iBurst spam filter issues

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Vis1/0N

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There is a folder in the webmail interface that used to trap spam ( and my Unisa results, and the bosses bank statements and customers requests for auditors ), and these used to expire when the box got full ( or maybe aged).

When I learnt about this folder, I used to regularly login in and delete the spam, and move the false positives into my inbox. I have been logging in this past week, and cannot find any new messages, spam or otherwise. Normally it would have been 20+ Viagra messages a day, now there is none.

What is happening? Iburst used to flag quite a bit false positives for my liking, now I hope they are not being deleted instantly.
 
Vis1/ON

I also noticed that the "trapped" messages are far less lately. Since you told me about this Spam folder in Webmail, I check it regularly, since I still lose e-mails. I even retrieved a few Iburst Statements from last year which I never received!
 
JeanetteR said:
Iburst Statements from last year which I never received!
Click to expand...
Lol...

I need a response from Iburst on this. There have been no messages trapped in my SPAM folder, and the usual SPAM did not come through to my email client. In the past I could not rely on these filters passing all legitimate email to my inbox, so now that I am not receiving any messages in the spam folder I am worried about losing important communications.
 
I fight this fight alone ... the boss wants his Wesbank Statements, and it is always trapped in the SPAM folder as a false positive, and I move to the inbox manually. Except not this time, I can't. As mentioned above, I suspect I was losing legitimate emails because the SPAM folder feature was disabled.

And what do you know, I AM! Iburst email is failing us.
 
Last edited:
Vis1/0N said:
I fight this fight alone ... the boss wants his Wesbank Statements, and it is always trapped in the SPAM folder as a false positive, and I move to the inbox manually. Except not this time, I can't. As mentioned above, I suspect I was losing legitimate emails because the SPAM folder feature was disabled.

And what do you know, I AM! Iburst email is failing us.
Click to expand...

Please log a ticket with the call centre which will forward it to the email guys.
 
I still lose e-mails incoming, as well as outgoing. Luckily they are trivial stuff as far as I am aware. I have a question to Ronald though - how (where) will the e-mail guys be able to trace the lost e-mails if they aren't trapped in the SPAM folder?
 
JeanetteR said:
I still lose e-mails incoming, as well as outgoing. Luckily they are trivial stuff as far as I am aware. I have a question to Ronald though - how (where) will the e-mail guys be able to trace the lost e-mails if they aren't trapped in the SPAM folder?
Click to expand...

I'll ask but I'll need to log a ticket with more details.
 
See http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthread.php/226466-Iburst-webmail-Spam-folder?highlight=

We were still awaiting phone lines since the last complaint so I did not log a ticket. The SPAM 'feature' is still trashing - it does not sit in the mailbox to expire after 3 months or wait for me to delete instead of downloading. My boss is still missing a few legitimate emails from Wesbank and who knows what.

I had an irate customer phone through today about some documents requested a while ago, I asked to foward to my gmail which was like near instant. I tried fowarding to the iburst email address and it got rejected back to gmail.

Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently:

[email protected]

Technical details of permanent failure:
Google tried to deliver your message, but it was rejected by the recipient domain. We recommend contacting the other email provider for further information about the cause of this error. The error that the other server returned was: 550 550-Rejected message body text: Lottery scam text in body:
550-E-mail address won draw/lottery/prize
550-.
550-[EximConfig-2.5-iburst.co.za-Body-Reject]
550-.
550-.Verify: [email protected]
550-Contact: [email protected]
550-.
550-Sorry, your message has been rejected because
550-its body text/content is prohibited for the
550-above reason.
550-.
550-We apologise if you have sent a legitimate
550-message and it has been blocked. If this is
550-the case, please re-send adding verified-89404-
550-to the beginning of the E-mail address of each
550-recipient. If you do this, your message will
550-get through these restrictions.
550-.
550-If your message has been incorrectly blocked,
550-please let us know at the above contact address.
550 . (state 18).

