problem with mail forwarding to Yahoo and MSN

[PWSowner]

As many of you know, there is a problem with allowing users to forward to Yahoo/Rogers and MSN/Hotmail, and probably other major mail providers as well.

When mail is forwarded to them, even spam is forwarded. The spam was sent from a different source, but once the mail is forwarded, it looks to the major mail provider like that email was sent from the server. Eventually they end up putting anything sent from the server in their spam/bulk folders.

Like most of you, we never send spam, but due to the spam being forwarded, anything we send to a Yahoo, Rogers, MSN, or Hotmail address goes in the spam box. If the user doesn't understand their excessive filtering, they may not check the spam box and therefore never get our email.


If we don't allow users to set forwarders to them, some will be unhappy. Many people prefer going to Yahoo or whatever instead of their cPanel.

What do you do about this situation?

[nyjimbo]

I think there is nothing you can do. I mean you have to let them forward if they want to and if they get blocked or email gets sent to "junk" you explain to them what you just posted and thats it.

I go through this a couple times a week. I tell them to adjust their spamassassin, filters, mailboxes, etc... in Cpanel to improve things but 90% of them don't do it or dont want to learn how to.

It affects ALL web hosting companies that allow forwarding to the giants like AOL, MSN, Yahoo, etc..

[PWSowner]

Problem is, because of that, anything sent from our server goes to the spam box, even new customer welcome emails.

Yesterday is when I decided I HAVE to do something, probably not allow forwarders, because we had a customer sign up 3 days ago using a Yahoo email. The account was set up and the welcome email sent within an hour. Yesterday he emailed and said he wants to cancel the account because we were to slow. I went to my Yahoo account to email him back from an address that would go in his inbox and I explained that I did email him less than an hour later and it was probably in his bulk folder. He emailed back and said it was there, but also said he already signed up elsewhere so he still wanted to cancel.

I CAN NOT allow real emails to go to the spam or bulk folders. I figure there are 3 options.

1) do not allow forwarders to outside email services

2) I have to go to my Yahoo account for all initial emails to new customers and explain to them that they have to go to their bulk folders and mark our messages as not bulk

3) I have to go to the major email providers and do whatever they want to get my server off their list

I tried #3 with Yahoo, but filled out some form 3 times and kept getting replies back saying it wasn't complete. I don't have the time or patience to do that with every email provider.


The way I see it, why does someone want to forward something@theirdomain.com to something@yahoo.com anyway. The first time they reply, the sender will have their Yahoo address anyway. Just use their stupid Yahoo address in the first place.

[PWSowner]

I thought of an option #4 that I might try.

Allow forwarders, but require spamassassin and spam box to be turned on with spamassassin set to default level 5. Maybe that will cut down the spam being forwarded enough to stop the problem.

Does anyone know if this will stop Yahoo and others from putting everything from my server in their bulk/spam boxes?

[Lyttek]

I've been wondering the same thing, and have come to pretty much the same conclusion: don't allow it. It's a matter of 1) educating the user and 2) making things simple for them. For pretty much all my clients who aren't businesses, the reason they got hosting anyway was so they could have their own domain. Most had been using an ISP address and were switching.

I go through the effort of configuring all accounts to have a webmail.domain.com method of accessing either Horde or SquirrelMail so they don't have to go through cpanel.

If they HAVE to forward their mail because of reason X, I tell them that their spam filtering thresholds will be set REALLY low and they may lose legitimate email, but that I can't allow their lack of discipline to affect other users, nor would I allow other users to affect them, which is why forwards are STRONGLY discouraged.

[jackie46]

Ye and the big problem with this is that if mail is being forwarded to AOL and the user clicks on spam your IP will be blocked or limited by AOL. It happened to use and we are still trying to get off AOL's limited block list.

[PWSowner]

It's a matter of 1) educating the user and 2) making things simple for them.

Ye and the big problem with this is that if mail is being forwarded to AOL and the user clicks on spam your IP will be blocked or limited by AOL. It happened to use and we are still trying to get off AOL's limited block list.

Happened with us too. I found out we were reported as spammers to Rogers (Yahoo) and found out it was because the user had email forwarded and was marking the real spam as spam not realizing he was calling us spammers. It took 3 emails to explain how it works before he understood it.

