MailMessage Headers

[Simran]

I need to set up an automated email system , which means users should
not be able to respond back to the emails but at the same time, we
need to track bounced emails. This is important as our customers are
paying for this service, so we need to track the bounced email Id's.

This is the code which I have tried:-

MailMessage msgRequest = new MailMessage();
msgRequest.BodyFormat = MailFormat.Text;
msgRequest.Subject = "Do Not reply to this email";
msgRequest.To = "(e-mail address removed)";
msgRequest.From = "(e-mail address removed)";
msgRequest.Body = "Message Body";
msgRequest.Headers.Add("Return-Path", "(e-mail address removed)");
//msgRequest.Headers.Add("Errors-To", "(e-mail address removed)");
SmtpMail.SmtpServer = "SMTPServerName";
SmtpMail.Send(msgRequest);

I have tried both "Return-Path" and "Errors-to". But both of them
falied. The functionality that users cannot reply us back works fine
with this code but this code fails in tracking bounced emails. So for
invalid email id in "To", have no action reported to "return-path" or
"errors-to" valid Email Id.

I have also tried doing this:-

MailMessage msgRequest = new MailMessage();
msgRequest.BodyFormat = MailFormat.Text;
msgRequest.Subject = "Do Not reply to this email";
msgRequest.To = "(e-mail address removed)";
msgRequest.From = "(e-mail address removed)";
msgRequest.Body = "Message Body";
msgRequest.Headers.Add("From", "(e-mail address removed)");
SmtpMail.SmtpServer = "SMTPServerName";
SmtpMail.Send(msgRequest);

Using this code, user only sees (e-mail address removed) and never sees
(e-mail address removed) so they cannot reply us back. But again this
code fails for tracking bounced emails. It doesnt send me bounced
emails at (e-mail address removed).

Can somebody suggest me what is going wrong here?

Quick response will be really appreciated and Thanks in Advance for
any help.

 

[Hermit Dave]

Sounds like you working on a system to spam some poor souls...

a. you should own the smtp server unless you are actually spamming and
relying on hacked machines to serve as relays.

b. if a == true then just look in the logs of the smtp servers they usually
dump the bad emails in a folder.

c. the headers that you have added i would imagine depend upon the
underlying smtp server to actually read and return you the bounced email

HTH

--

Regards,

Hermit Dave
(http://hdave.blogspot.com)

 

[Hermit Dave]

didnt like the answer or what i bang on target (regarding spamming poor
souls)?

--

Regards,

Hermit Dave
(http://hdave.blogspot.com)

 

[Simran]

Thanks a lot for replying but I couldnt completely understand how to
solve my problem technically. Can you elaborate more on it. I am not
trying to spam any mails. My code deals with sending automated emails
to the customers with the information they need but they should not be
able to reply back to us. This is simple to achieve but the problem
arises when we want to track those emails which were bounced back
because of invalid customer id's so that we can contact those
customers for providing correct email ids.

Thanks in Advance!!!.

 

[Eric Gibson]

Sounds like you working on a system to spam some poor souls...

That's absolutely ridiculous. My support and signup system modifies the envelope in
a similar way, and there are a myriad of reason's to modify the envelope for
catching bounces in a way that reflect your business rules that have nothing to do
with spamming...

Anyway...

To answer your question, Simran. What mail server are you using?

Simply adding "Return-Path" on your own, as a header, most of the time won't do
because the server overwrites it with it's own envelope based on how you are sending
the message (it almost always will overwrite it with your "From" address, is that
what is happening to you?). "Return-Path" isn't really a user editable "header" in
most circumstances, it's a server "envelope". You usually have to configure the
server to either a) Accept the Return-Path header from you, and write the
Return-Path accordingly or b) Configure the server to always write the Return-Path
envelope to the value you want for that user.

"Errors-To" works a lot of the time, but it's completely up to the mail server on
the other end whether it will accomodate you or not. It's good to add it though in
addition to whatever fix you come up with from modifying the return-path on the
server, because some servers ignore the Return-Path envelope for sending bounces.
:-0

Eric

 

[Simran]

Thanks Eric, This really helps.