Help: Getting off a mailing list

Subject: Getting off a mailing list
From: Cappuccino
Date: 31 Aug 02 - 09:07 AM

Can anyone help me get off a spam mailing list? I keep getting mail, supposedly referred to by someone called the Standard Affiliates Mailing List, inviting me to both firm up my breasts and also increase the size of my ****. I can't think what kind of creature they imagine me to be.

These messages always include an 'unsubscribe' option, which never connects.

Any advice, please?

On the mailing list, that is, not the size of my various parts.

- Ian B

Subject: RE: Help: Getting off a mailing list
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 31 Aug 02 - 09:20 AM

IanB

The "unsubscribe button" on any SPAM message is there to induce you to confirm that you got their mail. It will NOT in general, induce them to remove you from their list(s). They will just put your name on the "recently confirmed and higher priced" list, and sell it to more SPAMMERS.

Incidentally, most SPAM carries a "fake" return address in the "From" box. You can, in most email programs, make an "exclude" list to reject mail from specific senders, but their 'return' will be changed frequently so it's pretty fruitless.

Delete without opening. Eventually they'll give up and send you the same crap under a different name.

John

Subject: RE: Help: Getting off a mailing list
From: Gareth
Date: 31 Aug 02 - 09:36 AM

The McGrath of Harlow recomends "Mailwasher", it cans the spam, and bounces it back as address no longer valid.

It's good. Try www.mailwasher.net

Gareth

Subject: RE: Help: Getting off a mailing list
From: Tiger
Date: 31 Aug 02 - 10:57 AM

I'll second the recommendation on Mailwasher.

It will flag as spam anything from specific sites, which list you can add to. It will also attempt to filter mail from unflagged sites by looking for typical spam buzzwords like "Good news!"

And, as Gareth points out, if you DO bounce the mail, it will be returned as undeliverable, which is often enough to get you removed from the list.

Just to add to JIK's comment, it's OK to unsubscribe from mailings from legitimate sites - say, you've just installed a software product and you're now getting their marketing blurbs. That removal request should work.

But don't ever respond to pure unsolicited spam, it only validates your address.

Subject: RE: Help: Getting off a mailing list
From: mack/misophist
Date: 31 Aug 02 - 11:21 AM

In some cases I have been able to identiry a spammer's ISP. When I do that, I notify the ISP, NOT the spammer. That usually gets them kicked off. The US government did a test. 64% of those 'unsubscribe' buttons did nothing.

Subject: RE: Help: Getting off a mailing list
From: Mary in Kentucky
Date: 31 Aug 02 - 11:26 AM

I was only getting about 10 a day (mostly get rich quick) until my address went up on my church's web page. Within 24 hours I started getting pornographic spam. It was soon about 20 a day, so I changed my address. Life was quiet for about two months. Then my elderly uncle sent me an electronic greeting card (with my new address) and the spam started again. So far it's only get rich quick, but it seems to be increasing as time goes by.

I'll check out mailwasher. Also SpamCop might afford you a litte revenge on one of the spammers if you act fast enough to catch them. My ISP was actually blocked for awhile by SpamCop. (That means that someone at my ISP was turned in for sending spam, so any ISP that subscribes to SpamCop blocked all email from my ISP.

Changing your address works, but I feel a bit quilty about adding to the net congestion.

Subject: RE: Help: Getting off a mailing list
From: Louie Roy
Date: 31 Aug 02 - 11:48 AM

Try going to top and click on message scroll down to block sender left click follow directions.This won't stop all the spam but it will cut it down from 10 or 15 a day to 2 or 3 Louie Roy

Subject: RE: Help: Getting off a mailing list
From: Mr Red
Date: 31 Aug 02 - 12:10 PM

You want a part(s) answer? **BG**
Assume (as the spam is that kind of spam) we are talking e-mail.
1) If you send e-mails to anyone you don't know you can not be sure.
2) if they insist on an e-mail addres for registration I may admit to being [e-mail] or --- (for 1 & 2) the ruse using the power of my domain name and tell them I am spamatyourperil@(domain) or pinnacle@ for that website or digitrad@ for here. At least you know how they got your name and who to berate (AND I ALWAYS DO)
3) Always have my Outbox visible when receiving e-mail so that any HTML (pictures &/or colours) is unlikely to fetch pictures and thus alert (by the combination of pics) who I am and if I have hseen it. That way I look like an autospamificator.
So how do I read my e-mail? Switch off the modem (unplug telephone connection) then look at e-mails and leave request the to re-connect in the background - there are usually a lot stacked.
eventually (trust me) the big players are constantly monitoring so they take you off lists as unviable. The small players may be big players trying to fool you so I will never relax the policy.
The trick is never to give them evidence you exist, which includes ignoring Nigerian surplus budgeteers & the virus hits in case it is really a trick but not the one you thought.
My last Klez32 can only have come from a deliberate attempt to hit me or get me to react - that incarnation of my e-mail address had never been used but is on a PC board help site.

Subject: RE: Help: Getting off a mailing list
From: Cappuccino
Date: 31 Aug 02 - 01:33 PM

Thank you, I'll read all this carefully!

- Ian B

Subject: RE: Help: Getting off a mailing list
From: Mr Red
Date: 01 Sep 02 - 01:44 PM

IanB
my spam has fallen to a trickle, and that is still the usual suspects. In fact I get so little spam I sometime doubt the e-mail service is working. There is just no pleasing some folks!

Subject: RE: Help: Getting off a mailing list
From: Gareth
Date: 01 Sep 02 - 03:17 PM

Funny - some b*****t tried to him me again today. With an alledged return to sender.

Question: It can only be deliberate but is some 'erbert commercialy targeting "Mailwasher" ?

Any thoughts ?????

Gareth

Subject: RE: Help: Getting off a mailing list
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 02 Sep 02 - 10:33 AM

I don't recall ever getting any spam at either of my two "official" e-mail addresses or at my previous worksite address.

When my previous worksite used AOL before getting their own website and having mail come through that, I got an incredible amount of spam -- but that's AOL (at least as it was several years/versions ago).

Now I keep all my list activity at my Yahoo address and if asked at a website for my e-mail, I also give my Yahoo address, so all the spam goes there where it's mostly (but inconsistently) dumped into the "Bulk Mail" folder -- the easier to exercise the "delete" key.

Linn

Subject: RE: Help: Getting off a mailing list
From: Jeri
Date: 02 Sep 02 - 11:14 AM

I've been getting a load of spam recently. If your address gets into one of those collections of addresses sold to spammers, that's pretty much it.

Asking a spammer to remove your address actually confirms it's a working address. Also, if you look at the "to" block in the spam, it often won't actually be to YOU. The message you send to ask for removal will tell them what your address is.

I can read my mail on the server and delete it en masse without downloading. (A friend sent me 6 MB worth of photos yesterday, and most of them went in the dumper.) I have more spam filters in my e-mail program. It's not a real problem for me these days, but its irritation factor is right up there with people who think tuning is optional and those who say "nuculer."