VM IP Blacklisted causing emails to bounceback?

[MartinS74]

Over the last couple of weeks I've been having a nightmare sending emails from my blueyonder account to my work email address (hosted with ovh.co.uk). They keep bouncing back with a 5.3.2 Service Unavailable error - and indeed, my emails to customer service at ovh also bounce back with the same message. I've also tried setting up a brand new virginmedia email account but encountered the same issue.

I've spoken at length with ovh and they said they have replied thus:

We have checked the case, and currently the issue comes from:
host smtpq2.tb.ukmail.iss.as9143.net
smtpq2.tb.ukmail.iss.as9143.net has address 212.54.57.97

That IP is blacklisted:
https://mxtoolbox.com/SuperTool.aspx?action=blacklist:212.54.57.97&run=toolpage

It is placed on OVHcloud's blacklist as well. 

In such a situation we suggest you to contact your ISP provider in order to change the IP address or  remove the IP address from the black list. 

Your Internet Service Provider can contact our Abuse department to get more information:

https://www.ovh.com/abuse/#!/

You can change the language in the top right corner. 

https://www.ovh.com/abuse/#!/https://www.ovh.com/abuse/#!/

I'm not enormously tech-minded when it comes to emails and IPs and whatnot, but it seems to me that VirginMedia are using a blacklisted IP to send emails. How would I go about fixing that issue? I'm assuming it's a problem that can't be solved by simply phoning VM's helpline…

Thanks!

[Johnny487]

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@Myloweslife wrote:

Over the last couple of weeks I've been having a nightmare sending emails from my blueyonder account to my work email address (hosted with ovh.co.uk). They keep bouncing back with a 5.3.2 Service Unavailable error - and indeed, my emails to customer service at ovh also bounce back with the same message. I've also tried setting up a brand new virginmedia email account but encountered the same issue.

I've spoken at length with ovh and they said they have replied thus:

We have checked the case, and currently the issue comes from:
host smtpq2.tb.ukmail.iss.as9143.net
smtpq2.tb.ukmail.iss.as9143.net has address 212.54.57.97

That IP is blacklisted:
https://mxtoolbox.com/SuperTool.aspx?action=blacklist:212.54.57.97&run=toolpage

It is placed on OVHcloud's blacklist as well. 

In such a situation we suggest you to contact your ISP provider in order to change the IP address or  remove the IP address from the black list. 

Your Internet Service Provider can contact our Abuse department to get more information:

https://www.ovh.com/abuse/#!/

You can change the language in the top right corner. 

https://www.ovh.com/abuse/#!/https://www.ovh.com/abuse/#!/

I'm not enormously tech-minded when it comes to emails and IPs and whatnot, but it seems to me that VirginMedia are using a blacklisted IP to send emails. How would I go about fixing that issue? I'm assuming it's a problem that can't be solved by simply phoning VM's helpline…

Thanks!

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Occasionally, you or your users might send mail that bounces because the recipient blocked your IP address. When an IP address is blocked, all mail from the address bounces. Some domains use a denylist service to identify and block mail from suspected spammers. If enough users mark mail received from a particular IP address as spam, the service can block that address. Even if one of your messages goes out from an IP address that was blocked after someone else used it to send spam, your mail can bounce.

[MartinS74]

Thanks - but the issue I'm facing isn't that my home IP address has been blacklisted, it's the IP address VirginMedia use to relay the email on that's been blacklisted. I get the bounce back email whether I send the email from home, from work or even on cellular. My work email host have said it's the intermediary IP that they have blacklisted and I can't fix that - only VM can.

[用心棒]

Issue has been flagged to the forum team; be aware it can take them a few hours / days to respond. 

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[ravenstar68]

@Johnny487 

Can I suggest you learn a littel more about how block lists normally work?

They're designed to protect Mal exchangers - that is the servers responsible for receiving inbound mail for a given domain.  This is because while outbound servers normally use some form of authentication in order to protect themselves from being abused, inbound mail servers, by their very nature MUST accept mail without authenticating first.

To protect themselves from abuse they check the IP address that they are talking to to see if it blacklisted, as well as a number of other anti spam features.

@MartinS74 - Virgin Media's Forum will get to this thread as they would need to escalate this to their security teams.  However at time of writing the server appears to have dropped off everything EXCEPT CASA CBL (Chinese Anti Spam Alliance)

Tim

[Tom_F]

Hi MartinS74, thanks for getting in touch.

Sorry about the email issues you've encountered, so we can raise this with the relevant teams I'll get in touch via PM to confirm a few details. Just look out for the purple envelope and we'll take it from there.

Tom