Is Reporting Email Spam a Waste of Time?
Part of having an email address is to expect to receive a ton of spam emails. I wonder how people get my email address. I’ve quit putting a contact email address of any kind on a website because I know the site will be spidered, and that email address will end up on spam lists.
I am very careful how I use my most important email addresses, and I don’t use them to register for anything. Still, they end up on email spam lists. How does that happen?
By the way, what ever happened to the CAN-Spam act of 2003? I remember how online marketers started following the Can-Spam rules and were careful not to violate the act, in fear of the possibly heavy prosecution. I even know of a few people that were heavily fined, they were used to set an example of what could happen to you if you violated the rules.
Now, I hear nothing of Can-Spam, and spam is worse than ever. Does anyone really go after blatant email spammers?
Anyway, I was wondering if you ever take the time to report email spammers to web hosting companies, or domain registrars.
I suspect I am like most people and just delete the spam and move on. There’s enough to get done in our busy days as it is, so why take the time to report a spammer, when it won’t make much of a difference anyway.
Yesterday I received an obvious spam email. The email message was a typical make money from home type of spam message. Now, I have nothing against make money from home products, promoted by legal and ethical means.
This message made highly exaggerated income claims, and asked for a reply to get more information. Whenever you see a “reply to this email for more information” type of message, it is almost guaranteed to be bad.
The only link in the email was to a website that contained a screen shot as proof of money being made. I’m sure you know that those screen shots can be manipulated – right?
There was no contact information other than the email address. Way down in the message was an unsubscribe link. Of course the unsubscribe link was hidden way down where most people wouldn’t see it. So, they would have few subscribers opting out, but could still claim to have a remove link.
The unsubscribe link appeared to go to a third party autoresponder – not one of the major autoresponders.
For some reason, this spam email set me off, so I decided to do some complaining. I reported the spam email to the website that contained the screenshot jpg file. I’m sure the owner of the image site is not the same person who sent the spam email.
I know from experience, email spammers don’t use any of their own sites – they know there will be spam complaints and those sites will pay the price, not the spammer.
Just to clarify, I know this because an email spammer used one of my sites to hide their URL and I got in trouble and had to stop letting people register for that site. I am not, and have never been, an email spammer!
I complained to the autoresponder service found out they were hosted at HostGator and complained to HostGator. Some may think me reporting that to HostGator was a little extreme since the owner of the autoresponder site was probably not the spammer.
Hostgator is fair in investigating spam messages, and will probably not shut them down, unless they have had several complaints. Anyway, if you are running an autoresponder service these days, you need to be prepared for spam complaints.
I did one more thing, and it may have been a stupid thing. I clicked on the unsubscribe link to get off the list. Then I thought – oh, if they are a spammer they now know there is someone checking this email address and it may end up on several spam lists.
So, I spend about an hour of my time reporting spam complaints, and may have put myself on spam email lists. Was it worth it? Probably not, no wonder people don’t report email spammers.
Do you report email spammers? I am curious to know if anyone out there reports email spammers, or if it’s just not worth it.
Mike
Tagged with: can-spam • email spammer • reporting spam • spam complaints • spam email • spam lists • spam rules • waste time
Filed under: Main
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i think its when you sign up to something once they pass your address on to everyone. Great post
Yep, I still have fortunes waiting for me in accounts in Africa and the United Kingdom. Some stranger left it to me in their will….lol
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If you have a new e-mail address and don’t use it to register on other websites, you shouldn’t get any SPAM. I have a private e-mail that only my friends know it, and I get no SPAM.
Email spam needs to be addressed by legislation. It is the most annoying part of my daily business life, i.e. 150 email per day, 90% spam!
I know about reporting mail as spam on many times.My question is this: Does reporting spam actually help improve the filter, or is a waste of time?
I still have fortunes waiting for me in accounts in Africa and the United Kingdom. Some stranger left it to me in their will…
If you were trying to claim it, you’d find out that it is bogus, plus you’d receive many more scam and spam mails after that. Call Walmart, and they will tell you it’s a scam!
“Do you report email spammers? I am curious to know if anyone out there reports email spammers, or if it’s just not worth it.” always worth it but obviously dependso n the amount that the email is reported
Spam is more than an annoyance, it’s a battle. For every step you and I and our email providers take to stop or block spam, spammers come up with new tricks and techniques to bypass those steps. As the recipient of a fair amount of spam – perhaps more than most, since I have several “public” email addresses – I definitely see the magnitude of the problem.
Yet, aside from hitting the “this is junk/spam” button in an email client, I’ve never once reported spam to an agency like the FTC or a service like those you’ve listed. In my opinion, it’s not really worth the effort any more.
