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AWS SES 554-No SMTP Service for web.de and GMX email addresses

I am using AWS SES to send out emails automatically through my application. I have configured the Identity management as following:

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DKIM is setup correctly. I have no issues sending emails from my domain except for GMX and WEB.de emails where I receive the following error:

Action: failed
Final-Recipient: rfc822; xyz@web.de
(mxweb111) Nemesis ESMTP Service not available
554-No SMTP service
554-Reject due to policy restrictions

Looking at further documentation, it seems that emails coming from my domain are classified as Spam by their servers.

I have done research and found that I might need to configure Reverse-DNS but as it looks like, AWS SES does not support this?

What else can I do to make my emails get through WEB.de and GMX servers? Thank you.

Solution

  • I was in deep conversations with AWS SES support regarding this issue. This is the outcome:

    I also would like to update you that SES internal team were able to confirm a deliverability issue with the recipient ISP and are actively working towards a resolution but we do not have an exact ETA at this time. Due to the nature of the shared IP pool, these types of blocks can happen periodically and we make every effort to resolve these issues as fast as possible. To prevent impact from these types of issues, it is always recommended to use dedicated ips for higher volume sending.

    It means that the shared IP addresses used by AWS SES are blacklisted with GMX and WEB.de AWS SES wants to resolve this.

    In the meantime, they recommend to use dedicated IP addresses to solve this issue. Please note that these IP addresses have to be "warmed up" in order to not cause trouble on the recipient end (e.g. spam folder issues). Unfortunately, my sending volume is not that high (yet) so I have my fingers crossed I can get those emails send out easily. Otherwise I have to find another solution or need to wait for AWS so solve the blacklist issue. I hope this helps anyone else.

    Edit January 2021

    I was able to send to GMX/WEB.de although my IP was only starting to warm up. Now after one month I am nearly at 100% with not many emails per day sendout volume.