Check Your Webmail Spam Folders!!!

[dave6x]

I normally use a mail client to send and receive mail, only using webmail occasionally on my laptop or hobby desktop.

As a result of a thread from daveeb earlier today, I decided to check all my family's webmail spam folders. I was shocked to find that all of the 5 accounts spam folders contained emails from trusted addressees, mostly from well used email addresses and in one case a reply to me as part of an email exchange the previous day that had not been treated as Spam excepting this one message!

I am pleased that the Spam filters had correctly detected and diverted about 800 Spam messages across the 5 accounts in the previous month, however I am somewhat concerned that some emails from well used addresses ended up in the Spam folders!!!

[Nopanic]

Unfortunately Spam filters are automated, we tried using people, but it turns out its a lot of work :P

If you keep your conversations away from Viagra and enlarging certain body parts you should be ok

[dave6x]

Originally Posted by Nopanic

Unfortunately Spam filters are automated, we tried using people, but it turns out its a lot of work :P

If you keep your conversations away from Viagra and enlarging certain body parts you should be ok

Unfortunately your flippant reply detracts from the reason for this thread which was to warn that emails seem to be randomly finding their way into the webmail Spam folder, and thus the need to check webmail spam folders for errant emails!!! The helpful reply from Masque to daveeb regading his problems receiving FreeServe emails had prompted this action by me.

Users of an email client may well be unaware that their emails are being filtered out before the client picks them up, and may not be actively using webmail and therefore not checking spam folders for false positives!

The email exchange where I "lost" a follow up reply the next day was with regard to the arrangements for the Memorial Service for a deceased friend!!! It contained absolutely no reference to anything of a dubious nature and I resent the implied slur that it may have done.

Please engage brain before you reply!

[Maggy J]

I don't think Nopanic meant anything by his reply except to make a joke about the inevitability of spam and agreeing the fact that spam filters aren't the last word in reliability.

Sorry to hear about your friend and I hope the memorial goes/went well.

[Nopanic]

Originally Posted by dave6x

Unfortunately your flippant reply detracts from the reason for this thread which was to warn that emails seem to be randomly finding their way into the webmail Spam folder, and thus the need to check webmail spam folders for errant emails!!! The helpful reply from Masque to daveeb regading his problems receiving FreeServe emails had prompted this action by me.

Users of an email client may well be unaware that their emails are being filtered out before the client picks them up, and may not be actively using webmail and therefore not checking spam folders for false positives!

The email exchange where I "lost" a follow up reply the next day was with regard to the arrangements for the Memorial Service for a deceased friend!!! It contained absolutely no reference to anything of a dubious nature and I resent the implied slur that it may have done.

Please engage brain before you reply!

Originally Posted by Maggy J

I don't think Nopanic meant anything by his reply except to make a joke about the inevitability of spam and agreeing the fact that spam filters aren't the last word in reliability.

Sorry to hear about your friend and I hope the memorial goes/went well.

As above it was clearly a joke and with no mention of your loss I had no reason not to bring humour to a thread.

The spam filters are not perfect, nor can they ever be without the introduction of manual intervention, a point I tried to make above.

From a VM POV, the idea is that customers use webmail, thus regularly check the filter, report mistakes and help to improve them.

[Toto]

Originally Posted by dave6x

I normally use a mail client to send and receive mail, only using webmail occasionally on my laptop or hobby desktop.

As a result of a thread from daveeb earlier today, I decided to check all my family's webmail spam folders. I was shocked to find that all of the 5 accounts spam folders contained emails from trusted addressees, mostly from well used email addresses and in one case a reply to me as part of an email exchange the previous day that had not been treated as Spam excepting this one message!

I am pleased that the Spam filters had correctly detected and diverted about 800 Spam messages across the 5 accounts in the previous month, however I am somewhat concerned that some emails from well used addresses ended up in the Spam folders!!!

You can quickly remedy the problem by putting trusted email senders into your contact list on each account, this will prevent those email marked as Spam by Google going into your spam folder automatically.

This link on VM's site may help

[dave6x]

Originally Posted by Nopanic

As above it was clearly a joke and with no mention of your loss I had no reason not to bring humour to a thread.

The spam filters are not perfect, nor can they ever be without the introduction of manual intervention, a point I tried to make above.

From a VM POV, the idea is that customers use webmail, thus regularly check the filter, report mistakes and help to improve them.

Thanks for the reply, I did realise you were trying to be humorous in your previous post but disappointed that your post implied that ONLY emails containing dubious material would end up in the Spam folder, hence the example I cited was to show that some completely innocuous emails from regular contacts were being dumped in the Spam folder on a random basis. Therefore the need to make regular checks on the Spam folder within webmail, which many email client users like myself may not be doing.

From my experience the Spam filters do seem to have a dislike for @aol.com and @user.freeserve.co.uk addresses, and seem to dump these randomly! I have previously upset a relative by not replying to his email, from an @aol.com address, when I didn't actually see it as presumably it went into the Spam folder then was auto-deleted while I was away on holiday!

I agree with your advice that regular checks for false positives are necessary!

---------- Post added at 11:52 ---------- Previous post was at 11:41 ----------

Originally Posted by Toto

You can quickly remedy the problem by putting trusted email senders into your contact list on each account, this will prevent those email marked as Spam by Google going into your spam folder automatically.

This link on VM's site may help

Thanks for the reply. It is useful advice which many email client users may be unaware of.

However I am finding that even emails from some of those contacts in the Contact List occasionally get randomly dumped and there is also the need to check Spam folders regularly for email from new addressees not yet in the Contact List that may have been dumped.