Comments on: Putting a Stop to Junk and Jokes in Your Email Inbox

By: mneave

mneave — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 06:32:38 +0000

Thank you so much for writing this. I just sent it to relatives who just don’t get how much junk mail comes into my inbox daily. People who don’t work online have no clue what it’s like. I have trained outlook to automatically delete emails with certain words in the subject heading, address, or text. You can set all kinds of rules in outlook to block all kinds of emails. If you know how to use this feature you can block virtually anything garbage from getting through and disrupting your day : ) Great article!

By: ddhr.org - Punishing email forwarders

ddhr.org - Punishing email forwarders — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 16:56:16 +0000

[...] but I’ve read that there’s no way to actually do this without hurting the person’s feelings. Some people actually send out a form letter every year to remind people that their inbox is a precious resource [...]

By: Bloggers Need Email To Communicate, Too | The Blog Herald

Bloggers Need Email To Communicate, Too | The Blog Herald — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 11:11:21 +0000

[...] Funnies, Pictures, Slideshows, and Junk: Stop forwarding jokes, funnies, pictures, slideshows, and junk to anyone, but especially to bloggers. Anyone whose been blogging for more than a year is likely to [...]

By: Lorelle VanFossen

Lorelle VanFossen — Mon, 21 Aug 2006 15:48:57 +0000

Brenda: To stop this: NEVER REPLY.

That’s it. There is nothing you can do. You replied, they know you exist, you are theirs forever.

Depending upon your email service and software, you can specify email addresses and put a stop to their arrival but not the sending. Contacting the company, unless seriously legit, is a serious mistake. It doesn’t do any good. Good email software will filter them out and stop them from arriving in your inbox, either by deleting them automatically or sending them straight to trash. You’ll have to check the help files to find out how to do this. Some you can stop from any email address that comes from @whatever.com and sometimes it has to be the exact email address. Some will even filter from a specific IP address, but you have to dig into your software and email service to find out how to do that.

While I love to hate Mozilla Thunderbird email program, it does have the ability to be “trained” to detect email spam. Over time, it establishes its own filters based upon what you consistently mark as spam and grabs it before you see it. It takes time though. It is fairly effective.

I think that everyone who signs up for an Internet or email service should get their first email with instructions on how to handle email spam. NEVER RESPOND and NEVER OPEN unless you know the sender personally. If it says EBAY, AOL, or IRS, DELETE IT IMMEDIATELY.

Good luck.

By: Brenda Houk

Brenda Houk — Mon, 21 Aug 2006 14:56:17 +0000

For months I have been receiving email from an investment company in Canada. I have been able to find out that much about the spam. They arrive daily or more with a phony sender name “Will Whaley” for example and a stupid stupid subject line such as “ladder.” This week (to give you an example of a few) the names and subjects have been: Lambert Caldwell – tyrant, Watty Pacheo – venerable foolhardy, Sadie Collier – certify. I delete these without opening them as they are recognizable spam. At first, I tried replying hoping to get a live representative from the company who would delete our name. But the mail always came back with the note that the address wasn’t operitable. So, what is the point? Today I opened two of the emails and to make matters worse there is a 8-9 inch dialog tagged on to the bottom of the investment offer from someone that rambles through all sorts of personal thoughts (sick). How do you stop this?

By: Jim Gibbon

Jim Gibbon — Sat, 12 Aug 2006 18:03:34 +0000

Great post, Lorelle. I especially liked your point about crying wolf.

Your form letter reminded me of the website Merlin Mann (43Folders) set up for people who send unwanted jokes, pictures, etc. He suggests emailing them the url: http://www.thanksno.com

I’ve never used it because I don’t receive so much junk mail these days and because I thought it would come off as a little harsh for some of my contacts. Still, some might find it appropriate.

By: Renee

Renee — Wed, 09 Aug 2006 00:41:33 +0000

Lorelle, I’ve used almost every methods of telling friends and relatives to stop forwarding junk mails to me; from polite to outrightly blunt stating that I won’t hesitate to block their email if they don’t heed my notice. Obviously the latter method was not well recieved and lost a few friends along the way.

I felt really wicked and bad at first but upon looking back, I think I did the right thing. Those “junk-friends” were never meant for keep, after all they never sent me a birthday ecard or at the very least a Christmas card. =p

I reckon the best method would to ignore their emails completely. And if they still didn’t get the hint after a year (exercising patient), they certainly deserved to be in the Junk email block list.

By: Catana

Catana — Tue, 08 Aug 2006 19:18:43 +0000

You might considering adding one last line of defense, just for those who have to be hit over the head. Something along the lines of “In case you think my earlier email about forwarding jokes, rumors, etc. didn’t mean you, it did.”

Your posts have been both entertaining and helpful. Just thought it was time to let you know. Thanks.

By: Dan Butcher

Dan Butcher — Tue, 08 Aug 2006 16:58:17 +0000

Thanks for the tips and the sample email. I’m going to use this with my online students, some of whom forward jokes and requests for help in finding missing children. Maybe this will help them rethink their use of the forward button.

I would add that people who let web sites send to their entire address book are a problem too. When someone I barely know invites me to their MySpace account, I know there’s something wrong.

By: Lorelle VanFossen

Lorelle VanFossen — Tue, 08 Aug 2006 16:49:10 +0000

tbirdonawire: Good for you. I've written about checking the facts behind the rumors before, so thanks for that reminder. I used to research the hoaxes, rumors and crap and email back the sender's with the "correction", but I found that this was a huge waste of time and didn't help. And didn't stop the junky emails. I highly recommend that if you are a forwarder, that YOU research things before you send them on to others, so you don't get a backlash and perpetuate lies and evil. As for me, I've been doing this too long. Instant delete button. So don't play email wolf with me. I have a very fast delete trigger finger.