spam away

[ahopeter]

hello everyone, i use yahoo for email and have been getting way too much spam. i mark it as spam but i have easily met my limit of 100 spams.  i was curious if there is a free way of ridding myself of the additional spam.  the only thing i can think of is upgrading my free yahoo account to a pay...but again i dont want to pay for this service. thanks again everyone!!!

[Chandler]

If you join any Yahoo Groups, then hide your e-mail address, similarly don't post your e-mail address on any website or newsgroup servers.  Then of course there's Yahoo themselves who have been accused of selling e-mail address lists in the past.

[ahopeter]

so i shouldnt show my enail add. on forums like this one?  yahoo sells info!?!?! wow!

do you know of any preventative measures?

thanks for the help, and for filling me in!

[Mark H]

Preventative measures: don't display email address publically and go with a regular pay email provider. If you notice, most people have their email addresses hid on this site (for a reason).

Mark H

[ahopeter]

i see i see, thank you.

[saoirse]

A few things to remember:

• Never respond to junk email.
  
  
• Don't click the "You received this because you're on our mailing list..to opt out click here" feature.  It'll only validate your account's authenticity.
  
  
• Report it, if possible.
  
  
• If you must submit an email address publically, create an account specifically for that purpose.  Spammers will sweep the internet in search of email addresses.
  
  saoirse
  

[ahopeter]

i am very good about not responding and reporting the spam... but i think they got my info from this little thing i signed up for.  its a little icon in the lower right corner that shows the temp and weather.  after that i get never ending junk.  i never repsond or do anything that would warrant this.  but i have run out of spam room cause yahoo only allows 100 spams.

[the sheeep]

what i do is i have two msn accnts... ones fake which i put all sites i sign up for on that so all the junk mail gets sent there...

[JimS]

We've been forwarding all spam to UCE@FTC.GOV, and have noticed a big decrease in the amount of spam sent to us.

[ahopeter]

whats the add. do exactly?

and how can i forward mail without opening them?

thanks

[Chandler]

To forward e-mail from Outlook Express, highlight the message in question, and select Forward from the toolbar at the top.

Incidentally, you can view e-mails in OE without actually opening them...
1) Right click on the suspicious message
2) Select Properties
3) Go to the Details tab
4) Click on the Message Source button

In the window that opens up, you will see some bold text at the top, this is the e-mail headers (you can check to see if the address is faked here, in the case on eBay and Paypal etc.).  The next section down is the actual body of the message, in plain text.  You may see some "gibberish" here, this will be pictures, and other attachments (including viruses).  Generally, if I get a message which is totally gibberish, I simply delete it without opening.

One more precaution from Outlook Express is to never send a receipt:

1) Tools -> Options -> Receipt
2) Ensure that Never Send A Receipt is checked.  I don't know of anyone that legitimately wants a receipt, unless their e-mail settings are wrong and automatically request one.

One final precaution, to protect you from HTML code in an e-mail and pictures:

1) Tools -> Options -> Read
2) Ensure that Read All Messages In Plain Text is checked.

This final step may cause some messages to appear incorrectly, but most "normal" messages display fine, just without any pictures etc.

Outlook (full version part of Office) versions prior to 2003 cannot view in plain text, nor can you view the source without opening first, which I find very limiting.  As a result, if you use Outlook (not Outlook Express) you have to be even more careful and keep on top of Office Updates.

[ahopeter]

sounds a little complicated for a novice such as myself, but ill give it a shot, thanks alot!

[Whizbang]

what i do is i have two msn accnts... ones fake which i put all sites i sign up for on that so all the junk mail gets sent there...

That is very sneaky.  I like it. 8)