Freeserve/Wanadoo/Orange email servers blacklisted in spam databases
Feb '07 Update: I've posted details of a way around this without changing email address. It's a little fiddly, but should work...
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I've been trying to trace a problem with emails not reaching one of my clients. Emails from the same sender would sometimes get through fine, but often bounce back after a few days. I eventually managed to get a look at one of the bounced emails, which was very helpful.
It turns out that Freeserve have managed to get some of their email servers blacklisted in spam databases. Any ISPs that operate even basic spam filtering check all incoming email against the SpamCop or SORBS databases, to see whether the originating server is registered as a spammer. If so, the email is rejected and a few days later the sender will receive an undelivered mail report.
Fyi, Freeserve = Wanadoo = Orange, but I'm going to use Freeserve because I keep mistyping 'wanadoo'...
I did a little digging around, and unsurprisingly many people are having problems with this. It's flared up in recent days, but there are reports of problems with the servers - I looked up 193.252.22.157 - as far back as January of this year. This isn't the fault of the spam databases, nor is it difficult to get yourself removed from them. Freeserve seem to be entirely to blame.
This is a particularly annoying problem, as it must affect anybody with a Freeserve / Wanadoo / Orange account. It's unreasonable to ask every ISP/email host in the world to make an exception / disable their spam filters because of this, although that's what I've had to do in my client's case.
According to the SpamCop information page, the Freeserve servers are commiting the cardinal sin of bouncing back external emails, which afaik is quite an easy thing to fix! Freeserve presumably have a number of email servers of which only some are blacklisted, explaining why emails sometimes get through and sometimes don't. There doesn't seem to be any way of specifying which server you want to use, however.
I always used to like Freeserve, but given the long-running nature and severity of this problem, I can only recommend that nobody create a new Freeserve/Wanadoo/Orange account, and anybody on their system move to a different ISP.
Hello!
Hey, thanks for coming! I'm Andrew, and this is where my headthinks come to breed. They often meander around humanism and photography, but they're flighty and you can't trust them, so anything is possible.
Do feel free to email me - I get lonely:
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September 22nd, 2006 - 18:17
Jack Schofield in The Guardian was saying the same thing yesterday.
September 23rd, 2006 - 01:17
Hmph. He is clearly a preemptive copycat, in the memorable words of a friend
September 23rd, 2006 - 01:48
Mod common room ftw!
September 23rd, 2006 - 20:33
Hmmm. Dreamhost, my mail providers, also had similar issues but with AOL. Imho freeserve should know better, as they say: you get what you pay for. I suggest that everyone signs up on a gmail account and go from there. You get a decent anti-spam package built-in as well. I’d say it does a better job that most (if not all) of the other anti-spam applications available.
In regard to avoid using those specific servers? Can you not play around with the hosts file of the server in question so that mail.freeserve.co.uk does not point to those dodgey servers? That could be fiddly I know.
October 4th, 2006 - 12:40
I’m having the same problem. My Freeserve/Wanadoo/Orange (whatever it is today) is being bounced from AOL recipients. Like others, I have been quite happy with Freeserve/Wanadoo/Orange (whatever it is today) until now but they do seem to be dragging their feet in getting this little lot sorted. I’ve emailed them through their online webform and received a acknowledgement stating that they’ll get back to me and, in the meantime, redirecting me back to their website help, which appears a contradiction in terms in this case. At present I’m having to work around the issue by using my Yahoo account.
Recently I have also had trouble with my Freeserve/Wanadoo/Orange (whatever it is today) broadband connection frequently dropping off. Is it just me or have things deteriorated since Freeserve/Wanadoo/Orange (whatever it is today) became what it is today – Orange for now?
October 4th, 2006 - 16:08
I also have been having problems with oranges mail servers, I rang up and asked when they thought the issue would be resolved and they said ‘dunno’ which is helpfull, when pushed they said could be tommorow could be in 3 months, well this is no good when you are trying to run a business.
I was just in the process of switching to BT when I thought I would just call them again and ask how long they thought the problem had been from, and he said 4-5 days ago and will be fixed in the next few days!!!
So I dont know if to switch or not, whats everybody else doing about it??
October 4th, 2006 - 18:33
How on earth is anyone supposed to run a business? I too noticed that when orange took over a few months ago I kept losing my connection, then couldn’t connect for up to an hour. And as for email, recently I haven’t received all the orders from my website, and some paypal notifications aren’t coming through. And now I’m realising that I cant send any emails to hotmail (and I think AOL) accounts. Other emails seem to be randomly blocked. Most have never been bounced back, so I dont know they havent been received. Yet I’m getting lots of bounced emails that have been sent from my account – not from me but from spammers who are ‘using’ my account (how do they do that and why are they getting away with it?)
October 11th, 2006 - 14:24
What a nightmare it all is, what on earth are we paying for, we are supposed to be getting a reliable service, and as it is, we are not told of the problem or given hope that it will be sorted out. Left to our own devices to search the internet and discover sites like this. WE are looking forward to changing our ISP ASAP!!
