Wanadoo lost emails & Gmail

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Hylton Thompson
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Post by Hylton Thompson »

Hi,

I am in Spain and have all of the problems mentioned in this thread with my wanadoo.es email account.

One of the problems with Wanadoo(.es) is that it is known as being an ISP that supports spamming.

Organisations such a Spamhaus and possibly other Anti-Spam organisations have it in their database. Many ISP's are clients of such organisations and they simply divert incoming wanadoo mail in a bottomless pit.

Some inform the sender and/or recipient but others don't seem to bother.

Another problem is spam filtering by ISP's and email recipients.

It is very easy to unwittingly include something in your messages that triggers such filters and they just disappear into the bottomless pit. Words such as "mortgage" "loan" and any of the words or phrases that you see in SPAM mail should be kept to a minimum. SPAM filters usually work on a points system and trigger at a certain number of points.

Hylton Thompson
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paolo
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Post by paolo »

When I move to France, I will only have the choice of Wanadoo as an ISP if I want broadband (which I do). Is there any way to avoid my emails getting binned by filters?
Paolo
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tansy
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Post by tansy »

Paolo

It isn't every mail going adrift...I think I may have sussed it...it appears to be all enquiries FROM the States gets here to me OK BUT then when I answer on Wanadoo they go into that BIG dark hole...so I've now a gmail account...what I am going to do to see if my therory is correct - keep my wanadoo address as advertised on h-r.com etc BUT answer on my gmail to any enquiries - lets see what happens then...it seems to be quite rare for any of my 'everday' emails to go astray...mind you saying that I haven't had an answer from a few folk on aol recently....
it's all a learning curve!
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Alan Knighting
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Post by Alan Knighting »

Paolo,

For the time being, I think you are right in saying that you will have to rely on Wanadoo if you want broadband connection in France but that doesn't mean you have to use Wanadoo for webmail or e-mail.

On the contrary, you can connect to the internet using your Wanadoo broadband, go to any webmail or e-mail server where you have an account and send and recieve from there. That way your webmail or e-mail is not tainted by the presence of Wanadoo at all.

Give it a try now. As an example go to e.g. http://www.tiscali.co.uk/index_first.html and you will find an e-mail option on the top menu. If you have an account with Tiscali you simply log in and away you go. If you already have an account elsewhere go to the site, click on e-mail and log on.

How did you get on? Did it work?

Alan
la vache!
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Post by la vache! »

Paolo, I'm in the same position in that I can only get wanadoo broadband and as I said in another post, I have now opened a gmail account due to the problems already mentioned with wanadoo mail. I prefer gmail it as I can access both it and wanadoo using MS outlook, not possible with most others I believe.
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paolo
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Post by paolo »

Alan,

I know I can do that, but doesn't the fact that I am connected via Wanadoo show up to a spam filter?
Paolo
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Alan Knighting
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Post by Alan Knighting »

Paolo,

I may be wrong but I don't think so.

Alan
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vrooje
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Post by vrooje »

doesn't the fact that I am connected via Wanadoo show up to a spam filter?
Nope -- that shouldn't do it. What matters is whether you use the Wanadoo mail servers to send mail. If you're using webmail, then you will be using your webmail host's servers, and those should be fine.

The worst part about this is that it's something Wanadoo could fix pretty easily. Most of the big mail servers here have safeguards against just anyone sending mail from their servers. Gmail, for example, will only let you send mail from their server if you also send a valid login and password. That doesn't appear to be the case with Wanadoo -- it seems to me like just anyone can send mail from any computer using the wanadoo server, regardless of whether they have a Wanadoo account or not, or whether they are using a Wanadoo connection or not. That is a spammer's dream.

And frankly, it's lazy on Wanadoo's part. They should really change that.

</soapbox> :)
Brooke
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tansy
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Post by tansy »

You know France Telecom & Wanadoo are reminding very much of the dark old days in the UK - remember when BT were totally arrogant and a complete pain to work with?

Today I actually got through to the English speaking department of France Telecom - it took no less than 2 and half weeks! I had sent numerous emails as well to them - all acknowledged - I was told someone would contact me - today I was told no we don't deal with any emails now! I asked if I could speak about Wanadoo to him at the same time as sorting out our line problem... if you want he replied - so I explained what is going on - not my problem he says...so there we are they don't appear to be all that interested - making money ... now that is different! :twisted:
it's all a learning curve!
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Hylton Thompson
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Post by Hylton Thompson »

paolo wrote:Alan,

I know I can do that, but doesn't the fact that I am connected via Wanadoo show up to a spam filter?
Wanadoo.es is listed on Spamhaus as what is called an "open relay" ISP. This means that anyone can send bulk spam emails using Wanadoo.es SMTP servers.

