Spam! Spam! Spam!

I've never really had much of a problem with spam until about a week ago. Suddenly, for no obvious reason that I can think of, I've got absolutely loads of the stuff. From nothing to half a dozen or a dozen or so messages each and every day. The majority of it is the 'Dear friend, you've got $50 squillion with your name on it' type of pony. I have the all singin' all dancin' version of Norton and SpyNoMore software with my subscriptions up to date. So, why have I suddenly got loads of this junk in my Inbox and what, if anything, can I do to stop it?
Thanks in advance for any helpful suggestions!
Tim.

timsk said:

I've never really had much of a problem with spam until about a week ago. Suddenly, for no obvious reason that I can think of, I've got absolutely loads of the stuff. From nothing to half a dozen or a dozen or so messages each and every day. The majority of it is the 'Dear friend, you've got $50 squillion with your name on it' type of pony. I have the all singin' all dancin' version of Norton and SpyNoMore software with my subscriptions up to date. So, why have I suddenly got loads of this junk in my Inbox and what, if anything, can I do to stop it?
Thanks in advance for any helpful suggestions!
Tim.

Click to expand...

Once your email address is "out there" I dont really know what to suggest other than check out the spam filter in your mail software. Drastic solution would be change your email address and be careful who knows what it is, especially on here!

I have used Yahoo webmail for years, and never had a problem with spam until last year, it started as a trickle at first, then a flood, then a goddam tsunami. I learnt pretty quick what the spam filter was for and a marvelous job it does, dumping all the spam in the bulk folder, inbox clean as a whistle although I have to keep an eye out for the odd genuine mail that gets sent there...T2W mails have a habit of going to the sin bin and have to be rescued...I always read the spam, cracks me up.

Regards

Lightning

timsk said:

I've never really had much of a problem with spam until about a week ago. Suddenly, for no obvious reason that I can think of, I've got absolutely loads of the stuff. From nothing to half a dozen or a dozen or so messages each and every day. The majority of it is the 'Dear friend, you've got $50 squillion with your name on it' type of pony. I have the all singin' all dancin' version of Norton and SpyNoMore software with my subscriptions up to date. So, why have I suddenly got loads of this junk in my Inbox and what, if anything, can I do to stop it?
Thanks in advance for any helpful suggestions!
Tim.

Click to expand...

A.) What porn sites have you recently visited .
B) Any Good ?

I used to use a very handy program called Mailwasher

http://www.firetrust.com

It doesn't actually stop spam, but allows you to see what mail you've got before it actually hits the inbox; it reads it right off your server and allows you to bounce or delete the emails, setup rules that mean you never see it and so on. The idea is that over time your email address gets removed from the lists by being bounced back. It's also very handy if you want to ignore someone . However it's worth paying for it - the free version is littered with ads and I found it a bit annoying.

Very good, and in fact I still recommend it to many of my PC clients. I don't use it anymore however because my I never get any spam from my ISP, and although I get a small amount from a couple of domains I own, it's reduced over time to the point at which it's virtually nothing, and my current mail program actually catches 100% of it, and none of what it's not supposed to get.

other than that, make sure your email isn't posted directly anywhere on the web - forums like this one, web sites, and so on. That's a surefire way to have spam racing to your inbox in no time.

EDIT: oh, and if you have to give your email in for 'registration' anywhere, make sure it's an email that you have access to but never use. That's what I use hotmail for - same as millions of others I suspect.