Aaargh - email confirmation bounces as spam....

[BigDave]

Hope someone can help....

My (VERY non-techie) customer has recently started to get quite a few email order confirmations being bounced back (because the customer's server/email app sees them as spam).

If we take email confirmation off, he gets emails from his punters asking if there's something wrong with the site. I'm getting it in the neck either way - AAAAaaargh!

The best solution is to make the email confirmation an optional checkbox on the order page, but that's way out of my league - anyone got any ideas....?

Thanks for looking/helping

Dave
(www.attacc.com)

[Mike Hughes]

Try changing the 'from' address used for the email.

Some basic spam filters look for 'sales@' or 'orders@' in the from address and decide that email must be spam.

Mike

[BigDave]

Thanks Mike - I'll give it a go and report back (in case anyone else gets this problem)

Dave

[pinbrook]

it is AOL which is boucing these emails...

[BigDave]

Pinbrook - you're absolutely right.
How did you know it was AOL - you having the same problem too?

[pinbrook]

I wonder what is going on here.....

we have several clients who say that actinic customer emails bounce from AOL saying they are spam...

but these customers can be emailed outside of actinic from the same SMTP

is actinic aware of this inconsistency?

[Mike Hughes]

Are you trying the same email?

As I said above, spam filters look at the email title and from address in deciding what they consider to be spam.

Mike

[pinbrook]

Its a different email but from the same address, and it is being sent from the mail tab within the actinic order detail.

I wanted to be sure it was actinic that was causing the bounce and not my mail server

the email address is not sales or orders or indeed anything obvious

if it were the title of the email then surely it would be happening to every actinic user

[Mike Hughes]

All spam filters these days use a scoring mechanism to try and identify spam. Get more than a certain number of points and they'll filter or bounce the email.

So if they see lots of emails from a domain or address with the same title, similar content and certain keywords (such as free, order, viagra, etc) then they identify it as spam.

This doesn't mean that all emails from that domain will be blocked.

The key thing I'm trying to say is that we can't lay the fault at actinic's door if we're not comparing identical emails.

Mike

[pinbrook]

Ok I understand you now Mike....thanks...

Now to investigate if I can change the format of the customer email to make it sufficiently different to get through

[BigDave]

if I can change the format of the customer email to make it sufficiently different to get through Trouble with that is that we'll be forever playing "catch-up" with the anti-spam software. My customer DOESN'T want to change his email address, and all I've done is write a disclaimer on the footer In Catalog. Bodge it and run, that's my motto!

[pinbrook]

I have now run a test.....on receiving an order from an AOL customer, the auto confirmation email bounced from AOL.

1 I sent the order received email from within the order dialog box, it bounced

2 I copied the email exactly as it was and sent it from Outlook, it bounced

3 I sent the same email again from Outlook with an amended subject line ...it did not bounce.

All tests were from sent from the same SMTP ie that of the server.

Thus I conclude that the server is not causing the problem, it is the content of the email.

I guess the problem has arisen because we have many sucessful actinic shops on this particular server.

Theres not alot we can do unless AOL untighten their spam filters.

Or Actinic allow us to change the subject line of the email, or Actinic contact AOL to tell them about customer confirmation emails and request that they are allowed through the filter

[rmladden]

The sendmail routine in actinic.pm gives you an opportunity to edit the subject. I do this to flag overnight orders. You have to code it in perl. Be very careful.

[NormanRouxel]

The subject line "Order Number:" text is in Design / Text / Phase -1, ID 234. Change that and see if it helps.

If you want to patch the Perl the Subject line is generated in OrderScript.pl in the line

ACTINIC::GetPhrase(-1, 234) . " $::g_InputHash{ORDERNUMBER}",

Here you see that bit from Design / Text and then the order number.

Norman



Norman

[pinbrook]

I've gone with Norman's idea.....much easier to implement. Changed the words "Order Number' to 'Your Ref' in phase/ID

will report back.

Does anyone have an AOL account I could use to test with. Saves me signing up to AOL to get one AAARRRGGHHH!, or saves me from testing on live customers!

[I-CC]

Sorry, missed this discussion, for which might have some info on this for you....

A number of gateway servers opertated (it is believed - but denied by) Freeserve has been blacklisted as a source of spam mail....

AOL were the first to block it, with then a few other non UK ISPs also blocking email from this gateway machine....

The gateway machine(s) had the server ID of:

tmailt1.svr.pol.co.uk and IP: 195.92.137.107, which then changed to tmailg1.svr.pol.co.uk I think it was, which was also being blocked....

Anyone sending emails out to their own SMTP relaying server or using freeserve as the outgoing SMTP server will go through these gateway servers regardless, it is a forced connection routing, so not much you can do about it in that respect.

Now, if you are not using Freeserve or not going through one of there gateways or network blocks, then you will need to speak to the AOL Webmasters in the US to get the real reason why your emails are being bounced by them....

Anyway, this has been the main reason for most AOL bounces in recent weeks due to the freeserve gateway being blocked, so should help some of you atleast in finding the reason.

If not, hope it has been of interest to you...

[BigDave]

Big thanks for the info, Support@Techno. Interesting stuff. My client is indeed using Fresserve as his SMTP server, so you're right on the monry.

