This topic

EMails Blocked As Spam due to BT ISP IP Address

bobjgarrett — Wed, 20 Jul 2022 08:32:27 GMT

I am having emails bounce as being blocked for spam reasons. I am told this is because my IP address allocated to my BT hub is blacklisted. I have rebooted the hub and simply got another ip address which is also blacklisted!

BT need to fix this problem.

I found another post from BT suggesting all their IP addresses are blacklisted so that is no help. They are also sugest using webmail - who wants to do that?

The irony is that the only addresses I seem unable to email are those of my friends with btinternet email addresses. So BT's ip address problem is preventing its own customers getting emails that they want.

BT need to sort this out.

Re: EMails Blocked As Spam due to BT ISP IP Address

wkirkman — Wed, 20 Jul 2022 08:36:52 GMT

Hello,

I do believe a lot of people use webmail. However, a relatively cheap alternative is to use a VPN. This then changes the IP Address that you appear to be coming from, therefore cutting out the inclusion of the BT supplied IP Address. If you are using Apple Products you could sign up for (as little as £0.79 per month) iCloud+ to use iCloud Private Relay, which will amount to the same thing, changing your outgoing IP as it, and all VPNs, tunnel your packets through to an external server before letting them out on the wider internet.

Should you 'have to'? No. But, the option is there.

Re: EMails Blocked As Spam due to BT ISP IP Address

gg30340 — Wed, 20 Jul 2022 12:53:19 GMT

If you are not using webmail what are you using?

Can you send and receive if you do use webmail?

What is the error message that you are getting?

Do you have a signature or any graphics included in the bounced emails?

Who told you it is because your BT IP address is blacklisted?

What type of devices do you use your email on?

Re: EMails Blocked As Spam due to BT ISP IP Address

jude_1972 — Wed, 20 Jul 2022 16:44:56 GMT

Yes, we also can't get onto emails either. Keep getting the site isn't secure. Thought it was just us. Is there a problem with BT then??

Re: EMails Blocked As Spam due to BT ISP IP Address

gg30340 — Wed, 20 Jul 2022 16:46:27 GMT

@jude_1972 wrote:

Yes, we also can't get onto emails either. Keep getting the site isn't secure. Thought it was just us. Is there a problem with BT then??

I think you are referring to a different problem.

See this thread.

Unable to log in to email - Help! - BT Community

Re: EMails Blocked As Spam due to BT ISP IP Address

jude_1972 — Wed, 20 Jul 2022 16:49:36 GMT

Thank you. Will take a look. Just joined this afternoon

Re: EMails Blocked As Spam due to BT ISP IP Address

bobjgarrett — Wed, 20 Jul 2022 19:34:56 GMT

Re Webmail: This is a very poor option if you have multiple email addresses to monitor and send from. I am involved the organisation of various clubs etc which means I need multiple email addresses. Also webmail is not suitable if you travel about and may not always be online.

Re Mail Application: I use Thunderbird but also tried Gmail with the same result of bouncing emails.

Re VPN: As you say, why should I need this to solve a BT issue. A BT issue which affects both the sending and receiving of emails. Furthermore, I am not sure it would remove the original sending ip address but have never tried it.

If you google this issue you will find many reporting the same issue who it seems most often just keep rebooting their hub until they do find an ip address which is not blocked.

BT need to address this.

Re: EMails Blocked As Spam due to BT ISP IP Address

gg30340 — Wed, 20 Jul 2022 19:50:18 GMT

@bobjgarrett wrote:

Re Webmail: This is a very poor option if you have multiple email addresses to monitor and send from. I am involved the organisation of various clubs etc which means I need multiple email addresses. Also webmail is not suitable if you travel about and may not always be online. Nobody is advocating that you use webmail. I asked if webmail is working to try and assist diagnostics. I would note however at this time there are problems with BT webmail in that you can not log onto it due to a BT fault.

Re Mail Application: I use Thunderbird but also tried Gmail with the same result of bouncing emails. If you have the issue when you are using gmail, this would be using gmail servers and not the BT servers so would have nothing to do with BT.

Re VPN: As you say, why should I need this to solve a BT issue. A BT issue which affects both the sending and receiving of emails. Furthermore, I am not sure it would remove the original sending ip address but have never tried it. If you are using your email from various different locations, presumably you are not always using a BT connection and therefore not a BTIP address so would that not rule out it being a BT IP address problem.

If you google this issue you will find many reporting the same issue who it seems most often just keep rebooting their hub until they do find an ip address which is not blocked.

BT need to address this.

You have not answered all the questions that I asked.

Re: EMails Blocked As Spam due to BT ISP IP Address

bobjgarrett — Thu, 21 Jul 2022 11:30:04 GMT

You misunderstand my reference to gmail. That was gmail as an App, not as the service itself. Using the gmail app will result in the same ip address source as Thunderbird. So the problem remains.

Yes, I use my PC, phone and tablet from multiple locations but the problems arise from home over my BT Internet.

As to your questions...

If you are not using webmail what are you using?
As I said, Thunderbird on PC, Outlook on another PC, Gmail (the app) on tablet and phone

Can you send and receive if you do use webmail?
I am not using webmail and have no plans to.

