Junk email!!!

[BenzComander]

Is it me, or has anybody else experienced an increase in the amount of junk email?? Mainly for "enhancing" male products or websites where I will find "obliging ladies"!!!

It's really starting to miff me to say the least, and I don’t know what to do to stop these emails.

I am running Mcafee firewall and virus checker and do a weekly free scan with Trend housecall so am pretty confident that I am not infected. It is just the amount I am getting is starting to bug me

Any advice please

 

[andy_k]

sad fact is that once you get on the spammers lists there is no escape.

These guys will buy lists of email addresses which are "harvested" from forums, web sites etc etc. Clicking on one of those seemingly innoccous "remove me" links can be used to confirm your address is "live" and therefore it will be included on the nest list they sell.

Once it's out there the list will be sold, resold and sold again each time more and more people get their hands on your email address. Yes, it's reached epidemic proportions but no amount of legislation seems to be able to have any effect because nobody really cares.

You can install a spam filter (some ISPs offer this service) which will certainly help and if it's an "intelligent" one it will learn what is spam and what isn't but you do run the risk of missing some important mails until the filter "learns" or if one of your friends sends you an email with some "dodgy" material in it

Andy

 

[BenzComander]

Cheers Andy,

So a solution would be to get a new email address? Pity, as I have had mine since my first foray onto the Internet and you get kind of attached!!

 

[Steve_Perry]

You can try setting up secure lists so only email from people you know will get through or you could try setting up some filters so that any emails that contain usual spammy type words (even if they have a "." in the middle of them ) will automatically get sent to the trash folder.

It is a major pain though but I refuse to change emails because of some other scum spoiling it for the rest of us.

Imho, these people need some form of punishment for their antisocial behaviour.

S.

 

[grasmere]

Its always going to be a problem once it starts.

What I use is Mailwasher mailwasher (there are other progs similar ) which basically show a list of emails waiting to come to you that are on the server 'before' you download them as emails to your pc.

You can delete/bounce/blacklist those you dont want to get to your pc and mark as 'friends' those that you do want to receive etc

Most of my emails I do actually delete/bouce/blacklist but I NEVER get one to my pc that I dont want to receive so NO viruses etc

So I am fairly relaxed about receiving crap because its not been a problem now for the last couple of years. :bannana:

 

[PJH]

Pammy had a problem last July here.
I'm currently getting lots of offers for cheap pills of various kinds.
If you can access your mailbox via webmail you can set up filters and block spam at the mail server.

 

[gary350]

You have to be careful who you email, I emailed Whatcar Mag with a complaint, I never got an answer but since then I get swamped with their junk mail.

gary

 

[Aswall]

This is only the beginning, wait 'til you start getting swamped with junk texts on your mobile. A company I work with will launch this in July and many, many others have it in the pipeline or have already started. And this is "proper" junk from companies, such as lands on your doormat, what will then follow is spam texting from the real creeps - shortly followed by phone viruses (they're already here on some phones but will dramatically increase once phones get even smarter)

 

[andy_k]

there's no such thing as "proper" junk. If it's unsolicited then it should be illegal. I'd be interested to hear how you define "proper" and "spam texting" in my mind it's all unwanted invasive crap.

Presumably this is a way UK companies have discovered that circumvents the spam laws requiring people to opt in?

When it hits the mobile phones presumably it will cost us to opt out - yet another scam

Andy

 

[BenzComander]

I believe it is currently an offence to send unsolicited text messages, the same as spam emails. I believe the legislation went through last year.

The problem is the same as spam email though, how do you stop people from doing it??

 

[grasmere]

So Benzcommander, what do you think so far with ref to your junk email problems?

Did you look at the mailwasher website to see the type of 'pre-download' program I am referring to?

Regarding getting new email addresses, its all the same because junk will still get sent to you eventually. Its all about how you deal with it either directly on your pc with your email program settings or with a 'predownload' program like Mailwasher does to delete stuff 'before' anything gets down to your pc at all.

BTW I have nothing to do with the mailwasher company Its just that since using it I dont have your problem anymore

TIP: if you register your own domain name or have an email address that allows multiple email addresses - the following is what I do when I register for eg newsletters or whatever with websites. I use the name as part of the email address I use to regsiter with eg when I recently subscribed to Autoexpress the email address I used was [email protected] (xxxxxxx being my registered domain name). All I do is use whatever is relevant BEFORE the @ sign. This way I can tell where junk email comes from if not from the people I subscribed to.

