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EMAIL FAQ > SPAM/Viruses/Autoresponders/Other |
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Why do I receive so much unsolicited email (JUNK/SPAM), and what can be done to reduce it? "Cause"/Background Solutions - If spam filtering software not already enabled on/for your email account, enable it. If your account itself is not setup with spam filtering capabilities already, please email support@pebblehaven.com and request that it be enabled (no additional charge). Spam filtering for the most part combines a whitelist/blacklist capability, while also using complicated formulas to score an email based upon its content. Emails which either match requirements setup in the blacklist, or those which receive a score above the amount setup for your account, are either deleted or moved to a separate folder (depending upon your setup preferences). If stored, these emails can be accessed via your web based email, or by using an email client that supports IMAP. - If you already have spam filtering enabled: You might try lowering your "spam score". For example, if you currently have a "score" of 5 set, you might try a 4. However, in doing so, please note that the lower the spam score the increased possibility/probability of a "false positive". We generally do not recommend having/using a spam score (threshold) of less than 4. - Disable the "catch-all" feature on your email account (if applicable) OR remove any email aliases that you may not be wanting/needing (if applicable). An email alias could be (for example) sales@yourdomain.com. If you do not want to receive email sent to this email address (instead maybe you just want to receive email sent to joe@yourdomain.com), it is worth checking to see/ensure that you are not setup to receive email sent to sales@ (might be setup to automatically go into your joe@yourdomain.com email account). You may find, if/when reviewing spam that you are receiving, that the majority of it goes to an email address that you have no desire to receive email to. The area where you could disable the "catch-all" feature (if enabled) or remove email aliases is within your hosting control panel. For assistance, just give us a call. - If your spam score is already set to 4 (or lower, which is generally not recommended), we would recommend forwarding some copies of the spam that you are receiving to support@pebblehaven.com. Please be sure that the "message headers" are found in the emails that you are forwarding. If you are not sure how to do this, please give us a call. We will analyze the headers, and try to see if there are any "tweaks" that we can make to the filtering/software (it would most likely be a result of a very uncommon, and/or similar, "attack" by a particular server or server(s) that we may be able to outright block mail from (versus have the email from it run through a filter)). - A much more drastic approach, yet can instantly reap benefits, is a change of email address. When choosing this option, many customers also temporarily enable an autoresponse message on their old email address, which informs customers of the address switch (to update their records, and to resubmit their email to the correct address). It is very likely that any program sending the "SPAM" will not be reading the replies on an individual basis or even receiving them at all (Because they send to such a large number of addresses, and since their "from" email address is typically masked and therefore not a functional email address, they tend to get a lot of undeliverable messages, failure notices, etc). Read a message from the Federal Trade Commission regarding "SPAM". How can I view emails that have been filtered, or marked as SPAM? Simply login to your web based email, and click on the "Spam" directory. For most users, the "Spam" directory will be listed under "Folders". Please note: You may have to subscribe to this folder before being able to view the contents. To do so, simply click on "Folders" and then click on the name of the folder you wish to subscribe to, and click "Subscribe". When attempting to open the folder, if you receive an error message such as "Allowed memory size... exhausted" you have too many spam messages in quantity or file size for the server to safely parse. Thus, you will need to have either our update team delete the messages by submitting an update request, or setup an IMAP email account in your email client and delete them via your email client. Multiple copies of the same email(s) are downloading into my email client (Outlook, Outlook Express, etc). What can be done about this? My connection is timing out or failing before finishing the send/receive operation.
First,
close your email client. Then, log into your web based email
account and delete email messages which you have already downloaded to your email client and/or do not wish to receive.
Then, reopen your email client and resume normal activity.
I am continually receiving emails containing
viruses. What can be done? Pebblehaven advises all users to have some sort of anti-virus software that is continually updated. Symantec (www.symantec.com), makers of Norton Anti-Virus software, is the most widely used in the industry. With such software installed, emails containing virus should automatically be detected and deleted. Their web site also contains up-to-date information on the viruses, and also often includes removal tools. Unfortunately, our support team will not be able to provide information on viruses (whether an email contains one, or not). Thus, the best way to answer this question is with the anti-virus software (which can automatically detect this for you). Also, you can consult Symantec's web site, where it is often easy to search for viruses which relate to the message you received (For example, you could search for the file name attached to the email, or the subject line of the email). Emails containing viruses do not always originate from email addresses you are familiar with, and can be considered spam. Thus, if you are interested in filtering options available, please see above. In response to a customer interest, we have partnered with an organization to provide server based anti-virus detection. This service scans incoming and outgoing mail for viruses and is available with any web hosting package, for up to 10 email users, at an additional $15 per month. If you are interested in adding this option to your account(s), please contact us.