October 12th, 2006 - 08:16
I too have had numerous problems with Wanadoo and am unable to send emails to about 1/3rd of my clients because the IP is listed in SpamCop. I have phoned and emailed Wanadoo on numerous occasions and am continuously fobbed off. As one point, even Wanadoo’s Customer Service email account was listed by SpanCop.
October 12th, 2006 - 10:00
I got this reply when I complained that they were not doing enough to resolve the problem…
“Thank you for your email.
We are in contact with several well-recognised blacklisting
organisations, such as http://www.spamcop.net and http://www.spamhaus.org, helping us
to make sure that their subscribers do not block our mail servers. It’s
not always possible for us to keep in contact with all of these
organisations, especially the smaller providers such as http://www.spews.org,
who do not provide any contact details at all. Unfortunately there’s
nothing we can do if an organisation chooses to subscribe to this
blacklist.
Your comments however have been noted.
We are continually striving to improve this situation wherever possible
and apologise for any inconvenience.
If you have any further queries then please do not hesitate to get in
contact with us again.
Kind Regards
“
October 12th, 2006 - 10:10
Yeah. I have had the same reply. 6 times.
I have given up. My last rant at Wanadoo on the phone (this morning) ended with them advising me to sign up for a free email service and to use that! Talk about customer care.
I have asked them to provide me with my MAC code so that I can switch broadband providers. Does anyone know of a company that:
a) can switch me without any break in my broadband connectivity, and
b) that isn’t blocked by SpanCop, Sorbes, etc.
October 13th, 2006 - 20:31
What a mess this is!! First of all I found my Hotmail emails weren’t getting through, then they were being bounced now they are not getting through again. AOL & NTL quickly followed, first of all I received bounced notices, then nothing……… I changed my (Freeserve) email address (kept the node) and this seems to have fixed AOL but not the others. Orange customer care just aren’t interested!!
Unless someone has any bright solutions it looks like I will have to move to a new provder – what a pain that will be!!
October 14th, 2006 - 10:18
These problems with orange are so frustrating!! and they dont seem to be able to resolve the situation, I think its time for us to switch anybody had any problems with BT they seem to be able to switch providers without any downtime of internet connection, is this true?? I have just swapped my work phone and home phone to a £30 – 18 month contract to recive the free broadband connection, what do you reckon my chances are on cancelling the contract on the grounds that orange have not been able to provide a reliable internet connection able to send/receive email???
October 14th, 2006 - 18:06
A question for you all.
I have opened a premium hotmail account (£15.00 per annum) and imported it into Outlook. I have also made it my default email address and it seems to work alongside Oulook and shares all of the benefits of Outlook. My question is, does this overcome the Orange server problems or will my MSN/Hotmail now be fed through the same “blacklisted” Orange servers?
October 14th, 2006 - 20:07
That’ll avoid the Orange problems yes – it should send and receive everything via the hotmail servers and bypass Orange entirely.
I’m trying to find a way around the spam problem using gmail / hotmail accounts that would allow people to keep their old Orange email addresses, but unfortunately Orange don’t allow all email to be forwarded to another address automatically. Bit annoying, that.
October 17th, 2006 - 22:15
Thank the Lord I have found this forum. I thought I was going mad with the emails from AOL bouncing back, and down time on my broadband connection! It is an absolute disgrace that Orange are not trying to rectify this. Guess who will be on the phone to the “helpline” tomorrow and cancelling their contract – what a pain this is, but I have been with freeserve from the begining, and been quite happy with the service I have had – but not anymore. Bye Bye Orange….
October 19th, 2006 - 18:59
Yep, same problems as you all, I’ve asked for my MAC code too and I’m off to Plusnet, a better deal for the money it seems. Sad really, I’ve been with Freewanarange for around 8 years, forget about loyal customers, just think of the quick buck.
October 20th, 2006 - 18:59
Tom, do Plusnet offer a facility were by the user will not have any downtime of there internet connection? if so I think I will join you, I have just got mailerdaemons back from weeks ago, just to anoying how they expect us to stick around when emails dont even work is ricidulas!!
October 20th, 2006 - 20:06
I’m away from home for a couple of weeks but once I get back, I too sall be requesting my MAC code from Orange.
October 21st, 2006 - 17:24
I don’t know whether mine is a similar problem but over the last few weeks I have been receiving several returned messages daily that have “failed to deliver” when I never sent them in the first place. The Orange helpdesk keep telling me to run virus checks which I have but found nothing, then telling me to check the full e-mail headers etc etc. Now they are telling me they are escalating my problem, whatever that means. So at the moment, I am cutting and pasting the full e-mail headers to them daily until they probably get fed up. I have a freeserve account.
October 21st, 2006 - 17:38
Allan – that problem is caused by spammers faking your email address on their spam emails. Unfortunately this process is very easy for them, and impossible for you to foil. The emails they send may fail to deliver for various reasons – attached viruses, anti-spam, invalid recipient addresses etc. – and will be returned to the ‘from’ address, which unfortunately means you receive all the reports.
