# 'Forbidden for policy reasons' email error



## Dwight Ennis (Jan 2, 2008)

I'm seeing this error more and more when trying to send an email. Either my sending server is bouncing it or it gets bounced on the receiving end. A member tried to send me an email yesterday - the first time it bounced back with this error and the second time it went through.

This error is usually generated because something in the email being sent triggered a spam filter. I had something happen just now that prompted me to post this. I sent my wife an email concerning an impending appointment with our investment guy, and, being the silver-tongued devil I am, I signed it, *XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.* 
The email bounced from my outgoing mail server with the dreaded *'Forbidden for policy reasons'* error. After thinking about it for a minute, I changed the sign-off to *XXXOOO*. This was enough to allow it to go through the second time. My guess is that the spam filter thought the original email was porn related due to the string of X's.

I hope this may be useful to people - sometimes changing a word or two will be all that's needed. If you get this error, try and 'think like a spam filter.'


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## Torby (Jan 2, 2008)

hehe 

About like all the complaints Shad got about my language when a word I used got edited to s***** by the censor


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## Rod Fearnley (Jan 2, 2008)

Got the same reply when I e mailed you last week..................However, I would like to point out that I never used any xxxxxxxxxxx or oooooooo's in my mail








Rod


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## Dwight Ennis (Jan 2, 2008)

However, I would like to point out that I never used any xxxxxxxxxxx or oooooooo's in my mail
I know, and I must say I was terribly hurt!









There are many things which can trigger a spam filter. Here's some info from one of my ISPs...

====================================================================

All mail that is sent using SMTP on an Aplus.Net shared hosting plan is filtered by a program called Spam Assassin. Spam Assassin reviews the likelihood that the email is spam, or coming from a known spammer, and assigns the email a spam score. If that spam score is too high, it will return with the message "Forbidden for Policy Reasons" until the score is lowered. The purpose of this is to prevent spammers from using our servers to mass distribute email. If spam were allowed to leave our servers regularly, the mail server itself would soon be blacklisted by other agencies, meaning all customers on that server would encouner problems sending mail to other addresses. 

There are a number of tests that Spam Assassin performs to calculate the spam score the full list can be found here[/b][/b]. 
*
Tips for Avoiding Spam Filters:*
[*]Do not use the word "test" or "free" as the subject line. You might have success using "This is a test" where just "test" will get rejected. [*]Do not send emails that have nothing in the body. A blank email with a subject will look like spam. [*]Do not include lines of empty space before the text of your body begins. [*]Do not send hyperlinks or external urls without first adding some plain text to the body as context. [*]Do not use Spam like phrases. For example: 
[*]"Once in a lifetime opportunity!" [*]"Free" [*]"For a Limited time!" [*]"Click here!" [/list] [*]Do not use excessive punctuation, especially multiple exclamation points. A single exclamation point will be sufficient. [*]Do not use all CAPITAL LETTERS in your emails. [*]Do not use multiple colors of type, specifically bright red, blue or green. [*]Do not use excessive formatting (i.e., Underlining, bolding, italics.) [*]Do not use large font (16pt and higher.) [*]Avoid coding sloppy HTML, for instance converting word processing documents to HTML. [*]Code your email in HTML, not CSS. [*]Do not create a HTML email that is one large image or multiple small images with no text. [*]Build your email list on an opt-in basis. If your customers don?t remember opting-in to your email list, they can and will mark your email as spam. [*]Do not use more than 10 external links. (ie. Links to others sites or links to your own website.) [*]Images embedded in the signature are not forbidden, however they can raise the spam score, so in combination with other things can be problematic. [/list] 
All the above can cause emails to get caught in spam filters. Although this is not an all-inclusive list, it should cover many of the major mistakes people make when sending email. Another good reference is [url]http://spamcheck.sitesell.com/[/b][/url] which checks email's spam score and provides advice on how to fix it.


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## aceinspp (Jan 2, 2008)

Thanks for the great info Dwight. Later RJD


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## Spule 4 (Jan 2, 2008)

Or claim to be Nigerian royalty or spell "the wife's best friend" with numbers or other wildcard characters....


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## Ray Dunakin (Jan 6, 2008)

A couple years ago I sent an email to famly and friends, inviting them to my website to see some photos I'd taken in the desert. I mentioned that I had pics of a horny toad I'd found out there. Well, the word "horny" got me labeled as a porn spammer in a lot of folk's email filters, especially since it also included the word "photos" or "pics".


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## barnmichael (Jan 2, 2008)

IMHO Plain text is the only way to go sending email. In fact, I'd be happy to see mail servers only allowing plain text. I remember the good old days before HTML, everything was command line, plain text, 300 baud dial-up access, and you never saw an email over 600K. Some mail servers had limits as low as 300k for an email. These days it is not uncommon to see email messages over 1 meg! Needless waste of bandwidth. 

I'd also like to see an arrow counter in the anti-spam filters for seeing >>>>>>>> replies stacked up. 

