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Email Spam...Should I Report Every Single One I Get?

by Steven Wagenheim
7 replies
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Most of the time, I don't really give this much thought. I just delete them. But every so often I get tired of these people and I wonder.

Should I take the time to report every single email I get that is spam? Would it matter? If it did, is it worth the who knows countless hours of my day that it would take?

I try not to wrestle with this issue too much but when I do nothing, I feel like I'm just letting the spammers get away with it.

I need somebody who is actually knowledgeable about this to either tell me that, yes, it will make a difference, or no, it won't do a damn thing before I decide how I'm going to handle it from now on.

Because quite honestly, I'm getting tired of it. It's becoming increasingly difficult to pick out the emails that I actually need to read, let alone want to read, from all the crap.

Please help. I'm dead serious.
  • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
    Banned
    Originally Posted by Steven Wagenheim View Post

    Should I take the time to report every single email I get that is spam? Would it matter? If it did, is it worth the who knows countless hours of my day that it would take?
    There are (at least?) two different ways of "reporting spam", I think, Steven?

    In most email client software, you should be able to click on "spam", which will report to your own ESP that the email's spam and at the same time move it out of your in-box (and doesn't take any longer than clicking on "delete"?). This has some effect in that (at least) if your ESP gets multiple reports, they'll block the sender, and that will feed back to the sender's ESP.

    Much more time-consumingly, you can send "complaint" emails about it yourself, to the sender's various service-providers (including to the "abuse"/"complaints" email addresses of their hosting company, domain-registrar, and so on). That's going to have more effect, surely, but would be really time-consuming? I've taken the trouble to do that only in individual cases in which I'm really exasperated with the spammer concerned.

    Paul Myers knows far more about this subject than I do (and I think probably a lot more than almost anyone else here, too), and would be - for me - "the person to ask": I'm hoping he might reply to this thread, when he sees it. Take note of whatever he says, if/when he does.

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  • Profile picture of the author avalon2013
    If you receive many spam letters this can mean that your email adress has got into "mailing lists" - the lists which spammers use for personal purposes or to sale to other spammers.
    Most often you can not really do a thing with this, reporting every sigle letter will take tons of YOUR time. The easiest way to cope with the situation - is to use spam fiters.
    If have a closer look to thоse letters, you'll find some "same" words they use, same email adresses (f.e. spambot1@provider.com, spambot2@...) - thats for sure.
    It's is better to spent your time on setting up good filters, rather then waste your time on reporting.
    P.S.: If your email provider does not have any good spam filter settings, you may change it with the one which has. Not necessary to change your email, you can set mail forwarding.
    P.P.S.: last month i've faced the same problem and get rid of it just by setting up filters... Good luck!
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  • Profile picture of the author ForumGuru
    Banned
    I have a free account at spamcop.net and forward a lot of my spam to them. They do the reporting for you to the hosting company, domain registrar etc. etc., automatically. It works fairly well, but some spammers are almost unstoppable.

    SpamCop.net - Beware of cheap imitations

    Cheers

    -don
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    • Profile picture of the author Paul Myers
      Steven,

      First suggestion: Don't let spam become a reason for a meltdown, or for slowing down your efforts to get things back on track.

      If you're going to try and report it all, I wouldn't do more than hit the spam button for each item. If you don't know how to triage your mailbox for reporting, you'd likely waste a huge amount of time doing more than that.

      If you know how to properly file manual reports, with full headers and a brief and politely phrased explanation, you might make a difference if you focus on non-bot spam. The automated trap systems out there will catch the bot stuff much better than you or I ever could manually, and they'll do it quickly.

      If you don't already know how to read headers and properly file manual reports, just stick to the spam button, or take Don's suggestion and use Spamcop for the non-bot stuff.

      It is likely that virtually all the non-bot spam you personally get will be IM-related. For that stuff, you want to report to the hosting company, rather than the domain in the headers. Reporting spam to the spammer won't do a lot of good.

