Thanks for your concern, it's for money!
If anyone is interested here's the story as it currently stands:
My ISP is now investigating. My email address that I use for
e-printerhelp is not the email address I actually send or ultimately
receive from. The mvps(dot)org account is a free perk I get for being a
Microsoft MVP. I use it in case I change my ISP at some point, because
in the past when I did so, people would lose me until my new address got
well publicized. In fact, I still get people complaining that they
tried may old address and it bounced (and those addresses have been out
of serve for at least 5 years). So, all email goes through the
mvps(dot)org account and is automatically forwarded to my ISP account.
What is known is that private email and the Epson Yahoo mail which both
go to that same ISP mailbox was bouncing at their server, and I was
lucky to receive a couple of those bounced message forwarded to me from
people when the mailbox started to accept email again, and the problem
is definitely a block at my ISP mailbox. The mvps(dot)org "Postmaster"
indicated 38 attempts to forward on email before it gave up.
So, what we know at this point is the bounce was generated at my ISP. I
even sent an email to myself using another mailbox and it also bounced
during one of those period, so that's confirmed.
The other clue is when my mailbox started working again, I received
another postmaster generated message from another ISP which indicated an
email I had sent was bounced on a "policy-related" issue (probably a
spam filter). They did not return the message, only the subject and the
email was not sent by me. It had a subject of "Pharmacy Online March
70% OFF". I've received these myself, since I don't filter any spam.
That email was sent to an address that started with "eprintable".
Apparently, there are worms that start with the address they are mailing
from as the route name, and then use dictionary words to morph the
address and send those emails out. Obviously, that makes for a lot of
nonsense addresses which bounce, but some also get though. I guess one
way to avoid this is to use an email address that doesn't use any
dictionary words.
Now, here is where it gets interesting to those of us who have too much
time on their hands (ho-ho)... I placed the full subject phrase in
quotes into Google, and got several hits of websites that post captures
of spam emails, and determined the company name. I also was able to
check the url link in their spam, and went to their website, which is an
on-line pharmacy (obviously). I then went to their posted spam policy,
where they make all the usual claims that they do not support
unsolicited email (spam) and that they expect all their distributors to
use an opt-in service, and that those who do not will be (eventually,
after like 6 warnings) be terminated.
I then went to their "spam complaints" section, and told them basically
what happened to date, and they claim on their website that they are
very proactive about these matters and will respond to all claims within
a day. I also told them I will be placing a formal complaint to their
ISP and to law enforcement once it is verified it has anything to do
with them. It may just be a coincidence that I received that bounced
email, and the actual source of the problem may be another source.
Of course, they didn't get back to me (yet). Now, its up to the experts
at my ISP abuse division to figure this all out. They currently don't
agree what exactly happened, and each level seems to have access to
different information in terms of their server traffic, reminding me of
the classic three blind men and the elephant story, or why one should
never see a surgeon about medical symptoms, because to a hammer,
everything is a nail (how about that for mixed metaphors). So, I will
let the geniuses there to try to figure this out, since it definitely is
NOT my department.
Anyway, I know this is long winded, and very off topic, but perhaps my
experience might help someone else with similar problems.
Art
