Windows Live Hotmail is Rejecting (Not Filtering) Spam

1. EoN February 12, 2008

   I 100% agree. This is completely unacceptable! I have had 2 emails rejected within one day - one of them an EXTREMELY important business related email which may have cost me a job.

   This is an absolute outrage - and Microsoft need to STOP this immediately! It is the onus of the user to decide how they wish to prevent spam, not Microsoft!! This is so dangerous, what on earth were they thinking?!?

   This is truly APPALLING practice on the behalf of Microsoft. Utterly terrible.
2. Vince Fleming February 15, 2008

   Gmail are experiencing the same problem. do a goggle on”Mail rejected by Windows Live Hotmail ”
   Is this a ploy to get people to make Hotmail/ msn their default mailer?
3. Billy Ichida February 26, 2008

   I had same problem on both “hotmail” and “msn” account. I totally agree with you guys. This need to be stopped NOW!.
4. Vince Fleming (not the same one, ironically) February 27, 2008

   Well… let’s consider WHY they’re doing this…

   I manage a small mail hub. I get TONS of spam from hotmail.com - yes directly from hotmail’s servers, sent by hotmail users.

   The problem with this is that my spam filters automatically blacklist servers that send a lot of spam. Hotmail is always getting put on this list, and I’m constantly taking it off because so many people I know still use hotmail.

   I’ve often wondered why MS doesn’t do something about stopping spammers from using their servers… which is likely the reason for these errors now. Typically for MS, when they deploy new software, if doesn’t work… hopefully, they’ll fix it soon.

   I have a question for you - why are you using hotmail/gmail/whatever instead of your ISP’s email systems? I never could figure out why someone would want to use them when your ISP provides this service for free.
5. Bob Roos February 27, 2008

   Vince Fleming says “why are you using hotmail/gmail/whatever instead of your ISP’s email systems?”

   I am not using it but trying to send a mail to someone who is. And I have no control over their choices.
6. Andy February 29, 2008

   I Too am having this problem. It’s increabily frustrating as I have around 100 people that have hotmail addresses and who I regularly communicate to. I have checked by mail server IP address against blacklists - none have come up as anything other than OK!!!

   Yet again, Microsoft gets it badly wrong, with no method of manual overrides via any kind of feedback! Totally useless!
7. David Nelson March 9, 2008

   My fallback is to ask people with hotmail accounts to send an alternate address (quite a bother) which leads me to think MS doesn’t really want these accounts.
8. Mariko March 14, 2008

   We’re using the stupid hotmail server for our business e-mail, and it is rejecting e-mails from our contractors, which is NOT acceptable. So, I think we’re going to switch e-mail providers. Any suggestions out there?
9. AW March 20, 2008

   I am also having this problem. If someone has found a solution, please post!
   It is so frustrating. This is backwards. Why should i have to follow-up with a phone call to ask if someone got my email? The system doesn’t work.
10. John Berns March 23, 2008

    Mariko

    If you want to host email for your business, try GMail for Domains: https://www.google.com/a/. Up to 100 users is free–so if you are a small company, there is no charge. It’s always delivered. The web interface is far superior to Hotmail / Windows Live Mail. You can download to your local email app (Outlook, Thunderbird, Evolution) via POP3 and IMAP. It’s SPAM filtering can’t be beat. It rocks!

    Oh–and if you don’t use IMAP–try it. Learn it! It’s awesome!
11. Michael Motta April 13, 2008

    I’ve had a similar problem with sending e-mail to at least three different hotmail-using friends (one of them is actually my youngest brother) since sometime last year. In the case of one friend, I simply started using her other e-mail address almost immediately. With my brother (whom I e-mail the most), I’ve had sufficient contact to determine that sometimes my e-mail to his hotmail is blocked, other times it isn’t! Now just recently I met a new online friend and when she gave me her hotmail address in lieu of the internal website message system we had been using on eHow.com. The first time I sent her an e-mail I told her I hoped it got through - it did. But the second time I’ve e-mailed her I’ve received the familiar message “This message was created automatically by mail delivery software.
    A message that you sent has not yet been delivered to one or more of its
    recipients after more than 24 hours on the queue on sys15.mail.msu.edu”. Further down on this message it reads “No action is required on your part. Delivery attempts will continue for
    some time, and this warning may be repeated at intervals if the message
    remains undelivered. Eventually the mail delivery software will give up,
    and when that happens, the message will be returned to you.” I haven’t had a single time in which an initial rejection has resulted in a later delivery (of the same message), so I’m expecting to receive within the next day or two a message that reads something like “delivery has timed out” - and that will be that.
12. Mike Blatz May 31, 2008

    I’ve had the “policy etc” rejection previously, but only occasionally, but today it’s a real pain (from my Gmail -as mentioned above it’s a great alternative). My email’s not critical, but nevertheless MSN is either having major server/software dramas, or, as suggested above, it’s trying to deter users (and I’m actually one of them and still get shiploads of spam despite clicking their “Junk” tab!).
    As suggested above it’s now imperative to have more than one email address just so you can ensure your critical stuff is deliverable/accessible. We have finally outgrown snailmail to a significant extent but it’s only the committed providers who’ll carry us through the next growth phase of the net (online apps), and judging by all the free “fruit” Google offers and delivers MSN may be feeling the heat one way or the other….
13. Elisabeth May 31, 2008

    Interesting. I’ve been having the same “policy rejection” from a friend’s hotmail account all day today. I’ve been using Google mail for a long time now. My mails are not overly important but I do like my comments to get to the person concerned. Is there nothing that can be done to avoid this? Apart from my correspondent changing email provider?
14. herbert June 3, 2008

    Hotmail is often free….
    You have little recourse on a free service.. gift horse in the mouth etc.
15. small-brother June 7, 2008

    herbert, you have just exhumed gas from your behind in a small crowded room. Who gives a hoot about the cost of hotmail ?! The thing is - the clients use it (as they use AOL) and we can’t tell the clients that they are better off with another service when they are impatiently sending you those “Did you send it?” messages every 10 minutes. So, go let your gas out someplace else and let us whine here about M$!
16. Gavin June 15, 2008

    This is a disgrace! Not only are they barring email addresses, but they are actually supplying ‘250 status=sent’ as a return status. So basically their servers say ‘yes, your email went through correctly’, but then will silently drop them, without ANY indication. This is just *SOOO* incredibly terrible! I can not believe they can get away with this. If they’re going to unfairly block emails, they could AT LEAST have their servers indicate that, instead of silently dropping them.

    I truly feel that this is a situation where Microsoft have gone TOO far, and are just doing the WRONG thing, and they need to fix it. This is not on. Microsoft provide a TERRIBLE, APPALLING, ATROCIOUS service .
17. Old Fellow August 7, 2008

    This is just cofirmation that Microsoft have lost the plot. My computor crashed so I purchased a new one with Vista installed…what a heap of crap…I have to contend not only with constant crashes, an operating system that is at least half as fast as the old XP but now they are filtering my outgoing emails. I had a photo of a fish rejected for policy reasons…where are they coming from…we are in dire need of getting an operating system that doesn’t try to be a policeman

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