If they HAVE to forward their mail because of reason X, I tell them that their spam filtering thresholds will be set REALLY low and they may lose legitimate email, but that I can't allow their lack of discipline to affect other users, nor would I allow other users to affect them, which is why forwards are STRONGLY discouraged.

That's why I'm going to try allowing forwarders with SpamAssassin and Spam Box enabled and set low. I added the following to my skins "Add a new Forwarder" page.


As of May 22, if you wish to add forwarders to any of the email providers listed below, you will be required to have SpamAssassin and Spam Box enabled with spam scoring set to it's default level of 5. This is to greatly reduce the amount of spam that gets forwarded to those email providers. If you want to set up a forwarder to one of the email providers below and are not sure how to set up spamassassin, just email us and we will set it up for you at no charge.

With email being forwarded, including spam, the email providers are getting all the email, including the spam, from our servers. Because of the amount of spam being forwarded, they get the impression that we are the spammers. Even if you don't mark messages as spam, anything that is spam is detected automatically and since we are sending spam, "apparently", from our servers, they automatically put anything sent from our servers in their bulk/spam box. To prove to them we are not spammers, we must stop forwarding spam. For that reason, SpamAssassin and Spam Box MUST be turned on to have forwarders to the email providers below. Hopefully this will cut down on the forwarded spam enough to stop legitimate emails from going to the bulk/spam folders.

SpamAssassin and Spam Box MUST be turned on to use forwarding to the following email providers:
Yahoo, Rogers, MSN, and Hotmail
list will be updated as required

You are also required to NOT report spam messages you get forwarded there because in doing so, you are effectively reporting us as the spammer.


May 22 is to give users time to set their spamassassin settings or remove the forwarders.

[lloyd_tennison]

Did I miss something is Spamassassin checking for forwards a new feature?

[jackie46]

PWSowner, the problem with this is that the smart server owners DO NOT HAVE SA + Spambox enabled on their server because of the loads it causes. We for one do not have SA enabled at the user level so this email and this solutions does not work. We scan all mail at the server level and none of our users have access to SA or Spambox from their CP's because it has been disabled.

[PWSowner]

Did I miss something is Spamassassin checking for forwards a new feature?

Uh oh, I never thought about that. I do remember reading posts about spamassassin not working with forwards. I've never tested it myself. If that's true, my option 4 isn't an option.

Thanks for reminding me.

[PWSowner]

PWSowner, the problem with this is that the smart server owners DO NOT HAVE SA + Spambox enabled on their server because of the loads it causes. We for one do not have SA enabled at the user level so this email and this solutions does not work. We scan all mail at the server level and none of our users have access to SA or Spambox from their CP's because it has been disabled.

We don't have a load problem due to Spamassassin, but as Lloyd said, it won't work anyway.

[jackie46]

We dont either but SPAMD is a complete waste of resource therefore we have disabled this uneeded service.

[lloyd_tennison]

From my reading of the forums, and chirpy's notes on his own installation - the problem is the Cpanel installation of SA - not SA itself.

Also, no need to be insulting with that "smart". Whats for one is not the same as all. Otherwise Cpanel would have removed it long ago. They would not be supporting it. SA would also not be one of the (if not the) most used SPAM scanning program out there.

[PWSowner]

The decision appears to be, not allow forwarders to outside mail providers.

If all forwarders are removed, will Yahoo/Rogers and Hotmail/MSN stop the "auto-bulking" automatically after a period of time?

[jackie46]

From my reading of the forums, and chirpy's notes on his own installation - the problem is the Cpanel installation of SA - not SA itself.

Also, no need to be insulting with that "smart". Whats for one is not the same as all. Otherwise Cpanel would have removed it long ago. They would not be supporting it. SA would also not be one of the (if not the) most used SPAM scanning program out there.

Ok, first of all i was not insulting. If i choose to turn off SPAMD and announce that it is a resource hog i should be able to do that without you knocking it. Second, if you think SPAMD is not an issue leave it on. Its up to you but when you see it running at 99% cpu load be sure not to post about it. And third, cPanel never installed or removed anything that benefited us whether it was a problem or not. They simple include it whether you like it or not. I choose to disable it and thats all she wrote.