Lately I've been having problems sending emails with MS Outlook via TT&T Maxnet POP3. Sent emails are returned minutes later marked with the message 'unsolicited bulk e-mail (SPAM) by our mail filters' by SpamTitan postmaster@tttmaxnet.com.

It appears TT&T have recently installed Spam Titan on their mail servers and their current settings are blocking most of my outgoing emails.

When I first started using TT&T Maxnet a couple of years back I had problems sending all emails from MS Outlook, so TT&T advised using smtp.tttmaxnet.com for the SMTP outgoing mail server rather than my hosts mail server. This solution worked but has proved inconvenient since I have to change it back to the original setting on all my accounts when using any service other than TT&T to connect.

The latest problem is proving more of a challenge. A work around to send emails successfully is to disconnect from TT&T, connect via GPRS and then send all emails without any problems whatsoever or connect to my email accounts via the web browser which avoids any problems also. However both solutions are very inconvenient, especially when you have several email accounts. Therefore I contacted TT&T Maxnet for help.

TT&T responded quickly via email and asked for my service number, telephone number etc. and then called shortly after to discuss the problem in more detail. Unfortunately they couldn't speak English and since my Thai technical vocab is limited I passed the phone over to my partner. They advised her that there was a problem and they would work on the problem immediately.

Sometime later I received a second email to say that the problem was nothing to do with TT&T and advised that my email recipients were blocking the emails. They told me to contact them to find out what the problem was.

Surely it's obvious where the problem lies. I can send OK when connected to GPRS and via my web browser, but when sending via TT&T SMTP the emails are blocked and returned as SPAM.

The next day TT&T contacted us to say that there was a problem with their settings and they were working on it, but haven't heard anything since. I have contacted them by email but they no longer reply.

Anyway I have changed one of my accounts back to the original SMTP outgoing mail server and it now works OK, however my other accounts still require TT&T's SMTP. I still get the problem intermittently but it's better than before. It would have been nice to receive a call or email from TT&T to put us in the picture and advise what the problem was.

Is anyone else experiencing the same problems?

I can confirm this. When I got this Spam notification about three weks ago I changed to my german mail host and have not changed back since then.

I am pretty sure that there are bigger companies in Thailand (not having foreign alternatives) that bang on TT&T's door to stop this idiotic nonsense. There is - most probably - no need for you to waste your time with it. Some day it will work again...

hmm...
It's look like TT&T are the problem
and about the technician (or whoever) from your post, sound like he/she is not the same person that install junk filter... and lack of the knowledge about it...
Maybe they're hire someone to do this...

Is there any advantage by using this TT&T mail service?

Sending mails with attachment above a certain size, sometimes even without attachment was not possible when using a foreign mail server. You got timeouts and failed sends. The solution was to use TT&T's own mail server. But since some time the foreign ones work too. Sending is still slow but no longer suffers from timeouts.

It's reassuring to know that I'm not the only one with the problem.

I'm pleased to say that Maxnet is still on the case. udonmap POP is fixed since I can now use my orginal hosts smtp, however the other sites still require Maxnets smtp. They advised me it may take another 2 days to fix so in the mean time I have to use webmail to send emails. I guess it could be a case of adding allowed smtp domains to SPAM Titan's list.

Update and new soap:

Last week I had to send documents (3 MByte attachment) to a translation office in Bangkok. At this time my german mail out server did not work anymore - the famous timeout. I switched to maxnet and everything seemed to have worked - there was no notice mail coming back about spam nonsense.

The bad surprise came 4 days later. I received an automated mail from maxnet that translates to the following: we were not able to deliver the mails because the recipient denies to receive them, as they are coming from a well known spammer adress. The recipient had a Yahoo email adress, and Yahoo simply blocks everything coming from maxnet IPs.

I was both shocked and angry, as my docs had not been sent in time to the intended receiver, and that a business uses a Yahoo adress (I have never heared of anyone working seriously with computers using either Yahoo or Hotmail adresses. Only bargirls...

My personal solution lies in another mail out server. Fortunately I have access to one based in Hongkong. At this time it works perfectly, very quick like Maxnet usually does, but doesn't have the blacklist hanging around its neck.

