Can't send email from Outlook-Rejected by AOL-unsolicited bulk mai

[Guest]

I can send emails from Outlook Express, but not Outlook 2003.

I get this reply from "System Administrator":

554 5.7.1 (IPT:S1) http://postmaster.info.aol.com/ipt AOL has identified
this mail to be unsolicited bulk email.

 

[Vanguardx]

I can send emails from Outlook Express, but not Outlook 2003.

I get this reply from "System Administrator":

554 5.7.1 (IPT:S1) http://postmaster.info.aol.com/ipt AOL has
identified this mail to be unsolicited bulk email.

Are you using a template when sending e-mail from Outlook? It probably
is a template that has been used a lot in spam received by AOL so it
biases your messages as spam-like. What happens if you send a
plain-text message to your AOL recipient?

 

[Guest]

Thanks for responding..

I don't think I'm using a template. I'm starting with a fresh new message
from Outlook. I'm not sending to anyone at AOL. I don't understand why AOL
has anything to do with my emails.

My ISP is Compuserve, but I'm using Juno email- POP3/SMPT. Emails from
Compuserve go through ok, but that's not using Outlook. Compuserve uses
IMAP.. it may be the same system as AOL.

I have just upgraded to Outlook from Outlook Express and have WindowsXP.

It just occured to me to try going through Juno to see if the problem is
with Compuserve. I'll try that, but I can send Juno emails through
Compuserve using Outlook EXPRESS.. so I think it has something to do with
Outlook 2003.

 

[Vanguardx]

I don't think I'm using a template. I'm starting with a fresh new
message from Outlook. I'm not sending to anyone at AOL. I don't
understand why AOL has anything to do with my emails.

Well, telling us that you are not sending messages to anyone at AOL
would've been an immediate trigger on the resolution. YOU aren't doing
anything to create that NDR (non-delivery report) bounce-back message.
Some infected PC running a trojan mailer daemon is spewing out crap and
using your e-mail address in the From, Reply-To, or Return-Path headers
(which means it is likely that someone that has your e-mail address in
their Contacts or Windows Address Book is the one infected). You can't
do anything about it because you're not the one sending it. So this
spam crap from a trojanized PC purporting to be sending from your
account is getting recognized as spam crap and rejected. You'll have to
wait until the idiot finally discovers they are infected and corrects
the problem. I suppose you could try to contact AOL to see if they can
determine which of their users is spewing spam under your account name
(and looking at the headers of the spam they are getting *if* they
aren't including a copy of the message in their bounceback message would
help) but they probably won't give a damn if you aren't their customer.

 

[Vanguardx]

The last part wasn't worded well. If the NDR bounceback message from
AOL contains an attachment with the original and rejected message then
you can take a look at the Received header in the original spam crap to
see if it identifies the infected sender. It could simply be a spammer
using your e-mail address or it could be an infected PC, but the
Received headers might help to identify the source of the problem.

 

[Guest]

Thank you.. but why would this only happen in Outlook, but not Outlook
Express?

 

[Vanguardx]

Thank you.. but why would this only happen in Outlook, but not
Outlook Express?

Forgot to look back at your first post. So, if I get this straight:

- You can send e-mails using Outlook Express and you do *not* get back
any rejection e-mail from an AOL domain.

- You *can* send e-mails using Outlook (i.e., there is no error message
in Outlook) but sometime later you get an e-mail from an AOL domain (you
have checked the Received headers, right, to verify that message came
from an AOL domain?).

Your original post said you could not send using Outlook. However, it
appears you CAN send using Outlook. Outlook connects to your mail
server, Outlook passes the new outbound message to your mail server, and
the mail session ends and all without an error showing in the Progress
dialog window. Is that what happens? And then sometime later, maybe
even within a couple seconds or whenever you do your next mail poll, you
get a rejection e-mail supposedly from AOL. Right? Does this happen
for everyone to whom you send e-mail (i.e., does it happen when you send
to other recipients and who are NOT on the AOL domain)?

If after you successfuly do send e-mail using Outlook and it goes to
non-AOL recipients still results in getting this rejection e-mail:

- Enable transport logging in Outlook.
- Disable scheduled polling of your e-mail accounts in Outlook.
- Exit Outlook. Delete any logfile that was there from before.
- Load Outlook.
- Send 1 new message to a non-AOL recipient.
- If Outlook wasn't configured to send immediately, do a Send and
Receive.
- Disable transport logging.
- Reenable scheduled mail polling, if was enabled before.
- Exit Outlook.
- Rename the logfile (so you don't accidentally overwrite it).
- Start Outlook.
- Do a mail poll, if it wasn't scheduled to poll.
- Once you get the rejection e-mail, use the View -> Options menu to
look at its headers (and to copy them).

