How to tell if my email address is being flagged as spam

[rudy45]

From time to time, I get messages saying my earlier email was rejected or blocked for being spam. Is there some way I can get a report on my email address, sort of like a credit check? If my address has a bad reputation, how can I repair it. I am not sending spam, but perhaps someone is spooking me? Thanks.

[heartwood]

Yes. I’m guessing there had been some spyware on my computer which captured my password because there were other problems going on but after it went into the shop and got fixed up I was still getting these undeliverable messages and changing the password fixed my problem. At least changing your password is an easy first step.

I also got an email at that time from a friend johnsmith at yahoo dot com but it came to me with an address as misslillianchang at something dot nz. Something was definitely messing with email then.

[texas booster]

At the turn of the millennium I worked on a project for a very big company in NW Arkansas.

Back then they received about 1.25 million emails daily and about 30% were outright spam.

They ended up having two guys who did little but approve emails, addresses and built a "naughty words list" for over a year, after we installed our mail filters. The email volume was totally insane when Christmas buying was being done in the Spring.

Can only imagine what their email volume is like now.

[Syntyr]

” I guess that if the spam filter of my intended destination relies on either of these blacklists, I get shut out?”

Your mother knew you were bright when she named you son!

The IP address returned in the mxlookup is the IP address of the server pointed to by what is called the “MX” or mail exchange record listed in the “DNS” Domain Name Server record for your provider. Sorry the IT world is full of acronyms. Its the physical Internet address of the mail server you are using. That address has gotten listed on the blacklists.

I try not to use blacklists or only use the better ones as some of them can be notoriously unreliable. Also some blacklists are run like an extortion racket and you have to pay to get off of them.

Unfortunately since you are using shared services there is little to nothing that can be done. Your best course of action would be to contact your provider and tell them what is happening. Tell them that some of your email is being blocked because their server is blacklisted. They will ask you to provide the headers or a copy of the bounced messages. They will have to work to get there server off the blacklists. It could be any of a bunch of reasons, open relay, misconfiguration or even someone on their server actually sending SPAM.

Your other course of action is to contact the recipient and they will have to talk to whoever is hosting their email and see if they can stop using those two blacklists... definitely on the low probability of success scale.