Runbox mail flagged as spam from too many other ISP's

Rizlam · 27 Oct 2007, 01:10 PM

Hi everyone

I am a long term Runbox user, who has had his fair share of classic runbox problems such as system outages with no warning and the problems of a fairly unflexible spam filter (either everything is stopped or nothing is, and yes, I do train it in the webmail client using DSpam) but I still soldier on as I like the interface and I also like the speed of reply to queries in this forum.

However... what's now making the service almost unusable for me, is the amount of 3rd party mail providers who automatically flag up RUNBOX domain mail as spam.

Large numbers of my clients and customers are not getting my emails (and only very rarely am I getting automated replies to tell me this) because they think that everything at runbox is spam. And I'm not mass mailing; this is individual mails and I'm only a light user of 10 to 20 emails a day.

It appears runbox appears as a spammers' favourite on some 'learning' systems and my mails never arrive. AOL and Yahoo Mail seem to intermittently block my messages and the chances go up ten-fold if I have a MSword attachment. As ever, replying to an incoming message will improve the chance of it appearing at my client's destination but the frustration of how often my mails never arrive is driving me mad.

The big problem here is the fact that I can never tell if this is happening. When the mail client is down or operating poorly, I can use back-up systems to get round this. But non-appearing mails cannot be allowed for, as I never know if it is happening. I've now got into the habit of phoning people to ask if my email arrived, knowing full well that on certain mail clients, runbox is unlikely to ever get through.

I know you need to do the free trials to demo the system to people considering signing up, but if the upshot is that it leaves you with an unreliable and suspicious mail system, what's the point? There's a large argument for making runbox subscription only - or better still - come up with a 'RUNBOXPRO' that doesn't have the appalling reputation of runbox with 3rd party servers.

It's very frustrating and the reason I'm most likely to move elsewhere right now.

Stephen

Liz · 29 Oct 2007, 08:30 AM

Hi Stephen.

I'm sorry you're having so much trouble!

I haven't experienced any problems emailing Yahoo or AOL myself though; Yahoo has never blocked runbox in general, and AOL hasn't for many years now. Without seeing the headers from the mails thought to be spam, after they went through the destination server filters, it is difficult to say exactly why they were thought to be spam. Could it be that your IP address(es) is/are on any blacklists though? Do you send email from the same network location, or different ones?

Runbox is not a well known brand name, so spam with forged runbox addresses as the fake senders do more harm to us than to other domains that have this happen just as much, since few other services would block, say, Gmail or Hotmail due to such spoofing. We have very strict regulations and monitoring in place for trials though; a trial cannot email more than 50 recipients in a day, by which time we will have closed them, if we didn't already nuke them while scanning the signups list, which I do many times each day. We also block a plethora of countries, IP's and phrases/words from the signup process. So I don't think spam sent from actual runbox accounts causes a lot of blocks, really.

What may be a problem is that we attract Internet marketers as paying customers, and while they swear up and down that they use opt-in only lists, and they probably believe that they do, such continuous mass mailings inevitably result in spam complaints. We have tried to discourage such users from signing up by imposing limits (like the 5000 messages per day one), and we are considering limiting outgoing mails as well.

Liz

mdembski · 29 Oct 2007, 10:17 PM

I have the same problem. About 25% of the emails I send to yahoo and hotmail are blocked and never even make it to the spam filter. Hotmail seems to be the biggest problem. Emails to other providers (and my work address) seem to always go through. I have not seem a connection between the ip address that I send from and the ability to get through. However it does appear that any email with an attachment is more likely to get blocked than just a text email.

Geir · 31 Oct 2007, 03:15 AM

Hmm. It would be very helpful with an example message (or a few) with full message headers so we can raise this issue with those services.

- Geir

mdembski · 2 Nov 2007, 09:52 PM

Is there an address I can send the email with the full headers to? Obviously I can only send what was sent. Since Hotmail never accepted it, I have no way to show anything else. Hotmail rejects almost all runbox emails. Yahoo seems to do on a hit and miss basis.

carverrn · 2 Nov 2007, 11:48 PM

Send it to SUPPORT-at-RUNBOX-dot-COM. Make sure you REPLY to the autoresponse.