Many ISP's pay Spamhaus and others for access to their databases. One example of the affect of this is that I cannot email anyone on AOL using my Wanadoo.es account.

The spam filters on recipients computers are only concerned with what your messages contain. To the best of my knowledge none of them are not concerned with the sending ISP unless they are deliberately programmed by the user to ban mail from specific ISP's.

Hylton
A-two
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Post by A-two »

Tansy,
I just sent an email thru your website using my account that bans Wanadoo, asking you to reply using the new gmail.

If Wanadoo is the only broadband available for the whole of France, this would explain why I never receive any inquiries from the French for my place. How popular is Wanadoo in Spain and other countries? Maybe this is a bigger problem than I first thought.
Waves from America
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tansy
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Post by tansy »

Joanna - message arrived - but don't understand came into my normal mail box on my mac...yet Tony has been emailing me on Gmail

I'll email Tony to see if he can shed some light...

:roll:
it's all a learning curve!
la vache!
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Post by la vache! »

Joanna,
Wanadoo isn't the only broadband supplier in France, there are many others, for example free.fr and aol. It is only if you live in remote rural areas (like I do) that) that you have no choice and have to use wanadoo. FT no longer have the monopoly on telecommunications in France, most people have a choice.
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Alan Knighting
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Post by Alan Knighting »

I picked up on the following today:-

We supply a continuous data feed from our spam traps to major ISPs affected by particular areas of abuse so that offending users can be stopped instantly. We also supply Spamcop.Net who provide a widely used DNS blocking service. ISPs who are known to use our services need not get blocked by DNS blacklists. International satellite providers could usefully benefit from our data as could terra.es, wanadoo.es, tiscali.co.uk, tiscali.dk, tiscali.cz, mixmail.com, ya.com, telewest.co.uk, latinmail.com, teenmail.co.za, eresmas.com, plasa.com, web-mail.com.ar, walla.il and zwallet.co.za who are current targets of abuse. Some ISPs such as "www.web-mail.com.ar" are applying spam filtering on outgoing mail to stop abuse, but they would do with extra filters that we can supply.

As major ISPs use our data and force spammers away, the less vigilent ISPs will be targeted: we have the data to help to keep ISPs' reputations clean . . .

We are picking up people having troubles with Wanadoo.fr "wanadoo emails not received". Clearly Wanadoo.fr could do with our advice particularly in view of our success in spam filtering in the French language for discerning Wanadoo clients who use our services. Similarly clients of Tiscali are having problems as spam blacklists are now generally blocking emails coming from Tiscali IP numbers on account of spams and viral DOS attacks on other servers. So if you are a Tiscali user, your emails might not be being received at the other end. If you are emailing a Tiscali address, insert your phone number for them to reply!


The source is antespam.co.uk. It is commercial site but their observations make interesting reading particularly for people like me who use Wanadoo.fr for e-mails.

Alan
A-two
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Post by A-two »

Alan,
Thanks for posting this, it's interesting. I spoke to my website host today about an unrelated matter and mentioned the wanadoo situation. We came to the conclusion that wanadoo was one of two sources of a spam attack I suffered a month or so ago which suddenly started flooding my Outlook inbox at the rate of 200 an hour. At that rate, it's almost impossible to use the email client at all. The other source was the midco network, which I believe may be Canadian. Prior to that, I had no filters on my account at all, but I activated some that day, as well my ISP specifically blocked those two networks completely, hence the bounce you received the other day.

Having now reviewed the situation carefully, I've decided to leave status quo while my email address is "out there" on all the listing sites. I'm not going to revert back while I have no control over the java code used on listing sites (or not), so it doesn't really matter what I do on my own website to disguise the email address, it is still going to get harvested and spammed from other sources.

So, I'm afraid that Wanadoo subscribers trying to contact me will continue to fall into the category of collateral damage for the time being, at least while Wanadoo remains open relay. However, I do have a private email account with another ISP that does not block Wanadoo, so it's not impossible for us to communicate by email.

What I might do at some point is add a note to my website to make Wanadoo and midco subscribers aware of the block, recommending they contact me by phone, gmail or other free webased mail.

It's worrying though to think that we do not receive every inquiry sent directly through our own website. Perhaps that is one good reason not to have one, rather to rely on listing sites, even though ironically, they are also part of the problem.
Waves from America
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