Being spammed to death by one financial newsletter after another

[progree]

Last edited Sat Feb 5, 2022, 09:13 PM - Edit history (4)

For at least a decade I have had little trouble with spam. But for some strange reason I have started getting spammed to death, starting Dec 25 --

Inheritance Goals
Finance Trader Pro
Morning News Catcher
Wealth Optimizer
The Retirement Savers
Hedge Trader
Breaking Profit News
Breaking Tech Circle
Security Wealth,
Breakthrough Alerts
Rich Market Guru
Market Specialist
Fast Retirements
Market Collapse
AI Tech News

To most of them I immediately unsubscribe, and that's the end of it. But whack-a-mole style, I get a newsletter email from a different organization a day or two later.

For those that have run a day or longer before I unsubscribe, they are all daily or even more than that emails. So just ignoring them isn't an option.

I know the canned advice I've been hearing for decades to just ignore them because by unsubscribing, I'm just verifying that I'm an active email address. But had I maintained that philosophy from the beginning, I'd be getting literally thousands of email a day. I have found it works, in the past, to unsubscribe from anything semi-legitimate. (I do ignore the occasional ones from Russia offering to show dirty pictures though, Nigerian princes and so on ).

But now, for the first time in decades, unsubscribing isn't solving the problem.

They all seem to be using the same spamming service, e.g. when I unsubscribe, it says
"You've successfully been unsubscribed from (name of newsletter) Channel messages."

I've heard of forwarding to [e-mail] -- does that do any good?

Block doesn't work reliably on my Outlook 2010 email -- neither does rerouting by address to some other inbox --

Thanks for any ideas

Edited to add - I just sent one of each to [e-mail] anyway
Edited to add - All of the ones I sent to [e-mail] bounced. "Unable to deliver message after multiple retries, giving up."

I'm just baffled that for at least 10 years, I haven't had much of a spam problem. And then this. I guess I was really wondering if other people are experiencing a sudden huge increase in this in the past month or two -- in particular being put on various email subscription lists for email newsletters of different types. Most of mine have been financial newsletters that I enumerated above. But there have been a few others of different hues: Earth Overshoot, The Cogniciti Team, Conservative Top News.

I guess not.

I'm really focused on trying to cut it off at the source rather than routing an ever-increasing number to a junk folder, particularly given that this thing isn't working reliably in Outlook 2010.

[Goonch]

1. Get a clean start - I use

safe-mail.net

[progree]

2. Seems a little drastic to change my email address, and I don't want to have to

go to a website to get my mail ... I like very much having my email stored on my computer ...

It's just this one email marketing (spamming) service that is giving me the difficulty, so will try to dig into that ..

Thanks much for the suggestion.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

3. When I get unwanted email,

I simply report it as spam and delete.

The problem with unsubscribing,as you already know, is that they now know you're alive and responsive, so of course the keep on sending you spam. Unsubscribing works with legitimate sites, but not with dedicated spam ones.

[progree]

4. Thanks -- what do you mean when you say "report it as spam"? Does that stop the next

one and the next one ...?

If I had just deleted emails and never unsubscribed, after all of these decades, I'd be getting hundreds or thousands of emails a day

Thanks again.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

9. Whenever I report an email as spam,

I never get another email from that address. Or maybe I do and it goes to my spam folder. I don't know for sure, because I almost never bother to look at the spam folder.

I honestly don't get all that much spam, not entirely sure why. Perhaps it's because I'm less out there than a lot of people, so my email isn't that readily available. I also have created some junk emails for myself, which I use when some website wants an email from me and I don't want to give them one that I actually use.

Unsubscribing from a legitimate entity works. It's the getting true unwanted spam that's the problem.

[progree]

12. "I almost never bother to look at the spam folder."

I have to look daily at my "Bulk Email" and "Junk E-mail" folders. OK, its complicated in Outlook:

There are two folders of interest: "Bulk Mail" and "Junk E-mail"

Outlook or the service it is hooked to, in my case, webmail.compuserve.com, decides what it thinks is likely junk. I don't know what rules they have for that or how to change that. In any case, that gets sent to "Bulk Mail" folder. I have to check that daily because there is often a legitimate email that gets sent there, even important ones sometimes.

The other, "Junk E-mail" depends on what options and filters I explicitely set up, e.g. email addresses I want to "block". The solutions people have been sending me involve that. Normally I shouldn't have to look at that folder if I have no desire to look at emails from say [e-mail] that I've put on the "block sender" list.

But for some reason, and it has been a plague to me for years, and I don't know why, but often Outlook or whatever screws this up too often.

