Virgin Media Community

[ALF28]

My virign email spam filter is set to tag spam and deliver to the inbox.

This does work and the spam is tagged.

I have no blacklists.

If I send an email to  my virgin email from another email -myself@mail.com I get the following message

(virgin should not be blocking my own test email but should allow it through and mark it spam- but I point out there is no spam content, just that the mail.com email ip address has a spamhause listing.

This means if it had been an important email to me, virgin have blocked it, if that is the case they are censoring my received virgin email which is most unusual??)

This message was created automatically by mail delivery software.

A message that you sent could not be delivered to one or more of
its recipients. This is a permanent error.

The following address failed:

xxxxxxx20@ntlworld.com:
SMTP error from remote server for GREETING command, host: mx.tb.ukmail.iss.as9143.net (212.54.56.11) reason: 550 mx2.tb.ukmail.iss.as9143.net mx2.tb.ukmail.iss.as9143.net MXIN102 Your
IP 82.165.159.131 is in RBL. Please see https://www.spamhaus.org/quer
y/ip/82.165.159.131 ;id=oLqYnjsm88Arq;sid=oLqYnjsm88Arq;mta=mx2.tb;d=
20220510;t=110758[CET];ipsrc=82.165.159.131;

--- The header of the original message is following. ---

DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/simple; d=mail.com;
s=dbd5af2cbaf7; t=1652173677;
bh=Q6lEgQxdcpjfn91l7tnxYwiCoR8I3d4D7bauTjowIB4=;
h=X-UI-Sender-Class:From:To:Subject:Date;
b=uLuGNOXMtsg8SWOtnw0K1ieoUVHLCjpioycbLVebmBCmreNCmm9NytbTNBMIdQvlD
znPkU+04SpBNUvotkECpt1jxRwXCJVNVLLHe/rX7RonwLKaCdjq0hhR43/Z3asZ/dj
8tOpOOCXSLE6GWSUwmMDIoAmtUcJgavD84i8KwGY=
X-UI-Sender-Class: 214d933f-fd2f-45c7-a636-f5d79ae31a79
Received: from [my ip address removed] ([my ip addess removed]) by web-mail.mail.com
(3c-app-mailcom-lxa03.server.lan [10.76.45.4]) (via HTTP); Tue, 10 May 2022
11:07:57 +0200
MIME-Version: 1.0
Message-ID: <trinity-541445d3-015c-4a5f-9f27-3b520e3a5faa-1652173677346@3c-app-mailcom-lxa03>
From: xxxx xxxx <xxxxxxx@mail.com>
To: xxxxxxxx@ntlworld.com
Subject: test2
Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8
Date: Tue, 10 May 2022 11:07:57 +0200
Importance: normal
Sensitivity: Normal
X-Priority: 3
X-Provags-ID: V03:K1:Vvg7tcNZCe7FKSBExGc+EdAGb0ZA8g1GWEh2Xt6uCR0J1KvHVPJa2x+pm08PkxvNjvV9m
iPoNgum57Yx50BTDvkjq7u5Nk+RivgHS6zm4I8eDmuOL/J7CLDUyHbADrY4x5iI492qJdO3823om
pmQqy3BRYxiTNoquVmHlfhMpSUMYwB0ZODtm3WOh5fHyc9HaPDJSs1wkqIL0qTgQuvu8Q+Xkclou
tHEfmqUMAiT9hBhgRkECj3q7jX9KDX8jlFCeD1UeqNiykW4nQF8uKK27v+ZhtIkcxis/5Dtoq0OT
l4=
X-Spam-Flag: YES
X-UI-Out-Filterresults: junk:10;V03:K0:7b4gudFSSYs=:fluJTVrNVbwZnalj8snMhZ7d
OOPzi8RTzkCmpnsyaFKSz4BkCGCgQ8chd+ewH3/BqZQvPEO3VHfm3B4GeF0ZV3LQDRvZtO30j
WmcLe6trmTv1WX8xE7k6m3Gm40/M504LmmGY48ljO5Maz6SQTS8rgkiknVB4B9j4zXomrEFSF
U1us66hb7b6KJOMV89DWAwAiX/5nUey66Bjiv7W4bHGpCB7LiZuAgjSFBAv7WfDzOoBXM2gvw
WSMTGg/2GXs9kcn3G9eaHEfQD7znGw233C5Gb005IJyTtwK3qL7B+i4E6Pd2bHb8f1N0ZBA3l
aQHD8Czqr4FDXOKHQ7l6m/Lwc8OCZZXSL8cBl2sjJl0RBHMNPPP7zEAFD0LX1yV5rf+15v227
ZGgZVnHDtDcGFPnOjnWjN/sjeHwwo6E7JEMiaC7A6DlyP18oG1+BqUhGwk9NItq522Y0ldN8t
fo2m3giio3TnLJy0N/kGJObjsJCJH46ciDk9DUkAqK65RHxRZv+IIhap9WhE8G1x+T5DxpTS4
FZGKO1WQoa15zodAgJDxPz8+7Hno/FZbu7/k9OmAxBBi4g7I2udXMN/9Mydr+SH5BvC3gw3UR
ESXUPLnbNFvtje9p7r4/oosZtDTlHAvzBqR0gSasHT891dfIlGrdcE4ubEGPiaylruh+owtut
hYGD7ACmYsn5wBYq6iRofsXHpH/zps+ZWORegul0h6KWOXKxXJszSBRr9Iyneh6pjD3Rgn6ml
2yD/Xe1nCYU8zNs0NKiIpagmrfqxZYiNtAnTOIjA3lc5ak7eiZchTDgjL3MuFuWoRHxsT9Hum
50evlzRbgz0CmlE0hUCWMv5TLjC9DXHebBAf644SKZ9/ybrlu4KHBZ/GtrS0XiRM9TmK6

