Are you drowning in excessive emails recently?

Not sure why but in the last few months the volume of legitimate and spam emails I’m getting has just ramped up considerably such that it’s easy to miss the more important ones.

I think one of the e-mail addresses I use for various online transactions but particularly utility companies has been compromised such that out of nowhere I’m getting hundreds of the usual stupid spam emails each day. Fortunately Apple Mail puts most of these in the Junk folder but you have to look carefully before deleting in case it’s actually mis-categorised a genuine one.

Some months ago I signed up for a ‘Motley Fool’ article which required an e-mail address - crikey they must send 5-6 e-mails each day which makes me think they are disreputable.

Add in all the inane e-mails from Homebase, HMV, Aldi/Lidl/Waitrose/Tesco and many other companies I’ve had genuine dealings with over the years with several e-mail accounts/addresses it’s just starting to be a bit overwhelming and I can’t see the wood for the trees and often miss bill reminders or important ones about price changes.

Hopefully unsubscribing from the genuine ones will help but such a shame to have to do so if you could simply reduce the frequency.

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There is also the problem that unsubscribing from the ones that aren’t genuine just confirms for the spammer that the email account is active and monitored.

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Absolutely. I was going to mention that.

In the past I think we could ‘bounce’ emails (at least on Mac) but that may have had the same unintended consequences of simply confirming an active address.

I’ve started using Apple’s ‘Hide my email’ which produces random email addresses they send to one of your genuine ones. I assume there are similar ploys for Windows/Android platforms?

Many moons ago my ISP was Freeserve - I could create simple bespoke email addresses for anything which was exactly what I wanted/needed. So a Tesco@fsnet.AlleyCatDomain.co.uk would be brilliant for filtering genuine ones or seeing whose database might have been compromised when you suddenly got unrelated e-mails.

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I have 2 email addresses from 2 different providers eg iCloud, hotmail, google etc

1 x I use only for important stuff bills, bank etc

The other for everything else newsletters, YouTube account, online enquiries etc

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The problem I have is often getting too many emails from someone who I have subscribed to (eg. Joe Bonamassa). I don’t want to un-subscribe, but I just get too many ‘nonsense’ emails, trying to sell me something I would never buy (Blues Golf Accessories…??).

If there was a way to just get the tours date… That would be lovely… :expressionless:

Then there is the Junk mail… Ukrainian Girls…? No. Just no.

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Emails I want go to my private account. I use my work email as a burner and just block the annoying ones.

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What you got against Ukranians?! :wink:

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Much more tasteful I suspect than the ‘28 African wives jump up and down on ….’ you can guess type ones I’m getting currently.

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Certainly notice more junk, many from companies I dealt with years ago. They’ve never sent emails previously but have started in earnest.

I use Mailwasher (I think), it downloads headers so I just delete before they go into Mail.

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It annoys that you can’t do anything these days without them wanting your email address and with that comes the endless spam. I’ve just started refusing if it’s a condition of sale I walk away, there’s a large electric goods store here that insists on an email address or your mobile number to send you your receipt. It’s about getting your details and then they on sell them. Think we should put our foot down and fight back.

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I’ve just a separate gmail account for transactions for a number of years.

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I cant say I get any more than usual, but when I get them I forward them to the government phishing reporting email address along with my ISP phishing email, then I set up a rule to delete emails that match some portion of the email address

I have a distribution list of the following, and I forward as “BCC” - probably futile
report@phishing.gov.uk
phishing@talktalk.co.uk
phishing@123-reg.co.uk

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I’ve used a number of email addresses too over the years - freeserve allowed unlimited aliases, can’t remember who took them over. Apple used to allow 5 custom aliases if available but several of these seem to have attracted spam and the max is now 3, so I’d just lose a few if I deleted those affected though may eventually do that.

Their hide my email is a random gibberish address which is fine for many things and ‘one-offs’ but they are pretty hard to remember.

Pete your point about being asked, often unnecessarily for an email address, I booked a pub by phone in a Yorkshire village, asked for email address, I declined. On checking in, staff clearly have it sussed, my email address was “ noemail at g**** ”. Turned out I still needed an email address to access free wifi - turned out lovely pub, owned by brewer Heineken, so clearly there was a need to refresh certain parts !! I managed w/o wifi for one night.

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The usual weaselly form of words I get is ‘Can I have an email address for the receipt, please?’ (making it sound like there’s no option) to which I find ‘A paper receipt is fine, thanks’ does the trick.

On the rare occasion Mrs Ebor has signed up to a scheme just to get a discount on something she was buying anyway, the assistant cheerfully assured us we could unsubscribe immediately!

Mark

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I have one home account; a work-related account I manage outside of work time and an iCloud account which is barely used. The latter gets nothing but the first two are deluged. I find myself blocking senders every day for the first account and every week for the second.

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Interesting that iCloud gets very little.

Apple Mail seems to filter the junk pretty well but looking in the junk folder when getting 70-100 spam emails a day (all seemingly from the same source with different topics simply from the style of the email) is a real chore as occasionally genuine things go in there.

British Gas or Ovo energy are potentially the cause of a raft of recent spam as most goes to the email I use for them and little else in recent years, and I have an ongoing complaint with Ovo regarding a completely fictitious meter reading I never submitted. Maybe I am being punished for that!

Some years ago I think my generic ‘family’ email got compromised when it was distributed for an amateur tennis tournament at the local club - email/mobile numbers were used for communication about and arranging matches which is quick but I’d not envisaged everyone involved getting my details and thought it was only for communication from the organisers.

Probably also fair to say that we’re potentially too attached to our email addresses especially if we’ve had them for years or they’re reasonably unique.

A lot of spammers presumably randomly generate recipient addresses anyway so you’re never quite safe, but as with paper clutter I keep the vast majority of emails for purchases/transactions, and increasingly every other communication being foisted upon us electronically even if we’ve not specifically asked for or consented to receiving it. This all got a lot worse during the pandemic, and the number of unsolicited texts I also got regarding important things that went to the ‘unknown sender’ folder and were missed surprised me.

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iCloud is used for nothing by me so I’m not surprised it gets nothing. The work-related one has had nothing in a decade until this year.

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That’s another subject altogether free wi fi, I avoid it like the plague. My phone plan has heaps of data that I don’t use and don’t see why I should put ourselves at risk with free wifi. There’s no such thing as free anything online there’s always a catch.

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