Are you fed up with SPAM?
@lordwarwizard (35747)
Singapore
April 16, 2007 2:18pm CST
I just logged in to the email of one of the sidelines I am running. 8,321 emails were waiting for me in the inbox and I had only forgotten to check the account for 2 weeks. Can you imagine the literal HORROR I felt? Eight thousand three hundred and twenty one. Nice figure. I wanted to take a screen shot but that would betray the hosting company. I wouldn't want to get sued for their inefficiency. In case you were wondering, my spam filter was on but it did not work. I ran through my emails and they were practically all genuine spam. I have been so routinely harassed by spam that I am so sick of it that I don't think I can get sicker. :P
Well, at least this is a one-off thing that I only need to do from time to time. (I will pretend I did not mention to you that I can only view 250 emails max at one time so I had to make several clicks to delete the next 250 emails in the queue.)
I have been spammed by another source lately. I used to be using yahoo as my primary email; I was even one of those silly guys who paid for my email account. After gmail came out, I switched - happily - and never looked back. In yahoo email, there is a setting to forward all emails to another address. With glee, I had my emails from yahoo forwarded to my primary gmail account. That service never worked but I left the forward on and forgot about it.
Recently, after so long, it suddenly started working. Those who have used both yahoo and gmail will know that gmail's spam filter is far superior to yahoo's. So now, yahoo's forward is working. Every single spam mail is being forwarded as well. But what's worse is that gmail accepts those spam emails which yahoo accepts as legitimate as really legitimate. So now, I am getting spam emails in my gmail inbox as well. Every now and then throughout the day, I will get a new mail only to realize it is a spam.
Can you imagine my frustration? I tried turning off the forward but this "service" has apparently been upgraded to a premium one that I have to pay for. Ridiculous, isn't it - when I just want the setting to be back to default? I have written yahoo about it and they say they will look into it... and I WAIT.
I simply cannot understand why spammers spend good resources to spam people. The spam mails are obviously spam looking and no smart guy will click on them anyway. So why?? Can anyone speculate? Also, might you be or have been in a similar situation as me? How do you cope with such a traumatic experience of being flooded with spam? Do share your thoughts. ;-)
PS.: Pardon for the long discussion. I am not exactly known for brevity, right? :P
20 people like this
59 responses
@beaniegdi (1964)
•
16 Apr 07
If you still have your yahoo account then something I have just learned recently is you can have a vacation message set up which will send a message to the person posting to you. You will still get a message in your inbox so will still have to delete but they get a message from you also. You can set this to say you are away at the moment and will check the message when you get back but there is a great xyz you can recommend and just put the link to any business you are promoting and you will be spamming the spammers and maybe get some sign ups as well.
5 people like this
@crackhead (1826)
• India
16 Apr 07
Its your specialty lordie to post long discussions and you need not be sorry for that. I Love the way you organize words in your discussions.
I guess if you should have a good firewall to restrict spam in your Inbox. Recently i installed internet security suite from CA which is of real good help to me. I found a pretty good difference after installing the security suite, most of the spam dint invade my yahoo mail inbox i am happy about that.
I hate spam mails in my inbox and i already am irritated with the kind of spam that ends up in my spam folder on my Gmail account. I never had any spam in my gmail account inbox, except on the spam folder.
Even after forwarding if you are getting those spam mails to your inbox then i can imagine how irritating that would be.
I advice you to go with a good firewall program installation so that your mail box wont be flooded.
@lordwarwizard (35747)
• Singapore
16 Apr 07
You are too kind. :P
As for your firewall suggestion, I do not think firewall helps to fight spam in emails... no connection it seems... or is there?
3 people like this
@crackhead (1826)
• India
16 Apr 07
Thank you very much for the Medal.
Coming to the firewall protecting your mail, yes in my firewall i have the option of controlling the inbound as well as the outbound mail checking which do check for spam regularly as well as for virus. That was the change i figured out after installing this firewall. My Spam email count decreased and Yahoo bulk isn't flooded these days.
So i guess you can have a try at it. If ya want any free firewall software or internet security software please do let me know if you think i am of any help.