I have tested 3 different virgin email addresses, 2 are mine and one my wife's and all are blocked if sent from mail.com.

Yet I get lots of spam, but why does my own genuine emails get blocked when spammers can deliver to virgin email no problem.

It is tagging as spam-X-Spam-Flag: YES but blocking delivery??

My own virgin IP address is on on a block list but do not think that is the issue-

What is the PBL?

The Policy Blocklist (PBL) is a list of IP space that should not be sending email direct to MX: often these are IP ranges assigned by ISPs to broadband or dial-up customers, but the PBL does include other types of IP space. Any IP space that should not be sending email directly to the Internet should be listed in PBL.

PBL listings do not prevent the sending of email unless the user’s email program is not authenticating correctly when connecting to their ISP or company’s mail server. Possible causes for this happening suddenly: changing email programs or changing settings on the existing one, forgetting to turn “SMTP Authentication” on, or switching “SMTP Authentication” off.

Back

[用心棒]

Maybe the forum team can raise the issue (again) of spam being incorrectly delivered to Spam folder instead of Inbox folder when filtering is set to either:

• Flag a message as SPAM but deliver to Inbox
• Turn off all SPAM filtering

Concerning the other issue the IP Address is on Spamhaus's SBL, as highlighted below:

-- 
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[coenoby · Accepted solution]

---

@ALF28 wrote:

f I send an email to  my virgin email from another email -myself@mail.com I get the following message

The following address failed:

xxxxxxx20@ntlworld.com:
SMTP error from remote server for GREETING command, host: mx.tb.ukmail.iss.as9143.net (212.54.56.11) reason: 550 mx2.tb.ukmail.iss.as9143.net mx2.tb.ukmail.iss.as9143.net MXIN102 Your
IP xx.xxx.xxx.131 is in RBL. Please see https://www.spamhaus.org/quer

---

The IP address in that error message is the IP belonging to Mail.com so it is presumable the address of their email server in Germany. It actually belongs to GMX.com who like mail.com are also part of the United Internet Group.

The fact is that IP address currently it is listed on multiple spam blacklists:

To get on those lists it must have recently been the source of considerable quantity of spam. As such most responsible email providers would be blocking it at the moment. Presumably, as a result of that, their emails are being rejected before they even reach the VM spam filters which explains why the "Delliver to inbox" Webmail spam filter is not kicking in.

Personally, I do understand your concerns about the censorship issue,  However, as you can see, VM are not simply deleting the email without telling anyone.

They are sending a non delivery message back to the affected sendes so that they are aware of what has happened. In my view that's the right action because it allows the sender (in this case yourself) to contact mail.com and point out that their email server has been blacklisted and that they need to take steps to get it delisted.

I hope that clarifies things a bit.

Coenoby

[ALF28]

Thanks for your advice, there is no doubt that the mail.com email is on blacklists for spam.

I  am surprised  that the email is blocked and would have thought it it would go to spam rather than a mail fail.

I do not reject the spam in settings and get general spam all the time, which is often from blacklisted IP adresses.

I have noticed that the main free email companies gmail.com, outlook.com, yahoo.com  are more reliable and always get through.

