Setting your email client (MS-Outlook, Windows mail, Thunderbird, etc.) to check email too often is abuse. Sometimes it’s accidental abuse. It’s common for unstable programs like Microsoft Outlook to become corrupted and go wild, checking incessantly.
Recently we implemented a system to track (among many other things) email logins. When too many logins to a specific email account exceed limits, the IP address the logins are coming from is temporarily blocked. The reason for doing this is performance. Our servers typically have 5,000 or more email accounts on them. 20 or 30 abusive accounts is not a large percentage of the total, but can significantly reduce performance for everyone using a server.
If your ability to send and receive email is experiencing intermittent problems, this may be the reason. We can check this for you if you submit a trouble ticket. Our ticketing system automatically includes your public IP address which we need to do this. Click on “Orders – Tickets” above left, then “Submit Ticket”.
All this begs the question, why you are doing this in the first place. All you really need to do is click on the send/receive button in your email client and you will have your email. If you have a broadband connection, which is most often the case, you will almost certainly have your email within 2 seconds. Most people who have automatic checking turned on will do this anyway! If you have a slow connection, by all means do automated checking to save yourself some time.
Otherwise, wouldn’t you rather see faster performance of your server? If you actually think you have another reason for automated checking, let’s hear it!