Slow email delivery - Does IDNet use grey listing ?

[CrossTalk]

I have an old email account from my days of virgin dial up that currently forwards to an idnet.com email address.  I've noticed recently that delivery of forwarded mails was taking an eternity so I had a little play today.

From an initial review of the headers, it looks like idnet are using greylisting as part of their anti spam measures while virgin are not exactly quick at retrying a failed delivery.   I've highlighted the offending header from SQLgrey which looks like it's added after the mail is received by IDNet.  This one is typical - a huge delay of over 7 hours.

Can someone confirm my analysis of the headers (below) and perhaps someone in the know could tell me
a) are IDNet using greylisting
b) can I circumvent this (the virgin address has already been added to my email whitelist with no effect)

Has anyone else seen anything similar

Regards

Phil


Headers:


Return-Path: <xxxx.yyyyyy@virgin.net>
Delivered-To: aaaa.bbbbb@idnet.com
Received: from smtp-out.idnet.com (smtp.idnet.com [212.69.36.238])
   by mail.idnet.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id D52E728EBCB
   for <aaaa.bbbbb@idnet.com>; Fri, 22 Aug 2008 17:42:29 +0100 (BST)
Received: from localhost (unknown [127.0.0.1])
   by smtp-out.idnet.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id C996A2D7DAA
   for <aaaa.bbbbb@idnet.com>; Fri, 22 Aug 2008 16:42:29 +0000 (UTC)
Received: from smtp-out.idnet.com ([127.0.0.1])
   by localhost (smtp-out.idnet.com [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024)
   with LMTP id 6f2WbX1jIuYi for <aaaa.bbbbb@idnet.com>;
   Fri, 22 Aug 2008 17:42:29 +0100 (BST)
Received: from mx2.idnet.net (mx2.idnet.net [212.69.40.49])
   by smtp-out.idnet.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 87F9D2D7CE8
   for <aaaa.bbbbb@idnet.com>; Fri, 22 Aug 2008 17:42:29 +0100 (BST)
X-Greylist: delayed 07:25:45 by SQLgrey-1.6.8
Received: from smtprelay.hostedemail.com (smtprelay0137.hostedemail.com [216.40.44.137])
   by mx2.idnet.net (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6C07D50413C
   for <aaaa.bbbbb@idnet.com>; Fri, 22 Aug 2008 17:42:27 +0100 (BST)
Received: from smtprelay.hostedemail.com (ff-bigip1 [10.5.19.254])
   by smtpgrave01.hostedemail.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0AC543C179D
   for <aaaa.bbbbb@idnet.com>; Fri, 22 Aug 2008 11:54:18 +0000 (UTC)
Received: from filter.hostedemail.com (ff-bigip1 [10.5.19.254])
   by smtprelay01.hostedemail.com (Postfix) with SMTP id DE9607E36BF
   for <aaaa.bbbbb@idnet.com>; Fri, 22 Aug 2008 11:54:15 +0000 (UTC)
X-SpamScore: 1
X-Spam-Summary: 10,1,0,dc55ec47bffd9ab0,51f9ab687a73264a,xxxx.yyyyyy@virgin.net,,RULES_HIT:152:355:375:379:599:800:962:973:983:988:989:1189:1208:1224:1260:1311:1313:1314:1345:1515:1516:1517:1531:1537:1569:1588:1589:1593:1594:1676:1711:1714:1730:1747:1766:1792:2198:2199:2393:2553:2559:2562:2902:3027:3876:3877:5007:6114:6261,0,RBL:none,CacheIP:none,Bayesian:0.5,0.5,0.5,Netcheck:none,DomainCache:0,MSF:not bulk,SPF:,MSBL:none,DNSBL:none
Received: from webmail11 (imap-ext [216.40.42.5])
   (Authenticated sender: xxxx.yyyyyy@virgin.net)
   by omf03.hostedemail.com (Postfix) with ESMTP
   for <aaaa.bbbbb@idnet.com>; Fri, 22 Aug 2008 11:54:15 +0000 (UTC)
Date: Fri, 22 Aug 2008 11:54:15 +0000 (GMT)
From: xxxx.yyyyyy@virgin.net
To: aaaa.bbbbb@idnet.com
Message-ID: <716859756.301391219406055766.JavaMail.mail@webmail11>

[Dopamine]

I can't say for certain that grey-listing is used, but I had a similar problem some time ago with IDNet email, and was told here that it was. It's one of the reasons that I no longer use IDNet email, as a substantial number of my incoming emails are one-offs from addresses and domains that appear to be grey-listed by IDNet, and so were delayed, like yours, by anything up to 6 hours.

[Glenn]

Yes they do use a grey list as far as I'm aware

[Simon]

Yes, IDNet do use grey listing.  It's probably best that you contact them direct with this, Phil, as I don't think there's an awful lot we can do from here. 

[Rik]

As everyone has said, Phil, grey listing is in use, though it should only affect the first send. If you contact support with the header, they may be able to resolve the problem for you.

[Sebby]

As I understand it, greylisting is a very effective spam guard, but there can occasionally be things that are delayed unnecessarily, so support may be able to rectify this.