I had a problem for a while with a spam filter kicking back every message that I referenced Eagle Pass (which was quite common at the time) because of the last three letters. 

But you do have a good list there, Dwight. Thanks for sharing.


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## Pete Thornton (Jan 2, 2008)

One of the things that made me stop using McAfee and AOL was their infernal out-going email scans. AOL wouldn't let you send a message with the same subject twice, so you couldn't send a photo to multiple people in different emails. (And their message looked like it came from AOL's sevice, when in fact it was generated locally on my computer.) 

McAfee didn't stop you, but it took the email, scanned it, and told my Outlook it had been sent - even if the 'net went flaky and McAfee couldn't get it to go. I had several puzzling non-deliveries until I figured that one out. 

So it's not just the Spam filters - it may be your computer! 

Talking about naughty words - a couple of years ago we had a long and hilarious thread trying to figure out what MLS would let us use in a Subject line. Must be in the archives somewhere...


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## Richard Smith (Jan 2, 2008)

I had problems once when referencing my Norwegian Grandmother's maiden name...Aas! Very difficult to reference a name like that. I guess it assumes that the other three letter word is too difficult to spell for some people. hehe!


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## Greg Elmassian (Jan 3, 2008)

I manage, among other things, our email servers and I do not allow people to use HTML email at all. No executables, the only thing they can send as attachments are jpg, xls (frowned upon), doc and pdf. 

No music, no videos, etc. 

Funny thing, when I took over, we had a virus outbreak in one of our branches every month. In the last 7 years, it has never happened again. 

You have to be on top of this stuff all the time. All of our computers have 3 active and resident spyware/virus/hijacker sniffers... and still some stuff gets through. 

Regards, Greg


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## Robbie Hanson (Jan 4, 2008)

And this would be why I use my own email server for home/family/friends use...no spam filter other than what I set up by hand in Outlook.

Never gotten a spam filter to work reliably for me; not even Gmail.


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## Greg Elmassian (Jan 3, 2008)

I have a great one for Outlook, by Computer Associates, used to be called Qurb, but CA bought them... best one I have found and I tried the top 5 I could find. 

Regards, Greg


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## Les (Feb 11, 2008)

Posted By Greg Elmassian on 05/23/2009 12:57 PM
I manage, among other things, our email servers and I do not allow people to use HTML email at all. No executables, the only thing they can send as attachments are jpg, xls (frowned upon), doc and pdf. 

No music, no videos, etc. 

Funny thing, when I took over, we had a virus outbreak in one of our branches every month. In the last 7 years, it has never happened again. 

You have to be on top of this stuff all the time. All of our computers have 3 active and resident spyware/virus/hijacker sniffers... and still some stuff gets through. 

Regards, Greg








Greg,

I feel compelled to reply because someone on this site who runs things might conclude you and the other anti HTML folks have a majority point.

First, I grant, concede and admit that your knowledge of computers exceeds mine by any number of orders of magnitude (ignoring that multiplying by zero--my case--gets zero). Heck, 'most anyone's does.

But. I *like* the flexibility of HTML. I can use _italics,_ *bold, *underline, or *even all three *to compose an email and emphasize it the way I want. It helps in communication. It seems the 'underline' button is flaky. (Shrug). 

Considered use of these assets aids in avoiding misunderstandings. I wish 'strikethrough' was available. With it, you can insert a word to tip the reader's understanding of your point one way or another, usually humorously.

Just take my comments as a vote for HTML. Don't bother to explain why the other is better: I wouldn't understand. 

Les


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## NTCGRR (Jan 2, 2008)

wait, what is XXXOOOOO for ????


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## Semper Vaporo (Jan 2, 2008)

It is a ridiculous line up for a football play.


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## Greg Elmassian (Jan 3, 2008)

Les, for business it is unnecessary... unless you have to send a picture... the English language has lots of words to give the exact meaning. 

HTML is "fun" but dangerous... my job is to keep the company running, unfortunately not to have fun. 

I charge $50 an hour to fix people's computers on the side... I do not have a shortage of business... 

Regards, Greg... 

p.s. you can use rich text and have bold, underline, color, strikeout, indention of blocks, etc...


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## Les (Feb 11, 2008)

Posted By Greg Elmassian on 05/23/2009 11:16 PM
Les, for business it is unnecessary... unless you have to send a picture... the English language has lots of words to give the exact meaning. 

HTML is "fun" but dangerous... my job is to keep the company running, unfortunately not to have fun. 

I charge $50 an hour to fix people's computers on the side... I do not have a shortage of business... 

Regards, Greg... 

p.s. you can use rich text and have bold, underline, color, strikeout, indention of blocks, etc... 










My ignorance exposed, once again!









I got HTML and RTF mixed up. I still don't know much about either.

Les


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## Greg Elmassian (Jan 3, 2008)

No problem... the big difference is that Rich Text Format does not allow all the "executables" in it like HTML does. You can hide all kinds of nasty stuff in HTML... that's the main way people pick up viruses, etc. 