Mail.com seems to have problems, so perhaps I will not use it now and use other email.

There are other postings recently, regarding email sent to virgin email being delayed or blocked  or classed as spam. where recovery codes sent to virgin do not work.

see-

Re: Virginmedia blocking suspected spam which is a... - Virgin Media Community - 5007587

alf28

[coenoby]

---

@ALF28 wrote:

I  am surprised  that the email is blocked and would have thought it it would go to spam rather than a mail fail

---

It is not just VM that blocks incoming emails sent from blacklisted email servers rather than just flagging them as spam.

See here for an example where a VM email customer was getting delivery failures when trying to send emails to one of their non VM contacts (email address xxxx@arcastravel.com)

From the non delivery message the VM customer was getting you'll see that the receiving organisation's email service was blocking emails from the Virgin Media domains because one of VM's outgoing email servers (212.54.57.100) had been blacklisted on the Spamcop RBL

https://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Email/SPamcop-blocking-VM-SMTP/m-p/4772405 

From memory, I think there have been a number of similar cases over the years involving a number of different email services.

In fact for a short while BT appeared to be blocking some emails from VM domains. In that case I asked one of my email contacts with a btinternet.com address to check that out by emailing my ntlworld address. Not only did I not receive his email but he did not get a non delivery error message back which I thought was pretty bad.

Coenoby

[ALF28]

Thanks for the explanations,

The ip address of the email server I used appeared to have a bad reputation in the past, so that is probably the reason but it may rectify/delist from spamhause.

This can occur between email providers who are protecting their servers, so that is a resonable reason for the blocking of an email/ip address

I have not had that happen before ever and been using email for 20 plus years.

A  test email can check if the email is working betwen any email providers, in my case I can send to mail.com from virgin but not receive from mail.com to virgin email. Gmail is ok and can send to virgin email.

I suppose these confilcts are rare, and will eventually resolve. I do have alternative email addresses and use one to recover another,I suppose having 2 emails with the same provider would avoid any conflicts between different email providers.

Email delays can and do occur on most email providers and I have on occcasion had delays or failed to get an email when using a  recovery code that may only be active only for a short period,the same can apply to sms messages, so wise to have both.

I use filtering on my virgin email and that slows down some emails which can appear after a period of time , probably due to server que/delays.

Any failure to receive an email could result in communicaion failure which is a concern, and email is an old system but is still used by most companies even though other ways do exist such as messaging via social media, apps etc.. 

alf28

[ravenstar68]

This is one of the reasons I don't recommmend mail forwarding.

The problem with using any email service is that you end up at the mercy of the choices that the mail administrators make in order to protect ther mail servers

Spam filtering often uses content scanning in order to pick up signs that a mail is spam, however if a server is known to be a source of spam then the easiest approach is to simply block all mail from that server.

While it's easy just to pont the finger at VM - the fact is that for mail.com to end up on the blacklist, their servers are effectively being misused by spammers.

They need to sort out he reason for the blacklisting.  Many of these RBL's will automatically delist an IP address once no more spam is seen.

[ALF28]

Thanks for advice on forwarding of emails, which I assume is auto-forwarding, but manual forwarding usually works ok?

Manual forwarding of an email is different, as it removes the original headers.

I have had auto-forwarding failures between outlook and gmail and virgin email auto- forwarding often fails.

A forwarded email can be classed as spam and spam detection will differ between providers and servers.

I sometimes get emails as a reply and they are less likely to be tagged as spam.

Therfore email forwarding can be useful but is not 100% reliable especially if the email has spam content.

I have removed most of my auto-forwarding. Not all email providers have a forwarding option, and some have removed the option, only a few have this facilty now.

alf28

[ravenstar68]

With regards to manual forwarding

You are right, it does remove the headers, but the headers aren't the problem.

When an outbound mail transport agent connnects to a mail exchager, the latter notes the IP address that's connecting to it.

If that IP address is listed in the SBL then VM (or any other mail provider that chooses to), are rejecting the connection from the mail server BEFORE the actual mail is sent.

Tim

[ALF28]

gmx (mail.com) 12/1/2022-trustpilot posting

I wish it worked better.

It appears that Yahoo!, AOL, and some other standard providers do not accept email originating from GMX or their sister service MAIL

see 

https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/www.gmx.com

There have been issues with mail.com (gmx) recently, so I will review my mail.com email, however my mail.com email address seems to be secure and has not been pwned.

alf28