I know I got in a little late on this one, but I think I have a method that works well. I BOUNCE all junkmail but I send it from an account where any incoming mail goes straight to NUL.
I wanted to have a way to let legitimate people tell me when their messages bounce. So what I did was create a very friendly BOUNCE message that first tells them NOT to reply to that message because it will be deleted. It then goes on to explain to them that if their message was bounced incorrectly, they are encouraged to forward that message to my postmaster account and we will do whatever we can to fix the situation. I then put a WHITELIST entry in my global.cfg to allow any mail to "postmaster@" to pass. In the last 6 months, I have had 3 or 4 people contact me via postmaster and since my message sounded so friendly and helpful, they were grateful that I was willing to help figure out why their message was thought to be spam. It took about 3 or 4 versions of the BOUNCE message before I found one that people actually read and followed the instructions. Before this one, people would ignore it and try to reply, call the person they were trying to mail, or do something else stupid. In case you're interested, I pasted a copy of it below. FWIW, I rarely seem to get any spam via postmaster so I think spammers are avoiding sending spam directly to the people that are out to stop them. Hope this helps. --Todd. To: %MAILFROM% From: JunkMailWarning@%LOCALHOST% Subject: UNDELIVERABLE: %SUBJECT% Hello, this is the postmaster for Libraries and Media Services at Kent State University. I'm sorry, but I was unable to deliver your message to "%ALLRECIPS%". Before you reply to this message or call someone here, PLEASE read the following and contact me directly. I promise I will help you get in touch with the right person to get the issue resolved. It's VERY simple to contact me. All you have to do is forward this entire message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] This will get it to me and avoid any spam filters. I promise I will read your mail and respond to it. And I will do my best to tell you why it was blocked and explain how to get the problem fixed. Please do NOT reply directly to this message! These messages are sent from an automated account which nobody ever reads. If you reply, I will never see it. And I won't have a chance to help you. Likewise, please do NOT call someone you know in Libraries and Media Services. Chances are that they will not be able to help either since he or she is not a mail administrator. Doing this will most likely cause more confusion and not get the problem fixed. Please remember that our goal is only to block annoying spam. If we are blocking your mail, there is either a problem with our mail software or there is a problem with your company/ISP's mail server. In either case, I'd really like to know about it so we can get it fixed. That way future mail from your company or ISP won't be blocked. Below is the information I need in order to help fix the problem. As I said, please forward the entire message including the information below to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You do not need to understand any of the following details. It's strictly so I can see what happened which caused your message to bounce. Sincerely, The Postmaster Libraries & Media Services Kent State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] Technical Details: ================== Sender: %MAILFROM% Recipients: %ALLRECIPS% # Recip: %NRECIPS% Subject: %SUBJECT% Date/Time: %DATE% %TIME% Message ID: %MSGID% Queue File: %QUEUENAME% Remote Host: %REMOTEHOST% Remote IP: %REMOTEIP% Rev DNS: %REVDNS% Sender Host: %SENDERHOST% Tests: %TESTSFAILED% Test Name: %TESTNAME% Test Domain: %TESTDOMAIN% Warning: %WARNING% Weight: %WEIGHT% Header Code: %HEADERCODE% JM Version: %VERSION% Full Message: %FULLMSG% ----- Original Message ----- From: "Bud" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Saturday, August 10, 2002 4:54 PM Subject: [IMail Forum] Declude JunkMail Bounced messages > Howdy all. :) > > What do most of you do with SPAM after you catch it? Delete, Bounce > or Hold? I don't see much sense in holding it because then I've got > to look at all the messages anyway. The documentation says don't use > Bounce if you think it's SPAM. Well, if I didn't think it was SPAM it > should have passed the tests. LOL > > Can't I use a return address in the bounce message that I just set a > rule for to delete those messages? I'd like to be able to inform > legitimate senders that their mail has bounced. > > Whadda y'all do? > > Thanks. :) > -- > > Bud Schneehagen - Tropical Web Creations > > _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ > ColdFusion Solutions / eCommerce Development > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > http://www.twcreations.com/ > 954.721.3452 > > Please visit http://www.ipswitch.com/support/mailing-lists.html > to be removed from this list. > > An Archive of this list is available at: > http://www.mail-archive.com/imail_forum%40list.ipswitch.com/ > > Please visit the Knowledge Base for answers to frequently asked > questions: http://www.ipswitch.com/support/IMail/ > To Unsubscribe: http://www.ipswitch.com/support/mailing-lists.html List Archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/imail_forum%40list.ipswitch.com/ Knowledge Base/FAQ: http://www.ipswitch.com/support/IMail/