I had sort of the same conversation (but for different reasons) with some people in our company... they insisted on having HTML emails because they needed big text and red letters for their important messages. 

I asked them why... they said no one read their messages... (of course the problem was not the text size or color).... no on WANTED to read their messages, ha ha !!! 

I'm not saying that about you Les! 


Anyway, if you stick to RTF, you should be able to still have all the flexibility of expression you want, and keep yourself and other safer... 

Regards, Greg


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## Paradise (Jan 9, 2008)

Les,


You I can do strikethrough.
or even Double strikethrough.
You just got need to know how to do it.


If you want to do it here …
The easiest way is to write your post in outlook, 
select the text you want to change 
right click on it and select ‘Font’ and make your style selection. 


Then select it all and paste into the forum post editor. 


Andrew J


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## Dwight Ennis (Jan 2, 2008)

Les - for posts on MLS, as a 1st Class Member, you should have the full toolbar on the "Add Reply" page. That toolbar is similar to what you'd have in Word or Outlook and works pretty much the same way. Compose the post, then highlight what you wish to format, and click the appropriate button on the toolbar. While there's no button for Strikethrough, that can also be accomplished via html - < del >text< /del > (without the spaces). Example Strikethrough


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## tmejia (Jan 2, 2008)

Dwight, 

You think mean like *this*?

Tommy








Rio Gacie 
It works







Took a few tries. I was forgetting the slash to end the delete


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## Dwight Ennis (Jan 2, 2008)

See Les? If Tommy can do it, anybody can.


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## tmejia (Jan 2, 2008)

Hey I resemble am that remark







. 
Laugh it up funny boy, I'll see ya next week.









Tommy








Rio Gracie


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## Dwight Ennis (Jan 2, 2008)

Uh-oh! I'm in big trouble now! Tommy's gonna dot my eye at the BTS!


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## Greg Elmassian (Jan 3, 2008)

Tommy, what day are you going? 

Greg


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## tmejia (Jan 2, 2008)

Greg,

I'll be at Jonathon's Thursday a.m., then onward to the Marriott until Monday morning.









Tommy








Rio Gracie


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## Greg Elmassian (Jan 3, 2008)

I should be there at least on Sunday, I'll be looking for you to say hi! 

Regards, Greg


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## Dwight Ennis (Jan 2, 2008)

I should be there at least on Sunday
I thought you were staying over this year?


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## Les (Feb 11, 2008)

Guys,

Thank you all for demonstrating/explaining the strikethough feature. I ain't gonna no way try html or /erp \erp because e-vile things happen when I mess with much else than the QWERTY keys, spacebar and backspace keys.

But thanks anyway!

Incidentally, wasn't Greg warning about HTML being a superhighway for viruses?

You want a really FUBAR site for awhile you just let me post something in home-grown HTML.









Les


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## Greg Elmassian (Jan 3, 2008)

No Dwight, bummer, no stay over... eating up my "Saturday" this week, so definitely have to work it next week. 

Are you going to be outside steaming before the "hall" opens? I'll get there early then... 

Greg


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## Dwight Ennis (Jan 2, 2008)

Bummer Greg. We're setting up the track on Thursday and will probably be out there as early and as late as they will allow. The Ontario Con Ctr isn't like the Queen where we could run at all hours of the day and night.


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## Dwight Ennis (Jan 2, 2008)

Incidentally, wasn't Greg warning about HTML being a superhighway for viruses?
Not in a forum post. Everything on here is in HTML and everything everyone writes here is converted to HTML anyway before being displayed. That's how it works. Same for any other web site.


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## Les (Feb 11, 2008)

Posted By Dwight Ennis on 05/28/2009 6:09 PM

Incidentally, wasn't Greg warning about HTML being a superhighway for viruses?
Not in a forum post. Everything on here is in HTML and everything everyone writes here is converted to HTML anyway before being displayed. 








That's how it works. Same for any other web site.

/// Hmm. Pray tell, what is all this about, then? ----->









" src="http://www.mylargescale.com/DesktopModules/NTForums/themes/mls/emoticons/smile.gif" align="absMiddle" border="0" /> 

Les


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## Dwight Ennis (Jan 2, 2008)

Les - What you're seeing is frakked-up HTML used to generate a smiley. 

As Shad explained it to me, the Editor we use has - what to call it - an "incompatibility" with the conversion process to HTML upon posting. There isn't a problem when a post is MADE, but when it's EDITED, the conversion process fraks up the smileys when they get re-converted since they've already BEEN converted. I usually avoid this by deleting and replacing all smileys when I edit a post. This time I forgot.  

Same thing happens when you quote another post. The quoted part also gets re-converted, so any smileys in it also get frakked up as conversion was already done when the quoted post was initially made. 

This issue is being worked on, but when it will be fixed I can't say. /DesktopModules/NTForums/themes/mls/emoticons/sad.gif


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## Les (Feb 11, 2008)

'Frakked up'. Ah, at last, a term I completely understand.










Les


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