too late to prevent spam?
 

i get so much spam in my bulk folder at yahoo. the only sites i visit are travelsites and fodors. i have paid for tickets online, and at this point am not sure how to help prevent further spam.

i did not create another email account for my few ticket purchases.

what would be the best proceedure to hopefully reduce the 600 unsolicited a day i am getting?

Doesn't Yahoo have a spam blocker feature? If not change email services to one which does.

yahoo does have a spam block feature. I am not sure where it is located (maybe under options) and cannot get onto my yahoo account from where I am.

I activated mine a few months ago and it works really well.

good luck!

Yahoo has an excellent spam blocker.
Ths is from the Help site:

Yahoo! Mail is committed to eliminating spam and offers several tools to help you keep spam out of your inbox. Yahoo! has consolidated several of these tools under the "This is Spam" link next to the From: address in every message.

1. The most effective way to prevent spam from entering your inbox is to use SpamGuard. Help increase SpamGuard's effectiveness by sending examples of spam to Yahoo! to review. Yahoo! will use the messages you send using the "Spam" button to constantly improve the SpamGuard technology.
2. Yahoo! Mail offers you the ability to create filters for your account. You can create filters to deliver emails to a special folder or to the Trash that:

* contain specific words or phrases
* are from a sender's domain
* containing other characteristics you find in spam

3. Yahoo! Mail allows you to prevent future email from a specific email address from being delivered to you at all. Note that many spammers frequently change their email address to avoid this technique.

You can choose how long you want to keep messages in your Bulk Mail Folder. You can choose to drop all messages in your Bulk Mail Folder or keep messages for 1 week, 2 weeks or 1 month. The default is one month.

To edit this feature:

1. Click "Mail Options"
2. Click "Spam Protection"

Here you will have the following two choices:

* "Immediately delete these messages upon receipt".
* "Save these messages in the Bulk folder" and select the desired timeframe from the drop down menu.

Important: Occasionally, valid email messages may be perceived as spam and delivered to the Bulk folder. Please note that if you select this option, you will not have an opportunity to review the messages in your Bulk folder before they are deleted.

3. Click "Save Changes"

Outside of the specific tools that Yahoo! Mail offers:

* Never respond to unsolicited email (i.e., spam). To the individuals who send spam, one response or "hit" among thousands of mailings is enough to justify the practice. \

* Never respond to the spam email's instructions to reply with the word "remove" unless you trust the company sending the email. This is a ploy to get you to react to the email and will alert the sender that your email address is open and available to receive mail, which greatly increases its value. If you reply, your address may be placed on more lists, resulting in more spam.

* Never click on a URL or web site address listed within a spam email. This could alert the site to the validity of your email address, potentially resulting in more spam.

* Never sign up with sites that promise to remove your name from spam lists.

Although some of these sites may be legitimate, more often than not, they are address collectors. The legitimate sites are ignored (or exploited) by the spammers, and the address collection sites are owned by spammers. In both cases, your address is recorded and valued more highly because you have just identified that your address is active.

If it's in your Yahoo bulk filter, just empty it..it doesn't count toward your limit and it will be emptied on a regular basis.You can choose how often it is emptied by clicking options, thenspam protection.
If it's in the Bulk folder it is known spam and does not have to be checked.

Hi lin,

>I get so much spam in my bulk folder at yahoo....<

Don't open your bulk folder. :)

Your spam filter is protecting you.

((I))

Actually, no spam blocker is perfect. I have found important emails in my bulk/junk folders in yahoo and in hotmail and in gmail, as well as in my ISP's mail program.

So I set up a personal email account with yahoo that I use for nothing other than emails to family and friends--and I tell them not to sign me up for free offers or any of those "give us the emails of 5 friends and you get 5 additional entries to our travel sweepstakes" contests.

So far no spam/junk in that account.

If you're getting 600 per day I'm guessing that's more than what is generaged "legitimately" by the purchase of a few airline tickets.

You need to change the setting on your filters or somehow get better anti-spam set-up (sorry i'm not a computer geek to say exactly what you need, but you definitely need something, this problem CAN be mitigated!).

If you're using Outlook Express, click Tools on the top menu bar, then within that click Message Rules, then within that click Mail, and set up some rules. For example, block any messages containing the word "enlargement" from downloading. While this prevents friends from sending you jokes about enlargement of photos, it will reduce your spam.
Other e-mail programs have similar menus, albeit perhaps with different wording. None is perfect, but 6 a day would be better than 600.

it is all in my bulk folder.. and more than once i have found VERY important emails there., so i am afraid to just empty it wihtout glancing at the subjects and senders a bit.. so i will re-read all these suggestions and see what i do about it.

i guess i should also open an email account only for purchasing..

I have 2 email accounts on Yahoo. One for private email communication between family, friends, financial accounts and trusted businesses, and the other for broader but far less frequent use - online forums and other misc websites that require an email address, etc.

The one I keep private, but do use for airline tickets, etc, gets virtually no spam, and my more exposed acct gets loads. Once a week when I login to the latter I just dump the spam folder without looking, as I know that all 'legit' emails are going to my primary account.

My yahoo Bulk folder has also been receiving at least 15-20 spam mails a day and usually I just delete. The other night I actually opened one (with NO attachment) and found that the "spammers" are actually also yahoo customers using "geocities" accounts. Since yesterday, I've stopped just deleting. First I forward the email to [email protected] per yahoos help instructions. Then I delete. Maybe if we all start doing that, yahoo will be better able to police the offenders.

I have a Yahoo account I've had for several years and use it for various newsletters and things like that, although I don't think I've bought tickets on it. However, Yahoo's spam blocker is excellent, and works better than the regular ISP I have, which has a terrible one. It is true that very occasionally a real piece of mail gets in there, though.

I get hardly any spam on my Yahoo account, though, so it is really strange you are getting so many. I may only get 1-2 a day, if that. Somebody must have gotten your address, but it isn't because of Yahoo, I can say that.

oh, I haven't ever broadcast my yahoo address on websites, but do use it for registration and things, and regular newsletters, as I said. I still get hardly any spam on it.

So, I'd say close that address and start a new one, as someone obviously has gotten it. You should be careful where you post a new address in the future.

To Lin, It's too late for you. Your best bet is to pick out a new handle (or slightly modify your existing one) and tell friends and relatives to start using it. Then set up another name that you'll exclusively use for banks, vendors, etc.

Margaret: The only potential problem is that spammers use phoney email addresses. If you were to hit "reply" (which you're strongly urged to NEVER do) it would probably come back as undeliverable.

There is a great website fighting spam called spamcop.net (note it is NOT ".COM") Spamcop will take the spam, parse it, decipher the actual address and direct you to the correct webmaster to report the spam. After a few weeks of reporting, the spam will stop for a few months before my address is discovered again.

On a side note, I just want to assure you that Fodor's does not share emails with other companies. We really only use them to send you the newsletter (if you signed up for it) and to confirm your initial registration. We require them for registration in order to minimize the number of multiple screen names.

Best of luck ridding yourself of the spam and thanks for the tips everybody.

Those spam programs where you can list words that indicate spam and those messages are automatically put in the trash are really kind of funny.
I recently looked in my "trash" and found an email from a friend -- it went there because she started off with "I must be off my meds today" -- the word "meds" put it in the trash as I was being bothered by so many of those medical spams.
I could give other examples as well, including jokes from friends which include words like "Viagra", "stock tip", etc.

Hi Lin,

>..more than once i have found VERY important emails there.<

You can adjust your spam filters to let in emls from those you want to communicte with.

I also suggest having one account for private use and one for things such as this site.

((I))