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Email barrage – how can I stop it???
A supplier decided to send out an innocent email bulletin promoting their products to us. Nothing too wrong with that. However due to circumstances beyond their control the email has got looped resulting in the same email being replicated and sent every 30 seconds or so to the same mailing listing.
Net result my email has been trying to download 1645 emails on Monday morning and subsequently another 1000+ each day all this week. Its tying up resources of the computer and stopping me using email, (all my estimates go out by email, enquiries and orders from the web site come in from email)
Net result we cant get to our emails, we cant send our emails until the download has completed. The originator cant shut it off as the problem is on some remote server powered by a Microsoft Product, Microsoft can’t contact the owner of the server.
I spent most of yesterday trying to solve the problem, and at the moment have set up a rule to delete the emails as they arrive and left a machine running on a continual email download basis, my ISP cant block these emails.
Has anyone had or have this type of problem and can advise what they have done. Other than change my email address as a last resort.
Chris
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13 Replies
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Do you have webmail for this account so you can view and delete the mails on the server rather than let them come onto your machine. My hosting and server also has spam assassin on it so email addresses marked as spam (I can add additional addresses) are deleted as they come onto the server.
Alan -
Thanks Alan – yes just checked and we have webmail option on this account, I have set up a rule on this to see if this will block out the emails.
I telephoned the originator of the email yesterday – and they are pulling their hair out – they have spent all the week just farming the calls from irate recipients of their email. I got the impression that if they can’t solve it soon it will cost them their business.
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Hi, I just helped someone by dropping their main email account. It was used in the “Message undeliberable” type messges as a reply address, practically unstoppable.
If you can see my email address (as your UKSG), you could email a copy to me so I can have a look at the message route.
I don’t mind
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not sure if you have already tried this.
most mailings have an option to unsubscribe at bottom, i had a similar problem and had to use this method. after unsubscribing they stopped.
regards
aaran (-) -
You say you have set up a rule to stop it? Is that not working?
I had a problem with an e-mail that wouldn’t completely download, once. I got the header but then a permanent progress bar. I copy & pasted some text from the header and set up a rule using this, which got rid of it. -
Not sure if this will work or not in this instance but I use incredimail, which has a feature to bounce the e-mail back to the sender.
This is extremely useful as it gets sent back to the person that sent it to you and it seems as if your e-mail address is not valid. The person that sent the e-mail receives a e-mail back saying that the address does not exist etc.
The program is free and works fine. I have used it for 5 years with no problems. It is also very good as you do not need to open it up each time you log on as it automatically starts with windows and checks for mail at the specified intervals.
Incredimail has some really useful features, the best of which is the ability to transfer your e-mail data to a new computer, this is invaluable as you can make a backup of your e-mail’s and e-mail accounts and transfer them to a new computer. Simply click on File/ data and settings transfer/ transfer to a new computer and incredimail stores all of your e-mail account settings and all of your e-mails in a compressed file. Put this file on a blank CD and you can then easily put your e-mail settings and e-mails on your new computer by simply clicking on File/ data settings and transfer/ transfer from old computer. This feature alone makes incredimail a excellent free program!
http://www.incredimail.com/english/index.asp
Hope this proves useful
ultimatehandyman
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I dont think its a good idea to bounce mail, By doing so you verify your address. Far better just to delete from the server.
Peter -
hi… the bouncing email back to the sender is another problem, the sender may then use your bounced address as punshiment. I just had to help someone LOOSE their main email account as their email was used to send out loads of spam (pills).
Every 3 minutes, the guy would receive email from someone as servers from around the world was “bouncing email back to the sender”, (undeliverable, system administrator, Mail failed type messages).
Just think of all the business cards/promotions he had printed and he had to change to a new email adddress.
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Thanks for all advice
The problem has sort of been solved – the original sender had around 250 recipients listed on the email. This was bounced off to a server somewhere, it was a Microsoft product, that had not been updated with a bug fix. Microsoft are trying to track them down.
Net result is the offending email was caught in a loop and kept sending itself every 15 seconds or so. A “goundhog day” for computers I suppose.
We have got BT to block it from their server (eventually) and after umpteen phone calls etc they have.
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Hi Peter,
Not quite sure how bouncing a message can verify your e-mail address?
1. they already have your address as they have sent you a e-mail!
2. you bounce the message back to them, and it gets bounced saying ” undelivered mail: user unknown”!
So the person receives the original message that they sent to you and it appears as though your e-mail address does not exist.
Seems like a damn good idea to me, I have been doing it for years with no problems at all. Once you bounce the message back, you never get another one from that address again!
ultimatehandyman
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This just happened to me! I’ve spent the past week trying to resolve the problem (not mine) and as a result l have lost a week’s trading and all my incoming emails. How was it stopped? I had to contact my isp and get my account moved to a stronger server. Then there was the cost as I had to get my system checked because I thought I had a virus. All because someone sent out a round robin type email in the first instance. And it originated from a sign company!!!
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we had the same problem this week from a sign company who shall remain nameless 😀
Luckily I have an option on our mail server to filter the offending emails into a spam folder, but i would dread to think what would happen to someone on dial-up, 🙁
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Sounds like the same sign supplies company I was getting the emails from. I don’t believe it was their fault however like yourselves it cost me a load of time and blocked my email server for days. (one day over 1500 arrived)
Following advice on the boards I contacted my ISP – (Bt INternet) and they blocked the email address off their server. So far so good.
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