Please take care when posting or responding off forum

It actually has, for many years.

As an experiment, I have created a (valid) temporary email address that should excite the spambots. (Moderators please do NOT delete this for 7 days, as it is an experiment and all answers go to the spam bin via a 'hit counter'. It is going to fun to track the junk. Try [email protected] . If you get an answer DO NOT OPEN IT! It's probably not from me.

* Danny M *

Edited By Danny M2Z on 09/10/2014 12:09:48

Edited By Danny M2Z on 09/10/2014 12:10:44

Edited By Danny M2Z on 09/10/2014 12:11:32

My email address [email protected] is all over this forum as a live link.

I get one or two emails for far-eastern manufacturers a week

I have 32 emails in my spam bin, dating back to May, none offensive, just people trying to sell me things like nitrile gloves, who think I'm an engineering company.

I have four email addresses, none of them gets very much spam, even the gmail I use for all the 'signing up'.

I think ISPs have got very good at stopping the vast majority of real spam, and we shouldn't worry too much as long as we have spam filters active.

Neil

Originally, I had two email addresses with two different dial-up ISP's.These are both primary addresses. Also, no real problems at that time. Since then, with the advent of broadband thus allowing the demise of the dial-ups and the increase in spam, I took the decision that I would cease, as much as possible, usage of these primary addresses, and instead set up a number of secondary addresses all of which can easily be deleted without affecting either of the primary addresses. Currently, I actually have four primary addresses (how and why is more or less historical accident) which are kept quiet, and eight secondary addresses which are used for specific purposes such as engineering, computing, singing, home business stuff etc. Some of these secondary addresses are quite convoluted being made up of a few words strung together along with a number or two. The reason for this is that when I first started doing this, the first one I set up was businessman@...... This, from day one, attracted so much spam that I quickly changed it for something rather more difficult. This policy of long convoluted email addresses has been reasonably successful.

In addition, but probably for not much longer due to changes being made by my ISP, I also have a set of disposable email addresses. These are addresses of the [email protected] style whereby "abc" is the actual email address whilst the "-xyz" is an addon which can be used to indicate the source of the incoming email. So for example, I could have (I don't, so don't try it) [email protected] where the first part, obviously, is me, but mew indicates this forum. Now, as long as this forum, and only this forum, is given that address, I can immediately tell if it has been passed on to someone else. Currently I have 20-30 of these disposable addresses.

I also have both a mobile 'phone and a landline. Because of the spam etc on both 'phones, I have taken to refusing to give the mobile 'phone number it to anyone who requests it unless I can be reasonably assured of it's safety. I'm also requesting people such as the doctor or dentist to remove it from their lists. And, although it pains me say say this as an ex telecom technician, the landline is now ex-directory, and I have a 'phone system which in conjunction with Caller Display allows me to see who is calling, and optionally to bar up to 30 numbers. Finally, on occasion when I am being asked by some internet based firm for a number as a condition of their so-called service, and for which I do not think there is any justification for, I have started giving incorrect numbers such as missing out a digit, or a totally fictitious number. I do have to be careful though, and make sure that I'm not giving out a genuine number.

The point is that I am totally fed-up with my time being wasted by people wanting to sell worthless shares in some banana republic, or some clown trying to convince me that Microsoft can see into every computer in the world, or salesmen trying to flog double glazing/central heating/air conditioning/buy viagra or cialis etc.

Regards,

Peter G. Shaw

I have just one email address, I basically never get any spam, every now and again, some comes through as someone has sold or leaked my information or I've signed up for something knowingly as a necessary evil.

If they come through I just click on the bit at the bottom that says "unsubscribe" I'm taken to their website, and I enter my email (if required) and that's it. This tends to happen in bursts of 5 or 10 in about a week then it goes quiet for perhaps 3-6 months or more - I take the extra step of clicking the "report spam" button within my email client so my email provider can prevent further emails from that source reaching me or anyone else.

My email address is hotmail.co.uk and with the above system it often filters all other junk to my junk folder before it even reaches me (I don't think you can get these .co.uk accounts any more - its all outlook or .com now I think but they are essentially the same)

My PayPal email address is different but that's because it used to be shared,

On a real world note, I'm fed up of receiving non addressed junk from Royal Mail here in the UK, rather than opt out, I've started putting it all back in the post box! - they can carry it all around again, if everyone did this - I guarantee they'd stop delivering it - my personal approach, I'm sure it's not for everyone, maybe you even like the junk.

Edited By Russ B on 09/10/2014 13:54:54

Sign up with the TPS, you shouldn't by law get any UK based calls. If they phone you, they are breaking the law and you can report them. I manually block each UK caller and cant be far off the 200 I can store on phone.

This doesn't do a thing for the dozens a day of foreign cold calls, probably originating from not ticking a certain box or not taking a search engines offer up and selling your data on. I even have a call blocker from another Gov agency and separate registers £90 lifetime subscripton, they still get through and often the same Indian sales person selling for different companies.

Someones only got to drop an email addy out some where, spambots will pick it up and sell it off. Trouble is that back fires, 1 sell turns in to 3, 3 turns in to 9, 9 turns in to 81 a day over a period of months.

Got to be so damn careful I always look at senders address don't be surprised to see a banks legit email address that's been hacked in to with the usual click here. Have had three emails within a minute from separate senders using the same legit banks email address, even paypal.

Both phone and email are business and residential, you know what that means mid job. Gave up years ago at least I get some sort of kick out of it but its what its turned me in to - angry voice hello "What you selling" aaagh but "Not interested don't call again, piss off" on a good day. Point is they are breaking the law by phoning and interrupting what I was doing, I may scrap hours of work upon returning, who knows. Reporting these companies to the various Gov agencies do absolutely nothing.

