User Profile
hepcat72
Transmission Trainee
Joined 3 years ago
User Widgets
Contribuciones
Re: Why is T-Mobile mail-to-SMS gateway sporadically blocking GMail?
James Britt wrote: Philammon wrote: I've been having the same problem here. I have our security cameras user the gateway to text images from the motion detection feature of BlueIris. Since about 4 days ago these texts have been sporadically rejected, but some get through after Gmail retires. If it is a new spam filter it could be due to the pattern, so it may be worth trying to mix up the content. It's not the pattern. Same content, on different days or times, might get through, or mightblocked, it's all pretty arbitrary. GMail keeps re-sending a messages that getrejected (I think for up to 4 days). SoI will sometimes get a text on time, but most other times a text will show up hours later, or a day later, 2 days later. Or never. My guess is that the Amazon service (Cloudfront) T-Mobile is using to control spam is poorly configured, uses multiple servers, and some of those servers block things for no real reason, while others let the messages through, It's basically a crap shoot, and nobody at T-Mobile cares about this. My messages eventually got completely blocked. The emails bounced back with the error "sender rejected". Imade multiple calls to both Speint and T-Mobile about this. Most of the support people are clueless about this, but I finally got a tier 2 guy named Dan who knew what was going on. He created a ticket with CloudMark. CloudMark responded that "users" reported my email as a source of spam, which I know was BS because I created that email address to exclusively use email-to-text to *only* send messages to myself. And it wasn't hacked. They un-black-listed my email address and messages resumed. But they couldn't guarantee it wouldn't get blacklisted again. That was about 2 weeks worth of messages blocked. The thing that tells me that their implementation is poor is that a customer has no way to know if they never received a legitimate message (unless they were sending it to themselves). So I submitted a complaint to the FCC, whose new requirements implemented this year requiring providers to address spam started all this. I have no problem with fighting spam. It's the implementation that is the problem. Customers should have a spam box and the ability to whitelist senders.3Visto3likes0ComentariosRe: 421 4.2.0 sender rejected AUP#SNDR
I'm seriously thinking about it. I've spent numerous hours with support on this. And even if they do fix the problem, I've noted that since sometime maybe around late March, my messages would be randomly delayed, sometimes over 24 hours. It's sad, because my first cell phone was with T-Mobile, and I remember back then the support was excellent - a gold standard by which I've judged subsequent support experiences…I ended up moving to Sprint a long time ago for their "Unlimited Everything" plan. I'd noted that the support with Sprint wasn't that great, but now that it's back to T-Mobile, it's *loads* worse. Honestly, the path of least resistance is to switch my notifications to discord, but that just seems wrong. I *pay* for messaging and I'm supposed to get "support" if it's not working, so I feel like changing providers simply out of disgust for what they're putting me through. I get that the merging of networks is rough, so I'm trying to be tolerant, but if they're not going to the effort to make the transition smooth for their customers, then it does not speak well for them.10Visto3likes0ComentariosRe: 421 4.2.0 sender rejected AUP#SNDR
I learned via an SMS service called RingCentralthat the spam filtering that was blocking my legitimate messages is due to new FCC rules about mobile carriers and spam filtering. So I just submitted an FCC complaint at:https://consumercomplaints.fcc.gov/hc/en-us/requests/new?ticket_form_id=39744 that addresses what I believe to be an unintended side-effect: blocking of legitimate messages with little recourse for consumers. I suggest others facing these same issues should also submit their own complaints. Otherwise, we're subject to arbitrary blocking of our own sent messages and messages we want to receive. Here's the content: I have a series of home automations that use my mobile carrier's email-to-text feature to notify me when something notable happens in my home. These messages can include a security camera alert, motion alerts, moisture alarms, smoke detector alerts, etc., among other mundane messages. The average number of messages I receive per day using that feature is roughly 10 messages and I do not use it to send messages to anyone else. I set up an email account on gmail to be used exclusively for this purpose. I have used this method of messaging for years without issue until April/May of 2022. On Tuesday July 19th, my home automation messages completely stopped. It took me many calls to tech support at both Sprint (my original carrier) and T-Mobile before the block on my email account was lifted. It took 2 weeks to resolve and they told me there are no guarantees it wouldn't get blocked again. In talking with the last tech support guy who was able to identify and (temporarily) resolve the problem, I learned a few things: 1. T-Mobile contracts with a third party (a company called CloudMark) to perform spam filtering. 2. There is no way for a customer to directly request to CloudMark that a block on an email address to be lifted. 3. Tech support personnel are largely unaware of the spam filtering in use (which is why it took so many separate interactions and 2 weeks to resolve my issue). 4. Recipients have no way of knowing if a legitimate message sent to them has been spam filtered. (There's no way to for example, check a spam folder.) 5. The random message delivery delays (which can be in excess of 24 hours) are due to the spam filtering mechanism. This causes messages to arrive in a non-chronological order and can delay messages where timeliness is critical (e.g. my basement is flooding). I have thoroughly researched this issue over the past 2 weeks and when considering whether or not to change carriers, I discovered that this is an issue with other carriers as well (e.g., Verizon) and is a fairly recent issue. I have interacted with a number of other people in forums who experienced the same problems as me. I think users should have the right to whitelist messages sent to themselves or the senders as "not spam", because this spam filtering is blocking legitimate messages. Users should have the right to request compensation for failure to deliver messages. Users should also have the right to opt out of spam filtering for messages sent to them. There needs to be transparency all-around. Spam should be handled the same way as email providers do: create a spam box and give users controls to fine-tune their spam filtering. At the very least, if the usage of email-to-text features are allowed to be limited by carriers or messages filtered without customers' knowledge or consent, users should be informed as to those limitations, such as number of recipients and/or messages allowed within a time window, the delays they can expect to experience in delivery, and what indicators are used to block either their own outgoing messages or messages sent to them. I tried to look up and requested those guidelines from T-Mobile and they had no information to offer that would enable me to avoid getting my email account blocked. Furthermore, there should be honesty. The tech support person I spoke with claimed that Cloudmark said that other users identified my email account as a source of spam, despite the fact that I have NEVER sent a message from that account to anyone other than myself and there is zero evidence my account was hacked or that I have any other recipients in my sent mailbox other than myself. And under the additional info, I entered: This isn't about receiving an unwanted text - it's about not receiving a wanted text, but the categories provided don't account for this circumstance - please update your form to address mobile carriers blocking legitimate messages under the guise of spam filtering.0Visto2likes0ComentariosRe: Why is T-Mobile mail-to-SMS gateway sporadically blocking GMail?
