Spam Sent To My Personal Gmail Address

[toalisi]

Out of the blue I have started getting spam - up to 25 a day.

Obviously I immediately delete them but I'm concerned that I
have been hacked in some way.

Is there anything I can do to stop this invasion?
I also have Windows Live Mail which allows me to not only delete
Spam but report them.

Any advice would be very welcome.

[hc4361]

You haven't been hacked. You've signed up for something or given your email to a company that has sold it on to spammers.

[toalisi]

I'm a bit relieved (I think)

How can I stop the inflow?

Thanks for your quick reply.

[bednobs]

there is no harm in changing your password anyway. Doen't gmail have a spam filter?

[toalisi]

It does have a filter but it is still annoying to have all that
spam in my in-box ( admittedly under 'spam')

I think changing my password could be an answer.

Thanks

[hc4361]

Do they go in to your spam folder? You do have options in GMail if you are not prepared to just ignore them and empty your spam folder every week or so.

You can block the senders so if you get an email from [email protected] you can block the @spamland.com so you get no more mail from eric or anyone else from that domain. You have to be careful though - don't get blocking domains such as GMail or BT.com as you'll be blocking a lot of genuine mail.

I've checked my spam folder and I have an email from [email protected], so I've blocked @ccbg-arch.com as I know that won't affect genuine mail.

Whatever you do, do not click any link within the mail to request them to stop sending you email. This just confirms that your email is live and will encourage even more spam.

[toalisi]

Thanks again hc4361 - my post crossed with yours.

Great advice - TVM

[Ellipsis]

> I think changing my password could be an answer.

No, that will make no difference at all.

> It does have a filter but it is still annoying to have all that spam in my in-box ( admittedly under 'spam')

That's how Gmail works. You have to get used to not looking in the spam folder. It's automatically deleted after 30 days. The reason it's there is that sometimes a genuine message gets accidentally labelled as spam, so if you're expecting an email and it doesn't arrive then you should check your spam folder. But for the most part you should ignore that folder.

[toalisi]

Thanks ellipsis.

[woofgang]

Do you know anybody who forwards you things where you still see the string of email addresses on it from the people who have had it before? Email harvesters send these around and conceal their own email address as a BCC (they get a copy every time it sent.) from this they harvest live email addresses which they then sell.

[toalisi]

woofgang you make a very good point & now I think about it
i have received mails from contacts which were copied to a lot
of people I didn't know, but thought no more about it.

[jno]

I don't really agree with Ellipsis about not looking at your spam folder. I check mine every day just in case a real email - but not one I was expecting - has gone in there; and from time to time one does. It only takes a few seconds to run your eye down the list. If there's nothing there you want, either click on Empty at the top of the page or just leave it to expire of its own accord.

[ivor4781]

changing my password has made no difference to my 50+ spam arriving daily(yahoo)

[VHG]

>>changing my password has made no difference to my 50+ spam arriving daily(yahoo)

Why would you expect it to?

Getting spam is nothing to do with your password.

[GlenB]

I have had this problem for the past 3 or 4 weeks though in the last couple of days the number of messages has dropped considerably.
toalisi - is Talktalk your internet service provider by any chance?