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At wits end: email barrage (with nonsense subject lines). Is there any way to stop this? Thread poster: slabejka
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slabejka
Local time: 07:39
Slovak to English
I know this has been a topic here before but I am at wits end. About a month ago I started receiving an occasional mail (the same one) about a "stock alert". Recently, I have been receiving these mails at the rate of about 8-10 per day. They all have pretty much the same message, but with varying fonts and font colors and initial wording. They come from bizarre addresses, apparently from worldwide servers, and now this has expanded to other types of messages as well, but in any case the text alw... See more I know this has been a topic here before but I am at wits end. About a month ago I started receiving an occasional mail (the same one) about a "stock alert". Recently, I have been receiving these mails at the rate of about 8-10 per day. They all have pretty much the same message, but with varying fonts and font colors and initial wording. They come from bizarre addresses, apparently from worldwide servers, and now this has expanded to other types of messages as well, but in any case the text always refers to some sort of stock alert. The subject line is always something stupid, like "barbaric typos" or some other nonsense. They obviously don't have the characteristics of spam or junk mail because even though I have my settings at the highest level of alert for these types of messages, they keep coming. I also have SMS alert for emails and I have no way to filter the SMS's at the conent level (only subject line or sender) so I am having to pay for oogles of SMS notifications for pure junk. IS THERE ANY WAY TO STOP THIS??? HELP!
[Subject edited by staff or moderator 2006-10-19 22:12] ▲ Collapse
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and viagra, weight loss, etc... mails by the dozen. email filters are pointless.
and as i zap 'em it seems my email address or variants thereof get hijacked although my computer is spit shine clean and gets a check up daily.....
sorry i can't help but i sure sympathize!
patricia
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Uldis Liepkalns 
Latvia
Local time: 08:39
Member (2003)
English to Latvian
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| Your email address | Oct 19, 2006 |
has got included in some spammers' databases, nothing to do here except to use some spam filters. I use Eudora's inbuilt - teachable spam filter with very good results- as to the moment only some five spams a day make through, other 300 - 400 are filtered into "Junk" mailbox. I check it often, but it is very easy- any non-spam message just stands out
OTOH, few days ago I read that Mozilla is taking over Eudora and Eud... See more has got included in some spammers' databases, nothing to do here except to use some spam filters. I use Eudora's inbuilt - teachable spam filter with very good results- as to the moment only some five spams a day make through, other 300 - 400 are filtered into "Junk" mailbox. I check it often, but it is very easy- any non-spam message just stands out
OTOH, few days ago I read that Mozilla is taking over Eudora and Eudora probably from some time in the first half of the next year will be free- so maybe not a good idea to buy it now (they are selling now at a discount rate- or so I heard).
Uldis
Patricia Lane wrote:
and viagra, weight loss, etc... mails by the dozen. email filters are pointless.
and as i zap 'em it seems my email address or variants thereof get hijacked although my computer is spit shine clean and gets a check up daily.....
sorry i can't help but i sure sympathize!
patricia
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lexical
Spain
Local time: 07:39
Portuguese to English
| two comments | Oct 19, 2006 |
1. I too was plagued by strange spam-like e-mails on one of my e-mail boxes this year, but eventually they stopped. Meanwhile, I just deleted everything I didn't recognise without opening it. Be patient and it may go away, as the spammer gets taken down by his ISP or something.
2. I too was annoyed that I was paying 15 euro cents per SMS to be notified of these, then I installed a free, neat little program called Pop Peeper (find it on Google) that alerts me instantly to incoming e-... See more 1. I too was plagued by strange spam-like e-mails on one of my e-mail boxes this year, but eventually they stopped. Meanwhile, I just deleted everything I didn't recognise without opening it. Be patient and it may go away, as the spammer gets taken down by his ISP or something.
2. I too was annoyed that I was paying 15 euro cents per SMS to be notified of these, then I installed a free, neat little program called Pop Peeper (find it on Google) that alerts me instantly to incoming e-mails, and I don't have to pay for SMS alerts.
Good luck. ▲ Collapse
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Rebecca Hendry
United Kingdom
Local time: 06:39
Member (2005)
Spanish to English
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| If you use Outlook... | Oct 19, 2006 |
I have recently been receiving a lot of spam emails to my work email account (my personal hotmail account has been receiving them for ages and the hotmail spam filter is far from perfect). I installed SpamBayes a while ago and have been quite pleased with the results. This is a free plugin for Microsoft Outlook (and I think Outlook Express too) - you train the programme to recognise spam messages which it then sends to a specially created "Junk Suspects" folder. You can then check the junk fo... See more I have recently been receiving a lot of spam emails to my work email account (my personal hotmail account has been receiving them for ages and the hotmail spam filter is far from perfect). I installed SpamBayes a while ago and have been quite pleased with the results. This is a free plugin for Microsoft Outlook (and I think Outlook Express too) - you train the programme to recognise spam messages which it then sends to a specially created "Junk Suspects" folder. You can then check the junk folder occasionally to make sure no non-spam messages have slipped through by mistake.
You can download it here - http://spambayes.sourceforge.net/
My current favourite subject lines are:
bread
gregarious
cologne freshen
unsettled malady
Good luck!
