Where does Spam come from?

We all get spam and we can’t stop it. But how did we start getting it?

OK, let’s just look at the email we get and see if we can answer the question above.

  1. We receive emails from friends, family and clubs or associations we belong to that we expect and want
  2. We have emails from organisations or businesses we have subscribed to, e.g. Martin Lewis’ weekly email, a superstore’s weekly specials, a local theatre’s monthly update, etc.
  3. Then there are the emails from businesses and organisations who you have bought from or requested information, and now they contact you via email.
  4. Finally there are the emails that you have no idea how they got your email address

spam1So it is the third and fourth types of email we want to deal with.

The third group is relatively straight forward. At the bottom of each of these emails there will be an ‘unsubscribe’ link. Just click on that and this will stop those emails.

The fourth group is the problem group. Thankfully spam filtering provided by email service providers is much better now, but some stuff still gets through. AND THERE IS NOTHING YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT. Honestly, that is how it is. Once your email address has got onto the spammers lists, there is no way of getting off. All you can do is hope your spam filtering picks it up or you just have to delete it yourself.

Spammers pick up emails from things like jokes that get endlessly circulated and those emails that say ‘send this to 10 friends …’. However, you cannot protect against other people having a problem. You are most likely to end up on these lists because someone else has your email address in their address list when their email account is hacked or compromised. There is nothing you can do against that!

Frustrated? Yes, you should be. You can be cautious, careful and thoughtful, but someone else’s bad luck may also be bad luck for you. At least you now know and can get on with dealing with your spam accordingly.