Blocked by "blockedbyearthlink@abuse.earthlink.net"

I just discovered that my mail to some folks on mindspring and earthlink is getting blocked by blockedbyearthlink@abuse.earthlink.net. I'm hoping somebody else can explain what's going on, or maybe this will help somebody, I dunno.

This is what they sent me with the bounced email:

Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently: [person]@mindspring.com

Technical details of permanent failure:
PERM_FAILURE: SMTP Error (state 8): 550 550 Dynamic/zombied/spam IPs blocked. Write blockedbyearthlink@abuse.earthlink.net

So of course I tried to write to that address and this is what I got back (extracts). Feel free to skip over it if it makes your eyes glaze over and if you don't know what it's talking about - that's what I did!

PLEASE READ THE ENTIRE EMAIL TO RESOLVE YOUR ISSUE

EarthLink may be blocking your mail server because the server is listed in a dynamic IP range, is listed as an open proxy, is listed as a compromised machine, or is major source of spam.

If you do not know what IP address your server is sending with, please contact the mail administrator of your company or your ISP and have them follow the instructions below.

If you are the administrator of the email server being blocked, please know you may be able to expedite unblocking by checking to see if your mail server is listed in the following lists and resolving before emailing us:

http://cbl.abuseat.org/lookup.cgi
http://www.spamhaus.org/sbl/index.lasso
http://www.us.sorbs.net/lookup.shtml
Other spam databases to determine if your mail server IP has spam issues:
www.dnsstuff.com
http://www.moensted.dk/spam/

If your IP is not on any of these lists, is not dynamic, is not an open relay/proxy/zombie, please reply back to blockedbyearthlink@abuse.earthlink.net with "BLOCKED " in the subject line with the IP inserted. All reports sent to this address, not using this format will receive this auto response.

Thank you for your cooperation,
EarthLink Abuse

So the point is, they will not even read my email unless I know what my IP is. Which I don't!

So I tried calling Earthlink. I went to the "Get a Human" database and followed the instructions and did get a human, who transferred me to another human, who transferred me to another human, then the line went dead. Elapsed time: about half an hour.

So I called again. I got a human, who transferred me to another human, who transferred me to another human, who asked: "Did the guys you've been talking to have foreign accents?" I said they sounded like they were in India. He said, "I'll transfer you to a guy who's right here in the room with me." That sounded hopeful.

I waited. The next guy, the "one right here in the room," said, "Oh, you have cable? I'm the DSL guy. Wait." He transferred me to another guy. I was up to about 16 guys at this point.

I got one more. He actually started taking down my email addresses. That seemed even MORE hopeful. But then HE said, "Wait," and I waited, and then - a dial tone.

I screamed out loud. Elapsed time: another half hour.

I googled this problem and here are some others folks complaining about earthlink mindspring mail rejection. At the bottom, find an update with some actual helpful information I got the third time I called.

Does anyone know why gmail is marked on earthlink as being spam? I'm trying to send one of my cousins an email and I get back:

PERM_FAILURE: SMTP Error (state 8): 550 550 Dynamic/zombied/spam IPs blocked. Write blockedbyearthlink@abuse.earthlink.net

So I sent them an email and got a message back that basically says I need to be the administrator to get the IP removed from their spam block. I went into gmail's support and sent them a message with the information, and I got told that I can find a solution on their help page...which tells you to contact the ISP you were trying to email. Which takes me back into a HUGE circle of automated messages. ARGH!!!

In search of brains

Night before last, I sent an email to a friend of mine who has an Earthlink account; it bounced with the following curt notice:
550 550 Dynamic/zombied/spam IPs blocked. Write blockedbyearthlink@abuse.earthlink.net (in reply to MAIL FROM command)

As it happens, Earthlink is blocking mail from DreamHost mail servers, and DH hasn't been able to get the block removed. This isn't exactly earth-shaking news — and I can send mail, if I have to, from Hotmail, from my cable provider, even through Earthlink itself (I have a dialup account there for backup) — but I still feel just slightly insulted.

Then again, if you fuse all those complaints together, you get Dynamic Zombie Spam, which I think is a helluva good band name.

Blocked by Earthlink

I guess it’s started. I have my E-mail server connected to dslextreme.com using a static IP number. I’ve tried to send E-mail to two different people at Earthlink in the past week. Both of those messages are now bouncing because:

(reason: 550 550 Dynamic/zombied/spam IPs blocked. Write
blockedbyearthlink@abuse.earthlink.net)

So, I’m stuck with trying to get Earthlink to accept my E-mail now. It seems that a number of other folks are experiencing this problem, including the Chapel Hill-Carrboro school system in North Carolina. What jokers.

Their blacklist is too strict and will have a detrimental affect on their customers.

ISP eMail Blockage

Various ISP's are implementing eMail blocking polices that are not based upon any proven abuse. For example MSN (and Hotmail) are blocking "Yahoo Groups" for "policy" reasons. Strangely they have a new service that you can signup for at a couple thousand bucks that "improves" your "deliverability."

We will begin listing the known blockage, since that means those of you who have signed up for either our Automatic Notification or for our Yahoo Groups Update service WILL NOT RECEIVE the messages you have signed up for.

msn.com, hotmail.com - For "policy" reasons MSN is blocking Yahoo Groups. Apparently Microsoft also owns Hotmail as these addresses are also bounced with the same MSN "policy" message.

tds.net - TDS Telecom is blocking Earthlink (& mindspring) eMail. If you have earthlink or mindspring and have emailed the SP webmaster in the last month (or any tds.net email address) it was not received. Please use Rebmaster@spofga.org instead of mikecrane@tds.net to send messages to the SP webmaster.

Such policies mean that corporations are now getting involved in determining what eMail will make it to you based upon arbitrary criteria they establish without notification. In such cases it is no longer your decision.

On January 8, earthlink and mindspring joined the blockage of yahoogroups, with a spam message as follows:

Remote host said: 550 550 Dynamic/zombied/spam IPs blocked. Write blockedbyearthlink@abuse.earthlink.net
[MAIL_FROM]

The interesting thing is that "NO" messages were sent on either January 7th or 8th - NONE.

If I am not mistaken didn't AOL buy out Earthlink??? If they did that is probably the reason for all this. Everyone knows how AOL is about blocking stuff. You cannot even send email from a gmail account to earthlink or AOL nowadays.

Me personally I wouldn't use either service if it was the last on earth. It might be a wise Idea to put a disclaimer on your site telling people who use earthlink or aol to get another email from someplace else if they want to receive email from you.

UPDATE: The THIRD time I called, I got a tech guy in India who refused to help me go up the chain of command, but did have one helpful piece of information: To find your IP number, go to the DOS Command prompt and type IPconfig[enter]. Then you may be able to get some help from earthlink's reject email department.

.