I also have certain "Rules" that I created that send certain emails to certain folders like some addresses go to a folder "NonEssential", some to "Financial". Things I don't want to bother to look at every day, but occasionally check. Unfortunately this doesn't work all the time either.

Anyway, I have to look at all my folders weekly for fear of misrouted emails.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

15. I don't use Outlook, so that's important.

My main email is gmail. I also have a yahoo account, and on both of them I can report as spam.

I have been known to look at the spam folder when I think something might have been sent there.

It also sounds like you get vastly more actual spam, meaning stuff you absolutely don't want, than I do.

[progree]

19. "It also sounds like you get vastly more actual spam," well, until Dec 25, only about 2 a day

on average, and just the kind that is best just simply deleted.

but since Dec 25, it would be a deluge if I didn't keep unsubscribing from these email lists, each with once-a-day or worse emails.

I also have some Gmail and Yahoo accounts by the way. I virtually never send email from them. One is essentially an inbox for Metro Transit alerts and news.

[Goonch]

5. Managing Junk E-mail Folder in Outlook 2010

https://www.pace.edu/sites/default/files/files/ITS/Managing%20Junk%20Email%20Folder%20in%20Outlook%202010%20RR%20041013docx.pdf

[progree]

6. Thanks, that is very nicely formatted, I've tried the Block Sender thing

and it didn't work -- I think my settings are right. With Outlook 2010, I'm just having problems with the functionality of not reliably redirecting mail to another box.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

7. Try this:

https://www.lifewire.com/accept-mail-from-contacts-only-outlook-1173801

Add Safe Senders in Outlook 2019, 2016, 2013, and 2010

You can set Outlook to display mail only from people you email and the ones you designate as safe senders. Outlook's junk email filter automatically considers your contacts to be safe senders, and anything that is not from one of those senders is sent to the junk email folder. The filter can be customized to suit your preferences.

[LPBBEAR]

8. A little more info please.

Do you use a email client such as Thunderbird or Outlook?

or

Do you use an online service like gmail or some other online service?

and

If so do you use a web browser like Firefox of Google Chrome to access your email?

[progree]

10. I use Outlook 2010. It in turn accesses webmail.compuserve.com

where i can also look at my email, but very rarely do over there because outlook is so convenient. (Compuserve is now a part of AOL and AOL is a part of who knows who).

[LPBBEAR]

11. Perhaps this will help

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/overview-of-the-junk-email-filter-5ae3ea8e-cf41-4fa0-b02a-3b96e21de089

Compuserve may also have some junk options online that you could use as well.

https://help.compuserve.com/articles/aol-mail-spam-and-privacy

[progree]

13. Thanks! /nt

[Goonch]

14. "Junk Email Filtering isn't Working in Outlook"

https://www.slipstick.com/outlook/junk-email-filtering-isnt-working-in-outlook/

[progree]

16. Thanks! -- Interesting:

Note: Server-side spam filtering is generally the best option as it removes the spam from your Inbox before you download it. Smartphone users won't waste data downloading spam (unless they look in the junk mail folder from their phone); on the desktop side, with an IMAP account, Outlook will sync the Junk mail folder, making it easy to review.

I'll spend more time at the server end ... webmail.compuserve.com ... and see what I can do there.

But what is plaguing me most is that unsubscribe works (that's good) and that takes only a moment (though I keep notes, sigh and that takes awhile), but anyway, a day or two later I'm on another email list with a different email address. I don't know if that's caused by me unsubscribing (to get put on another list), or if I'm getting put on new lists anyway.

In other words, black-listing addresses one at a time is no quicker than unsubscribing from a list one at a time...

Thanks again.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

17. Thought you may have missed this

https://www.democraticunderground.com/109529387#post7

[progree]

18. Thanks much - yes, I did look at it. It sounds like essentially making a huge white list

and everything else goes to junk email folder. Intriguing, but I don't know how I feel about that yet. If I don't keep unsubscribing from those email mailing lists, each one with once-a-day or worse emails, I could end up with a huge huge junk email folder. In addition, any email not on my white list but that may be important would get sent there too -- and basically be buried amongst all the junk and I might miss it. I see a lot of constant white list maintenance.

Plus there are issues with Outlook 2010 not filtering by email address all that reliably.

You can set Outlook to display mail only from people you email and the ones you designate as safe senders. Outlook's junk email filter automatically considers your contacts to be safe senders, and anything that is not from one of those senders is sent to the junk email folder. The filter can be customized to suit your preferences.

But I'll be looking at it some more. Thanks again

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

20. You're welcome