4 people like this
@margieanneart (26423)
• United States
16 Apr 07
Spams are out there for two reasons. To make money off you and to steal your money by getting into your accounts. Just block what you can, and delete them all the best you can. If it is out of control, re open another email address. Good luck my friend.
4 people like this
@sweetlady10 (3611)
• United States
16 Apr 07
Ohhh to go through 8,321 will be so time consuming for you. I just hate this kind of spaming. Sometime real mail get lost in between spam mails waht is very much irritating. I wonder if those people who send spam actually get any result from their spaming, because mostly people directly delete those e-mails. But they will never stop to send spam.
4 people like this
@totalearnings (1603)
• India
16 Apr 07
8000 plus mails!! thats a big exercise again to sort out and keep the valued ones. my yahoo inbox has presently 2000 plus mails. nothing spam but unread mails from other forum related to my subject. i am just trying to sort out them but the lot is increasing on the other side. may be i should take a day off.
4 people like this
@liranlgo (5752)
• Israel
16 Apr 07
Wiz, you hit a weak spot here. I do know what you are talking about, and it seems that i am closing and opening email boxes more then i change my socks, and i not laughing this time. Thank you for the information. some of that i did not know, and it is good to know, even though i do not believe that it will help me much with this spam situation.
I have 10 active e mails, three of them are used for my work issues, 2 for business issues, 1 for mylot, 2 personal one's, 2 are for special learning issues, articles and so on. It is very hard to start and change each time those addressed, so lately i just thought i will deal with deleting the spam mail, without ever looking at it, but i do know that sometimes i muss some important e-mails, that accidentally were transferred to the spam section, and it makes me very emotional. I do hope that we will find a practical solution to this problem soon, because no one can handle that much spam, and they always somehow manage to get email addresses that i never give out, in the list also.
@lordwarwizard (35747)
• Singapore
17 Apr 07
You are not laughing but I am. HAHA!!
And same thing here, sometimes I just *pretend* and simply delete the lot. I am sick and tired of seeing spam, spam and more spam. :P
3 people like this
@Lydia1901 (16351)
• United States
22 Apr 07
Yeah, but I do not let it bother me anymroe. Now when I log into my e-mail account, the first thing I do is check my junk folder. I delete them before I get more for the day.
@lordwarwizard (35747)
• Singapore
22 Apr 07
Right. If they are in the junk folder, it is *ok*. I was referring more to those junks that went past the filter and are in inbox.
1 person likes this
@lossforredwords (3620)
• Philippines
17 Apr 07
That is a sure frustrating situation men! I don't get it why spammers put such an effort to spam people that obiviously won't work.
I also had that dilemma back four years ago, I will get 400 to 500 emails per day both in my inbox and bulk folder and instead or resolving it which I think will take alot of my enrgy, I just abadoned the address and make a new one, I just give notification to all of my friends about my new add.
I think the best you can do is wait for the yahoo to resolve it and also contact gmail if they can do something about it too.
2 people like this
@sahyd2don (2942)
• India
22 Apr 07
yes i am fed up with spam too but not like you . 8000 is really a big number.I can't even imagine of seeing that no of eamils in my inbox.I think you have passed on your email id to some body who has used it on some site to spam you.
@lordwarwizard (35747)
• Singapore
22 Apr 07
That reminds me. OH NO. I haven't checked the mail since I posted this discussion. OH NO.
2 people like this
@SKLC_PT (1234)
•
1 May 07
I get a lot, and sometimes I'll delete real e-mails by mistake because between all the spam I don't always recognize the real mail. I get thousands of spam, I tried unsubscribing as some supposedly had the option to the bottom of the e-mail but it just consumed my time and they kept coming anyway. Sometimes I feel like just creating new e-mails but it's tough when I like the e-mails I have! I get real frustrated sometimes with it!
@complexvanilla (653)
• India
22 Apr 07
Am I fed up with Spam??? Wiz, that's like asking whether I would want to avoid the plague, given a choice!!! Spam is the most irritating think that can happen to anybody, but I feel that it's mostly dependent on your email-service provider. A great deal of spam can be stopped by simply checking on your settings. For instance, there are a bunch of fields with a tick mark, by default. They mean that you are willing to subscribe to a whole load of 'free' services like ezines and news reports and what not. I have removed them all and have never received a single piece of spam, even onto my yahoo account. Also, take care when you participate in web surveys and the like. Uncheck any box that says that you would want to receive periodic news and updates. That is what is fed to the spammer's databases. With a few easy to follow steps, you can avoid spam to a large extent.