Of course, it’s *possible* that your computer is infected and sending them out, so you should run virus scans anyway, but this is far more likely. It happens to most people at some point.
As a matter of interest, it’s as a result of problems like this that Orange/Freeserve/Wanadoo are on the spam blacklists, causing all that the above commenters are having problems with. Modern email protocols state that these kind of bounce-back emails should never be sent, because of the exact problem you’re having. Unfortunately Orange’s mail servers are still bouncing back emails like this, and get placed onto blacklists as a result.
October 22nd, 2006 - 19:53
I have a Freeserve email account – have had it for about 8 years at least. Over recent years I’ve had to access it via Wanadoo and now Orange. At intervals, I’m locked out of the account and have to ‘retrieve’ it. Today this happened, and in order to retrieve the account I had to install a piece of software. What it didn’t say – unless in the small print somewhere unobtrusive – is that it would uninstall Outlook which I use as my main business email program, set up Outlook Express as my default email account with Orange as its pop server, and change my homepage on Internet Explorer to Orange.
I tried to contact Orange on its Technical helpline (50p per minute) supposedly available 24hours a day, 7 days a week and on three separate attempts – there was no reply.
What a dirty trick! I’ve had to restore my system in order to rectify the damage they’ve done.I think they should be blacklisted, but, luckily for them, I don’t know how to do that, but would just like to warn everyone else out there with a Freeserve account.
October 23rd, 2006 - 10:42
Just wanted to add to this discussion that my most frequent email correspondance was with freeserve subscribers. Since sometime in mid September they are rarely able to get through to me. Initially e-mails just didn’t arrive but there was no notification to the freeserve sender, and no bouncing back. Then after a few weeks all e-mails to me bounced back to them.
Occasionally the odd one gets through to me, and sometimes a resent e-mail will reach me the second day. No one seems to be accepting resonsibility for this, originally we though it must be AOL, then I read it was Orange, and now it seems that it is not just AOL which is bouncing back e-mails from frreserve/wanado/orange and so on. What I don’t understand is that we all have contracts with our ISP, and with this going on, someone somewhere is not able to fulfil their contractual obligations to us. So how is it that there is no public debate/investigation or even announcement happening- when any of my friends or myself have asked our own respective ISP it is treated as an individual problem! Who do we complain to outside of these ISP to get some acknoweldgement made, so at least we have an informed choice. Also if our ISP are not delivering our emails to us, are we legally entitled to break off 12 months contracts because they are not giving us a full service?
October 23rd, 2006 - 10:51
This is now getting extremely annoying. Trying to get a MAC code out of Wanadoo/Orange is like pulling teath. And even when I get it, almost every new broadband provider that I have spoken too tells me that I could be without broadband for a week during ths switch over. I have told Orange on numerous occasions that their mail servers are being black listed but they argue with me and tell me that they aren’t. I have combed through Orange’s website but can’t find either a real head ofice phone number (the one that they quote simply puts me in a queue to talk with customer services) or the names of the senior directors. Does anyone know?
It seems that most people here have had to find their own fixes (which says nothing about Orange’s technical support and customer suport services). All I want to do is send and receive emails from my own registered email address and website using Outlook Express. That should not be hard – and it would’t if Wanadoo/Orange got their act together and sorted out the problems that they have with SpamGuard and Sorbes. Most users don’t send emails to companies that use these spam block servers – so that don’t encounter these problems. Of my 20 or so clients, around half use SpamGuard, so I can’t send them emails. Great.
October 23rd, 2006 - 15:43
I have recently added the following to Orange Forum and sent to Watchdog
“Please check my records. I have contacted you many times now and cannot get through to anyone that seems to be able to solve my problem.
I am so tired of contacting your organisation. I believe you are more interested in selling Mobile Phones than you are in your acquisition of Wanadoo. Wanadoo and Freeserve were fine but your total disregard of me and others like me has prompted me to contact the BBC Watchdog Programme.
Your Company is simply no better than a Cowboy Plumber or Builder. In that you know there is a problem but don’t seem to know how to solve it. You are quite happy to continue ripping me and others off for their monthly fee and it is time you sorted this out. I could not operate my business in such a way as my customers would soon find someone else to supply them.
I am receiving countless bounce backs. Like many others I work from my home and not my office and I am finding that clients and suppliers are not receiving emails from me – particularly when a pdf or word attachment is attached.
I have had no problem up until the beginning of this month (October 2006) but my Google searches reveal that this problem has been in existence for some while.
I have endured many hours on the phone to you staff (some untrained) and have practiced my anger management skills which have been tested to the full.
