How Can I Report a Spammer? - Comments Page 1

Category: Spam




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Posted by:

Linda Davenport
16 Aug 2017

Too bad there's not a good way to filter out spam cell phone calls, especially the ones for "lower your credit card interest rate" and "car warranty has run out." Those seem to be the most persistent robot spam phone calls I receive. Since the phone numbers that appear on the screen aren't real phone numbers blocking those particular number, of course, does no good at all.

Posted by:

David Blevins
16 Aug 2017

Hey Linda, go to www.nomorobo.com and see if that will work for you. I moved from a landline phone to a "triple play" one (VOIP) just to be able to use them (saving some $$ was a side effect).

Posted by:

Mike
16 Aug 2017

I've been reading your newsletters since way back in the TourBus days, and have been pretty much in agreement with what you say. I was encouraged to see that you've pointed out ways to report spammers, but then, at the end, you disappointed me.

You seem to imply that ISPs SHOULD institute filters to drop emails that they suspect are spam. One doesn't have to think about this much to realize that such action is actually nothing more than automated censorship.

After reading that, I'm sure that quite a few people figure that I'm one of those sending spam. I am not. I am just a person who has a website and who does some mass mailing for the club I belong to.

I don't like spam any more than anyone else, but I have had too many emails sent to the bit bucket by over-zealous ISP filters.

ISPs are particularly bad about intercepting mass emails, like club announcement emails (I've had many complaints on this one from our club members) - and they even block whole servers of shared hosting services instead of whichever account might be sending spam from that server (have literally spent hours on the phone to ISPs trying to get my domain unblocked).

These are problems the I've personally run into because people encourage someone else to filter their mail - either because they are too lazy or don't know how to use a spam filter.

You should be encouraging people to quit expecting someone else to take care of their problems (read censor their email).

You should be encouraging them to learn how to set up and use a spam filter and help them to understand the importance of deciding, for themselves, what is spam and what is ham.

We, as email users, should be encouraging ISPs to do the reporting, on suspected spam emails, to the proper authorities - not dropping such mail. We, not the ISPs, need to be the ones that make the decision as to what is spam and what is not.

Posted by:

david maguire
16 Aug 2017

if only I could block Canadian pharmacy , I block & report as a phishing scam every day & next day they are back again.

Posted by:

bill
16 Aug 2017

Some of the spammers use legitimate bulk emailing services to try and get past filters. Most of them will accept reports at abuse@
I have helped chase one from a couple services. I hope that they charged him (as claimed in their conditions of service) a couple significant fees in addition to kicking them off and no refunds of fees paid.

I suspect that the last one may have been dumb enough to tell him who to remove and he has passed my name onto someone else. I started getting completely different spam the next via Amazon Web Services. After sending a few in to their abuse link with no results, I found that Jeff Bezos has a published email that people can use to contact him and is known for forwarding things that need to be fixed to the appropriate people with a single question mark as his hint to them to fix it and get back to him.
I got a phone call about an hour later and expect that another spammer will have to move their mailing system.

However, most of my spam comes in via my actual gmail account that only got used a couple times. The mail address that I own is forwarded there and gets very few spams. The gmail account gets about 350 per month. If google would be willing to let users specify spam to get bounce messages, I think that would decrease.

Posted by:

Darcetha Manning
16 Aug 2017

Hey Bob. Thanks for the information about SpamCop.Net. I went to their website, and read everything you had to do, in order to report spam, and one thing that concerned me, is that this site will report you to the spammers,so they can respond.

For me, it is easier to just delete spam. Gmail will identify emails as spam, if enough people delete them.

Posted by:

Mac 'n' Cheese
16 Aug 2017

I agree with Mike. As much as I'd like to have a trusted friend screen my email and delete the spam, I don't consider my ISP or Google (Gmail) to be that trusted friend.

I get perhaps 30 messages per day in my Gmail spam folder. It takes me only 30 seconds or so to scan the sender and subject lines of those messages. Then, with two clicks, I can report them as spam. That's half a minute out of the 1,400+ minutes I have each day.

Sometimes there are false positives--emails I want--in with the spam. That's why I review the subject lines and sender names before reporting the messages as spam.

That's also why I don't want Google or my ISP deciding what I want to see and what I don't.

Mike, you expressed it eloquently.

