!  Well, at least they copped to it, and apologized profusely.  So I could receive e-mail fine when it was sent from within their network, but when it was sent from outside their network, SpamCop's mail server (correctly) bounced it, because no such address existed on that server.

Now that MM has fixed the error, everything is working as it should.

Thank you all for your helpful, friendly, and timely advice.  I am very glad I started using this service, after so many years of sitting on the sidelines, quietly reporting spam (and perhaps getting much more spam as a result).  Maybe one day we will win the war.

Best regards,

PChuck

Dang, and only after typing in a long response in the other thread/Topic you started do I see that problem was resolved ... though happy to see that one of my guesses was correct. Just curious as to why you started a second thread/Topic about the same issue ...???

[Mahogany Rush]

I tried POP first. It worked great up until I started receiving "mailbox full" notices from my ISP. Come to find out, it was leaving all of my mail on my server at my ISP. Yikes! I switched to forwarding while automatically deleting it from my ISP server at the same time.

[PChuck]

Dang, and only after typing in a long response in the other thread/Topic you started do I see that problem was resolved ... though happy to see that one of my guesses was correct.  Just curious as to why you started a second thread/Topic about the same issue ...???

Sorry, Wazoo. I should have posted a link. Also see my apology to you in the other thread, where you obviously spent a lot of time typing in a very helpful response.

I will be more careful next time.

[northchurch37]

I use a mix of POP and IMAP access from multiple machines. Daily access via webmail or IMAP on laptop or Palm. Spamcop POPs my ISP and I POP Spamcop once a week or so from my main home PC to clean up the inbox. No problem with mail loops and incoming/outgoing email has my ISP address.

[Keithj]

I have a bunch of e-mail addresses. My primary ISP provides 12, and I use those for business and various hobbies, plus I have some "free" dial-up ones for when I'm on the road. I also POP from Spamcop - I use my spamcop.net address for newsgroup postings - it's proved excellent at avoiding spam so far.

Mozilla on the home machine POPs all the addresses. If one starts to get spammed, I stop POPping it from home and set Spamcop to POP it instead. That's very easy to turn on and off as the need arises. In fact, it's a brilliant service from Spamcop.