Have you tested it with a Hotmail account you have access to?

I have tested sending to a couple of Hotmail accounts (old and new accounts) from several different Runbox accounts and all have arrived at the Hotmail accounts (at least at this time).

When I had the Hotmail Junk setting on "Standard" they all went to my Inbox.

When I had the Hotmail Junk setting on "Exclusive" they went to the Junk folder until the senders address was added to my address book or the Safe Senders list.

If the Hotmail account is setup with the "Junk e-mail is deleted immediately" option activated then the user would never see the message if it was flagged as junk by Hotmail.

Regards,
Rich

mdembski · 3 Nov 2007, 02:15 AM

I have two friends with Hotmail who have never received any email I sent them from Runbox. Both are complete computer novices and would never even think of changing the Hotmail default settings. I have a Hotmail account that is set to standard for the junkmail and have added my email address as a "safe" address. I have tested it by sending copies and also sending as the prime recipient. 99.9% of the emails never even appear in the junk mail and are never returned to runbox as undeliverable.

carverrn · 3 Nov 2007, 04:01 AM

Could you please try sending some test messages from your Runbox account to this username:

rbtestbox

Send it to both "@hotmail.com" and "@runbox.com" in the same "To:".

This way I can see if the one message arrives at both the Runbox and Hotmail accounts.

A good test would also include your Hotmail address in the "To:" field so we can see if you get the same message or not.

Regards,
Rich

mdembski · 3 Nov 2007, 05:41 AM

I sent two test emails to your two test addresses as well as my hotmail account. One email was just text and one was with a 2.5 meg pdf file.

carverrn · 3 Nov 2007, 06:15 AM

I received both emails in the Inbox of the Hotmail account. Did your Hotmail account receive them?

Regards,
Rich

mdembski · 3 Nov 2007, 07:52 AM

no, i didn't receive them

toppito · 8 Nov 2007, 11:26 PM

I use runbox as a spam filter...Runbox fetches my mail from an old yahoo address and my domain's mail and filters it for spam...then I setup Gmail to fetch the Runbox mail and filter it for spam again...then I setup Spamcop mail to fetch and filter the Gmail mail and Spamcop forwards all my mail to my newest Yahoo address. I avoid 99.9% of spam this way.

Since I don't use Runbox to send mail then I don't have the problem of the mail getting classified as spam.

earlzsta · 8 Nov 2007, 11:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by toppito

I use runbox as a spam filter...Runbox fetches my mail from an old yahoo address and my domain's mail and filters it for spam...then I setup Gmail to fetch the Runbox mail and filter it for spam again...then I setup Spamcop mail to fetch and filter the Gmail mail and Spamcop forwards all my mail to my newest Yahoo address. I avoid 99.9% of spam this way.

Since I don't use Runbox to send mail then I don't have the problem of the mail getting classified as spam.

That is an expensive spam filter forwarding service mate

Especially at $49.95

carverrn · 9 Nov 2007, 01:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mdembski

no, i didn't receive them

Looks like Hotmail has a problem.

In this example Runbox delivers one copy of the message to Hotmail and it is Hotmail's job to deliver copies of the message to each Hotmail recipient. But from what you said, it delivers to one Hotmail account but not another.

If you had the account setup to automatically delete messages flagged as junk then that might explain it. However I believe you said that wasn't the case .. correct?

I know Hotmail sometimes rejects messages and the user never gets a chance to see them but in those cases I've always received a failed delivery message back.

Have you asked Hotmail support about this yet?

Regards,
Rich

mdembski · 9 Nov 2007, 05:09 AM

I've tried to contact Hotmail and haven't had much luck in getting much of a response. Unfortunately it seems to happen with anything I have to sent to my Hotmail account and to at least two friends that use Hotmail, and as stated earlier, frequently with Yahoo also. Because of the frequency of the problem, I have just given up on sending anything to Yahoo or Hotmail.