What is the error message that you are getting?
host mx.lb.btinternet.com [213.120.69.5]
SMTP error from remote mail server after end of data:
554 Message rejected on 2022/07/19 19:44:22 BST, policy (3.2.1.1) ID (62BD226103AA4AE9) - Your message looks like SPAM or has been reported as SPAM

Do you have a signature or any graphics included in the bounced emails?
No

Who told you it is because your BT IP address is blacklisted?
My web site hosting company suggested this and checking the ip address I found it was blacklisted.

What type of devices do you use your email on?
PCs, tablet, phone

Re: EMails Blocked As Spam due to BT ISP IP Address

bobjgarrett — Thu, 21 Jul 2022 11:46:52 GMT

Further testing of this issue this morning reveals the following.

I have reset my hub numerous times to get different ip addresses. Every one has been blacklisted on at least two and sometimes four antispam services. I note that SPAMHAUS say this does not stop emails being sent.

The only email addresses that my emails are being bounced by other contacts with btinternet email addresses. So it would seem only BT are blocking emails flagged as from their own blocklisted ip addresses.

How daft is that!

Re: EMails Blocked As Spam due to BT ISP IP Address

bobjgarrett — Thu, 21 Jul 2022 12:01:01 GMT

Well, having said it is only BT email addresses bouncing my emails I just got a non-BT one...

This message was created automatically by mail delivery software.

A message that you sent could not be delivered to one or more of its
recipients. This is a permanent error. The following address(es) failed:

generalmanager@xxxxx.org.uk
host cmailcluster.ourit.co.uk [185.248.254.10]
SMTP error from remote mail server after RCPT TO:<generalmanager@xxxx.org.uk>:
554 5.7.1 Service unavailable; Client host [xx.xx.xx.xx] blocked using zen.spamhaus.org

Re: EMails Blocked As Spam due to BT ISP IP Address

Andy_N — Thu, 21 Jul 2022 14:16:40 GMT

@bobjgarrettwrote:
Further testing of this issue this morning reveals the following.
I have reset my hub numerous times to get different ip addresses. Every one has been blacklisted on at least two and sometimes four antispam services. I note that SPAMHAUS say this does not stop emails being sent.
The only email addresses that my emails are being bounced by other contacts with btinternet email addresses. So it would seem only BT are blocking emails flagged as from their own blocklisted ip addresses.
How daft is that!

This is not daft, this is by design. ALL of BTinternet ISP dynamic IP addresses - the ones that end users have - are blocklisted. This is to prevent spam by infection of the end user equipment. In the "olden days", viruses set up their own sending engine using the IP address of the user to send spam emails. That doesn't really happen anymore, but the IP addresses are still blocked for this reason. What should NOT be blocked is the BTinternet email server addresses - in other words people sending emails via webmail and clients using those server addresses, in this case mail.btinternet.com

Sometimes the recipient doesn't like certain ISPs - and can block them willy nilly, which is their choice.

You said that you can only email people with btinternet email address, so are you saying that emailing anyone or any other company always fails? If so - has this always been the case, or has this just started?

Re: EMails Blocked As Spam due to BT ISP IP Address

bobjgarrett — Thu, 21 Jul 2022 14:48:28 GMT

No, I said "The only email addresses that my emails are being bounced by other contacts with btinternet email addresses."
So emails sent to those with btinternet email addresses are those that most often fail, and currently always fail.

BT's receiving email service is stopping emails from a legitimate source.

Such failures have been occasional in the past but currently frequent.

Re: EMails Blocked As Spam due to BT ISP IP Address

gg30340 — Thu, 21 Jul 2022 20:32:43 GMT

Is it a BT email address that you are sending from or is it another email address?

Re: EMails Blocked As Spam due to BT ISP IP Address

bobjgarrett — Thu, 21 Jul 2022 21:21:13 GMT

Not from a BT email address.

Re: EMails Blocked As Spam due to BT ISP IP Address

gg30340 — Thu, 21 Jul 2022 22:00:45 GMT

If you are sending from your own domain I suggest that you have a read through this link and also contact your hosting company and ask them to ensure that they are complying with the information in the link.

BT Email - best practices for postmasters and senders of email | BT Help

Re: EMails Blocked As Spam due to BT ISP IP Address

wkirkman — Fri, 22 Jul 2022 00:10:29 GMT

Hello,

In case you are sending from your own domain name… and all depending on how you are doing this… measures can be taken to prevent being seen as a ‘potential’ spammer.

If you can, your domain name should have a reverse DNS (rDNS) so yourdomain.com points to 88.150.165.254 for example, and would also need the record of 88.150.165.254 pointing to yourdomain.com — domain readbacks used to be very common and there used to always be an issue sending to/from AOL email addresses. Annoying.

These days an SPF TXT record can be set, which should be provided by your email provider and added in your DNS at your host. This acts in much the same way basically authenticating that you are not spoofing the domain name.

It might not be BT being the problem, but just an email server not quite meeting all the criteria that validates it as legit.

If not using your own domain name then disregard the above.