How do i stop a email spammer?

Richie-from-the-Boro

Just get a [ free ] gmail account .. .. sorted .. .. you will never need to worry about spam again !

ahillsy

DVardysShadow wrote: »

I beg to differ and stand by what I said. It goes to an automated process, I agree. But the evidence is that the automated process does not stop the emails, it causes more. It should go to automatically unsubscribe the sender, but unfortunately, the majority of opt out links are in spam and are used primarily to filter for live addresses for more spam.

For marketing emails from legit companies (which this appears to be), the unsubscribe process should stop the emails. And for legit companies/email marketing, the opposite is actually true - it's not about finding who's got a live address - the greatest benefit to the company is to finely target people, not bulk blast people for a number of reasons:
1) the ideal is to send the least emails, to get the most "response". Blasting emails out left, right and centre only risks reputation damage, and increases costs.
2) bulk blasting people who don't want the email, will just increase their spam complaint rates which will lead to their servers being blacklisted (~0.2% spam complaint rate for a particular email campaign is pretty good)
3) sending more to someone who has tried to unsubscribe just makes it worse

Anyway, you don't have to send the email back to them for them to know if it's a live address there's other ways of knowing whether the email was opened or not without you having to reply by email.

Now, real spammers do use underhand techniques so yes, clicking links/replying etc in those cases is you could be opening yourself to more - I am making an assumption this is a legit company, but it does appear to be. If more emails are coming through, it could possibly be your details are on multiple systems (if you're getting emails from different companies) and the unsub hasn't been propagated throughout....or there is a problem with the automated process and it's genuinely not working properly.

My point is, there is a difference between spammers and legit companies doing email marketing, depending on the email marketing provider. Despite what people think, the legit world of email marketing is actually not about bulk blasting / trying to send the most emails to the most number of people! There is a distinction between "Plz can buy these pills" type spammers and real email marketing. If a company is doing that, then yes it can be annoying - and I'd say just block them (if using e.g. hotmail, mark the email as Junk).

DVardysShadow

ahillsy wrote: »

For marketing emails from legit companies (which this appears to be), the unsubscribe process should stop the emails. And for legit companies/email marketing, the opposite is actually true - it's not about finding who's got a live address - the greatest benefit to the company is to finely target people, not bulk blast people for a number of reasons:
1) the ideal is to send the least emails, to get the most "response". Blasting emails out left, right and centre only risks reputation damage, and increases costs.
2) bulk blasting people who don't want the email, will just increase their spam complaint rates which will lead to their servers being blacklisted (~0.2% spam complaint rate for a particular email campaign is pretty good)
3) sending more to someone who has tried to unsubscribe just makes it worse

Anyway, you don't have to send the email back to them for them to know if it's a live address there's other ways of knowing whether the email was opened or not without you having to reply by email.

Now, real spammers do use underhand techniques so yes, clicking links/replying etc in those cases is you could be opening yourself to more - I am making an assumption this is a legit company, but it does appear to be. If more emails are coming through, it could possibly be your details are on multiple systems (if you're getting emails from different companies) and the unsub hasn't been propagated throughout....or there is a problem with the automated process and it's genuinely not working properly.

My point is, there is a difference between spammers and legit companies doing email marketing, depending on the email marketing provider. Despite what people think, the legit world of email marketing is actually not about bulk blasting / trying to send the most emails to the most number of people! There is a distinction between "Plz can buy these pills" type spammers and real email marketing. If a company is doing that, then yes it can be annoying - and I'd say just block them (if using e.g. hotmail, mark the email as Junk).

While this is broadly correct, spam has killed email marketing except where there is already a relationship in place and the company are using email sensitively and respectfully to maintain the relationship.

Unfortunately there are legit companies out there who still do not 'get it' about email marketing and who think that any contact with a customer means there is a relationship and therefore an excuse to send spam. It does not have to be about blue pills from somewhere you have never heard of to be spam. It just has to be unwanted by the recipient to make it spam.

Unsubscribe links have been so abused by spammers that the default should be to regard them as bringing down more spam. I would only use an unsubscribe link to stop email where I had already opted in.

Mr_Oink

Widelats wrote: »

It is from a site known as gifted.com, on the "unsubscribe from this email" link i get a link of "compose message" and this is the email address that it is wanting me to unsubscribe from:

[EMAIL="rm-0bxddfcjbfjsej6au8t7c4q3yu1hftj@e.gifted.com"]rm-0bxddfcjbfjsej6au8t7c4q3yu1hftj@e.gifted.com[/EMAIL]

Assuming them to be honest and running a sensible list that link should identify you for removal. However, it's also used by nefarious operators to confirm your email to be live.

Initially I was optimistic about having this stopped - until I spotted this gem in the whois data:

Registered through: GoDaddy.com, Inc.

This is usually *bad* and I see it often in my anti-spam work.