3 people like this
@lordwarwizard (35747)
• Singapore
22 Apr 07
Haha, well said! That's a good newbie's guide to no-spam! ^^
2 people like this
@tajinder_18 (324)
• Malaysia
17 Apr 07
i am experiencing the same thing like you.i usually receive a lot of spams email everyday till my inbox will be full.so i need to check emails every day.if i do not check later on it will be difficult for me to delete all of it.sometimes i get bored deleting too.i am just wondering how can we stop receiving emails from this spammers.is there any ways of blocking them??because i noticed usually the senders are the same sending you spam emails every day.actually how these people get your emails id??there is no protection develop against this spammers.i think yahoo should do something about it.
@lovelydame3000 (1577)
• India
15 Jun 07
Hi! That has happened to me too. One or two days i do not heck my mails then i will endup with inumerous spam mails to be deleted. Once i went for a Holidaay of 10 days and i ended up with such an amount of spam mails that i lost my patience.
@tmlnmr (1850)
• Canada
14 Jun 07
Well wizard, people must not love me as much as they do you because I don't really get the spam in my yahoo or my gmail accounts. It all goes directly into my spam folder in my gmail and my yahoo just doesn't get any for some reason. I did get alot in my outlook but since I put the spamfilter on it isn't as bad. I am really glad that I don't get that many in any of my email, I just don't know if I would get through them all. I would likely just select all and delete without caring if there was something important in there. LOL. I get very annoyed very quickly with the spam so I would get frustrated going through that many email. I commend you for being able to!
1 person likes this
@hoghoney (3747)
• United States
15 Jun 07
sorry that this is late. I have a friend that had not checked her for about 3 months and she had over 13,000 and some emails in hers and it took about an hour to delete them all because they were in her inbox and the hightest you can go at a time is 200. I have spam emails.
1 person likes this
@Abbyey (760)
• Philippines
12 Jun 07
I too get spam emails and i hate it! I delete them continously, there were times that i changed my email address and have all my friends updated but it was tedious.
You said Gmail really works in filtering SPAM emails. Hmmm Maybe i would check that out too... :P Thanks for the information its very much appreciated. :P
1 person likes this
@lordwarwizard (35747)
• Singapore
13 Jun 07
Yea, check out gmail. It is not perfect but so far, I find it the best.
@CatNPK (461)
• United States
14 Jun 07
Short answer: YES! My solution has been to create an email account specifically when I know chances of it getting onto some list sold into the world are large. I have spent more time skimming through those "terms of agreement" to make sure that my personal emails don't get any spam. Works fairly well as I no longer get any spam into my inbox on the two personal email addresses. I have also learned to avoid sites that appear suspicious, and between my router, PeerGuardian, a software firewall (I like Kerio), and daily AdAware scans my computer stays quite bug free. It may be overkill since the most "dangerous" sites I visit nowadays typically end up being things like mylot and the email accounts themselves, but as I said: I live a (almost) spam free life and have for the last two or so years.
1 person likes this
@lordwarwizard (35747)
• Singapore
15 Jun 07
I won't believe these terms of agreement if I were you. :P
@ahgong (10064)
• Singapore
14 Jun 07
tell me about it!
My mailbox literally has hundreds of them everyday!
I am consistently updating my spam filter to filter them out. My junk folder is never empty each time I login to check my mail.
I am amazed at how these spam mail works. Even when the Sent To address is not mine, I still get them in my mailbox.
Irritating!
Now a days, with my updated spam filter, the mails i got are much more manageable.
@latsmom (824)
•
14 Jun 07
Yes it does really annoy me. I would be a millionair by now if the mails were genuine, would never have to pay for shopping with all the gift card offers ect. It does annoy me and I have to spend a lot of time getting rid of it as sometimes genuine mails end up in my spam box for no reason, it is a waste of time.
1 person likes this
@kornkatorze (141)
• Philippines
14 Jun 07
yes me two i have many spam in my email somrtimes my email expire becoz lots of spam email so may storage is full
1 person likes this
