bt spam bot issues

unwashed potato! · 3 Sep 2017 at 23:46

having issues as of a few weeks ago that email that we sent to customers with bt email addresses often auto get rejected by the bt spam bot and the reason is simply, they suspect we could be spammers.

trouble is, if the only method of contact we have for the customer is the email, we now cannot get in touch. anyone know what we can do to help solve this issue? perhaps why we might be appearing as spam? the emails are typically plain text with a small signature with no photos

bremen1874 · 3 Sep 2017 at 23:49

What's your email setup?

Rroff · 4 Sep 2017 at 00:32

Contact BT try and get whitelisted. I'm guessing some authentication issue on your end might be part of the reason but it might just be an unfortunate pattern match with other spam.

#Chri5# · 7 Sep 2017 at 12:58

Anything in the bounce message that helps? AOL (yuk) used to bounce messages but include a URL in the error so you could register your mail server.

Glanza · 7 Sep 2017 at 14:01

Check your not blacklisted on Spamhaus.

lude1962 · 7 Sep 2017 at 14:32

sending too many emails in a short time to the same host may also flag up your mail as spam

demonix · 7 Sep 2017 at 15:14

BT email is run by Yahoo, that should give you all the answer you need.

unwashed potato! · 25 Oct 2017 at 20:14

just a quick update. this is still an ongoing issue. have spoke with bt and they say must be the customers are blocking us, but it's impossible that every single bt customer blocks us before they even know our email address

checked spamhaus and not listed

oddly the email contact@domain is what gets instantly rejected, but accounts@domain is fine and gets through.

is just BT that does this. no other.

Orcvader · 25 Oct 2017 at 21:32

Nope, same thing happened at work, got a new broadband meaning a new fixed IP, only to find out we've been blacklisted by Yahoo, Microsoft, and Gmail. Contacted them all but nothing happened after a few months which was why everything was moved to a cloud solution.

bremen1874 · 25 Oct 2017 at 22:53

Not a rDNS issue by any chance?

unwashed potato! · 26 Oct 2017 at 00:06

how would i check?

bremen1874 · 26 Oct 2017 at 00:26

I test using the tools at mxtoolbox.com.

Perform a MX Lookup against the domain. You can then run further tests including the SMTP test which includes a rDNS check.

unwashed potato! · 26 Oct 2017 at 00:43

all was green ticks all over the place with the exception of these

SMTP Banner Check Reverse DNS does not match SMTP Banner

SMTP TLS Warning - Does not support TLS.

SMTP Transaction Time 15.163 seconds - Not good! on Transaction Time

bremen1874 · 26 Oct 2017 at 00:55

I'd be bouncing your emails as well.

The SMTP Transaction Time isn't a problem. It's normal tar-pitting behaviour.

The other two should be fixed. Exactly how will depend on how you're hosting the mail server.

unwashed potato! · 26 Oct 2017 at 01:28

is hosted with vidahost

MissChief · 26 Oct 2017 at 02:06

Yahoo are really strict when it comes to mass emails. If you try to send to more than, say a dozen addresses or more at a time Yahoo's filters will likely pick it out and suspect it's spam. The same with sending multiple emails, more than 20-30 in an hour. Again Spam or a compromised email account.

Ceryndrion · 26 Oct 2017 at 02:06

Well there's your problem, not Vidahost per se, but you are using a shared email platform. Small number of IP addresses, many domains, looks dodgy as to many providers (microsoft, bt, aol etc) and for some reason they don't like to accept that shared email services are a thing. They'll tell you that you need a ptr record, or a dkim record, or similar, which is fine, but not possible on a shared email service.

You're not the first person I've heard of having difficulties specifically with sending email from a contact@ email address to bt customers, and again, not the only person I've heard of saying that other email addresses on the same domain are fine. Makes me think that bt has developed a dislike for contact@

Your options are semi-simple.. Use something other than contact@ going forward, or look to a dedicated email solution (vps/dedicated server/o365/gsuite)

Glanza · 26 Oct 2017 at 08:39

Check if you've got a valid spf record setup, BT have started blocking any domain that doesn't have one.

unwashed potato! · 26 Oct 2017 at 11:28

MissChief said:
Yahoo are really strict when it comes to mass emails. If you try to send to more than, say a dozen addresses or more at a time Yahoo's filters will likely pick it out and suspect it's spam. The same with sending multiple emails, more than 20-30 in an hour. Again Spam or a compromised email account.

not something we've ever done. at most the customer might get 3 emails due to copies of the quotes being sent automatically and the booking request but that's it.

unwashed potato! · 26 Oct 2017 at 11:29

Ceryndrion said:
You're not the first person I've heard of having difficulties specifically with sending email from a contact@ email address to bt customers, and again, not the only person I've heard of saying that other email addresses on the same domain are fine. Makes me think that bt has developed a dislike for contact@

perhaps it is as simple as that. fml i just want to send emails. i think for now i will keep going with switching to the other email when they bounce back.