e-mails getting lost

[sarahr]

I have my spamcop e-mails set up to forward to my gmail account. I've had a few people lately say that they've e-mailed me at my spamcop address, and it's not getting to me. So I do a test e-mail to myself. Sure enough, it's not getting through. I check the held mail on spamcop, and my spam folder on gmail. Neither of which contain my test e-mail. I am getting some e-mails through though. I just got an e-mail from PayPal today, which uses my spamcop account. So why are some of my e-mails disappearing? I haven't changed anything on either account settings wise in ages, so I'm not sure why it's no longer working.

[petzl]

I have my spamcop e-mails set up to forward to my gmail account. I've had a few people lately say that they've e-mailed me at my spamcop address, and it's not getting to me. So I do a test e-mail to myself. Sure enough, it's not getting through. I check the held mail on spamcop, and my spam folder on gmail. Neither of which contain my test e-mail. I am getting some e-mails through though. I just got an e-mail from PayPal today, which uses my spamcop account. So why are some of my e-mails disappearing? I haven't changed anything on either account settings wise in ages, so I'm not sure why it's no longer working.

Sounds like false positives on Gmail's part

Gmail unusually puts what it considers spam in a spam folder to be checked by you

I recommend just getting email direct from SpamCop and this creates less complexity

SpamCops mail servers are FAST, probably faster than you can recieve.

Gmail I've found often becomes clogged and cannot connect

[agsteele]

I have my spamcop e-mails set up to forward to my gmail account. I've had a few people lately say that they've e-mailed me at my spamcop address, and it's not getting to me.

I think that the pinned topic in this forum probably explains the issue. I'm not sure that there is an immediate answser...

http://forum.spamcop.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=7342

I recently had Email from United Airlines rejected - even though the messages were flight reservation confirmations.

Andrew

[DavidT]

I recently had Email from United Airlines rejected - even though the messages were flight reservation confirmations.

Was the email sent directly to your SC email address? Did United provide you with a copy of the error message, or how did you learn that it was rejected?

DT

[agsteele]

Was the email sent directly to your SC email address? Did United provide you with a copy of the error message, or how did you learn that it was rejected?

Yes, it was sent, twice direct my SpamCop Email account.

Once I located the relevant person they told me that the Email had been rejected by the receiving system. I didn't ask for the exact wording but provided my Googlemail address and it was delivered immediately.

Andrew

[DavidT]

Yes, it was sent, twice direct my SpamCop Email account.

Of course, other factors would need to be eliminated, such as the possibility that the email address was entered incorrectly. Was this a purchase made over the telephone to a human representative, perhaps? If it was an online purchase, and you're 100% sure there couldn't have been an error in the entry of the email address, then I'll be more concerned. If you can eliminate the possibility of human error in this instance, then you can try contacting JT about this, but without the actual bounce messages as evidence, it might be hard to investigate.

DT

[agsteele]

Of course, other factors would need to be eliminated, such as the possibility that the email address was entered incorrectly. Was this a purchase made over the telephone to a human representative, perhaps? If it was an online purchase, and you're 100% sure there couldn't have been an error in the entry of the email address, then I'll be more concerned. If you can eliminate the possibility of human error in this instance, then you can try contacting JT about this, but without the actual bounce messages as evidence, it might be hard to investigate.

No, the address was generated from an online profile which I double checked to ensure the address was entered correctly.

As you observe, there is little to be done without the actual reject message and, as best as I could tell, that was stored away in a call centre in India.

Andrew

[petzl]

No, the address was generated from an online profile which I double checked to ensure the address was entered correctly.

As you observe, there is little to be done without the actual reject message and, as best as I could tell, that was stored away in a call centre in India.

SpamCop was not losing email the full story from Oct 31, 2006

[20:04 EST] MAIL DELAYS UPDATE: In the past two weeks, ISPs have reported a large increase in the amount of spam received. We have experienced the same problem and many people are probably seeing a lot more spam in their Held Mail. These high volumes have occasionally led to delivery delays as we process all the mail. Late today, we put online more filtering servers, which should significantly increase our capacity. We're always working on improving our filtering and keeping deliveries delay-free. Thank you for your patience the last couple of weeks while we worked on deploying the new systems.

