Email spammers

[Bill Jobe]

Don't you sometimes just wish you could get your hands around the neck of email spammers?
Started getting hit hard about a week ago. Last night I tagged several domains as spam and they went to the spam box and I got a notification that they were now registered as spam.
This morning my inbox was clear full of the same crap.
Why hasn't someone figured out a way to shut these people down!!!
Makes me pine for the old days when they'd come to your door and you could mess with their heads and waste their time by inviting them in and have them go through their whole song and dance, then tell them you intentionally held them up to spare others at least for a while.

[Chuck Wintle]

Don't you sometimes just wish you could get your hands around the neck of email spammers?
Started getting hit hard about a week ago. Last night I tagged several domains as spam and they went to the spam box and I got a notification that they were now registered as spam.
This morning my inbox was clear full of the same crap.
Why hasn't someone figured out a way to shut these people down!!!
Makes me pine for the old days when they'd come to your door and you could mess with their heads and waste their time by inviting them in and have them go through their whole song and dance, then tell them you intentionally held them up to spare others at least for a while.
Just wondering what you use as email software? thunderbird can be taught to reject a lot of spam as it comes into the inbox. It works well for me.

[Bill Jobe]

I use Hotmail on an Android phone.

Years ago I had the option not to download domains or addresses I labeled spam from the server. Why has that technology been discontinued?
As it is I must delete every spam email that comes in with no way to prevent them from coming in.

[Lee Schierer]

Just wondering what you use as email software? thunderbird can be taught to reject a lot of spam as it comes into the inbox. It works well for me.

I just hit the flame icon in Thunderbird and it goes directly to trash.


I use Hotmail on an Android phone.

Years ago I had the option not to download domains or addresses I labeled spam from the server. Why has that technology been discontinued?
As it is I must delete every spam email that comes in with no way to prevent them from coming in.

Earthlink.net allows you to block senders and domains so that their mail gets dumped before you download your mail.

[Jim Becker]

The "SpamExperts" spam control that I have with my domain hosting has been excellent with regard to handling things automatically. I don't get very much that comes through at all on any of my email addresses and for the few that do, most of those are further caught by my MacOS email client and segregated.

[Andrew Joiner]

I use Hotmail on an Android phone.

Years ago I had the option not to download domains or addresses I labeled spam from the server. Why has that technology been discontinued?
As it is I must delete every spam email that comes in with no way to prevent them from coming in.
I use hotmail as well. Just 3 days ago started getting the spam that used to go to junk. Nothing is going to junk at all in the past 3 days.

[Mike Cary]

Okay, here’s what I don’t get, email spam, robocalls with ghost ids, telemarketers, does any of it work? I hang up, block, ignore, somebody must be buying this crap you would think or it would go away.

[Bill Jobe]

I just spent 2 hours trying to prevent my email account from being close.
I received an urgent message to follow the instructions. I contacted Microsoft and the first agent told me to follow the instructions and ended live chat. Then I tried many times to get back on live chat and was refused. Finally I got back on and was told to ignore the email and change my password. That process took about an hour.
I still don't know for sure if my account will not be deleted.
Last night I got a message from (someone) saying that another s4 was trying to log in to my Gmail account. They said the person was about 200 miles away.
Took me about another 2 hours to straighten that out. All if my contact are linked to my Hotmail account but I must also have a Gmail account for some reason.
I am ready to pull my hair out

[Mike Cary]

When you get a message saying that someone is trying or has gotten into your email, iTunes, or anything else, it is a scam! Delete it. Do not respond.

[Bill Jobe]

When you get a message saying that someone is trying or has gotten into your email, iTunes, or anything else, it is a scam! Delete it. Do not respond.


Thanks Mike. Wish I'd known that when this all began.
The live chat when I got the first time that it was, in fact, from them and that I should follow it's directions.

[Malcolm McLeod]

^+1
Most 'hacking' events are simply social engineering. A legitimate-looking message arrives and victims click on something, simply because bad guy makes the victims think they must (or should, or just want to). It directs victims to 'their' site, which looks like whatever it is victims are expecting it to be, and victims provide buckets of personal data. ...Hacked.

