Apologies if this is not the right place to put this - but I couldn't really see a better one.


I received an enquiry via the Tourism NZ site for my business. Since the TNZ site requires an actual human to write in a form and the email contact is from TNZ not the enquirer, I am assuming that the likelihood of this being spam is small.


I replied to the enquirer using the email address given in the form they completed on TNZ's site.


My message comes straight back with the following header:







Your message cannot be delivered to the following recipients:


 Recipient address: maddibuys@optonline.net
 Reason: Remote SMTP server has rejected address
 Diagnostic code: smtp;550 5.1.1 unknown or illegal alias: maddibuys@optonline.net
 Remote system: dns;mx2.optonline.net (TCP|17.148.16.104|58482|167.206.4.79|25) (mta25.srv.hcvlny.cv.net -- Server ESMTP [Sun Java System Messaging Server 6.2-8.04 [built Feb 28 2007]])


Original-envelope-id: 0KV900HRJ763P860@asmtp029.mac.com
Reporting-MTA: dns;asmtp029-bge351000 (tcp-daemon)


Original-recipient: rfc822;maddibuys@optonline.net
Final-recipient: rfc822;maddibuys@optonline.net
Action: failed
Status: 5.1.1 (Remote SMTP server has rejected address)
Remote-MTA: dns;mx2.optonline.net (TCP|17.148.16.104|58482|167.206.4.79|25)
(mta25.srv.hcvlny.cv.net -- Server ESMTP [Sun Java System Messaging Server
6.2-8.04 [built Feb 28 2007]])
Diagnostic-code: smtp;550 5.1.1 unknown or illegal alias:
maddibuys@optonline.net




There's a bit too much tecnospeak in there for me - but I can't see anything like blacklisting or any of that sort of carry on.


Does anyone have a clue what that blurb actually means? Has the original enquirer simply entered their address wrong? Or is it more sinister?


Thanks!