[gatorbait]

I have always been very careful about giving out my email addy and feel I have done a pretty good job. But for some reason in the last week or so I have been getting spammed like 3-4 times a day. They are (seem) to be legit buisnesses and not the generated kind that usually have all kinds of misspellings in the title. My spam blocker picks those up. These are legitimate buisness like mortgage companies, auto refinance places, etc. etc. I havent done any transactions recently and if/when I do I always uncheck the box for them to send me emails. One I even went to and unsubscribed and it hasnt even quit. I hate this junk and dont know how to get rid of it. Verizon spam blocker is on as is Norton Spam blocker. Anyone?

Z

 

[Texas T]

You may want to use Thunderbird from Mozilla for your email. It can be set up to filter you mail how you want and it will learn what is junk and dump it for you.

 

[12lbtest]

GB,

Mortage Companies and Refinance Co.'s. Hmmmm. Acquired some signifigant hospital bills lately....think maybe the hospital and or insurance company may be leaking your info just in the event you need options for covering payments.

Just a thought,
12lb

 

[gatorbait]

maybe

But there is no where on ANY medical documents that I would have put my email address. Shoot, Im not even paying for any of the medical bills, employer is on the hook for those. Good idea though, Ill have to think about that one.

Z

GB,

Mortage Companies and Refinance Co.'s. Hmmmm. Acquired some signifigant hospital bills lately....think maybe the hospital and or insurance company may be leaking your info just in the event you need options for covering payments.

Just a thought,
12lb

 

[Guest]

GB,

Mortage Companies and Refinance Co.'s. Hmmmm. Acquired some signifigant hospital bills lately....think maybe the hospital and or insurance company may be leaking your info just in the event you need options for covering payments.

Just a thought,
12lb

The reason may not be right, but there was a recent program on TV about identity theft and they claimed that 'insiders' in places like hospitals (your information is on your chart, etc.) and insurance companies are the biggest sources of information for scamers and spamers. ~ You might want to keep a close check on your accounts and credit rating for awhile.

Re spam filtering: I use a program called "MailWasher Pro" on an ISP account I have had for 8 years. It catches and eliminates between 80 and 120 pieces of spam per day without me having to even look at them.

:rybka:

 

[grayfish]

Some times when you send an email to someone, they forward it to someone else. And so on. Bingo you got spam. Never open an email you are unsure of. If you are not expecting it, Don't open it. If you do they (the evil ones) know you are a real live email addresss and now you are on more spam mail lists as the evil ones sell it. Same with the going to the site and trying to stop it. Don't do it. If you subscribe to news letters and such, go to a free email service (Hotmail, Yahoo, ect) and get you an email address just for that. Web based. Check you ISP for Spam blocker options.

I am sure Bill can come up with a few more.

 

[bill]

I hate to say it but I agree with the hospital. I went to the er in January, for weeks I got spam. Hospitals have to try and make up for money that is lost on some patients..but that is a discussion for the jungle (and I believe it's been covered well). Either that or your surfing too much **** LOL

Don't sweat them at all, just delete and in a week or so they will quit. Brother, spam is nothing to worry about. If your getting bored, I could jack with you...or I guess Akula could....LOL J/K

Bottom line, for legit companies, it costs them money..if they don't make a return they move on to someone else. Also, I never respond to any spam...even to unsubcribe..that just tells them they have a legit email address and sell it off to someone else.

 

[Topcat]

Opening email

....
Never open an email you are unsure of. If you are not expecting it, Don't open it. If you do they (the evil ones) know you are a real live email addresss and now you are on more spam mail lists as the evil ones sell it. ....

Grayfish, I would like to clarify something about opening email.

IF one uses an email program that will easily block all images in the email (such as Mozilla or Thunderbird) opening an email will not let (the evil ones) know you opened the email. Spammers like to put tiny 1 pixel images in the mail (known as web bugs), so that when you open the email your email program requests that image from the spammer. You cant see the image, it is too small and the same color as the background, but the spammer knows what email address goes with that image, and bingo, he knows he has a live address. Instantly sold to others and you get a bunch more spam.

This is a different issue than opening email from people you dont know, or opening attachments that you dont know what they are. Some email programs, like Outlook and Outlook Express are very easy to get virus from if you are not very careful. Any email program can get you infected if you open that attachment without virus protection.

So, all of your post is good advice, just wanted to make sure folks understood about how to block those spammers!

 

[grayfish]

Thanks

 

[centexfisher]

I use incredimail. It blocks images, which is good, but you can eaily choose to bounce the e-mail back to sender. That tells the sending computer it is a bad e-mail address and spam stops fairly quickly.

 

[bill]

incredimail is a good program