E-Chainletters - love or hate?

cj · Post by cj » Fri Mar 31, 2006 11:37 pm

We have received loads of emails purporting to advertise viagra and other 'medicines'. That had followed a spate of cartoons showing pornographic images. I'm normally fairly sturdy about that sort of thing but when it's sent unsolicited to your personal cyber-address, I felt quite upset and 'intruded upon' (can't think of the proper word - it's been a long week). Virgin don't seem to be able to do anything unless the messages come through them, and the address didn't allow replies. It's irritating at it's least, but as it comes to you in your own personal space some people may not understand and feel very threatened.

Katharine · Post by **Katharine** » Sat Apr 01, 2006 8:32 am

cj wrote:We have received loads of emails purporting to advertise viagra and other 'medicines'.

I get so many of these at work, none at home address. I complain bitterly to the IT manager who just shrugs his shoulders. Surely he should be able to block some of them? (Thought - perhaps some are blocked but it is up to a dozen a day almost all addressed to males of the species)

Great Plum · Post by **Great Plum** » Sat Apr 01, 2006 8:50 am

Katharine wrote:
cj wrote:We have received loads of emails purporting to advertise viagra and other 'medicines'.
I get so many of these at work, none at home address. I complain bitterly to the IT manager who just shrugs his shoulders. Surely he should be able to block some of them? (Thought - perhaps some are blocked but it is up to a dozen a day almost all addressed to males of the species)

He should be able to - we have a fairly robust firewall at work and I will only get one or two bits of spam, if that, a month...

sejintenej · Post by **sejintenej** » Sat Apr 01, 2006 6:48 pm

cj wrote:We have received loads of emails purporting to advertise viagra and other 'medicines'. That had followed a spate of cartoons showing pornographic images. I'm normally fairly sturdy about that sort of thing but when it's sent unsolicited to your personal cyber-address, I felt quite upset and 'intruded upon' (can't think of the proper word - it's been a long week). Virgin don't seem to be able to do anything unless the messages come through them, and the address didn't allow replies. It's irritating at it's least, but as it comes to you in your own personal space some people may not understand and feel very threatened.

They are a nuisance but can be avoided.
Some email companies have good spam filters and you can access their website (via your own existing ISP) and set up a FREE email address. Try http://www.lycos.c.uk http://www.netscape.net, http://www.yahoo.co.uk http://www.tiscali.co.uk. for starters. Yahoo's spam filter is particularly good and you can fine tune it.

(Yahoo - you can use other national endings such as .com, .es)
The problem is choosing a name which is not in use - just don't use Swedish hit song titles

cj · Post by cj » Sun Apr 02, 2006 10:53 pm

Thanks for the suggestions.

Euterpe13 · Post by **Euterpe13** » Mon Apr 03, 2006 7:52 am

I use Incredimail to download from all my different POP addresses, and it included both a junk filter ( it only downloads from mail box, not junk box on MSN and Yahoo) and a " bounce" option - the latter sends a message back to the sender saying that your address is invalid - have seen a notable reduction in spam lately.

Mrs C. · Post by **Mrs C.** » Mon Apr 03, 2006 8:51 am

I use Incredimail too - all the spam goes to my wanadoo account which I check fairly regularly as the odd one or 2 valid emails find their way there now and again (just as the odd SPAM mail finds its way to incredimail). I know some people hate Incredimail, but I think it`s good!

J.R. · Post by **J.R.** » Mon Apr 03, 2006 2:30 pm

We use IncrediMail too. Set it to dump all e-mails from unauthorised or unknown sites into the 'deleted' box, which we can check at our leisure.

sejintenej · Post by **sejintenej** » Mon Apr 03, 2006 8:35 pm

Euterpe13 wrote:I use Incredimail to download from all my different POP addresses, and it included both a junk filter ( it only downloads from mail box, not junk box on MSN and Yahoo) and a " bounce" option - the latter sends a message back to the sender saying that your address is invalid - have seen a notable reduction in spam lately.

so it's you bouncing mail to my e-mail address - email I didn't originate but some barsteward put my address on them.
I also had problems with Harvard University and with Verizon in the USA. They were each sending me up to 300 emails a day with customers' details. Verizon were especially stupid - eventually I phoned them and the several morons on the other end of the phone didn't even know what state they were sitting in and were most annoyed when I told them their (different) street addresses. Apparently thayt is classified information because they are sh*t scared of having a 747 crash on them. IMHO they deserve it.
You will hear tonight that US schoolkids are prohibited from coming to London because planes here have bombs in them. AFAIR the only plane with a bomb in it in the UK was American (Lockerbie!) How stupid and pighigorant can you get?

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E-Chainletters - love or hate?

What do you think of email chainletters?