Please enable JavaScript to view this site.

Causes of Spam Email

 

There are several ways that you can end up on a spammers list, because sending email costs nothing for these companies they can easily send 1000’s of emails a day to annoyed customers like yourselves:-

 

Giving your email address to a company you order from who then sells on the mailing list to others

 

Advertising your email address on a website i.e. like I do for the business, it then tends to get picked up by disreputable companies/spammers who scan websites for email details and then bombard them with advertising for products they don’t want

 

If you get infected with a virus or spyware then some of these automatically email themselves to everyone in your contact list, thus adding another few addresses to the spammers list

 

Using newsgroups or chat rooms and giving out your email (or including it in your profile)

 

What Not to Do

 

Never buy anything from a spam email, chances are the company is not reputable and only trying to get your bank details for fraud or identity theft purposes

 

Never reply to the emails, a lot of spam is sent to random email addresses and by replying you are simply confirming the address exists and will then end up getting even more spam email,

 

Think twice before sending on chain letters or joke emails to all your friends/contacts, the chances are they probably don’t want it and by doing so you are making matters worse and becoming a spammer! - remember sending junk mail is a criminal offence

 

A lot of spam emails purport to be from your bank asking you to login and change details, these are “phishing” emails, basically trying to fool you into giving them account details, passwords etc, - your bank will never email you asking for information in this way so ignore these emails

 

When sending emails to multiple recipients make sure you always put all recipients names in the BCC box so that all the addresses are hidden - if not each recipient will see all the email addresses it has been sent to - and if just one of your recipients has a virus then all the addresses will be exposed to the virus and may result in everyone getting spam or virus infected messages

 

Things to Do

 

Make sure your chosen antivirus/firewall package contains anti-spam functionality, although this won’t stop the spam, it will at least separate the spam from your important emails, I recommend and use myself AVG Internet Security - if you use web based email then this is not relevant, but most web based email providers have integrated spam/junk mail filters that you can enable

 

Check with your internet provider and see if they offer any services to filter at source

 

Some email addresses/internet providers seem to be more susceptible to spam than others, this is normally due to the format of the email addresses e.g. Freeserve, Wanadoo where the email address is in two parts (fred@bloggs.freeserve.com rather than fred.bloggs@btinternet.com)

 

Consider setting up a second email address to be used when shopping online or using chat rooms etc and use you existing address for family and friends only

 

If receiving spam from a company you know and trust then check at the bottom of the message or the companies website for unsubscribe information

 

Reporting

 

Suspicious emails can be reported to the NCSC (National Cyber Security Centre) by forwarding it to report@phishing.org.uk - more details here: https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/information/report-suspicious-emails

 

Suspicious SMS (text messages) can be reported to your provider by sending them to 7726 (or 87726 for Vodafone customers) - more details here: https://www.ofcom.org.uk/phones-telecoms-and-internet/advice-for-consumers/problems/tackling-nuisance-calls-and-messages/spam-texts

© 2004 - 2024 PC Assist @ Home

  

Keyboard Navigation

F7 for caret browsing
Hold ALT and press letter

This Info: ALT+q
Page Header: ALT+h
Topic Header: ALT+t
Topic Body: ALT+b
Contents: ALT+c
Search: ALT+s
Exit Menu/Up: ESC