Trouble with e-mail Scams etc

[Henryv]

Warm greetings lockdown friends!
I have recently been getting Scam mails, Bitcoin, etc on my Yahoo mail and also on my main e-mail account.
I am operating Big Sur, and have never had this problem since I was a Windows man, many years ago.
I know there have been breaches with Yahoo but how they have my main mail I do not know?
I understand that you cannot change your Yahoo e-mail address, and cancelling can cause big problems.
Any suggestions & reflections will be most appreciated.

 

[MacInWin]

Almost everybody now asks for your email. Some are good players and don't do anything, others are not so nice and sell their list of emails to the folks who eventually get them to the spammers who then spread them like wildfire. Even Yahoo may have sold the list to someone who sold it to someone, etc. And as you say, a breech at Yahoo may well have gotten their subscriber list into the spam world.

You have a couple of choices. Get a spam blocker to run on the Mac, like Spamsieve ( https://c-command.com/spamsieve/ ), which has a good reputation, or move away from Yahoo to a service with a good built in spam filter.

You can change email addresses. It's a bit painful because you have to let everyone who might have your address properly know that you are changing, a bit like sending out a change of address card when you move. I did that a few years ago and went to a mail service for which I pay a fee and they do the spam filtering for me. It works really well for me. I get the odd spam maybe once a week or so, but most of the email that clutters up my inbox are from companies that I have given it to and am just to lazy to turn it off again. But the true spam, unsolicited and unwanted ads for male enhancement, bitcoin, Russian girls, you name it, have stopped.

If you move addresses, let me recommend pobox.com as a service. I do pay for it, but the filtering is magnificent.

 

[Henryv]

Almost everybody now asks for your email. Some are good players and don't do anything, others are not so nice and sell their list of emails to the folks who eventually get them to the spammers who then spread them like wildfire. Even Yahoo may have sold the list to someone who sold it to someone, etc. And as you say, a breech at Yahoo may well have gotten their subscriber list into the spam world.

You have a couple of choices. Get a spam blocker to run on the Mac, like Spamsieve ( https://c-command.com/spamsieve/ ), which has a good reputation, or move away from Yahoo to a service with a good built in spam filter.

You can change email addresses. It's a bit painful because you have to let everyone who might have your address properly know that you are changing, a bit like sending out a change of address card when you move. I did that a few years ago and went to a mail service for which I pay a fee and they do the spam filtering for me. It works really well for me. I get the odd spam maybe once a week or so, but most of the email that clutters up my inbox are from companies that I have given it to and am just to lazy to turn it off again. But the true spam, unsolicited and unwanted ads for male enhancement, bitcoin, Russian girls, you name it, have stopped.

If you move addresses, let me recommend pobox.com as a service. I do pay for it, but the filtering is magnificent.

Many thanks for your excellent advice.
Yahoo mail is my biggest headache and would not be missed!!
However, deleting their account seems to be problematic, according to other people on the web?
It seems strange that you cannot change your yahoo e-mail address?

 

[Henryv]

I have closed my Yahoo account but cannot delete the mailboxes:-

The operation couldn’t be completed. (MCMailErrorDomain error 1030.)

 

[badshoehabit]

I changed to gmx.com (which is free) last year which seems to be spam free.

 

[pigoo3]

I've always had this issue regardless if the computers I was using ran Windows or the macOS. It has everything to do with:

* How old an email account is.
* How careful (or not careful) a user is about clicking on links in emails & web pages.
* How many things a user signs up for on the internet (legit accounts, subscriptions, etc.).

Some sites sell their email lists to others (to make money of course)...and of course this opens up email accounts to all sorts of unwanted spam & junk email. Also internet "bots" email scammers use eventually find almost everyone's email address (this is where the age of the email account comes into play).

Also realize one of the BIGGEST errors users make is viewing emails they don't know who the sender is (I'm talking about literally just viewing them). If an email is setup properly (which you can be sure email spammers & scammers do)...when you open an email just to read it...feedback is sent back to the sender of the email that you opened it. This tells the spammer/scammer that the email account is active...and they should keep sending more (which they will definitely do).

