Firetrust Support Forums

is there a way to have MW automatically bounce blacklisted emails upon receipt?
it seems such an obvious setting/feature to have.

Andromeda_girl, don't bounce mail, except maybe your mother-in-law's mail. If you bounce spam you just tell the spammer, that you are alive and getting the spam. Bad idea. Just send it to hell, automatically.
Also, forget the blacklist. Spammers never forge the same sending address twice, unless they forge YOUR address into the sender slot. Age off your black-list in ONE day. It just slows you down and does no good. If you have identified a spammer, for example your previous ISP or an ex lover, just make a filter to automatically delete it.

One problem with bouncing is many ISPs frown upon it and may close your account if done frequently, or even have your email address blacklisted. You don't want that!

dearwebby wrote:If you bounce spam you just tell the spammer, that you are alive and getting the spam. Bad idea.

It is a bad idea but actually, bouncing does not tell the spammer anything. Why would a bad guy use a return address that points back to him? He wouldn't so it does NOT go back to the spammer. IF it goes anywhere, it is usually to some innocent user who's email address was stolen and spoofed into the spam. So you end up further hurting another innocent victim when you bounce emails.

Often what happens is the bounced email ends up going to an invalid email address. This results in the bounced email getting bounced back again to you as a rejected email. All that does, besides irritating you, is cause more clutter with unwanted emails on the networks (which is often why ISPs frown upon it!).