Virgin blocking 'unauthenticated' email accounts

bobjeffries · 04-10-2011, 15:19

I have been a Virgin (or NTLworld) user for years and have used Outlook Express and Windows Live Mail successfully. My work requires me to send email from my home PC, but with different originating addresses (for people to reply) with a non-virgin domain. For example, I have a domain in my name ending in .co.uk - I have been able to set up an account in my email client with 'whatever@mydomain.co.uk' as the address and I have been able to send emails which appear to the recipient as coming from mydomain. This has worked well under Windows XP & O/Express and Windows7 and Windows Live Mail. Replies are received without problem, as my domain registration company automatically forward them to my ntlworld account.

Since 02/10/2011 Virgin have implemented a change (which they deny) that requires outgoing emails to be 'authenticated'. One of the Virgin support team explained how to amend the email account to put a tick in the relevant box. This allows the emails to be sent, but changes the originating address to me Virgin (actually ntlworld) address.

Virgin Support says they do not support Windows Live Mail and do not seem to care that this problem is causing me a serious headache.

If anyone has any suggestions on how to work around this issue or persuade Virgin to reopen the sending of unauthenticated email accounts - I would be grateful for their help.

BenMcr · 04-10-2011, 15:29

This is change that Virgin have been bringing in for all @ntlworld.com email customers since the summer and already applies to customers with @virginmedia.com addresses (it will also be applied to @Blueyonder.co.uk and @virgin.net customers)

It is not something Virgin will reverse as it's part of the Google SMTP service that Virgin use - all third party addressess have to be registered for SPAM relay prevention purposes

I'm not sure why the support staff you spoke to denied Virgin are doing this. They were all briefed on it when it started.

The instructions to register third party email addresses is here but on some e-mail programs such as Outlook this then shows as 'youremail@ ntlworld.com on behalf on youremail @ youdomain.com'

The only way around it is to use your domain host SMTP service

bobjeffries · 04-10-2011, 17:16

Firstly, thanks for the quick reply - it's helpful to know someone has the answer. Unfortunately it doesn't inspire confidence in Virgin/NTL when changes like this are made with no apparent regard to the subscriber's needs. I will try the option to use the domain supplier's SMPT, but that is not an entirely satisfactory solution, as one of the 'ghost' email accounts I use relates to my employee so I can send emails when working from home, and their SMPT supplier checks the incoming mail is from a recognised IP address.

As it seems Virgin cannot replace this service (which has been so useful) - is it not possible to find an alternative solution. As I said I can send emails by clicking the box for sending emails for 'My server requires authentication' option and entering my account details. The problem this creates is the message then appears to the recipient that it is from my NTLWORLD address - surely something could be done to ensure the transmitted message uses the 'Reply address' from the email account setup.

---------- Post added at 17:16 ---------- Previous post was at 17:04 ----------

To BenMcr,
I've just re-read your email and previously missed the bit about setting up third party addresses. This looks like the solution and I will try it out. If it works as it seems my problem is solved and the solution is something the virgin support need to be made aware of. In fact the 2nd person with whom I spoke said she was also unable to send emails from her home PC using Windows Live Mail and was not aware of the 'authentication' boxes that need to be checked.
Thanks again.

bobjeffries · 05-10-2011, 09:35

I have now followed the instructions given by BenMcr and the link included in his answer - this has worked successfully using Windows Live Mail and Windows 7. My thanks to Ben for solving this problem.

BenMcr · 05-10-2011, 10:37

I would point out that as part of the swap over process, where Virgin can identify the VM email account and customer that is using the 3rd party email address they have been sending out those instructions to the VM email address before the customers have been changed over

For security and DPA reasons they obviously can't e-mail the 3rd party address

nffc · 23-11-2011, 20:56

*bump*

Another workaround if you have a gmail account is to go into your gmail account settings, and add an alternative email address, click the link they will email that address to verify it, and then you can send from that email address as though you were using gmail as a normal SMTP server. Do this for every email you send from (provided, of course, that you can't (or don't want to) use SMTP service they provide, set the SMTP server settings to the gmail ones (use SSL, with your gmail user/pass) and it will work

without using smtp.virginmedia.com at all

BenMcr · 23-11-2011, 22:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by nffc

*bump*

Another workaround if you have a gmail account is to go into your gmail account settings, and add an alternative email address, click the link they will email that address to verify it, and then you can send from that email address as though you were using gmail as a normal SMTP server. Do this for every email you send from (provided, of course, that you can't (or don't want to) use SMTP service they provide, set the SMTP server settings to the gmail ones (use SSL, with your gmail user/pass) and it will work

without using smtp.virginmedia.com at all

That's not a workaround though. Virgin Media Mail uses Google Apps which is based on Gmail. So both treat 3rd party email addresses exactly the same