      Spamcop makes that whole process easier. I don't like them for other reasons, but as long as you're careful only to report actual "I never asked to be on this list and don't know who these clowns are" email, it's fine.

      The biggest reason to use it is that it avoids the problem of ARF (Abuse Reporting Format). Some ISPs and ESPs won't accept reports that aren't in ARF, which you're probably not equipped to generate on your own.

      If you're using AOL or any of the major webmail systems, the spam button is probably enough.

      If it's pointing to offers through WarriorPlus, JV Zoo, Warrior Payments, or Clickbank, it will probably use a redirect. To find out the final target URL, paste the link from the email into the form at wheregoes.com and submit it. That will give you what you need to report the affiliate, which is MUCH more useful than playing webhost whackamole.

      Proper reports to those companies, which include an intro something like this, will help them shut down the spammers:

      I received a spam (see below) which points to an offer at your service. The URL in the message is a redirect, which ultimately resolves to example.com/affid/merchant/offer.html

      I did not ask to be on this list, and I have not purchased anything from this sender.

      Thank you for your time and assistance.

      Then paste in the full spam, including headers. (If you don't see at least one Received: header, you don't have the full spam.)

      Note: No demands, no threats, no long-winded diatribes, no nasty comments. These people want the spam to stop as much as you do, since it threatens their deliverability and the ability of legitimate affiliates to sell product. Give them what they need and let them do their jobs.

      Additional suggestion: Don't let spam become a reason for a meltdown, or for slowing down your efforts to get things back on track.


      Paul
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      Stop by Paul's Pub - my little hangout on Facebook.

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  • Profile picture of the author Paul Myers
    By the way... I'd be very careful about taking Avalon's advice on forwarding all your mail from one provider to another. If you do that, all the spam that comes in will be flagged. That can have unfortunate consequences.

    For example, say you have all the mail from your domain forwarded to a GMail account. GMail will see the spam, and may decide your domain is the source. That could lead to all mail from your domain being treated as spam at GMail, along with (in some instances) any mail with a From address or URL at your system.

    I see bounces that are caused by this every week.

    Don't cut your own throat in an effort to make spam filtering easier.


    Paul
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    Stop by Paul's Pub - my little hangout on Facebook.

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    • Profile picture of the author Steven Wagenheim
      @Paul:

      You should honestly create a product on this subject, as knowledgeable as you are on it. I don't know if it would sell but it might not be a bad experiment.

      As for a meltdown, don't worry. I'm just feeling a little guilty about ignoring this problem for so long. I usually just delete and go on with my day. It's actually more about the self inflicted apathy than the annoyance that's bothering me. You know what they say. If you're not part of the solution you're part of the problem. Kind of how I feel.

      But I'm fine. I've latched onto an interesting niche (synthesizer patches) that I seem to have a gift for. My first patch product is selling well and I'm planning on putting out more focusing on all the top synths in the industry. I think this may turn things around. Point is, I'm so focused on it that I'm not going to let the spam send me into a tizzy.

      It would just be nice if I either didn't have to deal with it or could do something substantial about it. Your suggestions sound good and I'm going to go with the one of least resistance for me and just use the report spam button as you suggested. Hopefully, it will do something.

      Thanks for taking the time to respond. I really appreciate it.
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  • Profile picture of the author Paul Myers
    Steven,

    Did a survey on the idea years ago. Spamfighting was second from the bottom in a 12 product test, if memory serves. Managing spam would make for a useful viral article, but it wouldn't be something that would sell.

    The spammers have pushed the tech on most sends so far past what most people are equipped to do anything about that there's no point in feeling bad that you can't make a substantial impact on your own. The systems in place now spread the work over all mail recipients who use the spam button responsibly, so it works out in the end.

    Good to hear you've got something going that's working!


    Paul
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    Stop by Paul's Pub - my little hangout on Facebook.

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