The logfile will show the RCPT command which dictates the recipient of
your new outbound message. It should only list the non-AOL recipient.
Only that message should show as getting sent. If there is a second
message getting sent then you are infected or something is misbehaving,
like an add-in to Outlook. If the logfile shows you only sent the one
message and it was to a non-AOL account but you still got back the AOL
rejection message then talk to your ISP to ask them why they sent a copy
of your message to AOL.

I have assumed that you already did a full scan using a recently updated
anti-virus product. I also assumed that you actually have an anti-virus
product installed so it has its real-time or on-demain scanner always
running. This is because the file scanners for anti-virus products do
not check the alternate data stream (ADS) that can be attached to files
when using NTFS. The ADS can contain an executable, but if it ever gets
loaded into memory then the anti-virus' on-demand scanner will detect it
when it shows up in memory. I also assumed that you scanned your
computer using anti-spyware/anti-malware products, like Ad-Aware, SpyBot
Search & Destroy, and CWShredder. I'm also assuming you never had any
of AOL's crap software installed on your computer (i.e., you never used
AOL).

 

[Guest]

Sorry if my description was unclear. No emails go to any recipients. The
report comes back almost instantly; the header says only System Administrator
and if I try replying to the report, System Administrator is the only address
I can extract. In other words, I don't know that the report is coming
directly from AOL. The message body is where is says that AOL has deemed the
message "unsolicited bulk mail".

I have McAffee antivirus, but have not used the anti-spyware programs that
you mentioned.

I haven't used AOL, but I am using Compuserve, which I believe may be the
same system as AOL. I don't like Compuserve and have been meaning to switch.
Since I'm not in one place all the time, I need a dial-up service.

I'll work on your latest suggestions, starting with another complete virus
scan.

 

[Vanguardx]

Sorry if my description was unclear. No emails go to any recipients.
The report comes back almost instantly; the header says only System
Administrator and if I try replying to the report, System
Administrator is the only address I can extract. In other words, I
don't know that the report is coming directly from AOL. The message
body is where is says that AOL has deemed the message "unsolicited
bulk mail".

I have McAffee antivirus, but have not used the anti-spyware
programs that you mentioned.

I haven't used AOL, but I am using Compuserve, which I believe may be
the same system as AOL. I don't like Compuserve and have been
meaning to switch. Since I'm not in one place all the time, I need a
dial-up service.

I'll work on your latest suggestions, starting with another complete
virus scan.

"No emails goes to any recipients." Uh, presumably that means you DID
send e-mails, there were no errors by Outlook, but none of them were
*received* by the recipients? Does that include recipients that are
*NOT* on the AOL domain? If you send an e-mail ONLY to a non-AOL
recipient (i.e., no, absolutely no, AOL recipient is listed), do they
get it or not? If messages that get sent to AOL recipients are getting
rejected as spam then maybe AOL has declared your domain as a spam
source, and you'll have to contact your ISP about their lack of action
in terminating the spam spewing out their orifice. You're hiding behind
the Microsoft webnews interface so I can't tell from what domain you are
posting (but that could be different than the domain from which you send
e-mail). What is the domain from where you are sending e-mails?
Compuserve? Have you tried sending plain-text test messages (that
contain nothing spammy in them) to see if those get received by an AOL
account?

For the response to be immediate (rather than on your next mail poll),
it sounds like you are using Exchange. When using SMTP to send and POP3
to receive, it is doubtful that the outbound message you send during a
mail poll would get all the way to AOL's servers to have them reject it
and send it back in time to your mail server so the following check on
inbound messages would already show that rejection notice.

If it is an e-mail then you can look at the headers to see if it came
from your mail server (although, I believe, if you are using Exchange
then the headers are blank because they aren't needed) or whether it
came from the AOL server. I can't tell without this information if the
e-mail notice came from your mail server saying it couldn't get AOL to
accept your message or if it came from AOL's mail server saying that it
rejected it. If you do post back with the header, be sure to munge or X
out any personal information, like account name and e-mail addresses.
In Outlook, use View -> Options to see the headers (and copy them).

You never remarked that an error occurs during the mail poll (by seeing
it in the Progress dialog window). If there were no errors and if the
e-mail is no longer in your Outbox after the mail poll then it got to
your mail server.

Compuserve was acquired by AOL back in 1998.

 

[Brian Tillman]

Hope this helps! I know disabling the outbound scan is not an optimum
solution,

It IS an optimum solution, since scanning outboind messages is NEVER
required and in NO WAY improves the security of your PC.