There’s this guy I’ve known since we were four years old. He put me on his spam list – I mean ‘distribution list’ – so I’ve been getting glurge, right-wing propaganda, anti-Obama screeds, and racist jokes. After explaining I hate email forwards and asking repeatedly to be removed from his spam list, I finally removed his name from my approved-senders list. Emails went into my spamblocker. When I got one from him, I’d see if it was to me or to the list. If it was to the list, I’d delete it without reading it. If it was sent just to me, I’d answer. Again and again I asked him to remove me from his spam list. Got another one today, so I blocked his email address. I told him that he could call me, or send me emails – but no email forwards – from a different address.
I told him that since his email address has been blocked, I would not receive anything he sends.
So I just received my spamblocker summary, which tells me who sent suspected spam and who send emails that were deleted. ‘Re: [my message]’. :rolleyes:
Out of curiosity, is he an AOL member?
For whatever reason, I find AOL people seem to forward every piece of crap they ever get, to every single person they have ever known in their lifetime.
I have one “friend” who sends me glurge - but oddly, not even all of it is from the same ilk. Sometimes it is bigoted bile, other times it is fluffy nonsense with kittens…still, I have repeatedly asked her not to put me on her damned mailing list of this shit, but she ignores every request. Plus, you get the added joy of knowing 30 gazillion people now have your email address, as she doesn’t even bother to BCC me, but just slaps my email address out there for everyone to see.
I have several email accounts - luckily she is on the one that I rarely, if ever, go to - so I simply delete all of them when I go to that account.
I find it so intolerably rude that I don’t even bother being nice about it anymore - how many times do you have to say “Stop it!” before you just want to say, “Fuck off!”
Congrats on blocking that dude’s email to you !
I wish I could block my Dad. He sends me a lot of racist crap. (He isn’t overtly racist, mabye a bit of a xenophobe but has friends and collegues and now relatives of many different colours, backgrounds, and religions. Unfortunately he gets some terrible emails from his friends in the US and forwards them without a thought.) I now only open emails that have something in the subject line that shows it is a personal email. I may miss the occasional one, but after some trash that involved a bingo card to track Barak Obama’s mistakes, I just refused to open anything with fwd in the subject line.
My co worker sends me porn. She sends the whole email list porn, jokes, stupid good luck things. I have her sent to the junk file, since I can’t risk opening anything from her at work.
I hadn’t noticed before, but yes; it’s an AOL account. His spam list is the same as his username, and is undisclosed.
Yes. He replied to my email, in which I specifically told him I would not see any of his emails. Every so often I get a summary report from my spamblocker that tells me what’s in my suspect email folder and what emails were deleted and from whom.
There are some emails I get that are notifications from businesses and whatnot, that are not ‘spam’ but which I don’t care to have go into my inbox. Every so often there will be useful information, but mostly it’s stuff advertising from my bank or credit card companies or organisations. Mostly they’re ads, but occasionally they’re something I want to read. The way it works is that no emails will go to my inbox unless the address is on the address list. Instead they go to the suspect email folder. So let’s say someone from SDMB wants to email me. His or her email goes into the suspect folder and they get an automated response asking them to fill out a form to be added. Usually I see the email before they do, and I add them and their emails are moved to the inbox, as are subsequent ones from them.
Emails from blocked addresses are deleted and I never see them, but I get the summary report that tells me the address and title of deleted emails. AFAIK there’s no way to say, ‘Wait. I want to read that one,’ and retrieve it. It’s gone. For all I know, this guy might have written back, ‘Dude! OK! I’ve taken you off the list!’ Or he may have written back to call me a dick.
I’ve got an uncle that does this. He’s a nice guy, but he tends to forward stuff to everyone in his mailing list without thinking about who’s getting it or checking it out first to see if it’s true. Sometimes it’s glurge, sometimes it’s right-wing politics, sometimes it’s religious. It’s almost always tedious. And the worst thing is that he often forwards stuff that I just received because ANOTHER family member shotgunned it out to all the family, including him. Great - now I have two copies of a 10 MB file showing cute kittens and puppies and squirrels with bazookas.
I’ve pointed out mistakes and outright falsehoods to him before, and referred him to Snopes and similar sites. Recently I replied to an e-mail that was fairly offensive. He did apologize, and said that he usually checked Snopes before forwarding stuff. Then he forwarded something that Snopes said was a fake. Go figure…:rolleyes:
Missus Coder and I share a home family e-mail account. She just ignores anything from him any more. I usually open them, but often delete them after seeing what’s in them. I tend to be moderate to conservative in at least part of my politics, but even so, this gets to be just tiring. I probably won’t block him, since he’s family, but I very seldom reply unless it’s something to do with family.
If you use gmail then you can set up filters to fix this… For a few people I’ve set up filters so that if the “To” heading has a certain set of email address it goes straight to the trash. Otherwise I get it.
Even if you don’t have gmail you can just sign up for one and tell him it’s your new address. Then set up a second filter to forward all non-spammy emails to your real address.
I have an “AOL Wisdom” file, most of the time when I receive something stupid or nonsensical it’s from aol.com. I think AOL has their customers convinced that they are the Internet and there is no other alternative.
The ones that kill me are the urban legends (many of which are well known as urban legends or are obviously urban legends) intending to warn the public about some dire thing which simply can’t be substantiated (why don’t the excessive number of capitals and exclamation marks clue people in?) which some acquaintances mindlessly circulate. Now some of them start with “This has been checked with Snopes (or “Snoops” as one said)” when they clearly haven’t (I always check and I’ve been reading Snopes for about the last ten years).
The Straight Dope’s fight against ignorance certainly won’t be won in my lifetime.
When I used to get these, I’d reply, “Please don’t send me anything like this again.” No explanation – just a single line.
They’d then start to justify themselves. I’d reply, “I told you I didn’t want these messages. I hope you have the courtesy to go along with my wishes.” Again, just a single line.
After replying to my uncle several times with Snopes links, he began checking Snopes first before forwarding emails. He still forwards them, but about half of the emails I receive from him are addressed to me and are not forwards. That’s a great improvement.
I neglected to inform my husband’s family that husband and I don’t share an e-mail address. This is such a freakish concept to them that none of them have ever noticed I neither reply nor comment on their forwards at family gatherings. They just assume I get everything they send my husband. He reads them because he loves his family.
A very tactless brother managed to shut down the forwarding in my extended family five years ago with brief messages reminding people about Snopes and the basic truths that there are no little boys dying of cancer who can benefit financially from e-mail forwards and they will never get a gift certificate from Bill Gates. There are times when I am proud to call him brother.