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Why is there some junk I just can't block?

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I'm a Hotmail user, and i'm very liberal with the 'block' button when it comes to junk mail. I'm also liberal with the word filtering options. But some junk mail is relentless and keeps finding a way through.

For example - I bought a piece of software a couple years back off an online shop, for the sake of this thread lets call them JR Shop. Ever since, every second day i'm getting a junk mail newsletter from them. I block the sending address each time, but each time it comes from yet a new address of sightly changed derivative. I think i've blocked over 200 different addresses of theirs over the course of two years. And I can't seem to contact them to tell them to stop already.

This is the same for about maybe half-a-dozen online vendors i've purchased from over the years.


Does anyone else face this type of persistent junk mail? Is there a way of stopping it, or will I just have to lump it until I change addresses?
 

chscag

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Most reputable on line vendors offer an "unsubscribe" feature in their ads. It's probably best to avoid those that don't. Also... at one time HotMail had a very good Spam kill filter which seemed to be able to block most of that stuff. Doesn't it work anymore?
 
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Depending if you use the Web for your email, or Mac Mail, but I use Spam Sieve from C-Command with Mac Mail. Its a paid for Application, but believe me, with 4 email addresses, it has saved me hours and has paid for itself within a week.
You can train it to recognise addresses or those close to a dress and teach it that is spam, or manually add your own address. I love it and couldn't live without it now. 1 Click and the spam folder is empty !!!
 
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at one time HotMail had a very good Spam kill filter which seemed to be able to block most of that stuff. Doesn't it work anymore?

It is a great filter, no doubt, but the ingenuity of this junk mailer must be greater.

For the life of me I can't find any ways to unsubscribe from their newsletters, and i've directly contacted them a handful of times to no avail.
 

pigoo3

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For the life of me I can't find any ways to unsubscribe from their newsletters, and i've directly contacted them a handful of times to no avail.

Many times trying to contact spammers only succeeds in accomplishing one thing...informing the spammer that there's a "live human" on the other end of your e-mail address in their database. This usually means that you will never cease to receive spam from them. And contacting them multiple times just makes it worse.:(

Thus your options are:

- get rid of that email address
- use a good spam/junk mail filter
- or live with it

* Nick
 
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For me the answer was simply moving to Trash without opening. Mail makes it own Junk Mail Box and seems to handle things well. POP3 seems to have much fewer options than IMAP. My son used my 'net for his Facebook and the number of young ladies who had misplaced their clothes sending me emails was absolutely amazing until Junk took control.
 
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It won't help in OP situation, but my approach is to have as many dedicated email addresses, as possible*, all forwarded to a single mailbox.

I use these for everything, apart from personal and business correspondence, and if a particular address becomes a spam target, I just kill it off and setup a new one, if need be.

For example, after Adobe was compromised some time ago, I started to receive spam on my [email protected], so I deleted that one and setup [email protected] - no more spam ... so far ;) Same story with skype@... - had to replace that too.

This approach also makes it easier to spot phishing rubbish, that sometime gets through - it was rather entertaining to see a prominent UK bank contacting me on [email protected], asking me to update my account details :$

* I do try to keep the number under 100, just so I can see them all on one page, at my hosting company site, but sometimes it spills over on to the second one ... :\
 

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