27 Oct 2007, 01:10 PM	#1
Rizlam Member Join Date: Oct 2003 Posts: 48	Runbox mail flagged as spam from too many other ISP's Hi everyone I am a long term Runbox user, who has had his fair share of classic runbox problems such as system outages with no warning and the problems of a fairly unflexible spam filter (either everything is stopped or nothing is, and yes, I do train it in the webmail client using DSpam) but I still soldier on as I like the interface and I also like the speed of reply to queries in this forum. However... what's now making the service almost unusable for me, is the amount of 3rd party mail providers who automatically flag up RUNBOX domain mail as spam. Large numbers of my clients and customers are not getting my emails (and only very rarely am I getting automated replies to tell me this) because they think that everything at runbox is spam. And I'm not mass mailing; this is individual mails and I'm only a light user of 10 to 20 emails a day. It appears runbox appears as a spammers' favourite on some 'learning' systems and my mails never arrive. AOL and Yahoo Mail seem to intermittently block my messages and the chances go up ten-fold if I have a MSword attachment. As ever, replying to an incoming message will improve the chance of it appearing at my client's destination but the frustration of how often my mails never arrive is driving me mad. The big problem here is the fact that I can never tell if this is happening. When the mail client is down or operating poorly, I can use back-up systems to get round this. But non-appearing mails cannot be allowed for, as I never know if it is happening. I've now got into the habit of phoning people to ask if my email arrived, knowing full well that on certain mail clients, runbox is unlikely to ever get through. I know you need to do the free trials to demo the system to people considering signing up, but if the upshot is that it leaves you with an unreliable and suspicious mail system, what's the point? There's a large argument for making runbox subscription only - or better still - come up with a 'RUNBOXPRO' that doesn't have the appalling reputation of runbox with 3rd party servers. It's very frustrating and the reason I'm most likely to move elsewhere right now. Stephen

29 Oct 2007, 10:17 PM	#3
mdembski Member Join Date: Jul 2007 Posts: 65	runbox as spam I have the same problem. About 25% of the emails I send to yahoo and hotmail are blocked and never even make it to the spam filter. Hotmail seems to be the biggest problem. Emails to other providers (and my work address) seem to always go through. I have not seem a connection between the ip address that I send from and the ability to get through. However it does appear that any email with an attachment is more likely to get blocked than just a text email.

2 Nov 2007, 09:52 PM	#5
mdembski Member Join Date: Jul 2007 Posts: 65	emails Is there an address I can send the email with the full headers to? Obviously I can only send what was sent. Since Hotmail never accepted it, I have no way to show anything else. Hotmail rejects almost all runbox emails. Yahoo seems to do on a hit and miss basis.

3 Nov 2007, 02:15 AM	#7
mdembski Member Join Date: Jul 2007 Posts: 65	hotmail and Runbox I have two friends with Hotmail who have never received any email I sent them from Runbox. Both are complete computer novices and would never even think of changing the Hotmail default settings. I have a Hotmail account that is set to standard for the junkmail and have added my email address as a "safe" address. I have tested it by sending copies and also sending as the prime recipient. 99.9% of the emails never even appear in the junk mail and are never returned to runbox as undeliverable.

3 Nov 2007, 05:41 AM	#9
mdembski Member Join Date: Jul 2007 Posts: 65	test emails I sent two test emails to your two test addresses as well as my hotmail account. One email was just text and one was with a 2.5 meg pdf file.