I have been in touch with the Sun Newspaper and hopefully they are sending a reporter round to do a follow up story. Yesterday, I called the BBC and a very helpful lady suggested I mailed Watchdog (A Consumer Programme – Do you remember the dictionary definition of Consumer?) I am also contacting my local branch of Trading Standards because I feel you are in breach of your contract with me. I can cope with my Family contacts through my hotmail account but you are costing many small businesses loss of earning/profits and not to mention a great deal of unnecessary stress. I also intend to follow this up with my local MP and the Minister for Communications in Whitehall.
I have requested my MAC Code and like many others have been told that I have to do this by email. I email you and you ignore the emails.
I forward the bounce backs to Postmaster and nothing happens.
Out of Courtesy, I have requested someone from Senior Management to contact me. But again you do not afford me that Courtesy. I hope to establish a Orange User Action Group and persuade people to find a way to migrate to a service provider that will treasure our accounts and provide us with the right back up service.
I have given you plenty of opportunities to repay my loyalty to Freeserve and Wanadoo but from the lack of action or information coming forward, I can only presume the publicity I will generate will not trouble you
Another Dissatisfied Customer of Orange
Stephen Spencer
Managing Director”
Stephen Spencer
Sears Publishing Limited
9 Sears Close
Godmanchester
Cambs
PE29 2JZ
T: 01480 455123
F: 01480 455122
M: 07810 481414
sales@searsweb.com
http://www.searsweb.com
October 23rd, 2006 - 15:45
I have posted the following on the Orange Forum. It is a transcript of my communication with Orange which I have copied into Watchdog.
“Please check my records. I have contacted you many times now and cannot get through to anyone that seems to be able to solve my problem.
I am so tired of contacting your organisation. I believe you are more interested in selling Mobile Phones than you are in your acquisition of Wanadoo. Wanadoo and Freeserve were fine but your total disregard of me and others like me has prompted me to contact the BBC Watchdog Programme.
Your Company is simply no better than a Cowboy Plumber or Builder. In that you know there is a problem but don’t seem to know how to solve it. You are quite happy to continue ripping me and others off for their monthly fee and it is time you sorted this out. I could not operate my business in such a way as my customers would soon find someone else to supply them.
I am receiving countless bounce backs. Like many others I work from my home and not my office and I am finding that clients and suppliers are not receiving emails from me – particularly when a pdf or word attachment is attached.
I have had no problem up until the beginning of this month (October 2006) but my Google searches reveal that this problem has been in existence for some while.
I have endured many hours on the phone to you staff (some untrained) and have practiced my anger management skills which have been tested to the full.
I have been in touch with the Sun Newspaper and hopefully they are sending a reporter round to do a follow up story. Yesterday, I called the BBC and a very helpful lady suggested I mailed Watchdog (A Consumer Programme – Do you remember the dictionary definition of Consumer?) I am also contacting my local branch of Trading Standards because I feel you are in breach of your contract with me. I can cope with my Family contacts through my hotmail account but you are costing many small businesses loss of earning/profits and not to mention a great deal of unnecessary stress. I also intend to follow this up with my local MP and the Minister for Communications in Whitehall.
I have requested my MAC Code and like many others have been told that I have to do this by email. I email you and you ignore the emails.
I forward the bounce backs to Postmaster and nothing happens.
Out of Courtesy, I have requested someone from Senior Management to contact me. But again you do not afford me that Courtesy. I hope to establish a Orange User Action Group and persuade people to find a way to migrate to a service provider that will treasure our accounts and provide us with the right back up service.
I have given you plenty of opportunities to repay my loyalty to Freeserve and Wanadoo but from the lack of action or information coming forward, I can only presume the publicity I will generate will not trouble you
Another Dissatisfied Customer of Orange
Stephen Spencer
Managing Director”
Stephen Spencer
Sears Publishing Limited
9 Sears Close
Godmanchester
Cambs
PE29 2JZ
T: 01480 455123
F: 01480 455122
M: 07810 481414
sales@searsweb.com
http://www.searsweb.com
October 23rd, 2006 - 20:25
I’ve spent all day trying to sort this out for a friend of mine too. He has a fsnet.co.uk type email address with 2 aliases. He has been receiving tons of Failed Delivery reports that he never sent. He can also not send to hotmail, AOL etc.
I’ve checked the headers of the Delivery Reports and the annoying thing is that the reports are coming back to aliases that do not exist. What I mean is that I originally set up aliases of info@ and sales@, but these spam undeliverable reports are coming back to asrgsrgsdfg@ or similar rubbish.
This would mean that the email aliases that I set up have somehow been set to be Catch-All addresses. Does anyone know how it is possible to turn this off? At least if I could turn this off then he would not be inundated with these reports.
I’ve looked in the orange.co.uk webmail but there are few settings there. I guess they aren’t trying their best to provide too much of a service to old Freeserve or Wanadoo customers.
October 23rd, 2006 - 21:43
Stephen (Watchdog) states, “I have requested my MAC Code and like many others have been told that I have to do this by email. I email you and you ignore the emails.”
That’s very interest as I have been told the complete opposite – their reply to an email request for my MAC code was it couldn’t be done by email and I would have to phone. I haven’t pursued it yet as I am away from home, but will as soon as I’m back.
