Help . . . email spam has taken over my life!

Shuey

Shuey

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Well, it started out as an extra 5 or so unwanted emails a day, became 30 or so within a month and now . . . I get several hundred a day! The delete key is no longer good enough.

So, my digital friends, is there a way to combat this other than replacing my email address (s--@--.net) which I like with something new?

If replacement is the only solution, any advice on what to switch to?

Thanks all,

Shuey
 
If you post your email... in a forum, which I'm sure you belong to a few, it will get picked up. Never a good idea to do that, instead have members contact you through the forums' msg system and provide an email there.
 
I got rid of my landline phone because of the constant telemarketing!
It was even free near the end --no extra charge for a VOIP home phone for those who had Internet service.
Still not worth it.
 
Larry Fine said:
I use Mozilla Thunderbird, which has learning spam filtering.
Click to expand...
IIRC are there several layers:
- the ISP maintains a blacklist (constantly globally updated) of suspicious domains on which the machine just bounces emails send from there
- the ISP further maintains a SPAM filter dropping suspicious messages into the SPAM folder; only accessible via their webmail site/portal
- your (local) email browser has a SPAM filter you can adjust the sensitivity & settings...
- your (local) anti virus/total protection software has an add-on for your email browser, filtering any possible malware attachments...
 
Time to start anew
I maintain 3 email address One that I use for any place that demands my email but I don't expect to do anything in the future with, I call it the superspam and never check it other than to delete everything there.
Next is my semispam box that I use for anything that I might have to respond to for confirmation. I check it every once in awhile.
Then is my real mailbox which I guard closely and only give out to real people that I know. My bank has this one and real current vendors too. I get very little spam there and when I do I unsuscribe if possible and report the spam and block if neccesary. So this is the box you need to create now and never give it out. Your previous mailbox is now the semispam box and you need to look at those messages in there and unsubscribe as much as possible. Some mail service you can search your messages for "unsubscribe" and then hit unsubscribe in bulk.
 
Sometimes I find it easier to just delete my entire In Box and then go into the trash folder and retrieve what I want.!
 
Hey Shuey... I'm guessing you have the same email as me... doesnt yours have a mark as spam on emails?
If you use that the amount of spam will go down, but go to a spam folder.
If you just delete, spams will just come back.
 
I switched from my ISP linked email to an Outlook one in 2017. Outlook has their own spam filter process so I get relatively few junk emails.

No doubt it's a hassle to change an email address. I cleaned up my contacts and then send out a message to the group through the BCC function to advise of the change, asked people to update their contacts and also delete the old address from the autofill buffer.

continued to use the same ISP, so my old email address was still valid. I used an "out of office" message to advise that my email had changed and to contact me if they wanted the new one. I also had the email auto forwarded to my new account so I could send to person a reminder if I wanted them to have my new address.

Updating personal contacts is relatively easy. Then you have the multitude of logins to various online accounts and / or profile info that has to be updated as well. Very time consuming.
 
What are you using as an ”Email Program”? Sounds like you really just have the spam filter setting a little loose. A few times telling the program whats spam will keep them from your view unless you look in the spam folder.
 
I also noticed a strong increase in SPAM since a certain person moved to that big white house and major companies are reducing the monitoring/cencoring of messages and news reports for obvious B.S.
Maybe it justs coincides with the subscription fee for my email address and they let through a bit more than usual, just to remind me the value of the paid subscription...
I find that unsubscribing to mailings dilligently helps to keep spam down, it's like a bacterial growth, kill one, and that's two less in the next cycle...
 
gunsmoker said:
I got rid of my landline phone because of the constant telemarketing!
It was even free near the end --no extra charge for a VOIP home phone for those who had Internet service.
Still not worth it.
Click to expand...
Won't make a difference for long. We are getting a growing number of phone-scammers on our cells. Same accents as the land line scammers.

Superdirk said:
I also noticed a strong increase in SPAM since a certain person moved to that big white house and major companies are reducing the monitoring/cencoring of messages and news reports for obvious B.S.
Maybe it justs coincides with the subscription fee for my email address and they let through a bit more than usual, just to remind me the value of the paid subscription...
I find that unsubscribing to mailings dilligently helps to keep spam down, it's like a bacterial growth, kill one, and that's two less in the next cycle...
Click to expand...
Everything is for sale, even the methods of circumventing spam filters.
 
Superdirk said:
I find that unsubscribing to mailings dilligently helps to keep spam down, it's like a bacterial growth, kill one, and that's two less in the next cycle...
Click to expand...
I found that unsubscribing from SPAM actually puts you on more spam lists, I think it just confirms that the address is an address that leads to a living person. Everything free on the net seems to increase spam. Those free e-greeting cards seem particularly bad for increasing spam.
 
Slydynbye said:
Time to start anew
I maintain 3 email address One that I use for any place that demands my email but I don't expect to do anything in the future with, I call it the superspam and never check it other than to delete everything there.
Next is my semispam box that I use for anything that I might have to respond to for confirmation. I check it every once in awhile.
Then is my real mailbox which I guard closely and only give out to real people that I know. My bank has this one and real current vendors too. I get very little spam there and when I do I unsuscribe if possible and report the spam and block if neccesary. So this is the box you need to create now and never give it out. Your previous mailbox is now the semispam box and you need to look at those messages in there and unsubscribe as much as possible. Some mail service you can search your messages for "unsubscribe" and then hit unsubscribe in bulk.
Click to expand...
Thanks all for the responses.
- Unsubscribing seems to be pointless and very time consuming. Tried it 'a lot' and it was like killing weeds. Stop one and 5 more replace it.
- The difficulty with blocking specific incoming email addresses is that matching topic emails have different sender addresses every time.
- Using Apple Mail and the filtering works well for repeating senders . . . but that's a drop in the bucket.

I'm guilty of giving out my email address (the only one I have) to everyone. That's changing shortly.

So:
Thanks all . . . time to generate a new email.
I liked Slydynbye's plan. Question . . . which of the three do you give out to medical, banking and service vendors (plumbers, electricians, etc.)
How do I notify family and friends of the new email address? Including it in a message from my old (current) address seems risky.

Shuey
 
Shuey said:
Thanks all for the responses.
- Unsubscribing seems to be pointless and very time consuming. Tried it 'a lot' and it was like killing weeds. Stop one and 5 more replace it.
- The difficulty with blocking specific incoming email addresses is that matching topic emails have different sender addresses every time.
- Using Apple Mail and the filtering works well for repeating senders . . . but that's a drop in the bucket.

I'm guilty of giving out my email address (the only one I have) to everyone. That's changing shortly.

So:
Thanks all . . . time to generate a new email.
I liked Slydynbye's plan. Question . . . which of the three do you give out to medical, banking and service vendors (plumbers, electricians, etc.)
How do I notify family and friends of the new email address? Including it in a message from my old (current) address seems risky.

Shuey
Click to expand...
Give them a voice call.
 
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