----- Original message -----


I cannot ask my customer ( there is over 30 clerks with various email addresses and then there is the management staff ) to do the [email protected] thing. I hope you guys understand why. Most of them that do get bounced messages do not know what to do about it. Once again, I hope you guys understand why.

Can I ask iburst not to delete ANY messages sent to me, or as least go back to the old system of the webmail SPAM folder? I can't put the onus on my customers - it is for iburst to sort out.
 
r00igev@@r said:
I'll ask but I'll need to log a ticket with more details.
Click to expand...


Ronald what details do you need, because lately a lot of my e-mails get lost. One example is my Vodacom Billing Pack which had not been delivered for the last 3 months. I queried this with Vodacom and they confirmed
that they did send these docs to me and my e-mail address was verified. I checked the SPAM folder - nothing trapped in there. I sent an e-mail to HelpDesk to enquire about this, but haven't had a response yet. Tx
 
JeanetteR said:
I sent an e-mail to HelpDesk to enquire about this, but haven't had a response yet. Tx
Click to expand...

Up until today, NO RESPONSE at all from the HelpDesk! Not even an acknowledgement of my e-mails sent. I need this matter on lost e-mails clarified, because it has become an important issue with me now, since I am losing important documentation.

Is HelpDesk still in operation?????????
 
Holding Thumbs, I have spoken to some patient Call centre staff who said they will relax the spam filter for my email address. 12.38pm and 3.30pm or so. I am asking for all messages to be sent through regardless of whether it is identified as spam or not.

I tried a few times, I kept getting it bounced back ( iburst server rejecting it - "The error that the other server returned was: 550 550-Rejected message body text: Lottery scam text in body:"

What now? I am sending a legitimate email to our iburst address that we use for business and it does not get through. We have had certain clients sending orders through, and then they contact us a week later asking for a response. Is it time we dumped iburst as our email service provider? I am exasperated - only inertia is holding me back ...
 
JeanetteR said:
Up until today, NO RESPONSE at all from the HelpDesk! Not even an acknowledgement of my e-mails sent. I need this matter on lost e-mails clarified, because it has become an important issue with me now, since I am losing important documentation.

Is HelpDesk still in operation?????????
Click to expand...

Sorry JeanetteR, I haven't touched base on the forum for a while. Please PM me your account details and I'll log the ticket and provide feedback.
 
Vis1/0N said:
Holding Thumbs, I have spoken to some patient Call centre staff who said they will relax the spam filter for my email address. 12.38pm and 3.30pm or so. I am asking for all messages to be sent through regardless of whether it is identified as spam or not.

I tried a few times, I kept getting it bounced back ( iburst server rejecting it - "The error that the other server returned was: 550 550-Rejected message body text: Lottery scam text in body:"

What now? I am sending a legitimate email to our iburst address that we use for business and it does not get through. We have had certain clients sending orders through, and then they contact us a week later asking for a response. Is it time we dumped iburst as our email service provider? I am exasperated - only inertia is holding me back ...
Click to expand...

Please PM me your account details and I'll investigate.
 
I have been unable to get the staff to turn back the clock. Apparently it is a business rule for them to automatically reject email back to the sender if it gets flagged as spam. Oh and to permanently delete it instead of the spam folder on the webmail folder. They cannot whitelist the domain of my sender, and I am not going to send them the list (which is dynamic of course ) of the email addresses of my most important clients.

I get different calls from different people who are unable to deal with bounced messages with the info above - not everyone fully conversant with a PC system beyond their training and will remain so - and of course I do not get any messages from automated systems like the banking systems or unisa ( and even my programs have not been written to deal with bounced messages ). A further example is a secreterial employee at a major global manufacturer sends out communications to the whole list (not bcc) in the address book. Since there are quite a few recepitients a threshold marks it as spam, and we do not get it.

So I cannot get them to go back to the webmail-spam feature ( which I only found about in December after 4 years with iburst - although I cannot say how long it has been there). It would be nice if I gathered enough voices for them re-enable this or get a full pass on all email sent to our addresses. I don't think either it is going to happen, I have only heard one other voice.