October 30th, 2006 - 12:42
Like many others I too work from home. Over the last few months connection to various email addresses has got more and more unreliable so much so that I now cannot communicate at all with several of the companies and individuals that I deal with. After contacting Orange CS and receiving a standard “it’s a fault with your own computer” type reply I filed a complaint with the ISP Association (www.ispa.org.uk) and have also submitted a report to BBC Watchdog. I telephoned Orange customer support this morning (non 0870 number = 01642 732793) and have requested a MAC (Migration Authority Code). This, I have been told, will be emailed to me within the next 5 days. Let’s hope so, and then I’m off to another ISP.
November 1st, 2006 - 19:32
Hi Pauline, have you found an ISP who can switch you over with no interuption of internet connection?
I need to go!!!
November 3rd, 2006 - 10:14
I am computer illiterate and without the help of the so called helpline, which costs a fortune, I am unable to access my freeserve account and this has happened serveral times. Do they do this so that you have to phone and they make mega bucks from idiots like me? I only use that site to take bookings for a scout camp etc and have all my contacts.I have the 01642 732795 number but that is always engaged, is there anywhere else to phone please?
November 5th, 2006 - 19:22
I am not receiving email via my pop3 freeserve.com server, and keep being asked for my user name and password.Anyone out there got a clue what has happened to freeserve as seems to have got worse since Orange took it over.
November 6th, 2006 - 10:19
Simple answer phil – it’s gone pear-shaped.
After complaining to ISPA, I received an explanation/fob-off from Orange by snail mail (probably couldn’t send email) stating that they were doing what they can about the reported problems but the real solution is out of their hands. I then tried to contact them by phone to request my MAC, as instructed by them in an earlier email. Despite being subjected to terrible canned music for what seemed hours on several occasions, I gave up and have now requested it in a reply to their snail mail communication.
November 11th, 2006 - 23:48
Thank god i’m not the only one, I have spent hours on to Orange to try and resolve a list of problems with my previously unaffected e-mail. Bounce backs from unknown addresses most from Mexico!!, locked up in and outgoing mail, none going out, password errors, you name it. Had all sorts of excuses including the fact that both my computers must have the same fault with Outlook Express and I will have to return to my supplier for a new version!!. Having now spent numerous hours speaking to the Customer help line I feel I know them personally and can clearly state they are incapable of providing any sort of reliable service, and never return promised calls from technical support. Once again a company takes over without consultation, and fails to understand the Customer, those who pay their salaries, and then hold those trying to earn a living to ransom. Anyone with any ideas how to bring these peope to task please let me know, Frustrated from Sutton
November 17th, 2006 - 14:05
I have come to the conclusion that wanadoo/freeserve are spam partners. Their email filters are useless. If you take firefox
and ad adblock plus filterset g option(left-click on the adblock bottom right) you can actually see up to 8 rogue java scripts running in the backgroud!!!!!!!Some email accounts are also treated as domains…….this too leads to complications because
a fake-mailer sending junk mail can “legitimise” the email such that junk mail that bounces off or is rejected by other servers goes straight back to a legal email address.
ie: qweqwe@hesselink.freeserve.co.uk sent as a fake email to someone can bounce back to gerald@hesselink.freeserve.co.uk who did not send it in the first place!
So what they have to do is put an end to the alias thing remove the rogue info gathering scripts and come up with
a better solution such as the whitelist system as used by http://www.bluebottle.com! I have given up on Orange no more
to be said here lets remain polite!!!
December 6th, 2006 - 12:38
Is Orange more interested in it’s mobile phone potential than to the the detriment of customers who have supported Freeserve and later Wanadoo with fsmail? It would appear so, requesting MAC codes does not seem readily available. Perhaps those wishing to migrate to another server are too critical of the shortcomings of the set up.
Is it because alias mail is being filtered back to genuine addesses and genuine mail is being blocked and lost?
Is it due to on line break downs, not just fo a few minutes but for hours, wihout an apology . Surely with broadband, the connection should not show “server unavailable”
I also find that freeserve mail is arriving also at my fsmail.
In addition Orange mail is much slower than Yahoo
December 24th, 2006 - 18:52
I dumped wanado for aol, and now I cannot send or receive email from a mate of mine at a wanado address. I think wanado blacklist anyone who leaves them.
Having said that: with wanado I received no dodgy or unsolicited emails, or spam. within days of joining aol I had fraudsters trying to get my bank details, and emails from everybody I didn’t know or want to know, plus loads of spam, mostly provided by aol. As far as I am concerned none of these ISP outfits are any good, but if you hear of a decent one, please let me know!
Geoff B.
December 25th, 2006 - 09:27
It took a lot of face-playing and complaining to the ISPA I finally got my MAC code from Orange and a free month’s connection. But, after not once losing my connection or experiencing any problems since, and hearing so many horror reports like Geoff’s, I have decided to stay with the devil I know a bit longer.
Like him, I shall be interested in hearing about a decent ISP (if there is one out there).
