email

Not Receiving UKC emails to your Outlook / Hotmail account?

If you are using https://Outlook.live.com to manage your hotmail.co.uk or hotmail.com emails, do ensure that you have added uk-cheapest.co.uk as a safe sender as follows:

• Login to your Hotmail account at http://www.Outlook.com
• Settings > Options > Junk Email > Safe Senders
• enter “uk-cheapest.co.uk”
• Press the “+” button.
• Then click Save

Hotmail will now deliver emails from UKC to your address without delay.

That’s all there is to it!

Email blocking problems

Occasionally, someone who has sent you an email may receive a message saying that a mail they sent you hasn’t been delivered. The email they sent has been blocked, and the full message is:

senderdomain.com 12.34.56.78 is listed at bl.spamcop.net. Contact tech support enclosing a copy of this error message on email address.

The message will contain a full email address in place of email address. There may also be another address in place of bl.spamcop.net.

Only the sender will receive the message. You will not receive notification that an email to you has been blocked and you will be able to send and receive other messages as normal.

The message is part of our effort to block spam sent to email addresses hosted at UKC.

We check the IP address of the server each email has been sent from against several lists of addresses, one of which is maintained by bl.spamcop.net. If the IP address is on any of these lists then we block the email.

Although this stops lots of spam getting through, it does mean legitimate messages occasionally get blocked too. If this is happening to someone trying to send you email, it’s easy for them to stop it occurring in the future.

How to fix it

The person who sent you the email should forward the message they received to the address shown in it. We’ll put the relevant IP address onto our list of allowed addresses, so future mails from that person come through to your inbox.

If the message mentions spamcop.net, they can also enter the IP address in the message (e.g. 12.34.56.78) into the Lookup IP box at Spamcop.net. This will remove the IP address from their list and should ensure that other email providers using the list stop blocking messages from that person.

Outgoing Emails Blocked by Spamhaus

Error: Cannot send emails: 451 http://www.spamhaus.org/query/bl?ip=xx.xx.xx.xx

If you cannot send mail, the problem is likely a restriction by your ISP (Internet Service Provider) as many block the normal sendmail port 25, due to their own security concerns.

This can be the case even if sending was working recently as some ISP’s roll these changes through without warning.

Simply changing to port 587 will resolve the problem for you.

Below are our recommended outgoing SMTP settings:

• Incoming Server: mail.your-domain.com
• Outgoing Server: mail.your-domain.com
• Username: Your full e-mail address
• Password: Your e-mail account password
• Incoming Port: POP3 110 or IMAP 143
• Outgoing Mail server (SMTP) Port: 587
• SSL: NO
• SMTP Authentication Required: YES
• Secure Authentication (SPA): NO

If you are unsure how to make the above changes, we recommend reviewing:

• Setting up your email

Spam – How to Reduce and Prevent Spam

What is SPAM?

Spam is flooding the Internet with many copies of the same message, in an attempt to force the message on people who would not otherwise choose to receive it. Most spam is commercial advertising, often for dubious products, get-rich-quick schemes, or quasi-legal services. Spam costs the sender very little to send — most of the costs are paid for by the recipient or the carriers rather than by the sender.

What do UKC do to block SPAM?

As your web host we do all we can to prevent spam at the server level. Every incoming email is checked against no less than 5 global anti-spam filter lists (such as SpamCop). Only if the sending mail server identity passes all five spam filter tests is the email passed on to the recipient. This minimises a hugh amount of spam – but unfortunately not all spam can be blocked. There are many steps that you can take that will further block spam.

Delete your Catch-all email address

Many spammers will use dictionary attacks on your domain name. By deleting your catch-all account (listed under aliases in your hosting control panel) only email sent to valid email aliases will make it through to your inbox. This can vastly reduce the amount of spam received and is singly the most effective step in spam blocking. Go ahead,reduce spam and delete your catchall email address now.

Do not expose your email address

Do your best to not expose your email address on the internet. Putting your email address on your website or posting it into public forums is a sure way of having your email address ‘harvested’ by a spam spider. Whenever your email address is exposed in a public location it is at risk of being picked up, try not to do it with your most important email addresses.

Install local anti spam filter software

We attempt block spam before it gets to your inbox using the top DNS Spam Blacklists (such as SPAMcop) however it is not possible to block all SPAM. For spam that does make it through to your inbox you should consider a PC based spam blocker or spam filter. This is usually software based and can be configured according to the type of spam you receive.

Use multiple email addresses

Sign up to a number of free email addresses and use these email addresses for newsletter subscriptions and other non-trustworthy locations, try not to give out your main email address except to your closest associates, friends and family.

Never open attachements from unknown sources

Attachments from people you do not know are BAD. They usually contain viruses, do not open them under any circumstances. Any spam containing attachements almost certainly will contain a virus of some sort.

Never reply to a spam email

Many spammers are looking for a valid response to their email which verifies that the email address is operational. Never reply to a spam email.

Your email bounced with a message leading you here. Why?

We hate spam. To try to keep spam levels down, we’ve implemented a bunch of filters to block as much as we can.

Unfortunately, nobody’s perfect and we occassionally block email from our friends too. This page lists all of the messages our server sends when it blocks email so you can read about what the filter is and why you were blocked.

If you’re not a spammer and your email has been blocked, we’re sorry.  Please submit a whitelist request and we’ll fix our filters so you never get blocked again.

Error messages you might have come across

DENIED_RBL_MATCH

Refused. Your IP address is listed in the RBL

We are using the Real Time Blacklist mentioned above. You have to contact them in order to be unlisted. To check where your IP address is listed: MX Toolbox Blacklist Checker

DENIED_RDNS_MISSING

Refused. You have no reverse DNS entry.

Every server on the internet should have a reverse DNS entry, especially mail servers.

Our mail server checks for reverse DNS entries. Any email coming from a server without one is blocked. This stops a lot of email from servers that shouldn’t be sending email, such as virus-infected home computers, bot nets, anonymous servers all running from temporary IP addresses.

DENIED_IP_IN_CC_RDNS

Refused. Your reverse DNS entry contains your IP address and a country code.

Your server’s reverse DNS entry contains its IP address and ends in a two-character country code. For example, if your IP address is 11.22.33.44 and your reverse DNS entry is 11.22.33.44.example.com.us, our server is going to block your email. IP addresses in reverse DNS entries usually indicate servers that shouldn’t be sending email – just the kind of server a spammer would use.

Just change your reverse DNS entry to something meaningful to resolve the issue.

To look up your mail server’s reverse DNS, use this rDNS tool: Reverse DNS Lookup

DENIED_SENDER_NO_MX

Refused. The domain of your sender address has no mail exchanger (MX).

Your domain’s MX record either doesn’t exist or lists a name that doesn’t resolve AND your domain name doesn’t have an A record. This means no mail to your domain can possibly be delivered, including bounce messages.

DENIED_AUTH_REQUIRED

Refused. Authentication is required to send mail.

We do not accept any email unless the sender authenticates first. Reconfigure your mail client and try again. Ensure you are using SMTP port 587 to authenticate. Port 25 rarely works these days.

DENIED_IDENTICAL_SENDER_RECIPIENT

Refused. Identical sender and recipient addresses are not allowed.

You are attempting to send email both “to” and “from” the same address, which we don’t accept. In most cases, authenticating your connection will avoid this block.

ENVELOPE_SENDER_IN_BADMAILFROM_LIST

Refused. Your address is in our BadMailFrom list

Your email address (or domain) has violated a number of anti-spam filters and has triggered a time limited block. The block is automatically removed within 12-24 hours.