Spam... arrrrghhhh....

[t1grm]

I’ve managed to get used to spam now. I can scan my mail and delete it pretty quickly. I get quite a lot. Usually just over 100 a day. However last time I checked my private email was about midnight last night. I’ve just logged in to check my mail again this morning and it’s up to 1800 messages and counting that’s since midnight last night It’s be downloading for about 30 mins now. WTF is going on? This is taking the pi** ! It’s all from different users so I don’t think I’ve been “mailbombed” Looking at the mails I seem to have about 30-40 copies of every spam message so maybe the mail server’s screwed up and replicated the mail or something?

P.S. It’s increased to 2055 in the time I’ve written this post and is still increasing.

P.P.S. It’s just stopped at 2085 messages. In 10 hours !

[PetrolTed]

That sounds particularly mad. I get a lot on various addresses but it's no more than 200 a day.

[FourWheelDrift]

t1grm you haven't click on the "click here to unsubscribe" links have you?

[t1grm]

Just done some analysis and 1974 of the 2085 messages were received between 04:50 am and 04:55 am (that’s about 350 mails a minute) all with a blank subject line. That leaves 112 “genuine spam” - an oxymoron if ever there were one – which is about what I normally have to put up with.

So some w**ker fired off 2000 odd messages to my inbox at 5:00 am this morning. I don’t normally bother but this is one I will definitely be reporting to my ISP.

[t1grm]

FourWheelDrift said:

t1grm you haven't click on the "click here to unsubscribe" links have you?

I used to but haven't done so for a coulple of years now since I found out that just confirms the fact it's a valid email address so they just send you more.

[nubbin]

I had 95 messages yesterday, all with a very graphic porno picture, all from different senders - it's been happening for a few days. I suppose I ought to report it to my ISP?

[t1grm]

Further analysis: Although the diplayed from name is different the actual email address is the same for all the messages:

[e-mail]

The content seems to be two messaqges. Ones a HTML message the other is plain text. Looking at their web page: www.rapid-mortgage.com/ it's just a form to complete with no info about the company so probably just another ruse to get the less wary to hand over more personal details they can use for forced marketing.

1974 emails in 5 mins? Surely that count's as a mailbomb? Isn't that considered a more serous offence than just spamming?

[Zod]

With a combination of btopenworld and Outlook 2003, I finally seem to have this problem licked. There was an Outlook 2003 patch a few weeks ago with a spam detection update that really seemed to do the trick.

[simpo two]

I use the free version of Mailwasher. It's nearly as handy as the Pro version and isn't $37.

If you Google for 'Mailwasher free download' you'll find it. At least it keeps the crap, abuse and miscellaneous loonies from your Inbox.

[kojak69]

I now get nearly 200/day. Cable filters. mortgages, viagra, usual porn, gambling etc... I dont want to change my email address though.

[kojak69]

Zod said:

With a combination of btopenworld and Outlook 2003, I finally seem to have this problem licked. There was an Outlook 2003 patch a few weeks ago with a spam detection update that really seemed to do the trick.

Problem though (as I'm on btopenworld/yahoo) I get the odd proper email in with the crap, so cant just delete the inbox.

[jam1et]

What I still find really amusing is the amount of spam advertising anti spam services/software!

Who the hell actually reads this stuff? Do some people actually look through their spam and act on it? Even if I happened to really want the product being sold I still wouldnt buy it just out of principle.

And what the are all these random word subject generators all about? I realise its to defeat anti-spam measures but then who would ever bother to read the email I had this morning entitled 'Trousery amicable country stone mallow'

Are some people just really thick?

[t1grm]

Got another 1800 odd last night. Again 1700 odd arrived within 5 mins so it looks like they all came from the same source. I've told my ISP now. Looks like my ISP have shut my account down until they resolve the problem. So now I'm getting no mail at all.

I used to use mailwasher but it took so long to scan the incoming mails that I could do it quicker myself so stopped using it. It certainly wouldn't cope with the volumes I'm getting now.

Problem is I have a registered domain name with mail forwarding. The spam is going to the domain name so even if I register with a new ISP as soon as I set up the mail forwarding to go to the new address I'll get all the Spam coming in again. I've just registered with another free ISP and set up mail forwarding to that address as an experiment. The only thing I can hope for is that they have a better Spam filter than the other ISP.

>> Edited by t1grm on Wednesday 5th May 18:56