certain incoming email blocked; AUP# In-1180

ge315

This problem started recently. I have not made changes to any of the involved accounts.

Specifically, emails from two senders - both 'financial' services - are being reported by the senders as "undeliverable" Both senders are legit, and I expect they know how to structure an email.

The particulars are slightly different:

1. From Internal Revenue Service DoNotReply@account.irs.gov This is sent to my gmail account, which automatically forwards it to TWC.com. In this case, gmail ("view original") provides some additional info

" Message ID  <1063102818.24530241713447819678.JavaMail.fdinet@treasury-mta-vip.fdcctx.com>
  Created at: Thu, Apr 18, 2024 at 9:43 AM (Delivered after 44 seconds)
  From:       Internal Revenue Service <DoNotReply@account.irs.gov>
  To:         gbeccles@gmail.com
  Subject:    IRS Account Confirmation of Scheduled Transaction
  SPF:        PASS with IP 166.123.40.39 
  DKIM:       'FAIL' with domain account.irs.gov 
  DMARC:      'PASS' 
        

2. From Merrill-Lynch.  This is sent directly to my TWC.com email.  In this case, I 
know it failed only because I got a letter from Merrill.  

So,

1. This appears to be a new problem.
2. In one case, the email is forwarded to TWC.com. In the other, it's send directly. So, this is not a gmail forwarding problem.
3. Gmail - in some context I don't understand - seems to find a DKIM error. Despite this, it accepts and forwards the email.

I would appreciate any thoughts. However, telling the IRS to fix the problem is probably a non-starter.

HT_Greenfield

Auto-forwarded messages are bound to fail SPF in general and account.irs.gov does, in fact, use SPF alone (no DKIM) for DMARC and thus will auto-forwarded messages from them fail DMARC, and their published DMARC policy is, in fact, set for messages from them to be rejected when DMARC fails.

🔗 https://powerdmarc.com/email-forwarding-dmarc/

🔗 https://mxtoolbox.com/SuperTool.aspx

If they wanted people to be able to auto-forward messages from them to any old other email addresses, they wouldn't be so strict about being able to get email from them in the first place:

🔗 https://www.irs.gov/help/sending-and-receiving-emails-securely ↳ Authorizing email contact

As far as the other problem goes, assuming the sender is sending to the correct email address, as long as their return path is valid, they should be receiving a bounceback with the applicable AUP fault code along with the following link for them to look up the explanation and presumably be able to resolve if they've a mind to:

🔗https://www.spectrum.net/support/internet/understanding-email-error-codes