Why this error message - BT now the new censor police?

[Stephen5000]

I was trying to send a message to a friend, and was disallowed as this error message kept appearing. There was nothing in the message that knowingly would have triggered this. Sent it via Gmail instead. BUT, why is BT trying to censor my emails in the first place??

censor message!

[Stephen5000]

Just to add, I do not use a VPN, is there a way to override this error? You know, me having common sense. Messaging a friend I have been in contact with for years and literally 1000s of email sent/received successfully, in that I know better than some dumb email algorithym that thinks it's saving the world?? (yes, cookies cleared, rebooted, still an error)

[NeilO]

Hi, @Stephen5000 welcome back to the community and thanks for posting. I'm really sorry to see you've had difficulty emailing your friend. The error 553 message you've received means our spam filters have detected content within the email that looks like spam, malware or a phishing email.

Unfortunately, there are some unscrupulous people who do attempt to use the BT email system to target others with these types of emails and I'm sure you can appreciate we need to have measures in place to try and prevent this from happening. Occasionally the system may get it wrong and we'll be happy to get this looked into and learn from it, if you're confident there is no content in the email or subject line that could be picked up as potentially being spam, malware or phishing.

I'll send you a private message in a moment so you can send over your details to the moderation team and we'll be happy to get this investigated by our email experts. 

Thanks

Neil

[Andy_N]

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@Stephen5000wrote:

I was trying to send a message to a friend, and was disallowed as this error message kept appearing. There was nothing in the message that knowingly would have triggered this. Sent it via Gmail instead. BUT, why is BT trying to censor my emails in the first place??

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I would suggest you've answered your own question ... use Gmail instead. Tell all your contacts that you are using a Gmail address from now on.

(The things that could trigger this issue are URLs - sometimes the system simply doesn't like them in emails - I doubt whether any of the words are being checked, that would be downright stupid - another trigger might just be an attachment. Try sending without attachment/URL and see).

[Stephen5000]

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@Andy_Nwrote:

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@Stephen5000wrote:

I was trying to send a message to a friend, and was disallowed as this error message kept appearing. There was nothing in the message that knowingly would have triggered this. Sent it via Gmail instead. BUT, why is BT trying to censor my emails in the first place??

---

I would suggest you've answered your own question ... use Gmail instead. Tell all your contacts that you are using a Gmail address from now on.

(The things that could trigger this issue are URLs - sometimes the system simply doesn't like them in emails - I doubt whether any of the words are being checked, that would be downright stupid - another trigger might just be an attachment. Try sending without attachment/URL and see).

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There were no attachments, and no URLs, just simple text...

[Stephen5000]

Found the solution of this 'censor' query, and it's a doozy LOL The title of my message was, 'naughty nanny'. A friends nanny was photoed eating a huge slab of birthday cake.

Changed the title to, 'chocolate picture' and it sent straight away. Appears that BT do sensor emails via an ambiguous title - that is quite disturbing, and someone should really examine whatever algorithm is in use to generate that censor message!

[gspearson]

I've just sent a message with the same naughty words - which arrived safely.

[licquorice]

I assume you changed the title back to the original to verify that it still didn't send to prove it wasn't just a coincidence or glitch.

I have just sent myself a test email with that title with no problem, both from a mail client and webmail.

[Stephen5000]

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@licquoricewrote:

I assume you changed the title back to the original to verify that it still didn't send to prove it wasn't just a coincidence or glitch.

I have just sent myself a test email with that title with no problem, both from a mail client and webmail.

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I tried to resend the original, it's still blocked with the sensor message being produced, changing the title only (main body text the same) lets it send... odd!

[licquorice]

You really have upset the BT mail team, they seem to have singled you out 😁