bt frustration

Brick wall... head...bang.

Does anyone else have issues with mail.btinternet.com? If I send emails
to that smtp server that can't be delivered, then unless I'm using my bt
email address, I never get a bounce message. The server accepts emails,
but seems to blackhole anything it can't deliver rather than return a
bounce to a non-bt address.

All I get from bt support is that there's nothing wrong with their mail
server - or others would have noticed. And they won't actually try it
out to see (so far at least). And AFAICS the attitude is they don't
support non-bt email addresses. Which isn't helpful (but I may have
misunderstood; there's a bit of a 'communication issue'.)

And no, there's no address to /write/ to to complain, I've just been
told. Frustration rules!!


(I'm using sendmail here, which uses mail.btinternet.com as smarthost.
It means I know for sure they take the mail successfully, and can check
the wire for bounce messages coming in. Or not as is the case. Mail to
my own mail domain is MX'd to my home server; works reliably enough.)


Can anyone recommend a cheap RELIABLE mail service that will provide an
outbound smtp server? That's all I need!

 

Can you just clarify whether or not email using your BT email address gets
through OK?
I know when I moved and was looking for a new ISP I had to search a bit to
find one who would allow mail through unless it was from their domain.
I think also BT Business Accounts are different to home accounts,
ironically with more flexibility on home accounts.
I know what you mean about support, I spent 8 months corresponding with
them once about them sending me HTML email. It was only when the issue was
passed to a supervisor that they understood what I was saying.

 

OK. Their system does seem a bit of a mess at the moment - one person
told me it "might" be due to a transition away from yahoo.

1. (a digression) /Any/ email address currently appears able to send
email. This is contrary to their documentation: and when I joined up a
year or so back, I got 'service not available' for non-registered
addresses -- played merry havoc with some mailing lists I run!! So my
main address is registered. Anyway, now to the important bit.....

2. AFAIAW mail for valid recipients is always accepted and always
delivered. At least, I've had no problems that couldn't be ascribed to
the recipient Mail from my bt address to an invalid destination is
accepted by btinternet, and a proper bounce generated which I receive.
Mail from any non-bt (registered or not) address to a bad recipient is
accepted and never seen again.

I've spoken to a "supervisor". Basically, his contribution reduced to
that no-one else has complained. My /suspicion/ is many will use
webmail, most will use their bt address, most won't send to duff
addresses, and of the remainder most won't understand what's supposed to
happen to undeliverable mail -- and of them a sizeable number know about
bt's support quality.

But I'm currently waiting for a phone call from higher support.

 

I expect they're black-holing spam bounces, and the filter they use is
a bit wider than necessary.

 

Perhaps. But that's the idea behind their demanding all addresses to be
used as envelope sender be registered with them. That (while wildly
inconvenient for a small minority) stops backscatter spam dead.
Non-registered addresses when I joined them rather over a year ago got a
'5xx service not available' when sending, so they couldn't be used at
all. Registered addresses got their 'undeliverable' messages as appropriate.

In fact, their mail system seems broken at present - outbound sender
addresses aren't checked at all AFAICT.