Reporting spam or even Phishing scams for that matter appears to be a waste of time. A most thankless job at the best of times because the “victims” meaning the websites in whose name the info is sought, say the banks, paypal or federal sites which are the targets hardly care and they never acknowledge the effort you make to report it to them. May be we should not expect thanks?
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Most of people admit that spam is very troublesome. For me, normally I only delete the spam and move on spam. And I never reported email spammer as your way. So I don’t know this brings the advantage or wasting time. Anyway I would like to thanks for sharing this information.
Spam mails is quite annoying. They fill up your inbox space and you often spend time cleaning up your email. I have yet to report any spam mails and from reading your post I don’t think it’s a time well spent. However, I do wonder if the time I spent cleanin spam mail is equal the time I will spend if I report it?
Great post. When I receive multiple spam from a same company/website… if the company is professionnal, I sometimes use the Unsubscribe function… In the other cases, I prefer to flag the messages as spam in my email client.
Very nice sharing. but If you were trying to claim it, you’d find out that it is bogus, plus you’d receive many more scam and spam mails after that. Call Walmart, and they will tell you it’s a scam!
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Today Spam emils are matter of worry. I am also very disturb by spam emails.
If reporting email spam wast our time then what should we do to protect ourselves from spam.
Until we have cleansed the world of scammers, we must rely on PC security programs and our own wits to stop ourselves being scammed. For more information on how these reported emails are dealt with on an international level, I recommend checking out this section on Interpol’s website.
How have you been able to deal with email spam? Do you just ignore it or do you report it? What experiences have you had when you reported it?
it provides many people jobs so it can’t be a waste of time.
Yes!!sometime it is we should not report spam.
Reporting spam to an email is sometimes quite fruitful while sometimes it might be wastage of time as well.
Sometimes yes it is waste of time. Reporting the administrator and then waiting for him to reply.
As an example, should you plan to retire in ten years, and you’ve not saved a single penny towards that finish, it’s essential to have a excessive risk tolerance – because you’ll need to do some aggressive – risky – investing with a purpose to attain your monetary goal.
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It depends on your product, It works fine compare to other Internet marketing strategies.
I think, reporting spam can help mail service provider to improve them self, so it is imp to report these spammers.
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I often think reporting spam is somewhat of a waste. I go back and forth but your article was very interesting. I guess if you complain about it, you should do something bout it and report it.
Unfortunately, few among us are strangers to spam email. In fact, we have become so accustomed to receiving it, most of us are on autopilot when it comes to how to handle spam – we delete it.
Yes we can think it a waste of time possibly but we cant tolerate the email spam for a long time.
I think spam filter do this task of controlling the spam on the site.
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Thanks for such a detailed explanation of it, I wasn’t expecting it but anyhow its really really helpful, thanks a lot for sharing it with us
In my case, I think its really a waste of time to report against email spam. Spam is really the way where one should not waste a time in report or anything, but need to avoid that thing as it is time consuming to do so.
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I don’t think it is waste. But sometimes spam mails trouble me. What is the best way to prevent it plesae?
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Wow! This is an interesting topic, every time I feel I have got a spam, I used to report it. Earlier I used to do this as I thought this is the only appropriate way to treat these miscreants right. But guess what nowadays, even after reporting a spam, I get a similar kind of lucrative mail just one day afterward. Now I just have latest copy of anti-virus, which keeps the spam at bay!
Good stuff.
Even after endless attempts not to reveal or give away my email id anywhere on the internet I still manage to get around 12-13 spam mails every week. It used to be really frustrating earlier to clear/ block them as spam. Now I am getting used to it! Hope there is a real end to this menace soon.
I’m one of those who report email spam. It’s takes me some time but at least I’m sure that next message will not come in inbox folder but directly in spam.
yea whatever happened to the CAN-Spam act! Smart marketers, hackers & others gain access to our inbox daily.Isn’t there a Cyber regulation now, which can deal with these pests. Its become a daily chore to clean out the mess from my inbox.
Believe it or not, with years of locating, deleting/reporting spam mails, today I can actually see the subject in the mail and make a brilliant guess if it is a spam or no. But the irony is the ugly part of deleting/reporting such mails still needs to be done.
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Nice post. I’d love some substantial evidence though that reporting email spammers results in the practioners being shut down. That’d provide huge incentive for me to take action.
In my opinion, if the intention is to spam the email then it was a waste of time. I would still suggest that still useful and/or have benefits to the email receiver. In this case, eventually it will be beneficial at the same time in the business you are promoting.
Thanks for sharing this knowledgeful post .I really glad to read this post .I gain lots of knowledge from this post.
Spam emails are the most irritating, especially when they don’t stop coming in! I have made a habit to first de-spam my inbox and then check my daily mails.
I can’t comment on how effective reporting spam emails are, but I am sure of one thing that the procedure of reporting them as spam surely saves my time each morning, when my inbox gives me a spin in the middle.