Spam, Junk Mail, Email Scams, Phishing, etc issues

Scams
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This is a catch-all for Spam, Junk Mail, Email Scams, Phishing, etc issues

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Is anyone else copping spam that I haven’t been subjected to previously? I’m getting 3-4 a day, all offering free trials of coffee makers, deep fryers, motor vehicles, vacuum cleaners and heaven knows what else (too many to remember!) Even airlines. In many cases they even say you get to keep the products free. All include big name brands like Sunbeam, Dyson, Virgin, and all include a TRIAL NOW button. Trouble is, they don’t go straight through to my Junk Email.

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Yes - I get way too many of these spam emails but I have my Inbox set to display the first three lines of text in ‘preview’ mode so it’s very easy to spot phishing emails and delete them if they are not automatically detected.

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I keep getting porn invites from ‘Women in my area’. I don’t how this started but no matter what I do I can’t get my email functions to remove them. My anti-virus doesn’t grab them either as they are all coming from what look like legit email senders.

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Used to get heaps of casino ones in my inbox, but set up a filter to send them a junk folder where they can be deleted.

I believe that the free product ones are not spam but scams
trying to get personal information or check that the email is valid so that they can onsell and bombard you with more spam/scams.

The latest scam I have received is a AGL electricity bill (we are not with AGL) saying to click on a link to get a bill. Don’t click as the link may install ransonware onto your computer.

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I have noticed a massive increase in spam and scan mail but i think there is a new spin which i find very annoying if proved to be true. The emails had a disclaimer at the bottom of the screen say that if i wanted to stop receiving emails from the company then to click on the unsubscribe link. Most of these just automatically unsubcribed me but some asked to idently the email address i wanted to have removed from their lists. I did this a few times and now recieve up to 10 emails a day FROM MYSELF, well, it looks like it comes from me and it is spam and scam stuff. I just delete them all but it is very annoying!

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joms, ‘unsubscrihing’ to unsolicited or spam emails that you have not originally subscribed to is the easiest way to get onto a spam/scam email database which is onsold to anyone wanting to spam/scan.

Best thing to do is not reply/unsubscribe to them, but to set a text/subject email filter which moves these emails to a dedicated junk/spam inbox. For example, if you get spam about online lottos or a xyz dating service, set up a filter that moves any email with word ‘lotto’ or ‘date service’ to a nominated junk inbox. Every so often you can go into the junk inbox and mass delete the emails, while checking that an email from a known acquaintance hasn’t accidently been caught as junk.

Unfortunately, since you have replied to spam/scam email (even by 'unsubscribing), you will now be prone to more scam/scam emails.

Alternatively if you can, create a new email address, let friends know your email has changed and discard the old dmail
and be careful what you reply/unsubscribe to in the future
ignore anything which you haven’t subscribed to or from unknown sources.

Also check the unsubscribe email address matches the company in question
one way to check (not fool proof though) if genuine.

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Good advice there RE not unsubscribing to some of the more unscrupulous stuff. It is indeed how they harvest genuine emails for further spamming!

I myself gave up hotmail / yahoo and ISP supplied email addresses because of the spam problem. I now only use Gmail for my personal email "@gmail.com" and my business uses google’s “Gmail for Work” for email. Google might love to minimise paying it’s fair share of tax in this country, but they do make a great email product!

There is a bit of a learning curve when it comes to folders and tags. Although once you get the hang of it, it’s hard to go back.

Very rarely have spam now, but I do find a relevant email in the spam folder on the very odd occasion. So it’s important to check those every week or so.

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Yes I am copping them as well, I have mail washer on the computer, and all e-mails go there, from there I can bounce them back to the senders, but they are persistent !!

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Thanks for all the responses. As i realised quite quickly that the unsubscribe links were scams i have stopped and now just delete delete delete.

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I find the built in junk mail filter on my iMac does the job of eliminating spam from the inbox very well, I rarely see a spam nowadays, but if I check the spam folder it is overflowing.
Most spam works on the fact that a lot of people want to believe in the santa claus and the tooth fairy, they like to think they will get something for nothing, whereas my personal cynical outlook and BS detector also works really well.

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I am so sick of receiving emails about Michael Kors handbags and about RayBan sunglasses that I would never buy them on principal! Unfortunately, when I press to unsubscribe, about 50% of the time it’s in Chinese and it’s a mystery what to press, about 25% of the time it’s from the States and the ‘Unsubscribe’ button doesn’t actually have a link attached
if it has one at all and about 10% of the time they want me to actually put in my email address
which seems dumb and looks like I am actually subscribing to something! So rarely does it ever look like I have won! Lol

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Spammers are becoming extremely sophisticated. It is very hard to distinguish their emails from genuine ones like banks, PayPal and, of course giveaway offers. Apart from curbing your desire to get “something for nothing” the two best ways of dealing with them I have found are (a) if you are not addressed in person delete them. Even if they are be wary of the content. (b) if they direct you to a web site right-click on the hyperlink and see where your reply will really be going. Before deleting them I always forward them to the real organization (bank, PayPal etc) support site and then empty the “delete” folder after deleting them.
JohnN

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gmail puts the kind of rubbish mentioned here, straight into a spam folder where I can ‘delete all’. Very seldom do ok emails get put into this folder.

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Yes I am getting those. I have tagged them as junk on my PC and unsubscribe where possible (that can make it worse though) but it still clogs my mobile.
Sometimes they appear to come from trusted suppliers. Too bad, I flick them anyway. The most persistent scam is Woolworths


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Someone else commented that to unsubscribe just confirms your email address. Better to just delete &/or block the sneder if you have a program that does that, like Spamfighter.
JohnN

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John31 you are right - but they already have your address. I’ve had pretty good results with unsubscribe but I agree with you just the same.

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Exactly what I’m experiencing too. It’s so bad that I’m getting up to 50 emails a day as well as returned emails.

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I have noticed a dramatic increase in spam emails since installing Windows 10 despite my best attempts to set all the privacy settings to avoid such things.

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Can anyone tell me how to stop junk emails? I right click on them, go to BLOCK SENDER but they keep coming back. Thanks

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