29 Oct 2007, 08:30 AM	#2
Liz The "e" in e-mail Join Date: Jul 2001 Location: Los Angeles,CA Posts: 4,652 Representative of: Runbox.com	Hi Stephen. I'm sorry you're having so much trouble! I haven't experienced any problems emailing Yahoo or AOL myself though; Yahoo has never blocked runbox in general, and AOL hasn't for many years now. Without seeing the headers from the mails thought to be spam, after they went through the destination server filters, it is difficult to say exactly why they were thought to be spam. Could it be that your IP address(es) is/are on any blacklists though? Do you send email from the same network location, or different ones? Runbox is not a well known brand name, so spam with forged runbox addresses as the fake senders do more harm to us than to other domains that have this happen just as much, since few other services would block, say, Gmail or Hotmail due to such spoofing. We have very strict regulations and monitoring in place for trials though; a trial cannot email more than 50 recipients in a day, by which time we will have closed them, if we didn't already nuke them while scanning the signups list, which I do many times each day. We also block a plethora of countries, IP's and phrases/words from the signup process. So I don't think spam sent from actual runbox accounts causes a lot of blocks, really. What may be a problem is that we attract Internet marketers as paying customers, and while they swear up and down that they use opt-in only lists, and they probably believe that they do, such continuous mass mailings inevitably result in spam complaints. We have tried to discourage such users from signing up by imposing limits (like the 5000 messages per day one), and we are considering limiting outgoing mails as well. Liz

31 Oct 2007, 03:15 AM	#4
Geir The "e" in e-mail Join Date: Sep 2001 Location: Oslo, Norway Posts: 2,938 Representative of: Runbox.com	Hmm. It would be very helpful with an example message (or a few) with full message headers so we can raise this issue with those services. - Geir

2 Nov 2007, 11:48 PM	#6
carverrn Intergalactic Postmaster Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: Chicago, IL Posts: 5,606 Representative of: Runbox.com	Send it to SUPPORT-at-RUNBOX-dot-COM. Make sure you REPLY to the autoresponse. Have you tested it with a Hotmail account you have access to? I have tested sending to a couple of Hotmail accounts (old and new accounts) from several different Runbox accounts and all have arrived at the Hotmail accounts (at least at this time). When I had the Hotmail Junk setting on "Standard" they all went to my Inbox. When I had the Hotmail Junk setting on "Exclusive" they went to the Junk folder until the senders address was added to my address book or the Safe Senders list. If the Hotmail account is setup with the "Junk e-mail is deleted immediately" option activated then the user would never see the message if it was flagged as junk by Hotmail. Regards, Rich

3 Nov 2007, 04:01 AM	#8
carverrn Intergalactic Postmaster Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: Chicago, IL Posts: 5,606 Representative of: Runbox.com	Could you please try sending some test messages from your Runbox account to this username: rbtestbox Send it to both "@hotmail.com" and "@runbox.com" in the same "To:". This way I can see if the one message arrives at both the Runbox and Hotmail accounts. A good test would also include your Hotmail address in the "To:" field so we can see if you get the same message or not. Regards, Rich

3 Nov 2007, 06:15 AM	#10
carverrn Intergalactic Postmaster Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: Chicago, IL Posts: 5,606 Representative of: Runbox.com	I received both emails in the Inbox of the Hotmail account. Did your Hotmail account receive them? Regards, Rich

3 Nov 2007, 07:52 AM	#11
mdembski Member Join Date: Jul 2007 Posts: 65	hotmail no, i didn't receive them

8 Nov 2007, 11:26 PM	#12
toppito Junior Member Join Date: Dec 2006 Posts: 14	My situation I use runbox as a spam filter...Runbox fetches my mail from an old yahoo address and my domain's mail and filters it for spam...then I setup Gmail to fetch the Runbox mail and filter it for spam again...then I setup Spamcop mail to fetch and filter the Gmail mail and Spamcop forwards all my mail to my newest Yahoo address. I avoid 99.9% of spam this way. Since I don't use Runbox to send mail then I don't have the problem of the mail getting classified as spam.

9 Nov 2007, 05:09 AM	#15
mdembski Member Join Date: Jul 2007 Posts: 65	runbox as spam I've tried to contact Hotmail and haven't had much luck in getting much of a response. Unfortunately it seems to happen with anything I have to sent to my Hotmail account and to at least two friends that use Hotmail, and as stated earlier, frequently with Yahoo also. Because of the frequency of the problem, I have just given up on sending anything to Yahoo or Hotmail.