December 29th, 2006 - 12:22
At last, I thought that I was the only one enduring this fiasco. I have had returned emails and none delevered emails for months, then it seemed to settle down. Alas, it has begun again and I intend to change servers in the new year. Like many others I was with freeserve for years and trouble free, however the future is far from bright with orange.
December 30th, 2006 - 00:25
Freeserve emails to Virgin also are not getting through. Have a look at http://www.the-scream.co.uk/forums/t23820.html?
January 3rd, 2007 - 23:14
I too have had problems sending mail from fsnet to virgin and have had around 20 spam messages per day since about end Nov beginning Dec. Orange said not their problem, Virgin said fsnet were blacklisted!! Its shocking that orange dont seem to care and I am not computer literate enough to understand all about MAC codes and such…. I just need to be able to send emails!! Changing email addy not really an option for various reasons…. So, what do we do??
January 5th, 2007 - 22:13
I thought it would be useful to add that I get spam from these ISP’s. just today i received 5 from freeserve, and 3 from AOL. Incredibly annoying, its probably users like these, thats causing servers to black list these ISP’s.
January 6th, 2007 - 10:40
bron, I think that’s exactly what’s going on. Just recently I’ve had mail bounced back that I didn’t send. Some spammer is using everything after the @ of my address, but the way FS addresses work, it doesn’t matter what’s before the @ and the mail is seemingly accredited to me. This will no doubt result on me being blocked by more servers… and so it goes on and on and will do as long as Orange do nothing about it.
January 6th, 2007 - 11:09
Hi,
I am having destarate problems with accessing some websites (I am with wanadoo adsl broadband)
I can access sites like friends reunited, and google but not microsoft, msn, orange, bbc, symantec, hotmail, grisoft avg yaho etc….ie any of the ones I need t access to try to sort out the problem.
Do you think this could have anything to do with Orange, or have I got a virus?
I have done a ping test which was ok. I have also done a traceroute which aways times out on the third connection.
I can access email no problem through outlook express.
Any thought?
ps I’m on a library computer writing this!
January 6th, 2007 - 13:47
Yeah, Oisin.
Freeserve claim to be taking action however it doesnt appear that they are. Neither is Spambot which is currently the number 1 program.
I would say that the biggest problem is that Freeserve now refuse to release originating IP address, they consider this an infringement of privacy. If they did add the IP, like hotmail does, the IP would be banned, not the entire server. Most spamware programs trace against this information but since this information is not available, the server name gets black listed as a whole. This would also stop your address from being hijacked. FS do act on individualb cases, but its merely resolving the current issue without trying to find a solution or take preventative measures, from my perspective theyre reactive instead of proactive and as a result the situation will only get worse. You will have better luck using Hotmail, unfortunately, it appears that the free service is working better in this area.
Nicky
Have you updated the firmware on your router?
The firmware implements a portion of the network protocols, security mechanisms and administrative capabilities of the hardware device. Updating a router’s firmware can increase its performance, security and/or reliability depending on the nature of the enhancements provided. If you haven’t already done so I would suggest doing this first.
If the problem still persists check to see if you are you running any programs that may inhibit your internet usage ie. a firewall (please remember that xp also have a built in firewall as well).
Please back up any important information that you may have as a precaution.
January 24th, 2007 - 15:53
Same problems as everyone else re Orange being blocked by Hotmail. Does anyone know if I change from “fsnet.co.uk” to “orangehome.co.uk” whether this will overcome the problem. I have, of course asked Orange this question, but no reply yet, so I thought I’d ask you all. Like many others, I’ve been loyal to Orange for phones and dialup and now broadband for 10 years, so I REALLY don’t want to change my ISP. Especially as I’ve got 12 months to run on my broadband contract. Thanks for any help you can give.
January 25th, 2007 - 11:01
Hi Maggie,
I added a new dialup account on Orange Pay as you go, and it works fine, although on this machine I am still having big problems viewing web pages!
I know that if Virgin are blocking your emails the recipient has to go to their virgin account online, and set your email address as a “wanted one” or a friend- this worked for my sister.
Bron: I will try updating the firmware Bron- does this mean the driver? Or how else do I do it?
In despair, and because this computer had other problems we have actually bought a new computer with XP. Until today, itt worked fine and I had no problem with the account.
Today (possibly because I received a notification of a message from this site(or am I being cynical?) Orange won’t let me log in to mail or the inernet!
So I am on dial up on the old computer.
I dispair!
January 27th, 2007 - 10:14
All, an interesting forum.
However the issues you are experiencing (emails fail to get delivered etc) can happen to any ISP.
Anyone (even Joe Public) can go to any of the three major spam registers on the Internet and type in the email server name or its IP address and ‘stop’ email from that server for a period of time until the ISP wakes up an realises this is happening (or enough people call into complain or leave).
You can easily see the email server names and their IP addresses by looking at the headers in incoming emails so anyone can easily stop an ISP’s email.