Only one answer - I can't rely on iburst, so it will have to be some other provider, or my own domain. I do have one, but it is a major headache to change email. Is it possible for me to setup iburst to foward email?
 
iBurst Spam filter too zealous

I tried to send a warning link about the IM Virus on the front page of MyBB to a friend, and iBurst blocks it. (http://mybroadband.co.za/news/softw...ds-through-almost-all-instant-messengers.html)

I know they have an over zealous spamblocker - a number of mails to that friend was rejected for invalid reaosns.

If you want reasonable certainty that you will receive ALL your important mail, AVOID iBurst. The False positives are simply beyond anything remotely acceptable.

********************************************
SMTP error from remote mail server after end of data:
host mail.wbs.co.za [196.2.97.236]: 550-Rejected virus warning, notification or hoax.
550-.
550-[EximConfig-2.5-iburst.co.za-Virus-Warning]
550-.
550-Subject: New Virus via Skype and similar
550-.
550-.Verify: verified-77456-@
550-Contact: [email protected]
550-.
550-Sorry, your message has been rejected because
550-it appears to be a virus warning, notification
550-of infection or a hoax.
550-.
550-The majority of these virus warnings are hoaxes
550-and you should never carry out any instructions
550-contained in the message, especially if these
550-involve deleting files or changing settings on
550-your computer.
550-.
550-You should also refrain from forwarding them on to
550-your E-mail contacts because the purpose of most
550-of these hoaxes is to simply clog up E-mail systems
550-with useless messages.
550-.
550-To ensure that you do not become a victim of a
550-real computer virus, please ensure that you are
550
 
kaspaas said:
I know they have an over zealous spamblocker - a number of mails to that friend was rejected for invalid reaosns.

If you want reasonable certainty that you will receive ALL your important mail, AVOID iBurst. The False positives are simply beyond anything remotely acceptable.
Click to expand...

... as documented in this thread http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthread.php/226466-Iburst-webmail-Spam-folder
They are blindly applying the technolgy but the technology is not foolproof. Sometimes all it takes for me to get a blocked email through is to add another recepitient or just add a couple random characters in the message. The problem is not that there are false positives but that Iburst has made a decision to permanently delete them without an option.
 
Vis1/0N said:
The problem is not that there are false positives but that Iburst has made a decision to permanently delete them without an option.
Click to expand...
While iBurst's spam-filter may be over-zealous, one thing they are not guilty of is deleting the mails without warning, they are rejecting the mail so that the sender knows it wasn't delivered.
 
ginggs said:
they are rejecting the mail so that the sender knows it wasn't delivered.
Click to expand...
The technophobes and semi-PC literate ( common users that are trained to just send, receive and print ) get caught in the headlights of such a message. ( Although the one received by Kaspaas is a legitimate victim to spam filters - these mass fowardings of virus warnings ).

It is really not reasonable for me to have to educate the senders, and it is often not possible unless I they contact me after trying to send a message and failing - plenty don't - some contact their IT services who brush it off. It took 3 tries before I could get a test email through to iburst helpdesk... And rejecting back to automailers is also a fail.

So ever since they disabled the spam filter feature yes, I believe we are without option. Except, that is, to avoid iburst.
 
Vis1/0N said:
It is really not reasonable for me to have to educate the senders, and it is often not possible unless I they contact me after trying to send a message and failing - plenty don't - some contact their IT services who brush it off. It took 3 tries before I could get a test email through to iburst helpdesk... And rejecting back to automailers is also a fail.

So ever since they disabled the spam filter feature yes, I believe we are without option. Except, that is, to avoid iburst.
Click to expand...


I totally agree with Vis1/ON - senders don't always have the time, or simply don't want to resend e-mails. I have just learned that some of my e-mails had been blocked too. Only one person informed me, otherwise I would not be aware of this. The sender resent the message, but to my Gmail address. I tried to forward the same e-mail which was blocked from my Iburst e-mail addy, from my Gmail account and I got exactly the same 550 error message as mentioned by kaspaas above.

I sent an enquiry to HelpDesk - hopefully I will get a response.
 
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