Without seeing the full headers of the offending mailing, it's difficult to offer advice. But speaking generically there are a couple of things you can do:

1:) Use your mailbox filter to mark it as spam or drop it (depending on if your mail provider offers this feature). Some providers feed back this information into spam blocking services.

2:) Contact them and ask them to stop using the public domain whois record for gifted.com - repeated here (which is a bit 'grey' as far as the MSE forum rules go) for your information:

Administrative Contact:
      Dawson, John  John.Dawson {at} thehutgroup.com
      The Hut Group
      Meridian House
      Gadbrook Park, Rudheath
      Northwich, Cheshire cw9 7ra
      United Kingdom
      01606 338197

3:) Locate the connecting IP address of the sending server (from the full headers of the email - something along the lines of:

Received: from somehost.somedomain.com (somehost.maybeedifferent.com
 [123.123.123.123])

Find who is responsible for that server and contact them and their upstream provider(s) - if you need help, just post the IP here and one of the regulars will guide you.

4:) If all else fails, and you have called them and written to them, contact the Police. There are some specific laws in the UK that can be used with SPAM from UK miscreants:

The Protection from Harassment Act 1997
The Telecommunications Act 1984 (section 42/43)
Malicious Communications Act 1988
The Communications Act (Section 127)

These usually only result in a warning or fixed penalty notice, but it is a recordable offence and may well appear in any CRB check performed against the individual concerned. Repeated offences may even end in full prosecution.

I have tested gifted.com myself and have the view their newsletter sign up is abusable offering no form of confirmation - so anyone can sign up anyone - thus, in my mind, it is a potential source of spam. As soon as I have sight of the IP ranges it uses, it will be escalated to a number of block list operators and thank you for mentioning it here

Widelats

Thanks everyone! I have had no spam today i am on yahoo and filtered it into the block lists, i hope it keeps working!

Oink, i hope you get some results on the block!

ysoliman2010

Set a "Block" or filter to automatically delete the emails. Or complain to their support service. If they are really annoying you send an email your email services provider.

Munro_Bagger

Can anyone please offer me some advice on how to stop spam mail?

I've only ever had the odd few and I'm don't subscribe to any newsletters. I have a yahoo account and the emails are automatically put into a 'spam' folder. However, I'm suddenly now receiving dozens at a time, and it's driving me crazy!

None of the emails have 'unsubscribe' links and attempts to contact them using conventional means have not lessened the onslaught! I have no idea how to find out who administers these sites and would really appreciate any help.

Latest spam are from:
"Red Driving" <RedDriving@performpersist.com>
"OK Payday" <OKPayday@idealstechnique.com>
"Supacompare" <Supacompare@quarantinenervous.com
"Valued Opinions" <ValuedOpinions@paintdetermine.com>
"Problem Credit Approvals" <creditapprovals@paintdetermine.com>
"PPI Claims" <PPIClaims@paintdetermine.com>
"Bingo on the box" <Bingoonthebox@paintdetermine.com>

Many thanks

Ximian

Munro_Bagger wrote: »

Can anyone please offer me some advice on how to stop spam mail?

I've only ever had the odd few and I'm don't subscribe to any newsletters. I have a yahoo account and the emails are automatically put into a 'spam' folder. However, I'm suddenly now receiving dozens at a time, and it's driving me crazy!

None of the emails have 'unsubscribe' links and attempts to contact them using conventional means have not lessened the onslaught! I have no idea how to find out who administers these sites and would really appreciate any help.

Latest spam are from:
"Red Driving" <RedDriving@performpersist.com>
"OK Payday" <OKPayday@idealstechnique.com>
"Supacompare" <Supacompare@quarantinenervous.com
"Valued Opinions" <ValuedOpinions@paintdetermine.com>
"Problem Credit Approvals" <creditapprovals@paintdetermine.com>
"PPI Claims" <PPIClaims@paintdetermine.com>
"Bingo on the box" <Bingoonthebox@paintdetermine.com>

Many thanks

Using the instructions mentioned in this link: http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/mail/yahoomail/context/context-05.html

add the DOMAIN addresses to be blocked. From the information you have provided above there are at least three addresses that are using the same domain, so you can add "paintdetermine.com" (without quotes) to the blocked list. You won't receive any emails from this whole domain. You can do the same with any spam you receive. Note: be careful with using this option as you might block genuine emails.

Additionally, make sure that you block images in your spam. Images have links back to a hosting server that will confirm that you have read the mail. For more information on this option see: http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/mail/classic/abuse/abuse-13.html

Munro_Bagger

Thanks so much Ximian - I will gladly give it a go and hopefully the volume will reduce!

Ximian

Munro_Bagger wrote: »

Thanks so much Ximian - I will gladly give it a go and hopefully the volume will reduce!

You're welcome just to let you know, you have the option of blocking a maximum of 500 addresses/domains. On my Yahoo account I've already used 386 blocked addresses/domains and I still get spam, it's an endless battle.