Forum Discussion

kevcharben's avatar
kevcharben
On our wavelength
2 months ago

Issues with incoming emails being spammed

In the last 4 or 5 days I have had many emails from certain  people being spammed.

I  have discovered only hotmail emails are spammed, these are from people who I have never had issues until now, and regularly send me emails.

I have tried adding them to the address book on the server but this hasn't stopped them being spammed.

I use MS Outlook as my email client so this means I have to constantly go the web based email to check if I have any 'spammed' emails.

As an interim measure I have now turned of the spam settings but its not satisfactory.

11 Replies

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  • coenoby's avatar
    coenoby
    Very Insightful Person
    2 months ago

    kevcharben 

    "I  have discovered only hotmail emails are spammed,"

    That sounds as if Microsoft have recently made a change to their email service which is now causing VM to flag them as spam. Does this also happen with emails with "outlook.com" addresses? Hotmail was migrated into Outlook back in 2013.

    Alternatively, there could be something else about each of these emails that is causing VM to flag them as spam.

    If you could post a copy of the email source/headers for one of these spam emails it might give a clue as to what is causing VM to treat them as suspicious. Before you post that information you must remove or obscure the full email addresses in the source data. Remove the part before the @symbol but leave the domain name (for example, hotmail.com, ntlworld.com, virginmedia.com etc).

    To access the source data, select one of the affected emails, click on the red 3 horizontal bars symbol and then click on "View Source"

    "I have tried adding them to the address book on the server but this hasn't stopped them being spammed."

    "As an interim measure I have now turned of the spam settings but its not satisfactory."

    Sadly there is no way in VM webmail to "whitelist" an email address to ensure that future emails from that address should not be flagged as spam.

    Marking a spam email as "Not spam" simply moves that email out of the Spam folder and into the inbox but it has no effect on future emails from that address. They will still go through the VM spam filter and be flagged as spam.

    As you are probably aware, VM stopped issuing new email accounts nearly 3 years ago and since then new VM customers no longer have the option to have a VM email account. VM  do still support the VM email accounts belonging to existing VM customers but the future of the VM email service is unclear. That suggests that there are unlikely to be any enhancements or additional features added to the existing VM service.  Switching to using an email account from a dedicated email provider is well worth considering.

    One of the VM Forum Team (VM staff who support this forum) will contact you via this thread and may be able to take this forward for you. 

    Coenoby

    • kevcharben's avatar
      kevcharben
      On our wavelength
      2 months ago

      Hi See below

      I have not noticed any Outlook email being spammed or not

       

      Return-Path: @hotmail.co.uk>

      Delivered-To: @ntlworld.com

      Received: from dcdir10-prd-nl1-vmo.nl1.unified.services ([100.107.82.65])

                      by dcbe10-prd-nl1-vmo.nl1.unified.services with LMTP

                      id wn3KFGNYyWfffy0AmaS37A:T1839:P1

                      (envelope-from < @hotmail.co.uk>)

                      for < @ntlworld.com>; Thu, 06 Mar 2025 10:42:18 +0100

      Received: from smtpclienthelo ([100.107.82.65])

                      by dcdir10-prd-nl1-vmo.nl1.unified.services with LMTP

                      id wn3KFGNYyWfffy0AmaS37A:T1839

                      (envelope-from < @hotmail.co.uk>)

                      for < @ntlworld.com>; Thu, 06 Mar 2025 10:42:18 +0100

      Authentication-Results: edge.unified.services;

       spf=pass (52.103.37.56;hotmail.co.uk);

       dkim=pass header.d=HOTMAIL.CO.UK;

       dmarc=pass header.from=hotmail.co.uk (p=none sp=none dis=pass)

      Precedence: junk

      X-Env-Mailfrom: @hotmail.co.uk

      X-Env-Rcptto: @ntlworld.com

      X-SourceIP: 52.103.37.56

      X-Spam: yes

      • coenoby's avatar
        coenoby
        Very Insightful Person
        2 months ago

        kevcharben 

        Thanks for coming back with the source/header information.

        A common reason for VM flagging emails as spam is because of issues with the following records for the sending domain (in this case Hotmail.co.uk):

        • SPF (Sender Policy Framework)
        • DKIM (DomainKeys Identifed Mail)
        • DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication Reporting and Conformance

        Those three records  are the tools that are used to authenticate email senders and verify that an email comes from the sednder that it claims to be from.

        However in this case the following lines in the Source/Header show that VM have not found any issues with them

        • spf=pass (52.103.37.56.hotmail.co.uk)
        • dkim=pass header.d=HOTMAIL.CO.UK
        • dmarc=pass header.from=hotmail.co.uk (p=none sp=none dis=pass

        It is possible the line "X-Spam: yes" could be down to the email being flagged as spam by VM's   content spam filter. For example, if the email contained url link that might result in the email being flagged as spam.

        As far as I can see, no one else has posted on this forum to report problems receiving emails from Hotmail. That does rather suggest it is an issue with these specific emails that is causing them to be flagged as spam.

        As I said, there is no way to whitelist incoming emails in the VM system but spam filters are regularly updated so you might well find that the problem resolves itself in a short while.

        One of the Forum Team (VM staff who support this forum) will contact you via this thread in the next day or so and they may be able to raise this for you with the relevant VM team.

        Coenoby

         

  • RainmanHelp's avatar
    RainmanHelp
    Joining in
    2 months ago

    I have the same issue although not just Hotmail messages going to Spam. Yesterday I found 20 or so emails from my regular contacts (mainly Hotmail accounts) in my Spam folder. Today, if a send a message from my own Hotmail account to my own Virgin Media account, it goes to Spam. When I just registered for this Virgin Community Service, it sent me an email to my Virgin Media account to confirm who I am, and it went to Spam. This is a serious issue.

    • Tom_W1's avatar
      Tom_W1
      Icon for Forum Team rankForum Team
      2 months ago

      Hi RainmanHelp thanks for posting although we're sorry to hear of your concerns raised.

      Can you try to turn off your spam filter and back on again to see if this helps at all?

      Many thanks

      • RainmanHelp's avatar
        RainmanHelp
        Joining in
        2 months ago

        Thanks Tom_W1 for your response and suggestion. I have just turned off my spam filter and sent an email from my Hotmail account to my Virgin Media account - it immediately correctly appeared in my Virgin Inbox. I then turned my spam filter back on and repeated the exercise - the email immediately appeared in my spam folder. So while your suggestion has not helped, it certainly points to the source of the issue. In case it has any bearing, my Virgin email address is actually an ntlworld address. Thanks again.

  • Bgvgill75's avatar
    Bgvgill75
    Just joined
    2 months ago

    I have the same problem including registering for this Virgin Community device and that email went to Spam - all emails from Hotmail accounts even if they are replies to my emails seem to be going to spam.