Delayed OTPs for Websites to Email

Hello Dave - Sorry I have not had a chance to reply sooner. I think your theory may be correct. I turned off Greylisting and I have noticed the OTPs seem to be coming in quicker. But I won't know for sure until I try a new site that may or may not have come into the mailbox.org servers. But I do notice less of a delay.

Out of caution, I've turned off Greylisting and the SMTP plausibility check. I've also set my spam settings to lenient and activated the junk folder. I plan on using this account pretty selectively so I'm not that worried about getting too many bad emails at the moment.

Hi Dave - another quick update. I just filed my taxes in the US and no matter how many times I requested the OTP to confirm my signature, nothing came to my mailbox.org account. What is odd is that it was the OTP from the same site that I had trouble with before. So, the OTPs were coming in before but delayed but this time I never received them. Luckily, I was able to get one through my phone.

This really give me pause about using the service long-term. I wanted to use it precisely for more secure financial and government things. And these things often require email OTPs. I've grown to like the UI and the storage is pretty good for my usage.

I'm sad that it seems to have this much trouble. I can't tell if it is something on Mailbox.org's end or on the US Free File website (which is basically from the early 2000s in terms of usability). The problem is actually not the missed OTPs but the fear that I might not be getting something and I would never know it.

If this keeps up, I might just switch this service to another provider. I just need something reliable. I understand the need to keep the guards up to stop spam but if things are too sensitive, then you might lose out on legitimate mails you need.

A final update: I tried again to use it for my US taxes. I actually had to make a correction and I did not get that notice. I was lucky that I checked my return at the last minute. Before trying again, I took off all Spam protections. And again, no OPTs or notices came.

I changed my email address for my return to another private provider (Runbox) and everything came instantaneously. So it seems like there is a problem with mailbox.org's filter for this one site. But I can't seem to figure out what the problem might be.

This is the first time I've had a big problem like this (other times, the mails will come but quite late). But as I said in my previous comment, my worry is more what might not be getting through and that I would never know.

Hi Sean,

Thanks for the updates. I agree that what you've experienced is so disappointing. When you wrote that it seemed to be a specific sender being blocked I immediately thought that perhaps they'd got themselves onto one of the black lists. (That has happened to me with one of my domains and it was a while before I was able to get through to someone who'd remove it.) However you turning off that section of the Mailbox filtering disproved the hypothesis. Mailbox say, somewhere in their documentation that apart from the Spam controls they provide us they're not interested in questions about emails that don't get through. That was a bit of a red flag but one which I put to one side as, from the rest I read, I trusted them.

I'm in a luckier position than you as I'm retired now and entirely in the UK so troubles with email, whilst annoying, are not much more than that, can generally be cleared up by phone if really necessary, and certainly don't involve anything so serious as filing taxes late.

I'm going to persist with them but take another look at Mailfence in the meantime.

All the best,

Dave

Oh, just to say, another alternative I was looking at before is posteo which is also based in Germany. Their spam policy and system is described here and does mean that you can be sure that you won't miss any emails: https://posteo.de/en/help/how-does-the-posteo-spam-filter-work

Thanks for the reminder about Mailfence. I tried it out and you prompted me to go back and to try to remember what it was that stopped me from using it. I think I found the concept of groups confusing. I wasn't sure precisely how much storage one actually gets. I find the whole plan chart confusing. I got the impression that it is geared towards businesses and not individual customers. But I'm going to play around with it a bit more too.

I love Posteo. I have an account and I love its simplicity. I even signed up for another account for my family. I think the limits on aliases stopped me from deciding to go fully in on them for everything secure. But perhaps I might reconsider that too.

As I said above, Mailbox.org is almost there! But the oversensitivity of their filters is giving me real pause.