Larry’s Computer Class

Reduce Spam and Report it

Spam is an email sent to people to get them to spend money for fraudulent purchases or to get bank account or credit card information. Most spam has a commercial advertising message, often from shady merchandisers, get-rich-quick schemes.

Spamming is so inexpensive for the creator; if the spammer receives just one reply they have made their money back even if they have sent out thousands of emails to people. ISP (Internet Service Providers) put into place software and hardware to try and stop spam email, but its an ongoing battle. The spammers are constantly changing. One ISP says it rejects over 10 million emails a day because the addresses don't match real users. If you dont get a message this is why.

Many ISP have started using what they call a white list. White lists basically mean that email recipient can add an email address of senders from whom they want mail. Messages sent from anyone who is NOT on the white list are automatically deleted by their ISP.

How to limit spam in your emails

1)Dont post your email address anywhere on the internet.

Spammers have software the scans the internet for email addresses

2)Dont reply to spam mails

This only verifies to the spammers that it is an active email address

3)Use a unique email address

Use different email addresses when shopping online or banking online, then have a different address when on social networks

4)If it sounds too good to be true it is

Spammers will create emails that look like it is from your bank or other online services you use, if they ask you any personal information such as credit card numbers or bank accounts delete them immediately. Companies will never ask personal information in an email

5)Report any spam to your ISP

Every email you receive has a link that will say report as spam. If you think you have a spam email click the link and report it to you ISP. The more spam is reported the more email addresses ISPs can block and the more they block the spammers the more money it will cost them to continue spamming. This will bring down the amount of spam they can send. Over 80% of email still being sent are from spammers.

THANK YOU

For other articles also see previous tutorials.