I know this is tempting fate but I hardly get any spam - by that I mean the absolute unsolicited rubbish like viagra ads or similar.
Why?. Is my BB provider blocking it?
By contrast, my poor lil Mum who never goes anywhere even remotely dodgy on t'internet gets flooded by the crap. She has to do all sorts of filtering in O.E. to divert it to a spam folder.
I sort of assume that she gave her email addy to the wrong company at sometime - or is it just pot luck?
Spam - why does it effect some more than others ?
Moderators: Aladinsaneuk, MartDude, D-Rider, Moderators
Spam
I suspect, it could be something to do with the email provider, if you have a web based email i.e hotmail or yahoo you'll probably get loads of spam especially if it's a .com email address, if it's a .co.uk email adress your less likely to get inundated with spam.
At least i don't with my .co.uk but do with my .com addy
Jel
At least i don't with my .co.uk but do with my .com addy
Jel
I'll do slow when I'm dead 
Lots of reasons,
Poor website use, whereby an email addy has been listed on a forum (like... "Yeah anyone interested in a rideout contact me at spam@goingtomyinbox.com " )
Poor choice of commercial site. Some sites actively sell on their email lists for profit. T and Cs being 'the small print' that people dont bother reading.. where it'll say they'll pass on info to selected group companies, but wont say whether that 3rd party will sell it on..
Poor security - replying to unsolicited emails and addresses. a spammer may strike lucky by emailing joe. bloggs @yahoo.co.uk which in itself may be harmless, but replying to that email confirms that addy.. also i suppose included in this can be the various programmes that get installed by visiting pop ups and the like.. trojans, keyloggers, etc that collect email address book info.. it might not be you, may be a friend with a problem and their address book was compromised.
hundreds more reasons but i guess theyre the obvious ones
I use webmail in the main nowadays. gmail has a great antispam tool built in and collects 99.9% of the spam i get
I think the elderly just get spam 'because theyre old'.. it always seems the elderly relative is the one with the biggest spam problems. usually because of a lack of understanding of the technology theyre using...i think.. where's gio. He'll be able to tell you.
Poor website use, whereby an email addy has been listed on a forum (like... "Yeah anyone interested in a rideout contact me at spam@goingtomyinbox.com " )
Poor choice of commercial site. Some sites actively sell on their email lists for profit. T and Cs being 'the small print' that people dont bother reading.. where it'll say they'll pass on info to selected group companies, but wont say whether that 3rd party will sell it on..
Poor security - replying to unsolicited emails and addresses. a spammer may strike lucky by emailing joe. bloggs @yahoo.co.uk which in itself may be harmless, but replying to that email confirms that addy.. also i suppose included in this can be the various programmes that get installed by visiting pop ups and the like.. trojans, keyloggers, etc that collect email address book info.. it might not be you, may be a friend with a problem and their address book was compromised.
hundreds more reasons but i guess theyre the obvious ones
I use webmail in the main nowadays. gmail has a great antispam tool built in and collects 99.9% of the spam i get
I think the elderly just get spam 'because theyre old'.. it always seems the elderly relative is the one with the biggest spam problems. usually because of a lack of understanding of the technology theyre using...i think.. where's gio. He'll be able to tell you.
The latest problem is that spammers are using images to track their broadcasts. That's why recently all the on-line email services have defaulted to not showing images in messages.
If you have your email client to automatically show images, you can expect tons of spam. :)
This is because every image in every email have a different serial number, which relates directly to the email address it was sent to. Because your email client views the image on their server - this identifies you as having read the email, just by looking at it, even in a preview window.
If you have your email client to automatically show images, you can expect tons of spam. :)
This is because every image in every email have a different serial number, which relates directly to the email address it was sent to. Because your email client views the image on their server - this identifies you as having read the email, just by looking at it, even in a preview window.