Only 4 days ago? Mine started getting randomly delayed around the end of April. Changing the message content makes no difference. I sendon average 10-12 different messages a day this way. Perhaps 1 or 2 in 10 messages in my experience is significantly delayed. About maybe a week or so ago, I worked around this issue by writing an applescript that sends SMS messages via the messages app instead of the email to text service. No more delays. No more blocks. The only concern I have with it is that it likely requires my phone has a data or WiFi connection, which somewhat defeats the purpose, but my understanding is that SMS messages will soon require a data connection anyway since the 2G network infrastructure is being decommissioned.7Visto1like0ComentariosRe: Why is T-Mobile mail-to-SMS gateway sporadically blocking GMail?
You're still in the random delay phase. All my email-to-sms messages have been completely blocked for nearly 2 weeks now. And they were getting randomly delayed since April. I'm a Sprint customer, and this started before I even installed the T-Mobile SIM card on May 31st. I do the same as you. My raspberry pi sends me messages from my automations. I was just about to switch to Verizon because support has been less than helpful, but I decided to search for people on Verizon with the same problem…and they have it too! My hunch is that it's spam filtering from a third party. T-mobile uses Cloudfilter and Verizon uses cloudmark. Both run on Amazon web services. I suspect it's triggered by a spam-like usage pattern or something. But I'm just guessing really. My wife also recently reported that she's not receiving picture messages a friend is sending her, but it's a group thread, so she can see that people are commenting on the pictures. I suspect it's the same root problem, but all I can do is guess since the support people are clueless.5Visto1like0ComentariosRe: How to fix significant delays of messages sent using the email to SMS service?
James Britt wrote: I don't have a Mac to work around this, and that shouldn'teven have to be considered. T-Mobile has outsourced "spam" filtering to some 3rd-party and washed their hands of it. It's as if the service now doesn't even exist. I feel ya and completely agree. Although part of it is that as of sometime this year, mobile providers are required by law (FCC regs) to perform spam filtering of SMS messages, and their email-to-text service is a major source of spam. They've just implemented it extremely poorly. Isn't there some PC texting app that can be scripted the way you can write an applescript for any mac app? If not, there do exist services out there for SMS messaging. Unfortunately, to get around the same problem, they now have to pay the mobile provider(s), and those costs are passed on to their users. I had looked into a few of them before writing the applescript solution. However, there are lots of ways to send messages (that require a data connection), and pretty soon, there will be no 2G network and every SMS message will require a data connection moving forward, so there will no longer be a benefit to trying to get automated SMS messagesto work. While I was working out the SMS issue, I set up a discord server to send my automation messages, but there are dozens of other solutions and they don't cost a penny. Plus, they're more feature-rich. E.g., you could mute certain types of messages or direct different messages to different channels and individually mute those channels, etc. I'm thinking that I may refine my messaging system to use a mix, and put less important messages in muted channels… At the same time, I have considered demanding a discount from TMo since they're blocking my legitimate messages that I essentially pay for. Also, I recommendsending feedback to the FCC.9Visto1like0ComentariosRe: 421 4.2.0 sender rejected AUP#SNDR
I just checked out the Verizon plans. Much pricier than what I pay currently for whatever my plan is called now. When I originally signed up, it was called "Unlimited Everything". But…the verizon plan does come with Hulu and Disney+. We were thinking about subscribing to Hulu anyway...5Visto1like0ComentariosRe: @tmomail Rejecting messages with internal error
nwerle wrote: still not working stupid tmobile workers It's not going to fix itself. You have to have them create a ticket with CloudMark to unblock the email address you're sending from. Or you can start using the script I wrote that works around the issue. I've posted it in other threads, but apparently not this one.6Visto1like0Comentarios