Being an Android owner I have a Gmail account. Checking my spambox the other day I found this message:

Dear Google Wallet user,

To ensure that you're able to access all of the Google Wallet services and features available in your area, we need you to confirm your home address where you reside. Please visit your Google Wallet account settings page and update your information to ensure continued access to all the features of your Google Wallet account.

For more information, please visit our Help Centre: http://support.google.com/wallet/bin/answer.py?answer=2560589

Sincerely, The Google Wallet Team

You have received this mandatory email service announcement to update you about important changes to your Google Wallet account. Please do not reply to this email. Mail sent to this address cannot be answered.

On the face of it a simple phish - Google's filter obviously thaught so, but it is in fact a genuine e-mail sent by Google thenselves. Their own SPF and DKIM tests resulted in a pass, as revealed in the headers. The link is to https://wallet.google.com, so that is also genuine. So if you receive spam, be sure to go through it, you never know what you might find!

UPDATE 17th June: Our server just rejected a spam sent via a Yahoo! server from <bigbiglottocompany@gmail.com>.

You do wonder sometimes. Why on earth are Yahoo! sending SPAM on behalf of these users of other webmail services: hotmail.fr, hotmail.com, gmail.com, rediffmail.com, live.com.

These are sender domains strained from our recent logs and are associated with connections from yahoo.com servers.

We regularly send SPAM complaints to the AOL postmaster; prompted by e-mails such as this, sent by imr-ma06.mx.aol.comat 08:27GMT today:

Subject: IRREVOCABLE PAYMENT RELEASE ORDER VIA ATM CARD.

Attn: This is to officially inform you that your (ATM Card Pin number ) is : ****-****-****-3337) has been accredited in your favor. Your Personal Identification Number is 8221. The ATM Card Value is US$5,500,000.00. You are advice to contact me with the following information: Name, Address, Phone, Age, Sex, and Occupation. for more details, contact me via email (rev.murrayrichard48@ovi.com).

Thank you,

Rev.Murray Richard

ATM Logistics Unit (ICB)

The reputation, according to AOL, of the server in question is detiorating steadily (see picture), yet this prticular server relays no mail. All that is sent are ARF formatted reports about messages similar to the above.

Sometime recently Hotmail's servers have decided to block the server belonging to the Cotswold Canals Trust. The reason and precise date of blocking is impossible to determine, the server sends very little traffic into Hotmail, under 500 mails per month at present.

This server sends the members' newsletter every few weeks (there were 18 editions in 2011), so Hotmail subscribers will not be receiving these until the block is lifted.

Affected domains are: hotmail.*, msn.com, live.*.

Traffic from the webshop is temporarily being routed via another machine so these will reach their destination. The boilerplate reply from Hotmail:

Your IP was blocked by Windows Live Hotmail because the majority of all the email that you send has been judged to be spam by our internal filtering system.

The Spaminess or otherwise can be assessed by visiting the Newsletter Archive.

UPDATE: 25th May - We are now using an alternate server, so subscribers will again receive their newsletters. Subscribers should check their Junk folder, for any non-spam mails.

UPDATE: 3rd November - We are now back using the Cotswold Canals Trust server, as the block has been lifted (some time ago possibly) by our friends at Hotmail.

From around 13:36GMT GlobalNet's (AKAMadasafish) servers have been rejecting forwarded mail:

2010-12-23 15:34:12 1PVlid-0001P6-CG ** REDACTED@@globalnet.co.uk <REDACTED@@example.com> R=nsNaR T=ST: SMTP error from remote mail server after initial connection: host mx-ironport.core.plus.net [84.92.1.97]: 554-mx.ptn-ipin02.plus.net 554 Your access to this mail system has been rejected due to the sending MTA's poor reputation. If you believe that this failure is in error, please contact the intended recipient via alternate means.

Unsure why at present, the server is not on any blocklists. The eggheads at Ironport have decided, for reasons only known to them, that one of our servers has a "Poor" reputation. This is based on around two weeks of mail (just a few dozen), none of which were SPAM, as our client confirms. We've been in business for over 13 years BTW.

Solution - we are no longer forwarding mail into PlusNet. Instead we've just finished setting up our affected clients with their very own POP3 mailboxes.