Unable to connect successfully to the destination mail server

[tom_trafalgar]

Hello. 

We send order confirmation and customer service emails, but from yesterday a large volume of emails sent to the following domains

• virgin.net
• ntlworld.com
• blueyonder.co.uk

Are bouncing back with the following error:

This is an automatically generated Delivery Status Notification.

Unable to deliver message to the following recipients, due to being unable to connect successfully to the destination mail server.

richard.branson@virgin.net 

They are sent from various domains, but all coming from the same server: smtp1-nwp.audienceview.net. All the sending domains (currently sending from about 12 domains) correctly have SPF records and DKIM setup. Nor are the sending domains nor SMTP server are on any public blacklists that I can see. 

There are not any issues with other email providers and feedback tools like Google Postmasters gives us perfect results for our emails. 

A redacted email header can be found here:

https://pastebin.com/gHM0wb8f

Please advise on either how to contact the Virgin Media postmaster or steps that I can take to resolve this for our (and Virgin Media's) customers. 

[tom_trafalgar]

An update on this issue.

Checking spamhaus neither the domains nor the sending IP addresses have any issues. 

It seems that most of the messages are now being delayed:

This is an automatically generated Delivery Status Notification.
THIS IS A WARNING MESSAGE ONLY.
YOU DO NOT NEED TO RESEND YOUR MESSAGE.
Delivery to the following recipients has been delayed.
richard.branson@virginmedia.com 

Some messages are still getting the "Unable to deliver message" bounceback. 

In the last 6 hours there have been this many delayed or failed messages for a single domain. 

blueyonder.co.uk 7
ntlworld.com 23
virgin.net 3
virginmedia.com 8

All for NTL/Virgin domains. I know the volumes are all relative (may be small compared to other organisations), but scale this up across all our domains the negative impact for us is high. 

I know that delayed emails will be delivered, but prompt delivery of emails is required due to the nature of the email content (password reset, event tickets, order confirmation) used by our customers. 

I have read through the helpful email FAQ thread from @ravenstar68, but did not provide solutions. 

Please advise on the steps to help or how this can be escalated. 

[Reece_MH]

Hi @tom_trafalgar,

Thanks for your post, and a warm welcome to our Community Forums.

I'm really sorry to hear there are some problems sending emails from your domain, which is causing a problem for your customers. Unfortunately, our internal systems prevent us from opening the PasteBin link you have provided. 

Can you please head here to our Web Security page and select "Email Sending Errors" and then "Other" and input as much information as you can - although it mentions this as an "Abuse" form, I have confirmed with our Web Security Team that they will review this and get back in touch.

Cheers,

[tom_trafalgar]

I have attempted to reach out to the Web Security Team via the suggested form. I received an automatic and then one reply from an actual person and I followed their instructions (attach examples and email to them), but since then nothing.

I have followed up at least 4 other times via the form and their supplied email address (abuse@virginmedia.com - "Individual reports sent to abuse@virginmedia.com are not necessarily read or actioned"). 

This is affecting large volumes of our customers and is having an operational and financial impact on our organisation.

Please advise how this can be escalated. 

[John_GS]

Hi Tom, thanks for coming back to the thread. When did you last contact the team please? 

Kind regards,

[tom_trafalgar]

This is a summary of communication so far:

• 23 October 2022
  • Contacted Web Security Team via the form
• 28 September 2022
  • Reply back from Customer Information Security Team
• 29 September 2022
  • I replied back with the requested information 
• 3 October 2022
  • Followed by up email
• 13 October 2022
  • I followed up again by email and form

[Ilyas_Y]

Hi @tom_trafalgar, thanks for reaching back out to us.

I'm sorry to hear about the poor communication regarding this issue.
May I ask if the same error occurs if you were to send yourself an email on a VM domain?
Please let us know and we can take this to the next steps.

Kind regards,
Ilyas.

[tom_trafalgar · Accepted solution]

Thank you for your reply, However, I don't have a Virgin Media type address to test with. 

I'm getting reports from our teams that in the last day or so emails are now being to delivered as expected, so hopefully this problem has gone away. 

I'm not clear if this improvement in delivery is due to a change made by the email security team prompted by my communication or if the spam filters automatically adjusted based on other key indicators on how the emails were delivered/read/sent. I guess we'll never know. 

I'll consider this question answered for now, but now I know the route to take if we have issues in the future. 

[Paulina_Z]

Hi @tom_trafalgar,

Thank you for coming back to us about this issue. I'm glad to hear that your emails are being delivered as expected. 

If you come across this issue again, please let us know. We're here to help further if needed.

Thank you.