RussB, that "non addressed junk mail" we all get from Royal Mail is what no doubt helps to keep all your other important mail being delivered to your door. I don't find it too much trouble to walk from the front door to the recycle bin where all that stuff goes. Should Royal Mail ever fail for whatever reason, can you see any of the other carriers ever providing the same service ?

Cheers Derek.

Derek, a few years ago, prices were very different to what they are now, lately because of this I haven't used royal mail to post anything more than basic letters here and there, I find these other couriers will come to my door and collect, with a sticky label in hand for no more than half the price, usually a lot less. To add to that, the last thing of value Royal Mail broke (a £350 graphcis card) they inspected it in photos, collected and inspected in person, and then deemed my packaging TO GOOD to have allowed them to damage it despite the completely crumpled corner.

They gave me 6 postage stamps as compensation which didn't even cover how much I paid them to smash it up in the first place. When I tried to appeal they quoted chapter and verse that they excluded from having to pay for loss or damages anyway. Just to clarify, I had paid them for insurance upto £500 which was clearly not worth the paper it was written on.

Honestly Derek, with the greatest respect to the men and women out there doing the hard work and delivering whatever the weather and the shop owners who are struggling and now being forced to close down, (a friend of the family owns a full PO branch), I wouldn't piss on the company if it were on fire, and neither would my friend who runs the fully licenced tax and exchange office.

Like so many good companies, they're not what they used to be in my opinion.

There is a very, very good reason why there are so many courier companies popping up these days, there is plenty of room for improvement while still profiting. There are more UPS access points in my area than there are post offices, and I can post a 25kg 3PH motor for £20 insured, RoyalMail wouldn't do it for double that even uninsured.

Oh my goodness...... I am whining a lot latey! I blame the man flu that I've been spreading for about a week now.

Sorry, I'll try to stay on topic before I embarrass myself anymore :-S

I to am sorry to have gone of topic, BUT, Russ I quite agree that when it comes to parcels there are very many who offer a much better service, however I am referring to things like , bank statements, hospital appointments, DVLA reminders, Etc. I notice that at least one of the big logistics companies already unload their letters onto Royal Mail, and it is this service that the others don't want. I cannot think of any other service that would deliver a letter from Cornwall to Shetland for about 60 pence. I have no connection whatsoever with Royal Mail but I would hate to lose that particular service.

Cheers Derek.

P.S. Get well soon Russ, your ailment is a bloody rotten one.

Russ, if this works for you, I think you are very lucky. While it is fine for "trustworthy" spammers (!) .... say you register a printer with HP and then get daily emails ..... for most unsolicited junk, the conventional wisdom is that by hitting "unsubscribe" you simply confirm to the the nefarious jerks at the other end that your email address is valid and that the email gets through. Then you are added to their prime/confirmed list which is peddled to the rest of the spam industry.

Bandersnatch, Yeah I know what you mean, I'm sure that thought has come across my mind before when entering details in to less pro looking sites,

Worth mentioning, it may help someone, I do tend to get the odd email (although I don't remember the last) which is less advertising and an actual scam or imitation of a real website. If I'm ever unsure I open the message source (all emails come with this data attached and it can always be viewed easily, just find the button) this is around a page or so of gobbled script and hidden in there are the true source and IP of the email (even if just a temp or fake), as often they mask the source with a genuine email address so when you hit reply, it shows the real website email (or something close). When you find the actual source it will be something random like [email protected]

The quickest way to find it is to hit Ctrl+F while viewing the source (same on any browser I think) and type just @ and have a sift thought, you'll see your own in there, the "mask" and the source, which is the one you should be scrutinising.

I may very well be notifying some of them that I'm active, however this doesn't really work these days. What happens when an email address is sent to a non existent address is that the provider, say Gmail, responds by returning a delivery failure notification. thus the sender knows its not a real email address anyway (but he doesnt know if its active)- he's one up. but not for long, as these random email generators (a bit like random phone number dialling) generate HUGE amounts of emails - Hundreds of thousands a minute, but before a minute is even up, "Gmail" has already clocked whats going on, and banned it at the source, there are more things the wrong uns can do to dodge or change their address but due to glaringly obvious way in which they are working, it's impossible for them to out pace the providers by much - no doubt they share this security info with each other too. Further to that, there is also minimum time between accepted requests from unknown sources, usually 1 second - so they couldn't possibly send out 100k in a minute, even if they could generate it, unless they hacked someone else line, and if they're good enough to be doing these things, then they're going to have much bigger fish to fry.............

Hopefully a few tips can be gleaned from my ramblings there, I don't expect them to be valid for more than a few years, its something that constantly changes.

If the email has come from a genuine banks email address then it's just made to look like the address, it's really come from a different address.

As as for someone taking over from Royal Mail, TNT have delivery people out on bikes everyday in manchester delivery post from companies. So they are getting close...

Avoid TNT post as much as you can, we switched over to TNT from Royal Mail and the service is crap. We are now receiving over 16000 calls a month mostly about mail not received. A recent test posting shows over 50% still not delivered over 14 days.

Royal Mail are still the best out there for quaitly of service..

Actually now you mention it I've remembered that we received two hospital appointments form TNT after the dates of the appointments!

its not the NHS you work for is it?

I rate postal and delivery services by how they get on with our labrador. Full marks to the (proper) postie and the guy from interlink who (almost) always has a chewy in his pocket*.

neil

*That said, have you ever had to console a labrador who feels she has been cheated out of her free chewy?