Do you delete it,
reply and type REMOVE in the subject
reply to the link they give you to REMOVE yourself
go to the URL they provide
I’ve had some luck getting rid of spam, but I continue to receive new spam
Nothing is so bad that it can’t get worse.
I send back a letter telling them never to mail it again. I then put their messages on ignore. If a friend was sending it, I usually just delete it.
HUGS!
Sqrl
I use it as a substitute for email baked beans when they run out.
They always have a way to contact them.
It is either:
Email (subscribe them to some wierd email list)
Phone- usually a toll free number (call late at night and let the phone hang- use a payphone so they don’t call back)
A mailing address (mail them… things. Mebbie a candybar wrapper, or food past the expiration date, or ask about their product, and give another spammer’s address/email/phone number as your return address.)
In conclusion, waste as much of their time that they wasted of yours. If everyone did this, then spamming would be financially unviable and therefore non existent.
I have no digital watch
From what I understand, some spammers will only add you to more lists if you send back “remove”. I’m not sure what their reasoning is, maybe it’s just because you proved to them that you check and read all your mail proving that there is at least a slim chance you’ll buy something.
If you have a carrier that can block the address, usually that’s just what I do. However, if you have problems with spam and they all seem to be coming from the same source, you could contact organizations that can block everything from that ISP. I’ve heard of one called Mail Abuse. Something like that. Typically, they’ll contact the ISP and ask them to terminate the user or whatever.
However, it has it’s negative effects. My ISP had member caught running a scam business. The ISP didn’t move on the problem after three notifications. So a mail abuse company blocked the ISP. That effected everyone who used that ISP, including me. Very annoying to suddenly have a useless e-mail address that you are paying for.
Filters rarely work - spammers change the email addresses with enough frequency that at least ONE gets through before you can add that new address to your filters.
ISP / Mail Abuse - another wasted effort, most ISP’s are so backlogged that the available resources will never be able to track down the particular “spammer”. In addition, many ISP’s sold your email address to these “legitimate” companies to begin with.
REMOVE - From my understanding, the logic goes…
Buy a list of 10,000 emails. You don’t know which ones are good vs. bad.
Send out 10,000 emails offering to get rich quick, etc.
When someone responds with “REMOVE” you now KNOW it’s a good address so send it more crap or sell it on to other “spammers”.
To be helpful, what I’ve found works the best is to open one of the free email accounts. Use this address solely for online purposes - software registration, message board registration, online forms, posting to newsgroups, irc, etc. NEVER give out your real email address for ANYTHING other than 1.) business contacts or 2.) family/friends.
Since I began doing this, I’ve been 2 years spam free on my personal email at home.
clink clink Just my two cents worth - market value may vary…
The Sleeper has AWAKENED!
On my old ISP and e-mail address, I used to get nearly twenty messages a day inviting me to take advantage of a great opportunity, get a diploma without doing work, use the web to expand my business, or, most often, enjoy HOT! SEX! with BARELY! LEGALS!
Most of these did indeed have a link you could click to respond to remove yourself from the list. However, taking this option either 1) had no effect, because the next day the same thing would be in my box again; 2) would elicit an error box which informed me that the server could not send my message because of too many duplicate messages from all the other people trying to get off their list; or 3) would take directly to their porn site.
I then attempted to block these by complaining to the ISP, which seemed baffled. The customer service rep said that they had never received such complaints before. Oh! Really? :rolleyes:
I decided to cut bait and I switched ISPs when I got my new cable modem. I haven’t had a single piece of spam since. Maybe they just haven’t caught up to me, but it’s been six weeks since I switched.
If my “friends” send me something stupid, I usually respond with a link to Snopes.
If you want info on stopping spam, UCE, or whatever you call it, a good place to start is :
http://www.samspade.org
they’ve got links to other places, like CAUCE, and, believe it or not, the ftc actually has a lot of good stuff to – go to
http://www.ftc.gov
panama jack
I usually delete anything that isn’t from someone I know…without reading. If I find that what was in the “re” box really disgusting I might forward it to AOL tosspam.
Recently I got a porn solicition from my own email address. Don’t ask me how they did that. I couldn’t email them and tell them not to send me anymore stuff.
–Gail
“Predictable, really I suppose. It was an act of purest optimism to have posed the question in the first place.” --John Cleese
Delete it. Comes from you posting your email somewhere on the net. tsk. sigh.
I get about 3 per day real spam, plus 5 per day from ones I subscribed to. I get about 20 emails per day.
“‘How do you know I’m mad’ said Alice.
'You must be, ’ said the Cat, ‘or you wouldn’t have come here.’”
I destroy the spammer’s account…
/Evil grin
One word…Mailbomber
-SS :mad:
I can’t stand it. It’s like mindrape.
Rubes asked in
First of all, I use pine, which is a UNIX shell-based email program. This allows me to use a very powerful email software filtering program called “Procmail,” which is installed at the server of my ISP. This way, I know my ISP is filtering a lot of obvious spam before it even reaches me. I then have my own Procmail recipe file where I stipulate what sort of email I allow in, and in which folders they should go into. I do maintain an IN-trash folder and when I look through it periodically, I’m logging up to about 10 pieces of spam that get trashed daily (that I’m not having to read).
Second, I use a service called Spamcop that tracks down where exactly the spam comes from; most spammers are clever enough to shield/hide the IP addresses from where they send their garbage. If Spamcop detects a real address, I can send complaints to the postmaster as well as its upstream feed. Be VERY VERY VERY careful that the original spammer does not find out your email address is valid! If you write back to complain, or reply with the “unsubscribe” request, all it does is tell the spammer that you are a living person who reads email!!! If you are going to complain, complain to his ISP, his upstream provider, or Internet backbone provider.
Third, I have gone to Junkbusters and filed a lot of forms with a lot of marketing companies. It cuts down on unsolicited anythings.
If you don’t have a way to easily filter out spam, you might consider having a “private” email addy, and a “public” one that you use when you make online purchases or fill out forms. Give your private addy away only to your trusted friends.
– Baglady, evading spammers since before it was called spam.