I was stupid and did a survey online for a free gift, now I'm getting 50 or more junk mail, how can I stop it?

Question

If I were to try send each company a notice that I was'nt intrested it would consume hours and hours. is there an easier way out of this crap????

Thanks guys, very helpful!!!!

Answer 1

Replying to the unsubscribe email only tells them that they have the correct address.
This may take you about 2 weeks but it's very quick and easy.
Move ALL your bulk mail to your inbox and check all and click the spam icon.
Every day you will get less and less because once reported as spam, they are blocked. I was getting over 100 a day and now I get only 1 or 2.

Answer 2

The best way is to use your mail program's filters. To make the best use of them, look at the FULL header and find the originating mail address. Here is a sample:

From Cate Gagnier Fri Aug 18 22:26:45 2006
X-Apparently-To: xxxxxx via 206.190.58.189; Fri, 18 Aug 2006 22:26:42 -0700
X-YahooFilteredBulk: 87.3.67.133
X-Originating-IP: [87.3.67.133]
Return-Path:

Reply-To: "Cate Gagnier"
From: "Cate Gagnier"

I now go to my filters and block gardnerbusiness.com. Note: not just [e-mail].

Sometimes the addresses are phony. You'll see more than one IP listed. Then you can verify by going to http://www.arin.net/ and putting the 'Originating IP' (which in this case was 87.3.67.133) into the 'WhoIs' query box. This will give you the information you need to contact the IP directly, since there is usually an email contact for spam mail listed.

In this case, however, it went to Amsterdam and then was traced back to Italy. It's not a legit company so the best I can hope for is to use the filters to block the IP.

Hope this helps. If you need any other suggestions, let me know. I had one 15-year old Mindspring account that got over 500 spam emails a day. Sigh... Oh yeah, One thing you NEVER want to do is respond to a spam email, not even to click the 'unsubscribe' link at the bottom. It just tells the spammer that your account is active. Some states have laws against spam and they can be forwarded, under certain conditions, to the attorney general. Might want to look into it.

Answer 3

Since I use AT&T (old SBC) Yahoo it refers to SBC and Yahoo. This might help you to avoid spam in the future.

I would bet that at the end of that survey an error page came up so you couldn't claim your free item. Correct?

Avoiding Spam

Spam is any message or posting, regardless of its content, that is sent to multiple recipients who have not specifically requested the message.

Web sites that are not reputable, or ones that have received your permission unknowingly through their privacy policies, may sell your email address to spammers. Just as some merchants send junk mail to your house, spammers send unsolicited email with the hope that you will buy their products or services. Since sending an email message is very inexpensive, spammers can afford to send millions of them—even if only a small number of people respond by purchasing their products. They send their messages from numerous different—and often falsified—addresses, which makes them hard to track.

To help reduce the amount of spam that comes to your All New AT&T Yahoo! Mail Beta account:

Never respond to unsolicited email. One response or "hit" from thousands of emails is enough for spammers to justify the practice. In addition, a response lets the spammer know that your email address is active, which makes it more valuable and opens the door to more spam.

Never send your personal information (credit card numbers, passwords, etc.) in an email. Spammers can fake the format of SBC or Yahoo! and other trusted sites. SBC and Yahoo! will never ask you to send your password or credit card information by email.

Never follow a spam email's instructions to reply with the word "remove" or "unsubscribe" in the subject line or body of the message unless you trust the source. This is often a ploy to get you to react to the email, which lets the spammer know that your email address is valid.

Never click on a URL or web address listed within a spam email, even if the message tells you that's how you unsubscribe. This also alerts the sender that your email address is active and can result in more spam.

Never sign up with sites that promise to remove your name from spam lists. Although some of these sites may be legitimate, most are actually address collectors. If collectors record your address, they will value it more highly because it is active.

Never open an unsolicited email unless you have blocked HTML graphics. Blocking graphics prevents spammers from being alerted when you open the message.

Answer 4

Purchase a Spam Mail filter, or use an e-mail provider that lets you block some addresses, like Lycos. Hotmail offers a junk Mail folder. You can send your junk e-mail there.

I have several e-mails each devoted to a specific cause. If I start getting too much junk mail then I close the account and reopen another one. Just make sure that you notify the people you deal with that you have changed your e-mail address. I have one e-mail address for business, another address for Yahoo Answers, and a third address for personal correspondence. I only give out my personal e-mail address to my friends and family, and I use the one where I can block senders for my business and general purposes.

Don't EVER respond to junk e-mail, you just confirm to them that you are receiving their e-mail so they are likely to sell your e-mail address to other companies thus giving you more junk e-mail. Lately, some companies have included an opt out option, but only the major and honorable companies do this. If you trust the company then you can try their opt out selection. If the company doesn't offer an opt out function or if you don't know them then don't ever try to opt out.

Fastmail.fm offers a unique option where you can bounce back an e-mail making it look like your account doesn't exits. I have found that most junk e-mail companies ignore the bounce back messages though. They just build up a huge list of e-mail addresses to send out and they don't care if any bounce back.

Answer 5

Set your Options to automaticly delete spam on arrival. And the ones that get delivered to your inbox, mark them as spam.

Never click on the unsubscribe link. That just lets them know that your ID is valid and you will start recieving more spam.

Answer 6

If you use yahoo mail then you can go and change the settings to where most alla dat crap goes to the so-called "bulk"section, if one leaks in just click on the "spam" button to block it.

Answer 7

NEVER RESPOND TO SPAM. It tells the spammer that you read the message and you will get 10x more. Just use a spam filter.

Answer 8

The same thing happened to me. I just delete the emails when they fill up my junk folder. Because I've heard requesting to be taken off of their email lists only encourages them to send you more junk mail.

Answer 9

Too late! You're stuck! -Short of changing ALL your passwords, email addresses & stuff like THAT, there's no way you're EVER going to stop the flow of propaganda... You don't happen to need a new computer by any chance- do you?

Answer 10

Maybe turn up your spam filter setting to limit more unknown messages...