I received a "returned email", "bounce-back message" from an email that I did not send, I received an email from a user at my domain name, however I do not know of such a user. Typically, this is unsolicited email or most specifically SPAM. More often than not, it is a case of a forged email header where the senders email address (yours) is forged. This is not uncommon and is rather easy to accomplish. For example, one could just modify the from address in their Outlook settings to be bill@microsoft.com and leave all other fields the same. If a message is sent, it will appear to be from bill@microsoft.com. However, it is typically done on a more automated/program level, and on a larger scale (using your email and that of many others). Our
primary recommendation would be to simply delete the email. If the problem
persists, you might want to adjust your spam filtering settings
to "blacklist" a particular email address(es) where they are
frequently sent from (such as nonuser@yourdomain.com), or to lower the
"score" set for your spam control. If the problem persists,
please notify our support team,
by forwarding a copy of the email to them. Who is sending an email from www.mydomain.com@ss6.pebblehaven.org (or similar), and why am I receiving it? The servers mail delivery system (similar to the "mailman" for your home mailbox) needs certain "fields" on every message to ensure proper delivery. One of the required fields is a "from" email address (similar to the mailman requiring that there be a from address on a regular piece of mail addressed to you). When an email is sent to your account without a "from" address, qmail (the mailman of sorts) assigns it the default email address for your site as the from address, so delivery can occur. Although many users would never wish to receive such an email (such as you may not wish to receive certain magazines or flyers not addressed from your friends and family), the servers goal is to ensure proper delivery of your email (similar to the "mailman" focus on delivering all of your mail), and thus why it gets delivered. If you would like to stop receiving such emails simply add this email address to your blacklist. How can I have an autoresponse/away message automatically sent to any emails which are sent to my email address during a given time? Simply login to your control panel! On some accounts, you will click on "Users" and then the "Mail" link to the right of your email address to enter your message. On others, you will click on "Autoresponse" immediately after login. If you would like to have someone walk you through this, just call! I would like to delete all the mail in my inbox (or any folder), what is the best way to go about this? There are two primary methods: 1) Quickly delete the email account, and then add it back again via your control panel. This will truly "refresh" things for you. 2) Login to your web based email, select all the messages (typically by clicking on "Toggle All" or "Select All"), and then delete (typically by clicking "Delete" or move to "Trash"). Sometimes you may receive an error message due to a lack of available space/memory (usually when message count exceeds a very unusual amount). In this case, simply delete a small amount of messages at a time (maybe one page of 25 messages). Or, if you are simply unable to view the messages (receiving an error message when attempting), you will either have to download/delete your messages using IMAP (an email client protocol) or: 3) You can request that our update team login and do this for you, however it is charged as an update request. How can I stop receiving email from a particular email address? How can I ensure email from a particular email address is not filtered? How can I increase or decrease the level of spam filtering? On most of our accounts, you can make all of the adjustments from within your control panel. After login, users typically click on "Users" then the "Mail" link to the right of the account in question, and then "Configure." Once you are in the correct location, you can also click on the help links for further assistance. Special Tips: If you do not want to receive any email from a particular domain, you can place an * before the domain name, when adding it to your blacklist. For example, add *@domain.com to your blacklist. This would block anything from any address @domain.com (such as joe@domain.com, etc.). If you simply do not want to receive email from a particular email address, simply add that exact address to your blacklist.
How can I have spam automatically deleted? You can instruct the server to automatically delete emails it determines to be spam, where you manage other spam settings, within your domain control panel. From there, how to do so will vary depending upon what type of server the email account in question resides on. For example, go to "Mail" then click on the email account in question and then "Spam Filter", or "Users" then click on the "Mail" link to the right of the email account in question and then "Configure". Then, try either selecting "Delete" under "What to do with spam mail" (and saving) or there is a folder name that messages are moved to when determined to be spam and you can just remove that folder name (thus they are not placed in any folder).
How can I have messages older than 14 days in my trash and spam folder automatically deleted? The support team is able to add users to a script that will delete any messages in the trash and spam folders older than 14 days, upon request. The script runs every week, on Sunday.
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