Yes, Orange bounces back undelivered and spam messages and that is ludicrous because it just adds to the problem and Orange also supports wildcards in its email addresses which actually encourages spammers but irrespective of ISP the issue persists.
It is rather sad in this day and age that someone chose to launch spam services completely open to Joe Public to abuse without thinking about the possible consequences of those actions.
I see Orange’s latest wheeze is to switch your PC off and on again (actually I would say the router Orange but you are close) to see if that will use a different email server, one that is not currently in the spam lists. Your such a laugh Orange.
Have fun!
January 28th, 2007 - 20:03
May I suggest that anyone with a problem with Orange / Wanadoo / Freeserve contact the following editors of magazines:
Pc Pro Magazine : editor@pcpro.co.uk
Computer Shopper: paul@computershopper.co.uk
Computer Buyer: editor.computerbuyer@dennis.co.uk
MacUser: mailbox@macuser.co.uk
Custom PC: gareth@custompc.co.uk
All of these magazines are interested in ISP poor service issues and regularly embaress then enough to get some changes made. It was PC Pro that first highlighted the problem with the Talk Talk ISP. Other media such as TC and radio often pickup on stories from these publishers.
Lets get the ball rolling for some payback!
Chris
January 29th, 2007 - 06:40
We have problems since moving to ‘free’ Orange Broadband that are intermittant. Incoming emails and replies seem OK; sometimes simple outgoing emails will fail as will outgoing email to multiple addresses that are delivered to some but not others; outgoing emails to Hotmail accounts frequently fail. Our email host is Easily. When we tested the above scenarios using a Plusnet based email address they seem to work!
January 29th, 2007 - 08:24
Hello Roger
See my post on Jan 27th and Chris’ on Jan 28th.
A first step is to get Orange to stop auto-bouncing emails and to stop supporting wildcard email addresses.
As long as spam services exist and anyone can enter any ISP’s server names and IP addresses into them then these problems will occur.
Regards
Ralph
February 2nd, 2007 - 09:08
Hi all, remember, when you pay nothing for something, nothing is what its worth.
February 2nd, 2007 - 09:55
Excuse me!!!?
I am not on a free orange that came with a mobile phone.
I am a normal Freeserve then Wanadoo then forciboly changed to Orange. So I actually pay good money for my connection. Service has downgraded apppalingly since it became Orange- probably because I am subsidising the connections for the mobile phone subscribers.
February 2nd, 2007 - 10:32
Hi Nicky,
I am in the same position as you, there were no problems with freeserve or as I recall wanadoo… but now with orange its the pits… Emails going astray all over the place and not only to virgin addresses although the problem is slightly better since the recipient called virgin and gave them my fsnet address… more are now getting through but not all… Havinbg problems emailing hotmail addresses also… its a joke to be honest and is casuing no end of problems because I have no idea who is receiving what… Orange need to take some responsibility and sort this mess out!!
February 2nd, 2007 - 12:14
At this rate Orange will have no customers left, I have resorted to sending my emails using an old dial-up Tiscali account, ridiculas!! how Orange cannot sort this problem out.
February 13th, 2007 - 13:30
I’ve updated this post with details of a workaround that doesn’t involve changing email address. Please let me know if you try it…
February 13th, 2007 - 15:16
Orange Cutomer – For the last month at least I have been completely innundated with bounce back mail / undelivered mail that I have not sent. On top of the intermitent connection problems the constantly busy call center I have had enough. I know that other ISP are experiencing similar problems but I would be sincerely greatful if someone could tell me that there is light at the end of the tunnel and there is an ISP out there thats getting it right or at least a bit better that Orange.
February 15th, 2007 - 13:20
I’m now in the position where I recommend cheap but helpful and friendly and extremely well established/backed http://www.names.co.uk/ – was recommended by a friend last year when I was in the position to switch, and have never looked back.
March 26th, 2007 - 02:03
I was with Wanadoo broadband when it turned Orange, so I certainly haven’t been getting any ‘free’ service.
I’ve also been discovering that emails to Hotmail etc. just don’t get through. They don’t bounce, they don’t turn up, nothing at all.
Furthermore, the maximum number of recipients per outgoing email has been lowered from around 70 (annoying) to 20 (hair-tearingly frustrating). I rang them up to find out why, and someone from some call-centre in India told me ‘it is because of spam. This is our policy.’ Surely it’s obvious that restricting the ability of bona-fide paid-up loyal customer to send emails out for, say, business purposes (as in my case, to a list of around 400 people who have all agreed to receive emails from me and each of whom, upon requesting to be removed from my list, would receive no more mails from me) is no solution whatsoever. The correct solution, in my opinion, is to move to a culture of identity verifiability and digital signatures, so that your emails can be traced back to you. (Although that still doesn’t help a great deal against viruses that hijack your personal email.)
