Why doesn't forwarding to AOL work when I test it?

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If you set up a forwarding email address that delivers messages to an aol.com address, then test the forwarding by sending a message from that same aol.com address, the test won't work.

AOL will reject it with this error message: "554-: (HVU:B1) http://postmaster.info.aol.com/errors/554hvub1.html 554 TRANSACTION FAILED".

However, other people will be able to send mail to this address without any problems.

Can you give me an example?

Let's say you set up "forwarding@example.com" to forward email to "example@aol.com".

If you send a test message from "example@aol.com" to "forwarding@example.com", the message will be forwarded by our servers, but AOL will reject the message.

This problem makes it look like the forwarding doesn't work, even though mail sent from any other address to "forwarding@example.com" would work properly.

If you want to test an address that forwards mail to a AOL address, send the test message from any address except the final AOL destination address.

Why does this problem happen?

AOL does this intentionally. Their spam filtering system assumes that mail claiming to be "From" and "To" the same AOL address will stay entirely within their network, and shouldn't come from other servers.

We think this is a misguided policy, but it's something they control, not us.