The more urgent the requested response/action, the more likely it is to be a hacker. The want reaction, not thought.

Hover over a click link and READ the address where it is going to take you. Does it actually link to what you expect? (i.e. www(dot)myexpectation.com/customerservice ) Or, does it go to something fuzzy? (i.e. www(dot)qwerty123.myexpectation.fghjk.4567.udontkn owme.com) And 'udontknowme' is the important part.

[Bill Jobe]

I did not click annything within the email. I logged on my Google/Gmail account and went from there.

[Malcolm McLeod]

I did not click annything within the email. I logged on my Google/Gmail account and went from there.

Sorry, Bill. I didn't mean to imply that you did; just offering the most common ruse.

[Bill Jobe]

Sorry, Bill. I didn't mean to imply that you did; just offering the most common ruse.

I know. Malcolm. And I appreciate your willingness to help.
I am just really upset that costumer service was so inept. Particularly the first agent who closed our chat while I was asking a question. And her info was incorrect.

[Carlos Alvarez]

I use Google for mail service and they kill well over 99% of spam. The rest goes into the spam box. I don't recall the last time any spam got past Google. Nobody does mail better than Google.

[Jim Koepke]

My way of handling this is to have multiple email accounts. One is my "junk mail" account. This one is given out freely to just about anyone. Supposedly it was closed about 10 years ago when we moved. Somehow the "disconnect order" got misplaced.

One of my accounts is a private account only a few of my friends know and use. Others are for various needs for businesses with legitimate reasons to contact me.

It keeps most of the junk in one place and easier with which to deal. It is amazing how when one site gets your eddress it is often shared with a dozen others.

Most people who have been given my eddress also know it is not viewed by me kindly if they share my information.

The MacOS mail reader used to have a "bounce" option for unwanted email. It would send it back looking like it was rejected as a bad eddress. This did help with some automatic spam generators.

It isn't hard to generate a message to get bounced and then with a little editing make it look like it isn't a forwarded message to fool an auto-mailer.

jtk

[Bill Jobe]

I use Google for mail service and they kill well over 99% of spam. The rest goes into the spam box. I don't recall the last time any spam got past Google. Nobody does mail better than Google.

I have my Gmail account linked to my Hotmail account.
Know of any way to run all of my Hotmail messages through gmail's filters that you know of?
The idea of dropping my Hotmail account is unsettling since I've used it forever for all of my personal and business contacts.

[Carlos Alvarez]

I have my Gmail account linked to my Hotmail account.
Know of any way to run all of my Hotmail messages through gmail's filters that you know of?
The idea of dropping my Hotmail account is unsettling since I've used it forever for all of my personal and business contacts.

You can have Gmail check other accounts and centralize all the mail. I have no idea if the spam filters work then, because a lot of filtering is done DURING the transfer of the mail to start with. I don't know the step by step but this seems to have answers: https://www.google.com/search?ei=PLa5Wo7AF4acjwOCvqrwAQ&q=gmail+check+hotmail&oq=gmail+check+hotmail&gs_l=psy-ab.3..0i30k1j0i8i30k1.4085.5238.0.5556.5.5.0.0.0.0 .216.505.2j1j1.4.0....0...1c.1.64.psy-ab..1.4.502...0i7i30k1j0i8i7i30k1.0.WcHXhRFJqJg

I've switched addresses a few times and always see it as a nice refreshing clean mailbox where only current contacts can reach me.

[Stephen Tashiro]

Makes me pine for the old days when they'd come to your door and you could mess with their heads and waste their time by inviting them in and have them go through their whole song and dance, then tell them you intentionally held them up to spare others at least for a while.

Uh.... I'll take the new days instead.

[Carlos Alvarez]

Uh.... I'll take the new days instead.

Yeah, it reminds me that we haven't seen door to door people selling their religion or junk for some time. We don't answer the door at all for strangers.