A 2nd big error with junk/spam emails...is actually replying to the sender of the email. Again...this confirms to the sender of the email the email account is active...and they should be sending you more spam emails (many more)!

The 3rd big error users make with emails (probably the most risky & dangerous)...is click on links in spam/junk emails. Doing this can lead to all sorts of really dangerous & harmful stuff...the list of which is a topic all in itself.

What's the single most effective tool against spam/scammer emails (if a user wants to keep all current email accounts & not change them every 3-6 months)...ignore them. Don't open emails to view them...don't reply to these emails...and DEFINITELY don't click on any email links in spam/scam emails!!!

- Nick

p.s. Also don't think all "Unsubscribe" links in emails are safe. Spammers & scammers will include these "Unsubscribe" links as well in their emails (why not?...of course). This again just verifies that an email account is active to a spammer!

Edit: Also wanted to add. Always always always...look at the email address of the sender of an email you suspect might be spam. If you don't recognize the sender's email address...don't open it/read it. If you do accidentally open it...definitely don't click on any links in the email!!!

Of course this may lead to the question..."How do I get all these unopened junk/spam email out of my Inbox?"

The method I use is right-click on the Inbox spam/scam emails...and move them to the junk/spam folder. Then I do a "mass-empty/delete" of the junk/spam folder. This right-click method (and other alternate methods)...prevents the email from accidentally being opened when moving it/them to the junk/spam folder.

 

[harryb2448]

Followed Radny Singer's advice and installed SpamSeive. You can train what is Junk and what is to go directly ton the nbox.



https://c-command.com/spamsieve/ They have a trial version available on the web site:-

 

[Alwyn]

I've always had this issue regardless if the computers I was using ran Windows or the macOS. It has everything to do with:

Edit: Also wanted to add. Always always always...look at the email address of the sender of an email you suspect might be spam. If you don't recognize the sender's email address...don't open it/read it. If you do accidentally open it...definitely don't click on any links in the email!!!

Some spammers and most phishers create what appears to be a legit e-mail address and you only find that they're not who they say they are by right clicking on the e-mail address. Does this also alert the spammer that you still have an active account?[/QUOTE]

 

[pigoo3]

Some spammers and most phishers create what appears to be a legit e-mail address and you only find that they're not who they say they are by right clicking on the e-mail address. Does this also alert the spammer that you still have an active account?

This is a bit tricky. In the 2 emails apps I use (Apple Mail, and Thunderbird)...sometimes you can see the email address of the sender...but many times not....and for those spammers that are actually trying to "mimic" real legit websites...it's much harder to know if they are legit or not (legit email address) without actually reading the email.

Not every spam/junk email is setup to give feedback to the sender (if you click on & read an email)...I only mentioned this possibility as a precaution to consider when deciding to look or not look at suspicious looking emails.

Many of the spam/junk emails I get are clearly spam/junk...based on the emails title/subject or the "From"...and these are the emails I never open. I right-click on them...and send them to the trash or Junk folder without ever opening them.

On the other hand...as you mentioned...there are those emails where a spammer/scammer is trying to pretend to be a legit website (such as pretending to be Apple...or your bank...or something else financial or official). In these cases you may need to actually read/view the email to check the senders email address (to confirm if they're legit or not). Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.

In this case (when you must view an email you suspect is pretending to a legit business or government agency)...the cardinal rule is...if the email itself pretty much looks legit (but the senders email address doesn't make sense)...then you can pretty much be sure it's a scam email. In this case never click on links in the email...and never never never download any attachments from one of these scam emails (since you never know what might get installed).

- Nick

 

[krs]

Almost everybody now asks for your email.

Yeah - that is really annoying.
I set up a few what I call "throw-away" email accounts that I use for sites that absolutely demand an email address.

 

[davefor]

Spam is a common problem with mainstream free mail providers unfortunately. Perhaps go for a smaller email service or put your trust in Google or Microsoft.