Why has my junk email/spam gone mad?

jap200

I am user of Microsoft Outlook and am used to getting maybe 10-20 junk emails a day, which mostly go straight into my junk email folder. However, yesterday I received about 100 - with about 30 going into my in-box. I emptied my junk email folder this morning and moved the ones from my in-box using 'add sender to blocked senders list' option.

It is now about 11.45 and I already have 46 emails that have gone straight into the junk and another 8 have that popped into the in box.

What is going on?
Is this normal?
How can I stop/block or at least reduce it?

j_davies

You may want to use this or this I prefer the first one, also spam is on the up of late.

Wombat

Have you filled anything in online recently with your email address? It may have been circulated.

Don't fill up your email rules blocking the sender addresses. They change with every email and you will never keep up with them and only slow down your email program checking for them all.

As has been said, get an anti-spam program. Several are available free. I use this one:

http://www.spamihilator.com/

cwoodham

There's lots of info about dealing with spam if you type spam in the search box above the threads on any page

I use MailWasher to check and delete all unwanted email on the servers before I download any email to my computer. That way you can get rid of any spam+attachments before it gets near your PC. The last freeware version (1.33) is available here:

http://www.321download.com/LastFreeware/page2.html

Click on the Download link there not on the website link. MailWasher 1.33 allows you to check multiple email accounts if you have more than one. More recent versions dont. It also lets you set up filters to tag emails for deletion. For example you can set up a filter so that if the spam is not directly addressed to you (e.g. gxtrdse@yourdomain.com instead of yourname@yourdomain.com ) the email can be automatically tagged for deletion. It's not too difficult to set up and worth trying as its free. And it stops the spam and any attachments from getting onto your PC.

Dont bother to bounce the spam in Mailwasher as it wont go back to the sender just to someone whose address has been forged. Just delete it.

jap200

Wombat wrote:

Have you filled anything in online recently with your email address? It may have been circulated.

Don't fill up your email rules blocking the sender addresses. They change with every email and you will never keep up with them and only slow down your email program checking for them all.

As has been said, get an anti-spam program. Several are available free. I use this one:

http://www.spamihilator.com/

The weird thing is that it nearly all comes into my work email address - which I have never ever used for anything online - I only use it for work correspondence. However, this email address is visible on my company website. I work from home so have work and home emails directed to the same in box.

I will look into the things mentioned above - thanks all for suggestions.

cwoodham

jap200 wrote:

However, this email address is visible on my company website. I work from home so have work and home emails directed to the same in box.

The email address visible on the webpage has been harvested by the spammers. Email cloaking or using a contact form instead of displaying the email address may have prevented this but its too late now.