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Amazon AWS® word 'n pyn

Thanks to our support service many new customers are converted to Amazon AWS® every month. However a new painful feature from Amazon AWS® is to block outgoing port 25 on EC2 instances. This can usually be lifted within 48 hours of completing a request form. After 3 requests, the same answer came back: “Rejected“, with an advice to use Amazon SES®:

Hello,

Thank you for submitting your request to have the email sending limit removed from your account and/or for an rDNS update.

This account, or those linked to it, have been identified as having at least one of the following:
* A history of violations of the AWS Acceptable Use Policy
* A history of being not consistently in good standing with billing
* Not provided a valid/clear use case to warrant sending mail from EC2

Unfortunately, we are unable to process your request at this time, please consider looking into the Simple Email Service. https://aws.amazon.com/ses/

Regards,
AWS Trust & Safety
Amazon Web Services, LLC

The EC2 instance is reserved for 1 year and cannot be used the way it should me (nor can it be refunded). The choice of using Amazon SES® or not should be left to the customer. This is not about spam or unsolicited emails, this is really about being able to use a paid instance fully, while complying with the AWS Acceptable Use Policy. Adding friction is a waste of time.

The AWS Trust & Safety team does not care about the time spent to implement a useless Amazon SES® service on a server:

  • what if the emails are transactional?
  • what if all contact forms on websites are protected by a captcha?
  • what if the new EC2 instance uses a secure system and a new control panel?
  • what if you start increasing my problems instead of reducing them?
  • what is the point of selling hundreds of AWS® services if a simple “outbound port 25” cannot be made?
  • what is the point of being able to set your own rDNS/PTR record if the outbound port 25 is blocked anyway?
  • why do you think you know my circumstances better than me?
  • why do you think a commercial relationship will last with this tyranny of the port 25?
  • what if customers start to ditch Amazon AWS® for a competitor?

Updates #1 on 10/MAR/2022:

  • The content of this post was posted into AWS’ forums now called “AWS re:Post“
  • The post was deleted within 30 minutes despite complying with their guidelines
  • There seems to be an unofficial way to get the port 25 unblocked not written in the documentation, it is a slow process (it will take at least 24 hours) and requires some additional money upfront, which got 1x EC2 instance unblocked (one remains)
  • This is the problem with big companies: very often their own process becomes a bureaucracy, which triggers a lot of frustration and anger. This is why there will always be a space for small business actors.

Updates #2 on 10/MAR/2022:

Received another rejection. Sent this back:

Why do you keep rejecting my requests?..

If you do not know what cPanel/WHM is: I am not here to EDUCATE you.

If you don't want your customers to use the EC2 resources they have paid for: I will terminate my commercial relationship with you (started in 2018).

Updates #3 on 10/MAR/2022:

Shortly after my previous answer: I got a call from the Amazon AWS® customer service (based in India), whom explained to me that the customer service is divided in different services, and that my case is handled by the “AWS Trust & Safety” team.

My theory is that since Andy Jassy became CEO of Amazon® entirely, the new CEO of Amazon AWS® (Adam Selipsky) has probably faced a lot of spam from their servers. Spam control should not sacrifice the customers’ experience.

The acceptation finally came by email shortly after, and the port 25 got finally unblocked (after weeks of waiting).

The commercial relationship with Amazon AWS® will be reconsidered at renewal time (and might still be terminated), as this is clearly not a low-cost one.

Updates #4 on 18/MAY/2022:

Some months later: the same circus is happening again with a new converted customers. Many days wasted and the port is still blocked. Is that the cutting-edge cloud offer from the big Amazon AWS?… Will move somewhere else!

Updates #5 on 22/MAY/2022:

Ticket has been opened 4 days ago (with the Billing Department) and the port 25 of the instance of that new customer brought to Amazon AWS® is still unable to send out any emails. Please see the next article for the decision time.

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