Spam - out of hand

[hbdragon88]

We all deal with spam pretty much daily, at least for me. Or unwanted mails. Mysteriously I sign up for lists that I've never heard of. Most of the spam comes from my Yahoo and Hotmail email accounts.

THIS, however, had gone TOO far. This is one of my Yahoo accounts, and this happens all the time now. If I don't check it weekly, it stacks up and is out of control

Post your experinces with spam.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

It's a plot to make you pay for more storage.

My Hotmail account was spammed about 1/2 hour after I signed up, but the spam filter seems to be working OK so far.

 

[Jeratain]

Might I direct you to a thread I posted a while back which can help you eliminate a lot of your spam: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=39597

Among other things, you'll find a link to http://www.mailwasher.net/ which allows you to stop spam mail by spamming the spammers. Check the thread for more info.

 

[CrackedCrystal]

Originally posted by Crazy Eddie
My Hotmail account was spammed about 1/2 hour after I signed up, but the spam filter seems to be working OK so far.

I got you beat.... 2 minutes.

 

[anarchywrksbest]

Maybe you have enemies that signed you up for stuff

I get spam on my pop3 account but i have set up a filter that gets 99% of it.

 

[Mikoyan]

I created a zzn account, applied for a military guns newsletter... And got 10 spam messages named "Big guns" a day.

 

[Wolfe Tone]

I get a good bit of spam. I got that mail washer program which makes getting rid of the spam much easier, but it still keeps coming and coming and coming.....

 

[penvzila]

Originally posted by anarchywrksbest
Maybe you have enemies that signed you up for stuff

I get spam on my pop3 account but i have set up a filter that gets 99% of it.

That must be why my yahoo account fills up almost daily. I never sign up for ****

 

[penvzila]

ANd a lot of it is REALLY NASTY porn. :SHSICVER:

 

[hbdragon88]

I don't look at the bulk mail box in Yahoo, I just empty it. So I don't know much about the spam I get in Yahoo. BUT in MSN, they have a really crappy system. Empty out the junk mail it goes to the trash, and the trash gets emptied. In that box I get a lot of porn spam...

 

[gonzo_for_civ]

I did an experiment with yahoo, my other accounts are always getting spammed so I signed up for another and left it alone. It has not received a BIT of spam, not a SINGLE piece of it, just a Yahoo welcome letter at the beginning, that's IT.

Sorry guys, at least with yahoo, it's stuff you sign up for that gives this to you.

 

[kring]

Congratulations on the marriage.

On the subject of spam, I tend to sign up for a number of things, and read (and use it) about how to track regular junk mail that I imported to email.

Basically, when signing up for stuff, either on the internet or otherwise, I use my P O Box address typically with an addition that indicates the signing. For example, if I sign up for a business, like CompUSA, then I add CompUSA to the P O Box address. I have also started adding it as part of my name since addresses really are used in spam emails that I receive.

I also routinely review the privacy policies of the email addresses I use; and definitely, the privacy policies of any site I submit my email to.

 

[philippe]

I sometimes get spam..
I think its based on your age.
If your under 18 and they send you pornspam i could sue them but hey 5 or 6 a day isn't much of a problem.

 

[hbdragon88]

MailWasher doesn't work.

For some reason, when I try to login to Yahoo through Mailwasher, it doesn't work. They say that the server closed the session. I can't see why...

 

[cgannon64]

I don't get it. How do some people get SO much spam, but others (like me) get so little? I only get about 5-10 a day...what is that?

trying out new fonts

 

[Case]

In my experiance, Hotmail's spam filter does a reasonably good job if you get the settings right. About 5-10% of the spam I recieve lands in my inbox, but the rest of the stuff (including almost all of the really distastefull material) goes straight into the junk mail folder.

The best, and most obvious, tip for avoiding spam is to be really careful with how you use your email adress. If you don't like spam then you shouldn't sign up to dodgy newsletters or message boards, and you should never post your email adress in a public forum where it can be harvested by the Spam companies. If you feel that you have to post your address, tweak it in a way that humans can fix but computer programs cant (eg, add 'NOSPAM' to the end of the 'hotmail' in hotmail.com)

 

[hbdragon88]

How do you add "NOSPAM" to the end of 'hotmail' in hotmail.com?

 

[kring]

Something like abc@hotmailNOSPAM.com when you post the email address.

People would realize that your address would be abc@hotmail.com, but computer programs would pick it up as abc@hotmailNOSPAM.com.

 

[CrackedCrystal]

Another way is to end your email with .comm instead of .com

Other people would just pick that up as typo. But a computer would not.

 

[metalhead]

Originally posted by gonzo_for_civ
I did an experiment with yahoo, my other accounts are always getting spammed so I signed up for another and left it alone. It has not received a BIT of spam, not a SINGLE piece of it, just a Yahoo welcome letter at the beginning, that's IT.

Sorry guys, at least with yahoo, it's stuff you sign up for that gives this to you.

This has been my experience as well. I have not received one single unsolicited email since signing up for Yahoo mail. The worst I get is the occasional email from those garbage recruiting companies that see my resume on Monster, and I have signed up for several things, including fantasy sports, games, and one very tasteful adult website. With hotmail, i was getting it immediately, and I would estimate that I get close to 100 junk mails per day with hotmail, and now I can't even use it. The junk mail filter sucked, I was finding emails from friends and professors in my junk mail folder. When you are signing up for things, you have to make sure to uncheck EVERY SINGLE box that asks you if you wish to receive updates, sales, good deals, emails from other services, etc. etc. etc., or else you will be inundated with the junk.

I would recommend setting up a Yahoo account just for personal stuff, i.e. emailing friends, teachers, professors, prospective employers, eBay, etc., and using your other email account(s) for other activites, like subscribing to newsletters and signing up for adult sites. That way, you will be much less likely to miss an important email, and you should be able to email friends freely without having to wade through all the junk.