Becky. ▲ Collapse
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| I get them too! | Oct 19, 2006 |
They slip past the spam filters because each one is from a different (and goofy) e-mail address. I don't get alerts on my mobie - never got into that - so I just delete them - sorry I can't help either, I too feel for you. Maybe they'll get tired and just go away! (Here's hoping!)
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Jack Doughty
United Kingdom
Local time: 06:39
Russian to English
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In memoriam | Thunderbird is good | Oct 19, 2006 |
Thunderbird has junk mail controls (marking messages as junk teaches it to recognise and delete junk itself after a while) and message filters (can filter not only addresses and subjects, but also specified words in messages), and a combination of these works well for me.
For some weeks now I have been suffering from an annoying variation of this. The part of my email address after the @ is used with various other names before the @ to send spam to servers which block them and return them... See more Thunderbird has junk mail controls (marking messages as junk teaches it to recognise and delete junk itself after a while) and message filters (can filter not only addresses and subjects, but also specified words in messages), and a combination of these works well for me.
For some weeks now I have been suffering from an annoying variation of this. The part of my email address after the @ is used with various other names before the @ to send spam to servers which block them and return them to me. My ISP could not do anything about it, so I have got round the problem by setting up a message filter for as many form of undelivered mail returns as I can find, so they are all junked. The only disadvantage of this is that if I genuinely send a message which cannot be delivered, I may miss the genuine non-delivery notification among all the junk. ▲ Collapse
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| Thanks Rebecca | Oct 19, 2006 |
I am going to try that plug in, sounds pretty good!!
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Heinrich Pesch
Finland
Local time: 08:39
Member (2003)
Finnish to German
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| Worst time was 2004 | Oct 19, 2006 |
Now I get spam only some 10 daily. My thunderbird filters most of it, but passes the right ones through, only occasionally some job offer goes to the junkbox.
But I removed all occasions of my mail address from the net and replaced them by graphics.
Regards
Heinrich
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Refugio
Local time: 22:39
Spanish to English
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| Mozilla Firefox | Oct 19, 2006 |
Since I stopped using Internet Explorer and started using Mozilla Firefox, that problem has gone away. It may be a coincidence?
http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/switch.html
[Editado a las 2006-10-19 23:53]
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Giles Watson
Italy
Local time: 07:39
Italian to English
In memoriam | The new version of Pegasus (v4.41)... | Oct 20, 2006 |
Rebecca Hendry wrote:
I have recently been receiving a lot of spam emails to my work email account (my personal hotmail account has been receiving them for ages and the hotmail spam filter is far from perfect). I installed SpamBayes a while ago and have been quite pleased with the results.
...also has a Bayesian filter incorporated into the program:
http://www.pmail.com/v441.htm
My current favourite subject lines are:
bread
gregarious
cologne freshen
unsettled malady
The randomly generated sender's names are fascinating, too. I was very tempted to open one from the darkly mysterious "Lakeisha Manygoats".
Cheers,
Giles
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Saskia Steur (X)
Local time: 07:39
English to Dutch
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I use mailwasher to siff through those nonsense emails and bounce them. the do eventually disappear, although not completely.
I agree that it's a nuisance....
http://www.mailwasher.net/
best regards,
Saskia
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| Create a rule | Oct 20, 2006 |
I use OUTLOOK so I set up a rule so that any message which did not contain certain words in the text would be sent to outbox.
My list of words is something like: Dear, Hi, Hello, Hola, Sarah, Saludos, wishes, etc. and it makes it easier to check through messages in the outbox for elimination.
Occasionally messages do slip through but most of my clients, friends, etc. always put my name somewhere in the message so it seems to work.
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| Setting up rules doesn't seem to help (much) | Oct 20, 2006 |
Sarah Brenchley wrote:
I use OUTLOOK so I set up a rule so that any message which did not contain certain words in the text would be sent to outbox.
My list of words is something like: Dear, Hi, Hello, Hola, Sarah, Saludos, wishes, etc. and it makes it easier to check through messages in the outbox for elimination.
Occasionally messages do slip through but most of my clients, friends, etc. always put my name somewhere in the message so it seems to work.
I admit not having tried this specific rule, but in addition to flagging an ever growing list of words, I also create separate rules blocking each and every address that ever sends me spam: IT DOESN'T HELP.
I get about 150 spam messages a day, and it's getting worse. I have to have my e-mail address available on the Net for advertising purposes, so I guess there's not much I can do. Even if I set up a rule for a specific sender, they just send 10 messages at the same time so that Outlook can't catch them all—at least one always manages to get through!
Plus Outlook can't set up a rule for an e-mail sent from nobody, i.e., there is no sender, which is another trick they use. I wouldn't really care, but it takes time to set up the rules, and I am almost positive that I have missed (possibly important) messages because they get sorted into junkmail.
I, for one, don't find it that easy to recognize non-junkmail among 150 messages. And I certainly hate having to do it every day! I wish there was more that could be done about spam: The total cost in workhours wasted must be staggering.
[Edited at 2006-10-20 11:53]
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slabejka
Local time: 07:39
Slovak to English
TOPIC STARTER
Thanks to all for your comments and advice. I will try probably all of the suggestions and try to live on without going totally insane over this nightmare. I guess there are worse things And it sounds like my measly few spams are nothing compared to the quantity that some of you get!
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