Vodacom spamfilter problem

RetroPedro

RetroPedro

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I'm trying to help a friend that's living in the sticks nearby Ladybrand. She has been sending email through her cellphone since December last year without a problem. Since the 25 th April, she has been getting the following message from "Content-filter at mx1.vodamail.co.za" <[email protected]>:

Your message to: -> [email protected] was considered unsolicited bulk e-mail (UBE). Subject: FW: Considered UNSOLICITED BULK EMAIL fr Return-Path: <[email protected]> Our internal reference code for your message is 16457-01-2/GfeToA3neABK. Delivery of the email was stopped!
Click to expand...

I reported the problem to the VC datacentre support on my friend's behalf, they logged a problem report and phoned my friend, asking her to send an email to [email protected]. As you can see above, the email also got blocked by the spam filter. The agent at Vodacom's response to my friend was that they can't find a problem and therefore the case is closed. I checked her inbox tonight and her emails are still being rejected.

Has anyone ever encountered this problem and is there anything else I can do about the problem since the VC support seems unwilling to solve the problem?
 
Is Thandi a Vodacom employee? - if not, then try @vodamail.co.za instead of @vodacom.co.za.
 
DearHeart said:
I'm trying to help a friend that's living in the sticks nearby Ladybrand. She has been sending email through her cellphone since December last year without a problem. Since the 25 th April, she has been getting the following message from "Content-filter at mx1.vodamail.co.za" <[email protected]>:



I reported the problem to the VC datacentre support on my friend's behalf, they logged a problem report and phoned my friend, asking her to send an email to [email protected]. As you can see above, the email also got blocked by the spam filter. The agent at Vodacom's response to my friend was that they can't find a problem and therefore the case is closed. I checked her inbox tonight and her emails are still being rejected.

Has anyone ever encountered this problem and is there anything else I can do about the problem since the VC support seems unwilling to solve the problem?
Click to expand...

There is a 'standard' in the e-mail world to report any mail problems to abuse @ domain-name or postmaster @ domain-name. In this case it will be:
abuse at vodamail dot co dot za or
postmaster at vodamail dot co dot za.

Always a good idea to try those first as you hit the people who look after the mail servers directly.

Something your friend is doing is triggering the spam filters. This could include:

1) Key words like porn, viagra, etc.
2) No subject or no body
3) Capitals
4) Sending too many mails at a time. Large numbers in the to or cc field or sending mail to fast. Newsletter for example.

We had a situation the other day where a guy send mails with "p0rn" in the subject. The spam filters went ballistic on that (seeing an attempt to 'hide' a suspect word) and blocked this mail.

Vodacom runs standard anti-spamming software and if we don't block suspect mail, a server downstream will do it and end up blacklisting the Vodacom servers.

PM me a complete example of one of the mails and I'll look at it.
 
@ic: Thanks ic, but the address is that of the support person at VC.

@vodacom3g: Thanks for a very thorough reply, I am used to reporting spam sent TO me through the abuse addresses, didn't occur that I can do it for this kind of block. The emails my friend sends are mostly all in the same format, short subject and a few sentences, all properly typed in mixed case - definitely doesn't contain any undesired keywords, although I might ad the messages are mostly in Afrikaans ;-) . I looked through previous messages for the last 6 months and they are all similar and not one single one has been blocked, until the 25th April. Thanks for your help v3g, I will send a PM right now with one of the emails that was stopped.
 
DearHeart said:
@ic: Thanks ic, but the address is that of the support person at VC.

@vodacom3g: Thanks for a very thorough reply, I am used to reporting spam sent TO me through the abuse addresses, didn't occur that I can do it for this kind of block. The emails my friend sends are mostly all in the same format, short subject and a few sentences, all properly typed in mixed case - definitely doesn't contain any undesired keywords, although I might ad the messages are mostly in Afrikaans ;-) . I looked through previous messages for the last 6 months and they are all similar and not one single one has been blocked, until the 25th April. Thanks for your help v3g, I will send a PM right now with one of the emails that was stopped.
Click to expand...

Got your PM and have forwarded to the mail admins. Let's see what they say.
 
Definitely a public holiday - which is why I've managed to get so much work done today. The phone didn't rung once until 5 minutes ago when the wife called to find out when I'll be back. :-)
 
I've always had an issue with (receiving) spam and Vodacom. From what I understand, Vodacom bought a few IronPort appliances which are one of the best antispam appliances on the market.

I'm guessing they haven't implemented them yet ;)
 
Fighting spam is a never ending battle - as the spammers are getting craftier in getting the message past all spam filters.

The fact that "good" messages were all of a sudden blocked is actually good news: Vodacom is trying to keep up with the spammers.

It is at times unfortunately a nuisance, but if VC did not try to keep up against the spammers, their service would soon be worse than useless due to the volumes of spam hitting mailboxes.

Best of luck to all spam fighters!
 
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