Verizon outgoing spam detecter not competent to distinguish between spam and spam COMPLAINTS
Bill_Levinson
Enthusiast - Level 2

I complained to an E-mail sender that it had put me on a mailing list to which I had not subscribed, and he asked me to send a copy of the offending E-mail so he could see how I got put on the list. Verizon's outgoing spam detector blocked my E-mail as "spam," thus preventing me from doing so.

This is not the first, second, or even third time this has happened, and I am advising colleagues (and potential Verizon customers) that Verizon's outgoing spam blocker is not competent to distinguish between spam and complaints about spam--the people who designed it apparently don't realize that a spam complaint is likely to contain what is, in fact spam--but the fact that it is sent to a very limited number of addresses including addresses that begin with "abuse" ought to be a clue.

Nor is this the first, second, or even third time the people at spamdetector.update@verizon.net have been advised of the problem and asked to fix it, so I am now copying Verizon Investor Relations on my complaints to see if they can be sent to people who will actually do their jobs as opposed to just collecting paychecks.

See also http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/04/24/1538205; I am far from the only person who is having this problem.

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Re: Verizon outgoing spam detecter not competent to distinguish between spam and spam COMPLAINTS
Bill_Levinson
Enthusiast - Level 2

The owners of the Web site that was advertised to me by what I considered spam E-mail have actually been very cooperative in trying to find the source. Here is what they sent me.

"Dear Mr. Levinson,

Thanks for letting us know that Verizon is blocking your forwarded message. Could you please copy the link from the DirectBuy email you received and paste it into your reply to this message?
We might be able to extract the mailing data from the link itself. Dear Mr. Levinson,

Thanks for letting us know that Verizon is blocking your forwarded message. Could you please copy the link from the DirectBuy email you received and paste it into your reply to this message? We might be able to extract the mailing data from the link itself."

When I tried to insert the link as they requested, Verizon again blocked me from sending the E-mail thus further underscoring its spam-blocking system's total lack of competence in distinguishing between spam and complaints about spam.

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Re: Verizon outgoing spam detecter not competent to distinguish between spam and spam COMPLAINTS
GaryDoug
Specialist - Level 1

Hmmm... just an idea. Could you save the email to an .eml file then compress it in a zip file and send that as an attachment? Wonder if Verizon would block that attachment too?

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Re: Verizon outgoing spam detecter not competent to distinguish between spam and spam COMPLAINTS
Keyboards
Master - Level 3

How about just copying the headers as a text file and sending them.  Shouldn't be flagged as spam.  If it is then copy the header info into a text file, compress and attach.

The header file should contain all the information that the original sender needs to ID it.

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Re: Verizon outgoing spam detecter not competent to distinguish between spam and spam COMPLAINTS
Bill_Levinson
Enthusiast - Level 2

The sender asked for the advertised link so he could identify who sent it (maybe an affiliate program). Verizon is blocking me from sending the link, thus interfering with anti-spam activities instead of supporting them.

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Re: Verizon outgoing spam detecter not competent to distinguish between spam and spam COMPLAINTS
Bob_Robertson
Specialist - Level 1

dude... its a computer... it doesnt know the difference... it just knows that there is a word/phrase/link/info/etc that is probably SPAM....

Like the others have said, and like the spamfaq that the error that you got, reffered you to says..... send the offending email/info AS AN ATTACHMENT....

and just in case.... do NOT name the attachment SPAM

Re: Verizon outgoing spam detecter not competent to distinguish between spam and spam COMPLAINTS
Bill_Levinson
Enthusiast - Level 2

Re: "Like the others have said, and like the spamfaq that the error that you got, reffered you to says..... send the offending email/info AS AN ATTACHMENT"

I tried it; same thing happened.

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Re: Verizon outgoing spam detecter not competent to distinguish between spam and spam COMPLAINTS
GaryDoug
Specialist - Level 1

Ok..one last shot at this.... it worked to bypass a corporate spam filter where I worked, maybe....

Do all like before..save email to .eml file, zip it up, then.......rename the .zip file to a .txt or .doc extension

In the real text of the email put an explanation as to why this .zip file was renamed to .txt

And instruct them to just rename it to .zip

Might just work.. If not, put the files on a cd and snail mail it. I give up.

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Re: Verizon outgoing spam detecter not competent to distinguish between spam and spam COMPLAINTS
lasagna
Community Leader
Community Leader

The advice being given is all along the right track for bypassing a spam engine, but not quite enough.  As someone who works with anti-spam filters in an enterprise environment, I can tell you that many companies are starting to scan outbound mail to look for spam as a defense measure to catch spambots as well as scanning incoming messages.   So, if the message is getting flagged as spam on a forward, it's likely to get flagged if you just convert it to an attachment, save it in zip file, etc. since the scanners are smart enough to know how to look inside.

So, the typical way to do this is to save the message as a file and then place it inside of a zip file and place a password on the zip (which prevents the scanner for viewing the contents).   Make sure you give the recipient the password so they can open the file.  If you're dealing with an overly agressive scanner, it might be necessary to rename the zip file before attaching to something like file.rename-to-dot-zip or something.

Last ditch ... use a free mail service (like Gmail or Hotmail) and cut/paste the message into that client. 

Hope that helps.

Re: Verizon outgoing spam detecter not competent to distinguish between spam and spam COMPLAINTS
Hubrisnxs
Legend

www.mailwasher.net/  is pretty good.   its free you should try it.   and also report the spam that isn't getting caught to spamdetector.notcaught@verizon.net

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