Port 25 opening denied. I really need some senior help here please.

Question

I really need some senior help here please.
Please read this AWS support, and please escalate this to whoever can help me (i already have business support, but even they cannot help or access the systems or even tickets for my requests).
I am currently migrating my VPS over to AWS (due to costs and the great services offered by AWS)

I have several simple websites, that have simple requirements for POP3 emails (from potential costumers, etc.).
I have 1 larger website that does send out automated transactional emails (i.e thank you for joining, thank you for paying/receipts, password resets, and some opt in newsletters).
This can send maybe 20k emails a week... and this is where i think the problem is.
I have submitted 2 very detailed requests to have port 25 opened, but both have been denied and with little and no explanation as to why.

They have suggests that i use AWS SES, to send out automated emails (i feel this is a little bit of an upsell to be honesty, as i have ran this website for 20 years and never had any problems like this before. I DO NOT SEND OUT SPAM IN ANY SHAPE OR FROM).

I am OK using SES for the automated, transactional emails (even though i feel they have only said this to get more money out of me). HOWEVER, i still need to be able to receive POP3 emails from customers (SES does not receive emails.... so even if i pay more, i am still stuck).
This leave me with multiple, all genuine and small websites that cannot receive, nor send emails + my larger website that i need to be able to receive POP3 emails in an external program like MS Outlook, so that i can perform customer service, etc.

I am totally stuck. I have spent nearly a month migrating websites (recoding where needed) to my instance on AWS, and am now in a position where, not a single one of them can send nor receive even small amounts of general emails.
I can not talk to the Trust & Safety team (the ones that have denied my requests to open port 25 for my instance/region), but i have been talking to (and paying for) Business Support, who also cannot understand why they will not open port 25 for me. i have been in business for 30 years, never sent out spam emails, and cannot understand why AWS would provide me with a VPS which is pre configured by AWS, to be a webserver, serving the basic needs of websites (emails being rather an important one...)

Please can some one senior step in here. i feel AWS have got this wrong with their denial to open port 25, but not being able to talk to them to find out why.... well it has caused A LOT of frustration, A LOT of wasted time, and now some considerable stress. (running websites, that cannot send emails, is silly and a little bit of a show stopper with AWS to be honest)

Please can someone help?

Answer

Hello,

This is Rajat from AWS Premium Support team.

I understand that you were denied the access to port 25 from EC2 and hence, you are not able to host mail services into the same. I would like to share with you that the decision to keep or remove port 25 restriction is based upon multiple security checks that AWS Trust & Safety performs and not to upsell AWS services to the customers. These checks are done to protect our IP reputation as well as different parameters of shared infrastructure, keeping secure interest of multiple AWS customers that will be using this infrastructure provided by AWS.

You can use SES to send out mails and can also setup incoming mails in SES but it cannot provide you POP3. In order to use a complete mailbox like service, you can use Amazon Workmail, which is a managed email and calendaring service with strong security controls and support for existing desktop and mobile email clients. You can configure your applications in a manner that high mail sending can be done through Amazon SES whereas you can have few mail addresses setup in Amazon Workmail to receive the mails.

[+] Email receiving with Amazon SES - https://docs.aws.amazon.com/ses/latest/dg/receiving-email.html

[+] What is Amazon Workmail - https://docs.aws.amazon.com/workmail/latest/userguide/what_is.html

Please note that if you wish yo send mails to unverified identities using SES, you need to gain access to production mode. In addition to that, the mail sending is monitored for Bounce, complaints & spam content. All of this is done by our Trust & Safety team. Therefore, all the actions taken are to safeguard the shared services offered by AWS.

[+] Moving out of SES Sandbox - https://docs.aws.amazon.com/ses/latest/dg/request-production-access.html

Lastly, I would like to request you to please open a case with our Trust & Safety team and request a senior review for your use case as a review might require access to internal information related to your account, which is not advisable on a public platform i.e. aws re:Post

Answer

well, sorry but it does not look like anyone senior want to look into this or reply.
Such a shame, i was looking forward to moving my services to AWS, but having websites that are not allowed to send nor receive emails, when AWS competitors will, means i will have to start the migrations again to another (more sensible) VPS provider....

Thanks
Jon

Port 25 opening denied. I really need some senior help here please.

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