[DavidT]

SpamCop was not losing email the full story from Oct 31, 2006 (snip)

We have a terminology issue here. The pinned item that Andrew referred the OP to didn't have to do with "losing" email, but rather with the outright rejecting of messages by the SpamCop email system, something which had typically NOT been done in the past, but which was started as a reaction to the uptrend in spamming last Fall. The news item you've posted has to do with delayed messages, not with the actual rejecting of messages, which supposedly stopped last month (January). On Saturday, Jan. 13th, JT wrote this to me:

OK, well as of this weekend we have removed the blocks.

So that issue shouldn't be involved here, nor should the old issue of mail delays that you've referred to.

The information presented so far in this thread does seem to involve the rejection of mail by the SpamCop servers, however, so I suggest that Andrew contact JT about this.

DT

[sarahr]

Sounds like false positives on Gmail's part

Gmail unusually puts what it considers spam in a spam folder to be checked by you

I recommend just getting email direct from SpamCop and this creates less complexity

SpamCops mail servers are FAST, probably faster than you can recieve.

Gmail I've found often becomes clogged and cannot connect

The spam folders are the first thing that I always check when I'm missing mail. Even my test e-mail to myself didn't make it there.

I think that the pinned topic in this forum probably explains the issue. I'm not sure that there is an immediate answser...

http://forum.spamcop.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=7342

I recently had Email from United Airlines rejected - even though the messages were flight reservation confirmations.

This seems like it was posted awhile ago. But anyway, it isn't that my messages are being rejected, as then I would get a notice back from the server, but that it's just disappearing into la la land.

[petzl]

The spam folders are the first thing that I always check when I'm missing mail. Even my test e-mail to myself didn't make it there.

This seems like it was posted awhile ago. But anyway, it isn't that my messages are being rejected, as then I would get a notice back from the server, but that it's just disappearing into la la land.

Pays to "POP" SpamCop directly and then you can work out where email is getting lost

SpamCop email will delete email only if it is infected with a virus

If an email server is flooded/busy, it is normal for it to reject with a "try again" code (SMTP 450) Mail should not be lost because of this, just delayed a short time A competently set-up email server will try again in a few minutes, then again in a hour, again in four hours and so on. After a day or so it will give up, then tell the sender. I have always found Indian Internet call centre's to be up on this?

The concept of these type of reject notices are now being used for blocklists (Greylisting)

The idea is if an IP trying to send email is on a blocklist the email server is sent a try again code,

As spammers use hacked computers they are unable to try again.

Email sent through a legitimate server will of course respond and get through a few minutes late. Meaning zero false positives (devil is always in the details though)

Anyhow sounds good to me except that without reporting spam problem wont get fixed nor will the SCBL get filled, although it could become more aggressive with spamtrap blocks?

[claudeo]

I have my mail forwarded from my primary hosting service directly to my spamcop account, from which I pull it with POP3. I have for several months been put on notice by American Express (when I log to my account) that my email address is invalid. Of course I can't get a copy of a rejection notice. Several other people have called me to ask why I did not reply to their email that went into never never land. Of course I checked my held mail, no no avail. My hosting service says their logs don't show any rejection, but they don't seem to keep logs of the forwarding. Everybody is pointing their finger to everyone else. This is bad. I really can't afford to lose incoming email. My livelihood depends on it. Most of my prospects won't pursue the matter--they just assume that I'm out of business or not interested in their inquiry.

Now, on the other hand, spamcop fails to stop a lot of obvious spam. In fact, spamcop happily failed to block an email this morning with a spamassassin score of 14.4, when my setting is 5 (tracking url: http://www.spamcop.net/sc?id=z1227783014z0...21bdab9a512b9z). Approximately as much spam makes it through as gets diverted to my Held Mail, which indicates something is completely out of whack somewhere--maybe the spammers have effectively managed to defeat spamcop filtering. So much spam is coming through that I'm beginning to wonder whether it is worth it.

