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OMAQman's avatar
OMAQman
New Contributor II
6 years ago

Outbound Spam Filters Have Run Amok -- Again

This issue has been around for a while. I discovered this week, however, it is still alive and well. And equally as frustrating as it was then.

Outbound email filtering appears to be broken -- again -- even if you use Webmail.

The dead horse was beaten pretty hard here (among many, many other threads):

forums.cox.com/.../552-5-2-0-bounce-error-sending-group-emails

The result/recommendation was to use Webmail instead of Outlook for outbound email, and to limit the distribution groups to 8 or less people (9 or more recipients triggered spam blocking/blackholing outbound and IP address email account suspension for 48 hours). OK. Fine. So I started using Webmail, and I started using only 8 recipients in the 'BCC' field (the "To:" is to myself/my Cox account). Worked fine. Until yesterday. Here's the timing of when my emails went out (all data obtained from the Webmail interface):

Email 1: 10:09 AM
Email 2: 10:10 AM
Email 3: 10:12 AM
Email 4: 10:13 AM
Email 5: 10:14 AM
Email 6: 10:15 AM
Email 7: 10:16 AM

Here's when they were delivered:

Email 1: 10:44 AM
Email 2: 11:06 AM
Email 3: 11:07 AM
Email 4: 2:59 PM
Email 5: Never delivered. No non-delivery report. Nothing.
Email 6: Never delivered. No non-delivery report. Nothing.
Email 7: Never delivered. No non-delivery report. Nothing.

OK, Cox, where did Emails 5, 6 and 7 go? I mean, they were emailed TO me BY me. Do you suppose I wished to receive them? Allow me to answer that. *YES!*. That's the way I know they didn't get blackholed. Kinda simple, really.

OK, here's where it gets more interesting. I now know some of the 'BCC' recipients in Email 5, 6 and 7 actually received the email. Wha'!?

So I'm left to surmise you spamholed MY email to ME. Hahahahahahahaha! So ironic. You protected me from *ME*. Hahahahahahaha!

And pitiful.

For me the issue is somewhat moot since I am taking people's advice and moving to Gmail instead of using Cox for my club's newsletter. But that's sad, really. Google will now get the ad revenue, not you, Cox. You really, really need to get better at this. 'Cuz like me, people will leave. You ain't the only game in (my) town. The entire experience since you "upgraded" has been, well, awful. OK. 'Nuff said.

6 Replies

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  • OMAQman's avatar
    OMAQman
    New Contributor II
    6 years ago

    Just a quick update for anybody watching/listening.  Gmail is also not a perfect answer.  Instead of the extremely obnoxious blackholing outbound, Cox still is blackholing inbound.  Some of the dance Club members are Cox email users.  Like, oh, say, my wife.  I sent out the newsletter to the 'bcc' group she is in, she never got it.  I received no non-delivery report.  She asked me, like, 2 days later if I had sent out the newsletter (because without an NDR or bounce error message, I had no reason to know she hadn't received it).  OK, I went back into Gmail and forwarded her a copy from Sent mail.  Later I asked her if she got it.  Nope.  Blackholed again.  OK, so the email had two phreakin' hyper-links in it -- one to the Club's web site and one to our community's web site.  I go back to the Sent folder and forward again, this time obfuscating the hyper-links.  She replies within the hour that she got it.

    CloudMark's filtering is WAY OVER THE TOP, Cox.  They are literally breaking the Internet (OK, at least the email part of it).  Ask yourself this, do you suppose my wife -- my WIFE -- would like to receive email from me?  Allow me to tell you how she can, and how you can allow it while still battling the spam epidemic . . .

    We use another/different cloud email filtering service at work (I'm not naming them because I am not promoting them).  Their service generates a daily "digest" of "spam"-looking stuff it trapped (and this is entirely configurable BY THE USER).  If I do nothing with the digest, all of that mail continues its trip down the blackhole.  *BUT*, it also has an "Allow" button.  You know, just in case it trapped something THAT WAS VALID EMAIL -- a *DECISION TO BE MADE BY THE USER*!  (Like my wife (and others) could have made with the Dance Club newsletter, and hopefully Cloudmark's algorithm could "learn" from it.)  CloudMark needs to learn this trick.  It's the one THAT DOES NOT BREAK EMAIL as you have broken it by using overly aggressive filtering with no whitelisting and "disappearing" email with no notice to either sender or receiver.  Broken.  Totally broken.  Fix it.  Please.