I just wonder how people survive here that have not the knowledge and not the workarounds to manage all this...

Survival is easy and natural,now sound business practice........ ,that is a different story!

Latest:

Maxnet advised me that my emails were being blocked because they contained either bad language and/or advertisements for Viagra.

I told them that absolutely none of my emails contain bad language and certainly not Viagra SPAM messages, but that fell on deaf ears.

Anyway the problem appears to have eased a little recently and less emails are rejected by Maxnet. If I do have problems sending I either hook up to GPRS or send via webmail. I guess that's the only solution until Maxnet gets the hang of Spam Titan.

the way I understand it is your using maxnet email program ? I use yahoo email & msn so far I have not had any problems

As I am sure you know Lee, there are certain words that trigger the spam filters to work and block the emails that pass through.

It sounds to me as though they have the sensitivity adjusted too high, something only they can fix.

Do you have access to any control panel for your email with Maxnet/TT&T?

I have with most of my email providers, and you can 'whitelist' certain phrases and words/email addresses etc etc to make sure they pass through without any problems.

Failing that, until the problem gets rectified, you could always use an isp that provides an open source free smtp server, there is a good list here http://www.e-eeasy.com/SMTPServerList.aspx then all you need to do is add it to your outlook email smtp settings.

Should help you out temporarily.

Now that's a nice info! Especially the SMTPGo service looks just what I could use.

But I fail to see any information about 'open source free' SMTP servers. The list includes just servers, and it seems most are not free. I wonder if there are freely to use SMTP servers at all, as these could be used as spam distributors easily...

BangkokButcher wrote:Do you have access to any control panel for your email with Maxnet/TT&T?

I'm not actually using Maxnet/TT&T email, I'm using my own private email located on my host (udonmap). However my ISP is Maxnet, and in order to send POP3 emails successfully I have to use Maxnet's smtp outgoing server (smtp.tttmaxnet.com not smtp.myserver.com), otherwise they are returned with errors. However as stated above emails are now returned as SPAM by Maxnet's Spam Titan.

Only Maxnet's have control of their SPAM titan settings. I guess I would have some control if I had a tt&t email account.

A work around, as stated above, is to connect via GPRS or send mail via the actual web browser (squirrelmail).

BangkokButcher wrote:Failing that, until the problem gets rectified, you could always use an isp that provides an open source free smtp server, there is a good list here http://www.e-eeasy.com/SMTPServerList.aspx then all you need to do is add it to your outlook email smtp settings.

Thanks for the list, however it's no good on TT&T Maxnet, they only allow their own smtp i.e. smtp.tttmaxnet.com all others return errors, otherwise I'd just use my own smtp.

Thanks for you help anyway.

Hmm, what about this application, I haven't tried it, but sounds like it could do the trick:

Free SMTP Server is a SMTP server program for Windows that lets you send email messages directly from your computer. It's very simple but very useful for laptop users traveling around the world and connecting their PCs to different Internet Service Providers in different countries. You can use it instead of ISP's SMTP server to increase your security and privacy. Free SMTP Server supports all email programs like Outlook Express and Eudora, but best optimized to work with Outlook Express. The email program you already use for sending and receiving messages can be connected to the server in a very easy way - by using the word "localhost" instead of your current SMTP host. Having done so, you can send messages in a usual manner. Free SMTP Server is very fast, while sending, it establishes dozens of SMTP connections, and gets the most out of your Internet connection. The user interface of the program is very easy to learn, excellent documentation is included. The program is freeware so there is no reason not to download and try it!

http://www.softstack.com/freesmtp.html

Oh Techland, it looks like that link I passed on has changed now, I had it in my bookmarks and they all used to be free, now it seems as though they just list everything. Sorry about that.

Most probably because they have started their own smtp service by the looks of things....
http://www.smtp2go.com/100.html but it's a paid service

Thanks for reminding me of this tool. But I fear it will not work on my system, because I have a 'localhost' already running (xampp). Maybe Lee can have a try with this one, the description looks promising...

BangkokButcher wrote:Hmm, what about this application, I haven't tried it, but sounds like it could do the trick:

http://www.softstack.com/freesmtp.html

Thanks for the link but didn't work on my computer, I guess I'll have to stick with good ol' Maxnet.