To get round these problems, I’ve tried setting up a local SMTP server on my Mac. Unfortunately, they block all my mail. Not only do they block the usual port 25 from my machine, but it seems that using a different port doesn’t help because they’ve blocked all mail traffic that hasn’t authenticated with their server. I can sort of understand that this is ‘for security’, but it locks all their customers into using their SMTP server no matter how incompetently they manage it, and I believe makes it impossible to use even a subscription-based external SMTP service (which is perfectly legitimate). (Though then I don’t quite understand how the gmail or ‘hotmail premium’ fixes worked…)
I’ve just moved house, and am having the connection moved over. They claim it takes 15 working days, which they blame on BT. For all I know, that might be true (does anyone have experience with moving house with other broadband providers?), however I asked them for a number for dial-up access to use in the meantime, which they did. Of course I should have checked the number, but the horrifying truth of their incompetence never occurred to me. I have just realised (after using the dial-up for some 50 hours or so) that it’s not a free number as you would expect with ‘Anytime’, but their ‘Pay-as-you-go’ number. Surely if I’m paying more for Broadband that I can’t use than I would be paying for ‘Anytime’, I should have the Anytime service AT LEAST! As a bare minimum! As a ‘sorry we’re so crap, but it won’t be too bad if you use this free number while you pay for broadband you can’t use’. But apparently not. It seems I have to pay through the nose to continue to use my account.
Naturally I will be changing provider as soon as I can. I wouldn’t mind so much them just being utterly incompetent, because then I could find ways around the problems myself. But the restrictions they impose on their loyal paying customers are intolerable.
regards,
James
(sorry about ranting a bit!)
April 5th, 2007 - 20:33
Found you via google alond with orange problems which i used as the web address.
I am unable to receive my emails. It is driving me nuts. I seem to receive all the spam emails that get sent to my orange email address but for some reason i am unable to send any emails. Ive had different errors and have called orange and waited 30-40minutes on the telephone to end up speaking to someone 5000 miles away that does not even know what smtp server means. Its disgraceful. i’m going to look at your workaround now. I am on a friends computer because mine is too slow – orange again. hopefully ill get something sorted. Thank you to you guys for letting me have a rant.
May 9th, 2007 - 11:31
Problems with Speedtouch330 (old round ones).
If Orange tell you that if there are two green lights the ADSL modem is OK. This is not always the case!!
Problem – Cannot get to all websites – Not even the Orange home page. But can get to sub pages.
Ping tests OK. Email OK.
Having spent 2 weeks talking to Gupta in India (Orange help line), Engineers in the Uk etc, we found
that by changing the Speedtouch 330 for the newer version (black square one), we are back with a full service.
It seems that the Orange tech people haven’t a clue, and reluctant to give out replacement ADSL modems.
May 9th, 2007 - 11:42
Orange Mail problems (just recently).
Failed to send mail via Outlook Express (pop error)
Reads mail OK
Fixed problem – Change mail server from – pop.wanadoo.co.uk to pop.orangehome.co.uk
also change smtp – smtp.wanadoo.co.uk to smtp.orangehome.co.uk
Pity Orange haven’t E-mail everyone to warn of the change!!
P.s. I’m a service Guy – and not daft enough to go with a ISP like ORANGE!!
May 9th, 2007 - 13:23
This is the error message I get every time I try to send:
Your server has unexpectedly terminated the connection. Possible causes for this include server problems, network problems, or a long period of inactivity. Subject ‘test’, Account: ‘Email’, Server: ‘smtp.orangehome.co.uk’, Protocol: SMTP, Port: 25, Secure(SSL): No, Socket Error: 10053, Error Number: 0x800CCC0F
9 times out of 10 emails won’t send, but occasionally they do go. I have experimented with changing my sender address (now I am on Vista Windows mail puts all the accounts together) and occasionally this helps. Also if I unplug and replug the speedtouch it sometimes helps.
ps I am receiving mail ok now I have been on webmail and deleted 5000 odd spam emails to part spoof addresses using the second half of my freeserve address. eg xyz@myaddress.co.uk
June 21st, 2007 - 18:24
Hey A Cornick, thanks for that tip (post 62)
Why on earth could orange email their users to tell us that instead of us having to trawl the net to find the answer?
July 9th, 2007 - 12:33
Even changing to orangehome.co.uk etc doesn’t repair the outlook Express sending of emails.
Time to move on from Orange methinks
November 8th, 2008 - 12:07
I have been trying to find out why I can’t access my own e-mails, which was fine until recently when all of a sudden my account is currently unavailable but when I try to contact someone from orange everything goes back to me putting my mobile phone details in, when I am not with orange mobile phones, I have never had to do this before so why start now, I started my account with freeserve and then it changed to wanadoo and then to orange all with no problems and then suddenly I have to have a orange mobile phone number. Why?
April 21st, 2010 - 06:35
I am not receiving emails from a freeserve address which is very annoying as this correspondence involves family problems. What can I do about this?
April 21st, 2010 - 12:04
If they’re getting marked as spam by your email provider, you could try adding the address to a ‘white-list’. Or contact your provider to see if they can shed any light on the problem.