    • Becky's avatar
      Becky
      Moderator
      6 years ago
      Hi OMAQman, this must be so frustrating! I Have your wife log into Cox Webmail and check her Spam Settings. (Click the Settings icon, choose Settings, click on Inbox, and then click Spam settings.) Does your wife have suspected email spam delivered to the Spam folder? Or is her account set to delete Spam without delivering to Inbox? If it is set to delete spam without delivering to the Inbox, have your wife change the setting to "Automatically deliver to Spam folder." Then, resend the email from your Gmail account without deleting the club's website or the community website. I'd like to know if your wife receives the email in the Webmail Inbox, the Webmail Spam folder, or not at all. If she doesn't receive the email at all, I'd like to escalate this and have it investigated further. -Becky, Cox Support Forums Moderator
      • OMAQman's avatar
        OMAQman
        New Contributor II
        6 years ago

        Hi, Becky. Thanks for taking the time to reply. Let's just say "frustrating" is an understatement, and let it go at that. ;)

        Well, we tried your suggestion, and . . . IT WORKED!!! I tested this with an email (the one containing hyper-links) addressed directly to her (it arrived), and then tested "as if" it was a Dance Club newsletter (addressed to my/Sender's Gmail account, 'bcc' to her), and it arrived! And, interestingly, without a "--Spam--" appendage to the Subject.

        Unfortunately, I don't know that we are home free yet. I still have reason to suspect that there is something else about the newsletter that is hitting CloudMark's tripwire. I'll see when this coming week's newsletter goes out. I can tell you this -- I have segregated out the known cox.net recipients on the list into their own 'bcc' group, and that group is less than 8. So maybe that doesn't hit the tripwire. I will continue to obfuscate URLs.  I have also taken to spacing out the emails to over 15 minutes between each "Send". Maybe that helps. I don't know. What I do know is that anti-anti-spam procedure is a BIG pain in the posterior.

        I will stay on the record as believing that blackholing without notice is the wrong thing to do. Ever. That the apparent default setting (set by Cox, not us) in Webmail is "delete spam without delivering to the Inbox" was news to both my wife and I. I wonder how many other Cox users have had valid email "go missing" because they didn't know it was sent and the sender didn't know it got blackholed? That breaks the function of email, pure and simple. And it has overtones of censorship and suppression of free speech. But I won't go there today. I'm saving that one up for some future discussion. ;)

        Thanks again for your helpful reply. I'll keep my fingers crossed. You can count on me to circle back if more email gets "disappeared". ;)

  • bohenlv's avatar
    bohenlv
    New Contributor
    6 years ago

    I have a similar problem with outbound email, but only SINGLE emails to a SINGLE address (my attorney here in town). Every email I send to the attorney is never received, AND not in recipient's spam/junk folder. Sending from gmail works flawlessly. This recipient is in my Cox contact list, and I receive inbound email from him fine.

    Never knew anything about outbound spam filtering - especially to a single address. Any way to address this????

    I'd hate to have to resort to getnotify for every email I send via Cox.

    • Becky's avatar
      Becky
      Moderator
      6 years ago
      Hi Bohenlv, it is important to ensure that the email recipient (your attorney, in this case) has his or her email account set to not delete spam automatically. In OMAQman's scenario, above, his wife's account was set to delete spam automatically instead of tagging email as spam and delivering it to the Inbox or the Spam folder. It's possible that your attorney's network blocks email from Cox for some reason. Without knowing more about your attorney's email provider, email settings, and corporate network, I'd hesitate to speculate or label this issue as outbound spam filtering. Be sure that your emails to your attorney don't include any URLs or hotlinks. Be sure to use proper spelling and grammar and to include a subject line. This will make your emails less likely to be blocked on the receiving end. Also, if using security or anti-virus software on any of your devices, disable the mail scanning feature. -Becky, Cox Support Forums Moderator
      • bohenlv's avatar
        bohenlv
        New Contributor
        6 years ago

        Thanks, Becky. I'll pass this along to the recipient.