Mac

Posted by:

Chuck
16 Aug 2017

Sadly, David, nomorobo is not available "yet" for Android phones - only for iPhones. I REALLY wish it was available for POTS land lines.

Posted by:

RichF
16 Aug 2017

I don't do anything with the spam since it seems like a lost cause but I do forward phishing emails from banks back to their security dept.

Posted by:

KARL GREGG
16 Aug 2017

I have installed "unrollme" a free program to help you get rid of unwanted emails and promotions. You can find out more here:
https://unroll.me/features

Posted by:

MikieB
16 Aug 2017

Wouldn't it be great if we could send a return message that would follow the the path which the original message was sent and blow up their computer? Somebody PLEASE invent such a message.

Posted by:

Raoul5244
16 Aug 2017

I've used SpamCop for many years and, from occasional ISP feedback, this appears to be the most efficient and effective way of "striking back" at spammers. SpamCop reports also enable IT groups to track down and disable/delete zombie spambots—
Anyway, for me the best feature of SpamCop is the satisfying revenge of hitting the "Send SPAM Report(s) Now" button!

Posted by:

Nasscar68117
16 Aug 2017

earthlink subscriber here ,if the e-mail address is not in my e-mail address index it goes to my suspect spam folder ,from there I can go to spam &/or junk Mail ,no more e-mails from them ,then I get a report at intervals letting me know what was not allowed.

Posted by:

bob
16 Aug 2017

If I could, I'd design a "loop" wherein all the crap I get from yahoo junk mail would be forwarded to each other until their own systems would crash. They all need to be flogged on a public square!

Posted by:

Des M
17 Aug 2017

Well, MikieB, this may help although it doesn't do the reverse explosion bit! For many years I've used a program called 'Mailwasher' to look at all my mail before it leaves the server and gets into my mailbox. I see the sender and the subject line of all the incoming material and, if I don't want it delivered to me, can choose to mark the message for 'Wash' i.e. delete or 'Bounce' to send it back as undeliverable (address doesn't work.) Now I wonder if the reverse zapper idea can be developed???

Posted by:

j b spence
17 Aug 2017

I use an email forwarder - pobox.com.
All of my mail first goes through pobox and
their filters are constantly updated.

My email is virtually spam free. pobox costs
about $20 a yr BUT if I ever want to change my email server I do it transparently since the email goes to pobox and I direct where it it ultimately sent.

Posted by:

Jim M
17 Aug 2017

I use gmail and reporting phishing is easy... click the down arrow next to REPLY and then click "Report Phishing." Most spam seems to be trying to get my info, so it probably qualifies. Unfortunately, when you look at the message headers, most seem to come from overseas, or in the Caribbean or some other Central or South American nation (not sure that counts as overseas) where US authorities can't do much to them.
Regarding phone calls, NoMoRoBo works for me. I use AT&T Uverse for my phone service, and Nomorobo.com has an interface for Uverse. I'm very happy with Nomorobo.

Posted by:

RandiO
17 Aug 2017

I dunno! Maybe I have been blessed without that spam-attractant odor at birth.
I do value my privacy and have been exceedingly careful over the decades with releasing my myriad of email addresses.

Here are some suggestions:
* Try "whitelisting" the email addresses which you WANT to get emails from * "Aliasing" your own email address when you share it with institutions that may use it as a revenue stream by sharing (w/o permission but per EULA) and/or when they get hacked. Even gmail allows aliasing but a few lines of sw can strip the alias and resolve it to your actual address. Aliasing may allow easier tracing of the spam originator in question.
* Get a new "personal" email address and share that with ONLY those who you decide are worthy. You can, then, ‘forward’ worthy people’s emails to your new address, if you wish.
* My primary email account is a paid FastMail account, which I have had for over 15 years. Spam protection and security runs in their veins! Spam reporting, aliasing and sub-domaining are inclusive features.
* Getting your own website ( * MailWasher (as @DesM commented) may still be a worthy try.

Posted by:

Pat
17 Aug 2017

I was getting along fine, being able to block most of them, but now some of them are spoofing my e-mail, so I can't block them, or I'll end up blocking my own e-mail. That is beyond irritating. At least my email is recognizing a lot of them as spam.

Posted by:

Pat
17 Aug 2017

I was getting along fine, being able to block most of them, but now some of them are spoofing my e-mail, so I can't block them, or I'll end up blocking my own e-mail. That is beyond irritating. At least my email is recognizing a lot of them as spam.

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