How to block dodgey spam sent to children?

Rachel021967

My daughters have been receiving Barclays scam emails, sites to buy viagra and penis enlargements and invitations to !!!!!! sites. They seem to originate from different email addresses and the sexual natured ones seem to come from America. Anybody know of a way we can block these emails?
Rachel

nickmack

There are a few threads on here about preventing Spam.

Have a look at the following for suggestions:

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=156325&highlight=spam

Rachel021967

Thanks nickmack. Lots of good suggestions. Will look into it in the morning.
Rachel

thewizard

There is alot of spam software, but if your children start to become are large target for spam, I would reccomend getting them a new email address, thats what I did, with my first email account I made the mistake of using incredimails bounce feature and it just encourage the spammers even more.

If you have Windows XP SP2 and you use outlook express then content that spammers may use to verify that your email address is real is blocked, and you have to click on a bar to open the message.
Also if your children recieve emails only from there friends you could set up an allowed (white) list in Outlook and prevent anyone else sending messages to them. Some programs such as secretmaker (www.secretmaker.com) also allow you to do this, aswell as having Spam fighting software with artificial inteligence aswell as a user trainning feature and black list, as well as many other features to protect your privacy online.

The only advice I can giev to you if you become a target for spam and wish to keep your current email address is, get some good anti-spam software (there are plenty of free ones out there; try mail washer) and NEVER EVER REPLY TO THE MESSAGES OR CLICK LINKS IN THEM.

wonderfullife_2

Hi
I use Mailwasher Pro, anti spam software, it deletes the spam from the server, just set up your daughters email account in mailwasher, and use the filters and blacklist, and it will stop them going into outlook express, they do have a free version so you can check it out

http://www.mailwasher.net/

Hope this helps

Rachel021967

Thanks thewizard and wonderfullife. We've got a MAC so we don't get Outlook express. We've just joined gmail. So we will probably use our gmail address as our main address from now on.

Rachel.

moomintroll_3

If you're using a mac you could set up the parental control feature in mail so they have to get emails out authorised by you. Go into System Prefs / Accounts / Click on the padlock to make changes / Select their account / Parental Control. Simple.

Another good program is spam sieve if you don't have separate accounts.

G