[sarahr]

Approximately as much spam makes it through as gets diverted to my Held Mail, which indicates something is completely out of whack somewhere--maybe the spammers have effectively managed to defeat spamcop filtering. So much spam is coming through that I'm beginning to wonder whether it is worth it.

Precisely why it forwards to my gmail account, so that it goes through two spam filters. This worked fine for months for me, but now I'm wondering if I should give up on SpamCop altogether, as it seems I can't get a straight answer from anyone on how to fix it. Where is the customer service phone number? Where is an e-mail address? Someone needs to fix this immediately, I pay for this service, and my free gmail is working better. There's something very wrong with that. Today I missed a birth announcement from my brother in Korea. My mom had to forward it directly to gmail for me. What other important e-mails have been lost?

EDIT: I did find my brother's e-mail in SpamCop's spam folder, but still am missing my test e-mails and e-mails from my mother.

EDIT 2: I changed my settings to just "tag" spam instead of holding it. All of the sudden my test e-mails are going through (although, the old ones are still MIA). They're not tagged as spam. I still don't understand the problem, but hopefully this fixes it. Gmail should be able grab the tagged spam and throw it into that spam folder, so that it doesn't clutter my inbox, right?

[StevenUnderwood]

This is bad. I really can't afford to lose incoming email. My livelihood depends on it. Most of my prospects won't pursue the matter--they just assume that I'm out of business or not interested in their inquiry.

SMTP email has never been and never will be a guaranteed medium for delivery. If you are basing your livlihood on it, you have not done enough investigation into the problems with that business model.

Servers can crash, backhoes can cut wires, etc. with no notification to either end that something has gone wrong.

Now, on the other hand, spamcop fails to stop a lot of obvious spam. In fact, spamcop happily failed to block an email this morning with a spamassassin score of 14.4, when my setting is 5 (tracking url: http://www.spamcop.net/sc?id=z1227783014z0...21bdab9a512b9z). Approximately as much spam makes it through as gets diverted to my Held Mail, which indicates something is completely out of whack somewhere--maybe the spammers have effectively managed to defeat spamcop filtering. So much spam is coming through that I'm beginning to wonder whether it is worth it.

That message slipped by because you have the sender address whitelisted: X-SpamCop-Whitelisted: ostyn.com

It looks like your email address was forged in the Return-Path: and you have it whitelisted. Remove your own address from your whitelist and your spam in the inbox will go way down.

[petzl]

I have my mail forwarded from my primary hosting service directly to my spamcop account, from which I pull it with POP3. I have for several months been put on notice by American Express (when I log to my account) that my email address is invalid. Of course I can't get a copy of a rejection notice.

Your problem is with your primary hosting service (It is the source and reason for any reject notice)

The other "spam getting through" problem is you have your own email address whitelisted

I also rely on email for my livelihood and a reason why I only use my SpamCop address as the one to trust

All other providers I have found to be really incompetent and untrustworthy.

Been using SpamCop email since the Eighties last century. Never had rejected email or lost email and thats from all over the planet delivered to me to all over the planet (North Pole to South Pole)

[claudeo]

petzl, steven

Thanks for the thoughtful replies and the research.

My bad concerning the whitelisting of my domain. Had to do that years ago when there was a problem with false positives on mail cc'd from my domain, e.g. ccs of mail to myself; I think it was in the early days of the host configuration setup. Never thought of going back to fix the whitelist. Anyway, I've fixed that.

Regarding my primary host there is supposed to be no filtering and when I asked them to review their logs immediately after incoming messages went missing, they found nothing. As I said, American Express is not exactly helpful in coming up with a NDR. However I found on my primary host a cpanel email filter that I don't remember seeing before: discard if "" in the subject. That does not seem to apply to the emails I missed; I got copies of some of the lost email as sent to another email account on an different server, and I don't see anything that would trigger that rule, since the subject lines were never empty. But I turned off the rule all the same. We'll see...

[claudeo]

Update: I removed myself from the whitelist, but roughly the same relative amount of spam still makes it through. It seems pretty clear that the latest spamming tools have been tuned to outwit SA.