Verizon's outgoing e-mail server foolishly blocking spam-complaints

[corbulon]

I tried to complain today to a spammer's Internet-providers and, obviously, included the spam itself in my e-mail (as an attachment). To my surprise, outgoing.verizon.net blocked my message telling me, it is "spam"...

Please, debug the problem. Thank you!

[Hubrisnxs]

forward update requests to spamdetector.update@verizon.net 

SPAM FAQ

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Will Verizon notify me if an email I’ve sent is identified as spam?
Yes. If you send an email that matches the digital signature of a known spam message, Verizon will block the message from being delivered and send you the following notice:

"The message you attempted to send was determined to be spam. Please visit http://www.verizon.net/spamfaq for more information."

What should I do if I receive such a notice from Verizon?
If you believe we erred in identifying one of your outgoing emails as spam, you can send the original message to us at spamdetector.update@verizon.net. (Please be sure that the above email address is the sole recipient. Do not add other recipients in the "To", "CC" or "BCC" fields, or we will not receive your message. Do not alter the original message by adding or removing comments, text, or attachments.) Within an hour of receiving your report, we will reevaluate the digital signature and, if the message is believed to be legitimate, adjust our spam filters as appropriate. Please note that Verizon won’t notify you about the outcome of our review. Rather, you should try resending the message 30 – 60 minutes after submitting your report to Verizon.

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[corbulon]

I don't think, this recommendation makes sense in the case I'm describing. The filter "correctly" identified my message as containing spam. What it failed to realize is that I'm quoting the spam.

And even if I was sending a spam-message verbatim -- as long as my activity was not sending in bulk, it ought to be Ok. Spam is not child pornography, where forwarding even one copy is unethical and illegal. Spam only becomes such, when sent in massive numbers -- a letter sent to only a handful of addresses should be allowed out no matter what.

[Normx]

Greetings,

I have had problems with the random blocking of emails ( I have enhanced dsl).

Spent several hours reading the posts and trying all of the solutions.

None worked.

I did get the message to send to spam filter, but days later, it still is flagged as spam

I really get the feeling Verizon just wants out of the email business.

normx

See my reply post here for another member

http://forums.verizon.com/t5/Verizon-net-Email/Verizon-marking-my-outgoing-email-as-spam-thanks-than...

[tns]

You should forward such email as an attachment to spamdector.notcaught@verizon.net.  It is suppose to be setup to allow spams be forward to this address. Must be the only address the mail is sent to.  Do not attempt to return it to the original service provider, verizon will contact them if they feel it is necessary.

[D4Lee]

Corbulon,

In my opinion, you are quite right! I had Verizon flag a message as spam that I was trying to send. It was TEXT ONLY, but in a variety of font sizes, regular and bold print, and font styles. Like you, I had only ONE intended recipient.

Donald

[rottencs]

ARE you serious?? How about verizon fix their OWN screwed up mess, and don't ask us to do MORE  {word filter avoidance} that THEY should eliminate.

  THANKS, verizon Bloomberg

[rottencs]

Take that  {word filter avoidance} off!! WE are capable of determining what WE determine is SPAM, Nanny. Try instead doing SOMETHING about the 50 or 60 SPAM msgs I send YOU that keep coming!!!!!@!

[kaytabor30]

FOLKS AT THIS TIME I WOULD LIKE TO WELCOME YOU TO THE VERIZON MARRY GO ROUND

Y'ALL COME BACK NOW YA HEAR

[sandywings7]

Why are they doing this?  We should be free to send whatever e-mails we want.  I thought Spam protectors were to guard e-mail being SENT to us; not the other way around!

They need to stop this!

[tns]

There are spam detectors all over the network, and some will start blocking all traffic from Verizon customers once they decide Verizon is a spammer. 

Spamming is not nice.  And if you are forwarding an email with SPAM they cannot realize that you are not the spammer.

Now if they are incorrectly identifying some of your outgoing email as spam they have an address to report this to and procedures to ask for a correction.  Similarly you can report some incoming mail that is incorrectly identified as SPAM.

[sandywings7]

The thing is - what I was sending out was NOT Spam, and I have been sending this type of e-mail for the past TWO YEARS.

Verizon should not monitor our e-mails...it's an invasion of our privacy.

[Techman28]

Verizon has the right to secure its outgoing servers and they do so by implementing spam filters. if your emails are all of a sudden caught by the filter send an email with what you were sending to spamdetector.update@verizon.net .

[mandersen7]

I have the same problem; started Sunday.  Outgoing emails to addresses that I regularly send to are being blocked as spam.  I am self employed and it is affecting my business.  I have spent over five hours on this issue.  I called Verizon yesterday and was told it was my domain server.  I called my them and was told it wasn't; it was all Verizon.  I checked Microsoft (I use outlook) and someone else has the same problem and was told that it was all Verizon.  I called Verizon again and was told to change the outgoing mail server.  I told them that Verizon told me I had to use outgoing.verizon.net (I have Verizon fios internet). I called again (third call) and finally found someone who walked me through what the solution is and it is not acceptable to a small business.

I am self employed; when I send an email I include a signature which provides my mailing address and website as well as a privacy disclaimer.

