Junk E-mail Removal: A Scam? (1 Viewer)

[Chuck C]

Is it worth removing myself from someone's junk e-mail if it requires that me to type in my e-mail address?

For example...I finally said, "I don't care about losing 100lbs in 2 days" so I clicked the "To be removed, click here...enter your e-mail address to be removed" ....What I am wondering is if by entering my E-mail address, did I just open my self up to more crap? will it ever end??

 

[Jeff Kleist]

What I am wondering is if by entering my E-mail address, did I just open my self up to more crap? will it ever end??

Your answers are unfortunately Yes, and No

 

[Martin Fontaine]

Just one more thing, not only removing yourself from their mailing list tell them that your address is valid but another thing to watch for are links in the HTML of the message. I'm using Pegasus Mail, and one of it's limitation is that it will not display images that are linked externally (But will display those that are in attachments) which is not a big loss when in many cases those images are basically scripts that take your e-mail address as a parameter so that as soon as you view it, they know your address is valid.

 

[Kelley_B]

Get SpamNet it works, but only for Outlook 2000/XP email clients....although Outlook Express version coming soon.
http://www.cloudmark.com/products/spamnet/

 

[TyC]

I use MailWasher. It has a great bounce feature that makes it look like your email address is not working.

 

[BrianB]

It has a great bounce feature that makes it look like your email address is not working.

THAT is something I've been wanting for a while... I get way way more spam than I like (I've got a good set of filters that gets it out of the way) and I want to be a little more 'pro-active' in reducing it. Fed up having to download it all Faking my email as bouncing is a good way to do that...

 

[Neil Joseph]

Thanks for the link. I will chek that out later on tonight.

 

[Chuck C]

so if i downloaded the mailwasher & unsubscribed from spam will I be targeted less or not at all?

 

[Nigel McN]

no, you do not unsubscribe from spam.

 

[Carl Johnson]

I've never understood the common annoyance that people get from spam. Why not just delete it and move on?

 

[BrianB]

I've never understood the common annoyance that people get from spam. Why not just delete it and move on?

It's the time & effort that takes as well as disturbing your regular "flow" of email, combined with not wanting to see porn in your inbox (unless you got it on purpose ).
How much spam do you get a day, Carl?

 

[Andre F]

I've never understood the common annoyance that people get from spam. Why not just delete it and move on?

One example comes to mind. On my work e-mail address I get e-mail about rape and child porn. I find these topics disgusting beyond belief. If someone is monitoring my work e-mail (not unlikely...) then how does that make me look?

On another account I get roughly 100 messages a day that are spam related. I keep the account for a few legit things I do with it. This causes me a few minutes everyday to get through that list and delete messages. Time is money...

 

[Carl Johnson]

My business email addy gets a few spams a day and the one I use for newsgroups and stuff like that gets maybe ten per day. Just like with junk mail I don't even bother reading them, 99% of the time I i just get rid of them without opening them up.

 

[Todd H]

The thing about spam is that YOU end up paying for it. You pay for the storage space, not the spammers. This isn't like a post office mailbox where you don't really own it. What happens when you lose legitimate e-mail because your inbox is full? It happens all the time. And I don't buy the whole free speech argument as well. It would be like me walking through someone's front door of their home to sell them something without their permission.

Personally, I use Spamcop to report EVERY spam I recieve, as well as forwarding all spam to the FTC. For the really hard-headed spammers, I usually find out who they are and send them a bill for taking up my storage space. That always does the trick.

 

[John_Berger]

Why not just delete it and move on?

That is nothing more than taking two aspirin for pneumonia. It might cure a single symptom but the disease (which spam is) goes merrily on.

Spam is nothing more than advertisers forcing ME (and YOU) to pay for their electronic postage. Deletion of spam is nothing more than apathy and only encourages the problem. These people need to be brought to task for what they do so that they stop it, and deleting their spam as though it's just a common annoyance does nothing.

The old "If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem" statement comes into mind. Deleting e-mail is not a solution, so draw your own conclusions from that.

 

[Todd H]

But John, if you bought all the crap spammers try to sell, you'd be rich, never go bald, could attract women instantly, and have a 10 foot penis!

 

[Andre F]

But John, if you bought all the crap spammers try to sell, you'd be rich, never go bald, could attract women instantly, and have a 10 foot penis!

Ha! Ha!
Lately for me it's just the subject matter that creeps me out. The other day I opened up Outlook Express and the auto-preview feature displayed a picture of some REALLY nasty porn (very, very gross...). I was just thankful my son was not in the room...

 

[Nigel McN]

I stopped using spamcop when I noticed that all the spam I was reporting was only being sent to dev/null

 

[Todd H]

I stopped using spamcop when I noticed that all the spam I was reporting was only being sent to dev/null

Yeah, a lot of the Chinese ISP's do not accept Spamcop reports. In fact, there are a few American ISP's that don't accept them as well. That's the only bad thing about spam is that they (the spammers) relay a lot of their junk through Chinese servers with open relays.

I still use Spamcop though because the number of reports that get out still outnumber the reports that don't.

 

[Chuck C]

This analogy doesn't seem correct. spam is nothing more than ELECTRONIC junk mail...you can throw it at one's leisure but this time instead of filling up the kitchen garbage basket, the Windows Recycle Bin (or whatever) fills up. Still, it's all a pile of garbage in the end, and it needs to slow down!