Out of interest, do you think that the AOL block will be permanent? I also send an e-cast to his customers (not spam, honest - it's an opt-in thing), and an awful lot of em use AOL.

[I-CC]

To be perfectly honest, it depends on who at Freeserve you speak to...

About 3 weeks ago they said they are working on resolving the problem, but now say that it is not there servers that have been blacklisted and even said that they have never heard of the server ID that is being blocked, so your guess is now as good as ours...

Sorry...

[taliesyn]

Originally posted by Support@Techno-
Sorry, missed this discussion, for which might have some info on this for you....

A number of gateway servers opertated (it is believed - but denied by) Freeserve has been blacklisted as a source of spam mail....

AOL were the first to block it, with then a few other non UK ISPs also blocking email from this gateway machine....

The gateway machine(s) had the server ID of:

tmailt1.svr.pol.co.uk and IP: 195.92.137.107, which then changed to tmailg1.svr.pol.co.uk I think it was, which was also being blocked....

Anyone sending emails out to their own SMTP relaying server or using freeserve as the outgoing SMTP server will go through these gateway servers regardless, it is a forced connection routing, so not much you can do about it in that respect.

Now, if you are not using Freeserve or not going through one of there gateways or network blocks, then you will need to speak to the AOL Webmasters in the US to get the real reason why your emails are being bounced by them....

Anyway, this has been the main reason for most AOL bounces in recent weeks due to the freeserve gateway being blocked, so should help some of you atleast in finding the reason.

If not, hope it has been of interest to you...

I personally got one of the Freeserve servers unblocked for about 3 months from AOL (it's now reblocked). This was after several lengthy conversations with their system admins in the States. Freeserve themselves were useless (as usual).

Don't bother asking AOL about the reasons for them blocking the server because all you'll get is "badly configured Reverse DNS" which is quite frankly rubbish. (I checked :))

The important thing here is the following:

If you send e-mails via a Freeserve internet connection, they ALL get intercepted, re-routed, and sent via Freeserve's own SMTP servers. If you have your own company SMTP server at your domain, for example "smtp.mycompany.co.uk" and have this set as the outgoing server in your e-mail program, then it just gets redirected to Freeserve's own SMTP servers which are blocked by all and sundry. There is nothing you can do about this (apart from changing ISPs).

[pinbrook]

our actinic customer emails are bounced by AOL, but messages sent via Outlook are not.

we use Telewest broadband

[taliesyn]

We use Freeserve (ISDN, no broadband here :() for general e-mails, and they are invariably bounced by AOL, but our Actinic uses Verio's servers to send confirmation e-mails and they are received OK.

[pinbrook]

Hi Techno

Many thanks for the info re AOL and Freeserve, very useful!!

Jo

[I-CC]

A little snippet to keep you all going :)

It seems the Gatway server has changed to: tmailb1.svr.pol.co.uk for a lot of Freeserve users now, but although it does not appear at first glance that it is on a blacklist, it has got problems with resolving domains, i.e. it is producing a lot of "Unrouteable address" errors, which would normally mean that the domain name is not registered or not set up with the required A records and MX records, when in reality it does exist, it is just the Gateway is not seeing the path before it....

Just in case anyone is getting complaints or experiencing this themselves....

[pinbrook]

I've just had a complaint from a non actinic client whom I know uses Freeserve broadband....

where are you getting the info from?

[I-CC]

We have recently had to undergo a complete service move to a new network provider which caused all sorts of problems, as we ended up doing the whole lot in one day as opposed to a month long set of moves, which meant we could not use a large amount of our IP forwarding equipment which we had put into place, anyway..........

Since then we have a number of servers that have been continually checking on DNS routing and conditions for a large number of domains, which has been backed up by manual-human checks when we have received reports of problems.

We received a lot of complaints about emails not working and 'joe from NYC' not being able to email them or see there site, for which we have been digging very deeply to ascertain where the problem exists from, which has first of all brought up:

1. AOL Blocks on Freeserve (it is believed - uh huh)
2. A large number of non UK ISP Blocks and some minor UK ISP blocks on the same...
3. The EU to US transatlantic cable failure at about 2.45 pm the other afternoon, which has had some knock on effects.
4. The failure for some of the GTLDs that server the DNS servers lower down the food chain...

A lot has gone on in the Internet in recent weeks, which unfortunately coincided with our move of our systems and with such a large user base for freeserve users, we have received no end of reports of emails bouncing and not being allowed to be sent...

A few other bits in there somewhere I think as well, but that is about the gist of it to be honest....

[pinbrook]

Many thanks!

[taliesyn]

I forgot to mention that we also have a backup dialup account on Clara that we use just to send e-mails because of the problems with Freeserve. Never had a blocked e-mail when using it.

[Darren B]

Jo

have you managed to get anywhere yet?

I have edited my reciept page explaining the problems with AOL and told all my customers that use AOL to lodge a complaint. I have also sent emails and made a few phone calls but not a single reply from them. hardly supprising.

I really feel like setting up a sight listing all AOL's faults for the world to see, then maybe AOL will take notice. Mind you i would probably end up with some form of law suit raised against me.

anyway i have tried various ways to get the emails to customers but they all bounce.

Cheers
Darren