spam

[louieglen]

A few weeks back, I advertised for a car. I received a message from a fellow saying he had one, to send my e-mail address and he would send pictures. His profile stated that he was a senior member. I sent my address, haven't heard from him, but my spam box is filled with spam sense then. I'm not going to mention his name, I have no way of knowing for sure, and may be completely wrong. I'm putting this on the forum so, readers can be aware that this could be happening.

[Ross/Kzoo]

Sometimes 3rd parties get info on members and misrepresent themselves as that member. It's best to respond initially to the member through the "private message" on Fordbarn and then exchange the email address.

[Chris in CT]

Louie, You have to remember that sometimes computers get infected by a virus. A common one uses the mailing list of the infected computer to send out spam to everyone on the mailing list. Its called a "slave". Your contact may be completely innocent of any malicious intent, in fact, he may have no knowledge that his computer is infected. Just a heads up...

[Bill in SoCal]

Hotmail is just one of several places that you can open a free e-mail account. Open one and send all your questionable contacts to that account. If it gets spammed - close it and open another. Save one account for your private or known contacts. A lot easier that deleting 200 spans a day. Think about it, Bill

[700rpm]

Hotmail, gmail, and yahoo are notoriously porous with security. I have found it best to set up my email with my service provider, who has a much stronger firewall and spam filter system.

[P.S.]

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Computermail.net is by far the safest free email provider. Google, Yahoo, and Hotmail (Microsoft) all admit to spying on subscribers' emails "in order to provide targeted ads" to them. Unacceptable!

[BillLee/Chandler, TX]

The real problem is the JUNK SOFTWARE that is foisted off on consumers by the junk e-mail providers like yahoo, msn,com, hotmail, sbcglobal, etc.

The ability of hackers to high-jack an e-mail account on these systems is well known. I see the spam from the high-jacked accounts, usually every day, often several times.

The usual solution is for the customer to go to the account and reset the password. Apparently Yahoo hasn't figured out that it is THEIR problem to ultimately solve, but instead make the customer jump through hoops to get their e-mail account back alive.

The real solution is to not use the junk e-mail providers! Perhaps Google is immune, perhaps just not yet cracked, but you typically don't see the spam coming from accounts hosted there.

The real problem with Google is the massive invasion of your privacy that using ANYTHING associated with Google presents. As I am sure all know, Google looks at every e-mail message that flows through their system, whether coming from a Google account or to a Google account. They extract information that they SAY is used strictly for their advertising purposes, but given the latest NSA revelations, when Big Brother finally emerges, his little brothers will be called Google and Apple.

[Bill in SoCal]

Originally Posted by louieglen

A few weeks back, I advertised for a car. I received a message from a fellow saying he had one, to send my e-mail address and he would send pictures.

Hi, I don't know who you have your main e-mail account with, but my suggestion is to open a free e-mail account that you only use for situations like this when someone unknown to you asks for an email address. You are not going to use it for any important business, and if it gets spammed - close it and open another. (don't use any personnel information when opening the trash account - make up what ever you want to fill in the blanks.) Bill