HTH

 

[BenzComander]

So Benzcommander, what do you think so far with ref to your junk email problems?

Did you look at the mailwasher website to see the type of 'pre-download' program I am referring to?

Regarding getting new email addresses, its all the same because junk will still get sent to you eventually. Its all about how you deal with it either directly on your pc with your email program settings or with a 'predownload' program like Mailwasher does to delete stuff 'before' anything gets down to your pc at all.

BTW I have nothing to do with the mailwasher company Its just that since using it I dont have your problem anymore

TIP: if you register your own domain name or have an email address that allows multiple email addresses - the following is what I do when I register for eg newsletters or whatever with websites. I use the name as part of the email address I use to regsiter with eg when I recently subscribed to Autoexpress the email address I used was [email protected] (xxxxxxx being my registered domain name). All I do is use whatever is relevant BEFORE the @ sign. This way I can tell where junk email comes from if not from the people I subscribed to.

HTH

Yes, great help grasmere. Will be downloading the trial version of the mailwasher software and see if this helps.

Many thanks,

 

[andy_k]

mailwasher is very good and is incredibly effective up to a point as you still have to check all of the spams before removing them from the server before you download the stuff you really want. Now I know that the program sorts a lot of this automatically and flags the mail for you to easilyidentify it but if you have a mail account that is getting seriously spammed (one of my old work ones got up to 500 a day before I abandoned it) then you still have to spend a lot of time sorting your mails.

Andy

 

[grasmere]

You're right Andy in that one sees all the email headers listed ready to download. You can set mailwasher to delete stuff immediately without seeing it but I prefer to look at whats there because some people do use domains that are used by spammers and its easy to get rid of emails that you do of course want to receive. It doesnt take long to scan a list through really once you familiar . . .

BTW - in case anyone wondered, if you accidently delete an email with mailwasher you can still undelete (restore) it to receive it! Not sure how long it stays there but I have used that facility . . .

 

[andy_k]

I still think that the death penalty should be re-introduced for any spammers or their associates

 

[scotth_uk]

Grasmere's advice is excellent.

I can recommend Gmail for a primary account, using POP and SMTP from a normal mail client. Their antispam is excellent.

 

[BenzComander]

Maybe the death penalty is a little harsh Andy

Maybe they could be made to write (with a pen!) a 1000 word apology letter to everybody they have spammed and pay to have them all mailed??

Keep them off their computers for a while

 

[Aswall]

there's no such thing as "proper" junk. If it's unsolicited then it should be illegal. I'd be interested to hear how you define "proper" and "spam texting". In my mind it's all unwanted invasive crap.

Hey don't shoot the messenger, they're not doing it for me but for another company (telecoms related). It's true that sending unsolicited texts is not yet legal but you'd be amazed at what you have agreed to. Everybody involved in information collection has revised their DPA forms and there has been no increase in the number of people opting out. The key thing is to make sure you do opt out and be careful as companies will often use both opt in AND opt out boxes on the same form e.g.

Tick this box if you wish us to send you information on any relevant products

Tick this box if you do not wish us to pass information to other companies


Grasmere's method is a good one, as pioneered by Fred Langa in his excellent newsletter. I also keep a hotmail address for where I need to type an address in (such as here) and have a separate personal address that is only given to friends and family

As for death penalties, unfortunately, if you work for any IT company, bank, insurance company, finance company, retailer or car manufacturer, you are already an associate of a junk mailer - we'd need a long wall to line 'em up against

 

[CRANIEL]

Upgrade to OUTLOOK 2003, allow OUTLOOK to control your incoming emails, after a bit of time you will be able to complete a junk email list and eventually the junk emails will stop.

 

[grasmere]

and eventually the junk emails will stop.

mmmmm! Dont believe it in a month of Sundays I'm afraid

If only it 'was' that easy.

I constanly get fresh junk emails from spammers where the 'sender' appears to be from a legitimate email address who themselves are not part of the scam. Their email address is cleverly used in some way. The purpose of the email is to eg get you to click on a link in the message.