I was informed that the spam detecting is done by a third party and sometimes they mark outgoing emails with signatures as spam.  The only way I can send an email from my business email is to send it without any contact information.

I have sent numerous emails (about 20-30) to the spamdetector update as instructed in the the verizon FAQ to no avail.

There is a something that blocks legitimate businesses from sending emails; I am proof.

It must be fixed.  To be require to send a professional email without a signature is not acceptable. I will never get new business as I will not be taken seriously.

So, something has to be fixed whether or not Verizon wants to believe it.

[somegirl]

As stated in the Spam FAQ page, you will not get any response when sending the message to spamdetector.update@verizon.net for review. You attach the message that you are unable to send, and they review it. Depending on the outcome of the investigation, the filter will either be updated to allow the content that was previously blocked, or it will be determined to be a legitimate block and no changes will be made.

Some troubleshooting steps you can try:
If you have a signature, try removing one line at a time from it and attempting to send the message again. Some signatures look like "ads" to the filters.

If you are using a pop3 client (Outlook, Outlook Express, etc.) try sending your message from the verizon.net website. If this resolves the issue, then it is something that your client is adding to the message that is causing it to be blocked.

If the Subject line of your message has a whole bunch of "Fwd: Fwd: Re: Fwd:" try removing some of them.

Remove any links/URLs from the email one at a time to isolate if one of them is causing the block.

Some people have suggested sending the message to check@isnotspam.com for investigation. This may work for you as well.

[newtown_rob]

I've been going through a living nightmare for the past few days trying to get Verizon to admit and fix this problem. They are blocking ALL my outgoing email. (I use Outlook to use a corporate email account to support customers in other countries at night).  I have spent more than 10 hours on hold waiting for customer service, then getting dropped from the line, etc.. When have gotten to speak to someone, they've given me **bleep** suggestions like:

• Use a gmail account instead of my corporate email account to reply to my customer's help request issues
• All of the issues must be my fault, because they couldn't be Verizon's fault (this is ALWAYS the assumption) - my computer is always kept up to the minutes with patches, etc and has all necessary virus and other protection software. I never load anything except the basic software on it to keep it clean.
• I shouldn't have a signature block on my emails because that causes problems
• I should watch my choice of words so that the spam filters don't think that I am trying to sell something
• Don't include hyperlinks in emails
• Send each failed email to Verizon so their team can read my personal email and within 24 hours or more, I might be able to try again and maybe then the email will go through - or maybe it won't.  But - they won't tell me when it has been reviewed. Say nothing about privacy issues.

What I am concluding is that Verizon wants us to invent a new sort of language - perhaps we could call it "Spam-Correctness".  It is made up of a bunch of code words that mean other things but pass through spam filters. We would need to teach this language to our customers, but at least we could send emails using Verizon this way.  I would be like "Political Correctness" where polite words replace meaningful words so that nobody is offended - the problem is that 60% of the people who are listening don't understand what is being said, resulting in a useless form of communication.

So, emailing using Verizon is now going back to being comparable to writing a letter, walking down to the post office and mailing it - except that you have a better chance that it will get there is you mail it at the Post Office.

This might be funny if it weren't true.  Yes, Verizon customer support IS this bad - I am not making this stuff up.

Oh, and by the way - nobody could care less about getting it fixed - they are all masters of "it's not my fault" and transferring you to another extention that rings for 30 minutes then disconnects.

They know that they have a contract and if you break it, they will charge your account anyway and do all kind of nasty things to you. I know - when we switched at work even after our contract ended they kept charging us for a year after we cancelled, sent us to a collections agency and a number of other VERY nasty things even though we had cancelled, paid all that we owed. They are the nastiest company in America.

[newtown_rob]

BTW: the thing they b-l-e-e-p-e-d out was not at all an offensive word...

[ElizabethS]

Hi newtown_rob

Sorry you are having difficulty, an agent with access to your account will reach out to you directly by email, private message in the Forums and/or the billing telephone number on your Verizon account for more information to help you resolve your issue.

[newtown_rob]

I've already spent over 10 hours on the phone with people at three levels of technical support at Verizon. Everyone knows the details. What I really need is someone to DO something instead of just talk about it.

Everyone says how important I am as a customer - you should really hold that stuff to yourselves until you do more than ask me the same questions over and over and over and ...  If you REALLY thought I was important, you wuld DO something more than:

1. keep trying find new ways to blame me for the problem
2. stop talking and fix the problem

You would rather spend $10,000 talking about fixing the problem than $300 fixing the problem. Very strange economics. Stop protecting the smart people from the customers with your many levels of tiered support and let them fix the problems.

[cattledogit]

Since at least March of this year, forwarding flagged emails to spamdetector.update@verizon.net no longer seems to have any effect. Verizon customer support doesn't seem to have any suggestions about how to follow up or contact that group. Perhaps that (outsourced) group is overwhelmed and no longer effective.

I found today that shortening the links in my (two) flagged outbound emails using a service like http://ow.ly allowed my emails to escape the spam filter. I realize this doesn't make any logical sense, but that's what worked for me

[Anthony_VZ]

Since we haven't heard back from you on the private support board we escalated your post to or have received a form submission, it appears assistance is no longer required. If you need any future help with your Verizon service, please make a post here on the forums so we can assist.