Is postmaster@hotmail.com a spammer?

Discussion in 'Technology' started by Midorit, Jun 6, 2007.

  1. Midorit

    Midorit Member

    Dec 20, 2004
    Tokyo
    Yesterday afternoon I sent an e-mail with some attachments from my gmail account to a friend's hotmail account.Today I noticed an e-mail in Spam section of my account with a title "Delivery Status Notification (Failure)".

    The e-mail says the delivery to my friend's account failed as either the size my mail was too big or her account was full.

    There seems to be only a couple of minutes between my sending of the e-mail and the latter being generated.And it has my friend's address correct.There seems to be nothing dodgy about it.

    So why did it end up in Spam section?My gmail account's spam filter is set at default level.

    I rarely check my Spam section so I'd like to be notified if my e-mail bounces.At the same time if it is a spam,I obviously don't want to add postmaster@hotmail.com to my safe list.

    Can someone help?

    Thanks in advance.
     
  2. StiltonFC

    StiltonFC He said to only look up -- Guster

    Mar 18, 2007
    SoCal
    Club:
    Liverpool FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    i think that the definitive answer to the question is that you can never be sure of anything. but, my experience with MS/hotmail leads me to believe that the immediacy of the response is directly related to the fact that the "postmaster" is an electronic filter that knows all, tells all. the postmaster can instantaneously determine whether the email you sent fits the limits of the recipient's receptacle.

    as to why the failure notice is flagged as spam has mostly to do with the specificity of gmail and the issue of "safe lists". more than this i cannot tell you. you would have to ask Googledom what the default setting for gmail spam is specifically designed to filter out.

    pax tecum
     
  3. Foosinho

    Foosinho New Member

    Jan 11, 1999
    New Albany, OH
    Club:
    Columbus Crew
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    "Postmaster" mail is sent from the hotmail mail server. Your message was undeliverable, and thus not delivered, and you were notified of that fact.

    "Spam" is unsolicited commercial email. This message is not trying to sell you anything. As for why your spam filter got a false positive... who knows. Content filtering is a science, but it's not exact. I'm sure I've had messages wrongly sent to the bit bucket.
     
  4. That Phat Hat

    That Phat Hat Member+

    Nov 14, 2002
    Just Barely Outside the Beltway
    Club:
    Liverpool FC
    Nat'l Team:
    Japan
    Well, it looks like the address is a legit postmaster, but people have had problems with duplicate messages, so they've marked it as spam.

    Also, your friend is still using Hotmail?
     
  5. Midorit

    Midorit Member

    Dec 20, 2004
    Tokyo
    Thanks!

    I added the address to my safe list.

    It's,as far as I know,the first time I got a false positive with gmail spam filter so I was very uncertain as to what was going on...
     
  6. fdp

    fdp Red Card

    Oct 24, 2001
    Wow!

    The exact same thing that you described above just happened to me a few minutes ago...

    When I saw the title of the thread I got scared because I already opened the message from the postermaster@hotmail.com
     
  7. Foosinho

    Foosinho New Member

    Jan 11, 1999
    New Albany, OH
    Club:
    Columbus Crew
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    OK, so it's important to note that anything in your inbox could be spam. It is possible to "spoof" the address email is being sent from, and a spammer (or worse) could claim to be sending email from "postmaster@hotmail.com".

    The key to figuring it out is a) does the subject line make sense, and b) is it reasonable for me to be getting a message from this person. "Postmaster" emails could be sent any time there is a delivery problem with an email you have sent out. For example, if you sent an email to someone with a GMail account and you get an email from "postmaster@gmail.com" within a few days (at most), they are probably related (and your original message was likely undelivered).

    As a rule of thumb, you should generally read "postmaster" emails unless you haven't sent an email to that domain recently.

    My wife's problem is she doesn't understand the emails from "postmaster". I always have to translate into non-Techie. But it's really not that complicated!
     
  8. Midorit

    Midorit Member

    Dec 20, 2004
    Tokyo
    I actually read a query by a web user who received a spoof e-mail that pretended to come from postmaster@hotmail.com.

    My question is,if a user like the above reports the mail as a "spam",which address goes into a blacklist?Postmaster@hotmail.com or the actual sender?

    I was wondering why the genuine mail about delivery failure ended up in my Spam section and that may explain???
     

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