Spam

[fielker]

I've recently been getting lot of spam messages, all from the US and advertising a variety of things, but the same items are repeated.

Some have an option to be removed from their list, but I am wary of doing this.

Mostly they arrive in my Inbox and not my Junk box.

Is there anything I can do to stop them?

David

 

[MacInWin]

I use a mail forwarding service called Pobox. For a small annual fee, you get an email address that ends in pobox.com. You give them the "real" email information from your mail provider. They then receive that mail, forwarding to you what they have screened for spam. You give everyone your pobox address, never the "real" address.

In your circumstances, where the. spammers already have your address, you may have to change your email address altogether. Pobox, for an additional fee, offer a full email service with the spam filtering included. I finally shifted over to that when a major spammer figured out my hidden address and I started getting 100's every day. Now only a handful get through pobox.

It's up to you. I've not seen a good spam filter on a home computer that I liked. There are some, I'm sure someone will chime in.

 

[IWT]

A lot of people recommend SpamSieve.

I use it and it certainly works and can be trained by the user to allow/disallow emails to get through.

But my experience is not that helpful to you as I get, maybe, five to ten spams, max, per day. Often fewer.

Ian

 

[fielker]

SpamSieve looks viable. I have mail 11.5; I presume that's compatible.

There seem to be a lot of options. All I want is to block the spam I have been getting. I hope there is no danger of genuine messages getting blocked.

David

 

[MacInWin]

David, there is always the risk of a message you need/want to see being blocked. Some blockers do better than others. Most are configurable. But none are perfect.

 

[Randy B. Singer]

SpamSieve looks viable. I have mail 11.5; I presume that's compatible.

There seem to be a lot of options. All I want is to block the spam I have been getting. I hope there is no danger of genuine messages getting blocked.

SpamSieve is currently achieving 99.8% success on my Mac. All e-mail messages that it thinks are spam are put into a Spam folder in your e-mail program for you to review before you decide to trash them. So there is no danger of losing any legitimate e-mail messages.

Spam that SpamSieve doesn't catch and which makes it into your in-box can be marked by you as spam and that will help train SpamSieve.

I get between 20 to 30 spam messages a day. SpamSieve catches them all like magic. I consider it a must-have utility.

SpamSieve ($30)
SpamSieve: Easy-to-use Mac spam filter for Apple Mail, Outlook, Airmail, MailMate, and more
Review:
SpamSieve 2.9 review: A must-have spam filter for your Mac email client | Macworld

 

[toMACsh]

Why are people getting so much spam? I don't get hardly any. I guess I'm lucky.

 

[fielker]

Thanks everyone for your comments. For the moment, at a suggestion from my step-daughter in the US, I am moving spam from my Inbox to my Spam box to see if that helps.

David

 

[chscag]

Why are people getting so much spam? I don't get hardly any. I guess I'm lucky.

Maybe you're not popular?

 

[pm-r]

Is there anything I can do to stop them?/QUOTE]


I'm sure not going to knock using SpamSieve, but If you just have a few junk Spammers using the same address, you just set off of Mail.app rule to just delete the spam emails, or at least send them to your Junk mailbox.

Have you done or setup any spam or junk mail "training" with your Mail.app preferences and/or checked with your email provider as to what they offer for SPAM options???


- Patrick
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[toMACsh]

Maybe you're not popular?

If I'm not popular with spammers, I'm ok with that! Now, how can I add telemarketers???

 

[pm-r]

If I'm not popular with spammers, I'm ok with that! Now, how can I add telemarketers???

Use your phone and/or your phone company's Call Blocking feature. At least for Land-line phones.

Or when they call, just answer their call with: Welcome, you're on the air!!! Works with landline and cell phones!!!

(Copyright and Courtesy of a mac-forums member if I recall correctly._


- Patrick
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[toMACsh]

Use your phone and/or your phone company's Call Blocking feature. At least for Land-line phones.
======

I actually signed up for such a "service" with AT&T. My conclusion: it was false advertising on their part. Nothing gets blocked. Now, there might be a plan they have that will do that, at a higher price, of course.

 

[MacInWin]

I actually signed up for such a "service" with AT&T. My conclusion: it was false advertising on their part. Nothing gets blocked. Now, there might be a plan they have that will do that, at a higher price, of course.

Hard to prove a negative. Don't know how you can conclude that "nothing gets blocked" because your phone won't ring when something is blocked. I don't know how, or if, the AT&T approach works, but every time you have nothing ringing, there could be something being blocked. And something getting through is not proof that "nothing gets blocked" but only that the one that got through didn't get blocked.

Given the technology, it's very hard to know what is a spam call and what is not. The spammers use the internet to go VOIP and mask where the are coming from. And they are getting more sophisticated at spoofing, too. The common one I see now is a call from my area code and exchange prefix, with a bogus last four numbers. Makes it look like it's coming from my area, maybe a neighbor. I don't answer anything that doesn't caller ID with someone in my contact list. If it is real, I'll get a valid voice message and call back. If it's bogus, they don't leave a message.

 

[chscag]

I actually signed up for such a "service" with AT&T. My conclusion: it was false advertising on their part. Nothing gets blocked. Now, there might be a plan they have that will do that, at a higher price, of course.

All carriers advertise blocking of known spammers. Notice the word "known". Like Jake stated, spammers are great at spoofing phone numbers and lately they have resorted to using text messages in addition to spam calls. I just a few minutes ago received a spam text.

Download and install the free "HiYa" spam blocker for your phone. Like other blockers it's doesn't get everyone but it does fairly well. Also, you can keep your phone on "private" and if you have downloaded the latest version of iOS, it includes privacy blocking of calls.

 

[wredhawk]

I actually signed up for such a "service" with AT&T. My conclusion: it was false advertising on their part. Nothing gets blocked. Now, there might be a plan they have that will do that, at a higher price, of course.

I use Robokiller and HIYA for my Iphone. Works great. I gt maybe one or two robocalls or telemerketer a week which i then report as Spam.

 

[toMACsh]

Hard to prove a negative. Don't know how you can conclude that "nothing gets blocked" because your phone won't ring when something is blocked.

All I meant was that every telemarketer that has been hassling me still is. None of the "regulars" get blocked. I don't have caller ID on the land line. I answer "hello" and they have 0.27 seconds to reply, or I hang up.

 

[Convert2008]

I have been using SpamSieve for years. Unfortunately, it lost all its training when I did a clean install of Catalina but it is a fast learner.

 

[pm-r]

I have been using SpamSieve for years. Unfortunately, it lost all its training when I did a clean install of Catalina but it is a fast learner.

I guess that can be a disadvantage of doing a clean install, or depending on how it was actually done.

I would have thought it's User-data would have been saved if Migration Assistant.app had been used.


- Patrick=
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[GrahamS]

I use gmail (google mail.) . No spam gets past the spam filter - and if in doubt, it asks.