SPAM....how can you stop it?

[timNms]

My inbox keeps filling up with spam....from "generic viagra" emails to some pretty nasty stuff. How those people got my email addy, I'll never know. I'm sure it probably had something to do with my wife and daughter giving our bellsouth email addy when they registered on various game sites (I tried to tell them NOT to do that...but you know how women are tee hee )
Now, is there any way to stop it? I use outlook express and have tried numerous times to use the "create a rule from message" option, but I still get the same crap over and over. I bet I've created rules for over 100 emails. I've made rules that "do not download from server" any emails from certain addresses. I've even made rules that "do not download from server" emails containing certain words...but that never works. I have blocked certain email addresses, but those only end up in the deleted email box and show up as not having been read.
Is there any way to stop it?

[Guest]

Not really Tim - just keep deleting it. What these folks are doing is creating a range and sending emails to everyone within that name range on that Isp - that's how they go to mine.

Not much you can do - I just delete mine and they have slowed down to one or two a day now.

[j]

an added note, and perhaps chad can verify this.

IT dept told us not to bother with unsubscribe return e-mail. It doesn't work and in fact makes the problem worse.

Our corporate has installed spam blocking software but it will take a while to be fully effective. The data base esentially has to be built, with the help of all users forwarding there spam to a mailbox IT has set up. From there they will add the perpetrators to the database.

Now...if your a personal user, there are ways within Outlook to set up "rules" for specific senders.

I have one for my Ex wife ...which when received automatically gets deleted...I never even see it!
This works much better than the "junk senders list".
If your using Outlook, go to help to find out how to set it up.

[GalvestonDuck]

Also helps to create a "dummy" email account and addy to use for registering for games, news websites, etc. Something generic that you will never use for real emails. Heck, half the time, if it works, I use "me@email.com" or "me@yahoo.com" or something just made up on the spot. If they don't require you to confirm to a reply, usually it does work.

Still won't cut back on all the spam, but it helps. My dummy yahoo account get TONS of spam. My home addy gets maybe one or two a week. Yahoo has a bulk mail folder where all the other crap can get filtered and I don't see it. I just hit "Empty Bulk Mail folder" and it's all gone.

[Lindaloo]

There was a new anti spam law that passed through legislation. I receive no more stuff or sex emails in my junk box. It is down from 60 a day to about 10 a day. All of them now are mainly mortgage offers.

tim report it to Senator Lott. He voted "Yea" to the law.

[VanceWxMan]

I use Postal inspector. It has a setting to ONLY ALLOW mail from peeps in my friends lists. If its not it sends it to a junk mail folder and deletes itself You can also BOUNCE emails back to the servers saying that your address does not exist as well as send reports to their ISP for fraud.

Here is the LATEST version
http://www.giantcompany.com

Aaron

[janswizard]

The last couple of weeks have been bad for me, too. I used to brag that I hardly got spam - lately, however, I'm deleting 30-40 a day. I called Adelphia yesterday because I wanted to make sure I had the spam blocker set right. They said I did. The woman from adelphia told me to make sure I copy the headers of each email and mail them to the abuse department at adelphia. That's taking quite a bit of time since there's been so many that have appeared in my box lately. I guess I'll just try deleting them from here on out and see if the quantity starts to go down. If not, I just might start forwarding them all to Senator Lott and see what he has to say about it.

[Guest]

I don't know whether my ISP is using a filter or what, but I get NO SPAM, only e-mails from people on my contacts list. I use a cable modem now; however, when I used dialup American Online, I got alot of garbage!

[GalvestonDuck]

The last couple of weeks have been bad for me, too. I used to brag that I hardly got spam - lately, however, I'm deleting 30-40 a day. I called Adelphia yesterday because I wanted to make sure I had the spam blocker set right. They said I did. The woman from adelphia told me to make sure I copy the headers of each email and mail them to the abuse department at adelphia. That's taking quite a bit of time since there's been so many that have appeared in my box lately. I guess I'll just try deleting them from here on out and see if the quantity starts to go down. If not, I just might start forwarding them all to Senator Lott and see what he has to say about it.

That Adelphia woman is nuts! In order for you to copy the header from each email, you'd have to open it, right? Of course. And in some cases, when you open it, the sender gets a "read receipt" and knows that your email account is active and, therefore, a good target to send more stuff to.

Just delete them.

[timNms]

J, I never click on "unsubscribe" because I know what happens when you do that...you might unsubscribe from that particular sender, but your addy is sold to a million others LOL.

I do have a yahoo mail account that I've been trying to get my wife and daughter to use when they register to play games or whatever....as a matter of fact, my daughter has a yahoo account. Don't know why she doesn't use that addy. Hopefully in the next week or so, we'll have her a decent puter to use so she'll stay off of this one....now if I could just figure out a way to keep my wife off of it LOL. Just kiddin'
Thanks for the suggestions.

[stormraiser]

Right Tim, because then they know it is a valid account and will open the flood gates.