spam help please

happyhero

Hi Cant seem to find anything that will help on old threads on this, so sorry if this is a repeat.

I use Incredimail (don't groan) and really never have any problems with it but the amount of junk emails I am getting is just getting too much now and the odd one is filtering into my approved email contacts as they have managed to get it to look like its me who sent it, ie it has my email address as the sender. This is really annoying, because where as there is a facility in Incredimail to have your approved contacts emails go into one folder and all the junk elsewhere, which means I can quickly check the junk for anything sensible and then bounce them, with them going into my approved folder with me as the sender means I cannot do a lot about it.

Bouncing the emails gives me great satisfaction in sending the crap back ( I am of course assuming this system works) but with the ones that have my email address on them, I have checked the properties of the email and found a different sender email address and sent it back to that to achieve something like the bouncing. I realise this is not bouncing and they will know who I am.

I now get about 200 junk emails a day and although I am very fast at sorting (about 4min for 200) them and bouncing them due to the help of seperate folders/approved email list etc, I find the amount is getting too much.

It never works blocking the sender as they manage to send them from different addresses all the time and what about the ones that appear that they come from me, I would end up blocking myself, which I don't want to do as it is handy to send yourself one when you want to test any email problem.

Blocking the content isn't fantastic either as it would stop some of the jokes my friends send me, plus some of the content is entered in a different way to get round the blocking such as entering text as a picture so it wont be detected.

I don't know why these emails are coming as I have never been on any sites that relate to the stuff they advertise, like gold watches and stuff to improve my love life etc.

Can anyone offer any help or advice, especially about the ones that look like I sent them? Maybe at least to cut the amount down.

superscaper

I've never seen the point in bouncing as usually they get sent to innocent people and therefore you're technically spamming them. My mum used to get hundreds of emails from "bounce backs" claiming she spammed in the first place but it's simply a case of the spammers spoofing the from address. I'm sure many poeple will give their preferences for anti spam software which is all you can do really. Personally I find Outlook's own spam filter sufficient along with keeping track of who has which of my email addresses.

CHR15

I agree with superscraper, bouncing them is more than likely how you received a lot of them in the first place.
For those which dont, the reply is all they need to multiply the quantity sent to you. You are simply proving that the email address is a valid address an so much more is sent to you.

It is always best to have a few email addresses (yahoo, hotmail etc)
If you ever have to insert an email address on a web page, use one of the free ones. You can still check it but the spam which may follow is not a concern.

Keep your main pop3 account for personal emails, friends etc. and use the free (disposable) ones for temp useage.

happyhero

Thanks guys for the advice and yes some of the emails I bounce come back to me but this is normally a very small amount ie 5 to 10 out of 200.

But what I dont understand is the bouncing business the way you describe, in the Increddimail help it tells you how bouncing is to make the sender think there is no email address there anymore to send to, so why would it make them send even more, if all they get is a couldn't be delivered mail back?

I understand what you say about several email addresses but I do quite a lot on the net and so often expect emails from people I have not dealt with before and so this would amount to nearly the same thing, ie I would have to go through whichever email account, through the junk, to make sure there was no sensible emails in there. What makes this worse is when you deal with for example a company who you treat as approved and then they use different addresses to send you different types of information.

What about the ones that are coming to me with my own email address as the sender, can I find out who they are really from, is properties the way or is it not possible for me to find out?

When I return these is there a way I can hide the fact I am the sender, to play them at there own game?

Also from what you have told me, I take it there is no really successfull way to deal with spam, other than fine tuning a spam filter?

h_roberts

Just grit your teeth and create yet another email account!
I've done this for years - use one until it gets clogged with carp - then switch. Keep an occasional check on the old one until you can consider it safe to let it die.
Some email providers (the more popular ones) are only good for a few months before they get spammed to death, others last quite well.
If you want to know a pretty good one (at the moment, anyway!) PM me.

Wombat

h_roberts wrote:

Just grit your teeth and create yet another email account!
I've done this for years - use one until it gets clogged with carp

A good tip is to try and keep your level of emails below the high water mark.

superscaper

Personally I have my own domain and give a unique address to everyone I sign up with (eg amazon@mydomain.com, ebay@mydomain.com...). If there's ever a problem I just simply block off that email address and of course it tells me who has been passing on my details. So far I've found rgmedia and aria technology to have passed on my email address. They never did anything about it but I feel a bit more in power by knowing who the culprits are and having much more control over my email addresses.

sue5665

I was getting hundreds of crap a day as we have a B & B so our email address is always shown. The best way to deal with it is to just delete them and they will eventually stop.
Sue

sicker

Happyhero, why groan at incredimail. I have used it happily for the past 4 years. I get 1 or 2 junk mail per day which I just delete. I agree about 'bouncing', it just confirms a ligitimate address. With btyahoo, the few times I look at my mail box it has hundreds of junk mail in it (I just delete the lot), nothing anywhere else so incredimail appears to me to be doing a very good job.

John

happyhero

sicker wrote:

Happyhero, why groan at incredimail. I have used it happily for the past 4 years. I get 1 or 2 junk mail per day which I just delete. I agree about 'bouncing', it just confirms a ligitimate address. With btyahoo, the few times I look at my mail box it has hundreds of junk mail in it (I just delete the lot), nothing anywhere else so incredimail appears to me to be doing a very good job.

John

But John, how does bouncing confirm a ligitimate address? If that is the case it is useless. I thought the whole idea of bouncing was to make them at the other end think that my email address no longer exists by sending them a failed to be delivered notice? How would this tell them that my email is ligitimate?

Moneymaker

As regards bouncing, the spam sender will *never* use his own "reply" address. It will invariably be some poor innocent's address (so you are effectively spamming them) or else a false address which will bounce your bounce right back again. Either way, it achieves nothing.

See http://www.!!!!!!.uk/spam.htm