@TheBoozer wrote:
I am suffering from the same. Before the switch, I was getting an average of 10 spams a day, now I get more than 60 daily. The only reason I can think of is that someone at AOL sold our email addresses. It is impossible to block these spams because the source of most of the spams is not available.
THIS IS TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I have had three Verizon email accounts for over ten years now, the amount of spam has varied up and down over the years, for reasons I have never understood - I would get none, then some, then lots, then back down, then up again, etc. In the last year or so the spam has been pretty high, since I migrated a week or two ago it really seems about the same, and for sure I am seeing the same subjects that I previously saw.
Of course you can always get an email address on some other service (like Gmail), switch to that, and see if it is any better. 
Short of that however, my suggestion is to create a filter that has a bcc: setting that looks for your email address and if it finds it to put the email into the spam folder. Of course that means that legitmate emails that you might get via a bcc: would also go there, but my experience is that one heck of a lot of the spam I get is going into my spam folder due to that filter and relatively few legitimate emails do. Using that kind of filter also means that you need to check the spam folder regularly in your webmail to find and move to the inbox anything caught incorrectly, but you probably need to be doing that anyway. This is working very well for me, might or might not for you.
Another option is to create filters based on a word or words in the subject or the body of the email, if you can identify some. I have found that trying to set up and use filters based on the From: email address is an exercise in futility that I have pretty much given up on.
Whatever you do, I suggest you not automatically delete any spam caught by custom filters because if you do for sure something you really want to get will get lost.
Hope this helps.
__________________________________
Justin
FiOS TV: Extreme HD, Internet: 50/50, Digital Voice
VMS Enhanced Service: 1 server, 2 clients
Keller, TX 76248 (VHO 1)
@Peganmn wrote:
63 spam emails today. I've tried everything. I've tried setting up filters; useless. I've tried forwarding them; useless. I've tried marking them as spam; useless.
......
I may be beating an already dead horse to death , but what kinds of filters have you set up in AOL - specific from email addresses, full subjects, what? That kind of filter will generally work once if you enter it before the first time you get a message or messages (good luck with that!), but after that the spammers generally send from another email address, change the subject slightly, etc.
It appears that AOL mail accepts wildcards in the fields, so I think you can be very generic. For example, here is a sample I created:
I have not verified the above would actually work because I haven't gotten any email from an address that matches, but I think it would. The pattern for the spam emails I get generally seem to have some constant letter pattern in them somewhere that can be matched, in the name or the site id.
And to repeat what I posted earlier, I have had excellent results with a filter with my email address in the bcc: field. I get virtually no email I care about addressed to me that way, and a lot of the spam is addressed to me using the bcc: field.
If you have tried the above, sorry, I am wasting your time. But if not you might want to take a closer look so see if some wild cards in the filters will help.
__________________________________
Justin
FiOS TV: Extreme HD, Internet: 50/50, Digital Voice
VMS Enhanced Service: 1 server, 2 clients
Keller, TX 76248 (VHO 1)
@TheBoozer wrote:
Hi Justin,
Thank you for your response. Would you please show us in detail he procedure to create the suggested bcc filter and how to set the wildcard?
Thank you,
Mike
Mike,
I will be happy to try.....
1) While looking at your AOL webmail screen, click on Options in the upper right, just under your email address.
2) Select Mail Settings from the pulldown.
3) Click on Filters and Alerts in the menu on the left side of the screen.
4) Click on the Create Filter button (at the top of the page, may need to scroll to see it).
5) You should then see this popup (I have blocked out some personal information):
a) Give the new filter you will create a name.
b) To create a filter to block by bcc: just click on the "None" value in the Bcc field and enter your own email address, set the Move to folder entry to whatever want (could be Trash if you want, I just make sure it goes to the Spam folder so I can review it to see if it is really something I want), then click the Create button. Done....
c) Using a wildcard requires you to be a little more creative. I think you can use a wildcard (*) in any of the fields so that the filter will work for anything where the wildcard is located (again, haven't really verified this will work, but I believe it will, the popup certainly accepts the wildcard character). So for example, if the From is something like luwqgpnawrlwhul@xydtricksformals.info (right now I have two emails from this domain name in my spam folder, different sender names though), I could use a variety of wildcard entries to possibly handle this, depending on what parts I think might vary over time:
*@*.info
*@*formals.info
*@xydtricksformals.info
These are just examples, it depends on what spam you are getting and how much of it has repeatable characters in the name and/or address. Of course you could also try to handle the Subject, for example I get repeated emails with the subject "1ink" so I could just use that, or maybe "1*" or maybe "*ink".
OK, I don't know if the above helps at all, or maybe is too detailed. But I suspect it will take some experimentation to see what might work for you.
Good luck.
__________________________________
Justin
FiOS TV: Extreme HD, Internet: 50/50, Digital Voice
VMS Enhanced Service: 1 server, 2 clients
Keller, TX 76248 (VHO 1)
