Loads of 'Undelivered mail return to sender' emails - assume Spam?, how to stop?

MarkyMarkD

Wanadoo are talking rubbish.

THEY happen to send everything addressed to 1234@joebloggs.freeserve.co.uk or 2345@joebloggs.freeserve.co.uk or 3456@joebloggs.freeserve.co.uk to your inbox, if you are Joe Bloggs.

But most ISPs don't, and with them the bit before the "@" is specific.

Wanadoo don't want to bother making the changes because they've said to their users that they can use anything they like before the "@", and they'll still get it. That's their choice, but they can't pretend it's down to the way the e-mail system works worldwide.

I have multiple addresses ending in "@dsl.pipex.com", but my ISP (Pipex) doesn't apply Wanadoo's logic and I only get e-mails addressed to the prefixes to "@dsl.pipex.com" that I've signed up for. So it stops spammers making up genuine e-mail addresses (except by direct harvesting) - only "real" ones will end up with bounce messages.

ManAtHome

I get most of my inbound mail through my old Free-Online account. With this, you can specifically pick up named accounts (the full and correct address) into Outlook, leaving the rest of the cr4p on the server. I just drop into the Webmail page once a week and just delete it all (yes, it has a 'delete all' button as well).

Would suggest you have a look at the 'configuring email for outlook' help with your provider - may be possible to do something similar. I've been getting the false 'undeliverables' for a couple of months now - I don't have a website, so probably just the lastest fashion in spam.

onzey

If anyone should be interested, I've had another look at setting up rules in Outlook Express and found it is possible to set up a rule which I think will work for me for this particular form of nuisance email. I've set up a rule which is basically

Where the To line does not contain myname@myusername (+ add any other proper email addresses you use you want to receive to inbox)

Move it to the Deleted items folder


Hopefully then I can just empty the Deleted items folder occasionally which should collect anything coming to ?????@myusername

(Once I am confident it's working as intended I'll probably modify 'Move it to Deleted items folder' to 'Delete it from server' instead)

To set up the rule I first chose (after selecting New from the Message rules, Mail rules tab) 'Where the To line contains people' ( under '1. Select Conditions for rule')

The rule then appears in '3. Rule description' with a link which on clicking opens a 'Select people' dialog.

Once you add at least one address, the 'Option' button becomes available and clicking that allows you to change the rule to 'Apply rule if Message does not contain the people below'
If you include more than one address you can also add 'Apply rule if Message matches any one of the people below'

I also chose the 'Move to specified folder option' (under '2. Select the Actions for your rule'), which in turn produces an editable link in '3. Rule Description' where I chose Deleted items folder.

Seems to be working so far. I have one MAILER-DAEMON and one Mail Delivery Subsystem type email that have gone straight to my Deleted items folder. :j

ManAtHome

Nice one Onzey - I should RTFM more often...

Scrumshie

I have also been similarly hit hard by unsoilicited "undeliverable mail" spam etc over the last three weeks.
I also have a freeserve account, but no website.
I have followed the advice given above and set up the filter to at least stop it coming into my inbox, but it is very frustrating.
My Antivirus software states that there are no viruses and I have been checking, updating and sacnning every day for 10 days now.

I will join with the rest of you, with fingers crossed, that this annoyance will disappear soon.:mad: :mad:

onzey

I started a thread on another forum about the last email I had from Wanadoo and someone replied with this suggestion (assuming an email address example of myname@myusername :

"If you use Outlook Exp. for downloading your Freeserve e-mails, make sure you put the account name as [EMAIL="myname@myusername."]myname@myusername.[/EMAIL]

That way only mail actually addressed to myname will be downloaded".


I haven't got round to trying this yet so I can't say if it works or not. However, if it does work, I wonder if it means all the 'junk' emails will just end up filling up space on the Wanadoo server and an individual's allotted space (assuming we are only allowed so much) will gradually fill up.

Another word of caution, I signed up for the BBC4 Newsletter email a little while ago and that (strangely I thought) doesn't actually have my email address in the 'To:' line (never really looked before) so when I received it recently it went straight to Deleted Items folder. Easy enough job of course to then add what is in the 'To:' line to the rule so future ones come to my Inbox. Just thought I'd mention it as a reason not to set the rule to 'Delete from server' straight away otherwise you could end up not getting something you wanted. (or does it download and then delete from the server - don't know).

bbsnx

Hi there folks been having the same problem as most of you here loads of returned emails which i never sent. I had 416 today and it is only on my default email with Pipex, its just an email address and i dont have a web site.
I am thinking of changing my alias on the address cos it is using that and not my actual log in name so at least i can stop the spam that way. I have also done a virus scan, spybot scan, adaware scan and come up with nothing so i think that it is somebody on a email skimmer.

hope it sorts it self soon

bb