Why
do I receive so much spam?
Unsolicited
email, commonly referred to as "SPAM", is a large and constantly
evolving issue. "Spammers", the "source" of the problem, use
a variety of methods to gather email addresses including using programs to
spider through web pages, searching for them in the html tags ("mailto:email@mydomain.com"),
and some just send email to say "anything" at a valid domain
name (such as a@abc.com, b@abc.com, c@abc.com, d@abd.com, etc).
Nonetheless, an email address that has been "publicly available" for a
longer period of time and/or in more locations, would typically (with all
other factors held constant) have more
"SPAM" sent to it.
How
can spam be blocked?
The only "issue" with measures to rid of SPAM is the
tougher your automated filtering is, the more likely there is for a
"false positive" (a message that was thought to be SPAM by the
"system", but in fact from your perspective it was not).
So, typically we recommend one approach the "situation"
methodically, and not go to the most drastic of measures unless/where
"necessary". Pebblehaven is
constantly adding new and often sophisticated methods to assist you in
reducing the amount of "SPAM" you receive.
The following
are the
most typical/common actions that customers having an issue with SPAM take:
1.
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 hostingsupport@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.
2.
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.
3.
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.
4.
If your hosting services supports it (give us a call to verify) "teach" your spam filter what you consider to be spam
by moving the messages into a "junk_learn" folder on the
server.
5.
Let us do some custom/manual analysis/adjustment(s).
- Create a folder in your web
based email called "NotFiltered".
- Move messages that you consider spam into the new folder.
- No less than a full day (worth of spam) later, email hostingsupport@pebblehaven.com with the login information to your email account, and a request to look at
the messages in your "NotFiltered" folder. 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)).
6.
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).
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". 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".
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.
There are several possible "solutions". We recommend going in order in
troubleshooting. Meaning, the most common solution is at the top and the
least likely/most drastic is at the bottom.
1) A large email, email(s) of certain characteristics, or a large number of emails, may be "blocking" your email client from processing a complete send/receive. For example, if you have a 20mb file or if you have 400 emails
waiting to download to your email client, from the server. Your email client may fail or "cancel" before finishing its send/receive operation.
Then, the next time you check for mail, it will try to download all messages on the server.
In plain words, it may not have had the chance
to tell the server which emails it previously downloaded, as this is typically done at the end of 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.
2) You will need to download service packs for your Office version from the Office Download
center
You will see in the center of the screen two pull down menus. One will be entitled Product: and the other Version:. Leave the Product Category on Office and change the Version to whichever Office package you have. (It should tell you that when you open up a program within the Suite. It should say something like Word 2000 if it is 2000 or Word 2002/xp if it is XP). Select your version and a list of downloads will appear below. (You may need to click the button labeled Update to refresh the list.) Locate the downloads that say Service Pack X (X being the number of the Service pack) and download those. Don't worry about ones that have Service Pack X and then something after it like (SP-2) for MultiLanguage support etc. Just download the ones that say Service Pack X.
3) If this problem has to do with Outlook Express, we have been informed to try the following: Outlook Express uses a file to keep track of which message have been downloaded so that it can download only new messages. Sometimes this file becomes corrupted which results in the same messages getting downloaded again. You need to locate the file pop3uidl.dbx and rename it. Start Outlook Express and check for new mail
4) If none of the above solutions were able to assist, and you need further technical support, please contact hostingsupport@pebblehaven.com.
Why is my email being returned, or not received, when I send to a particular email address?
Typically, a message is returned because of something related to the email
hosting of the recipient (the person you were sending the email to). For
example, there may be a spam filter which has marked your message as spam,
or the user is temporarily over their user quota.
You can usually and easily determine the cause by reviewing the returned
message. If you are unable to figure out why it is returning and would
like further assistance, please forward a copy of the returned message to hostingsupport@pebblehaven.com.
I am continually receiving emails containing
viruses. What can be done?
I received an unusual email, and suspect it contains a virus. Does
it?
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 Hosting 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.
It looks like someone is sending email using my domain name. Are they? How can I stop this?
Typically, this is unsolicited email or
more 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
rather widespread and easy to do (something that has plagued some of the
largest web operations, such as PayPal and major banks). In such a
case, for example, someone could just modify the from address in their Outlook settings to be
say 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
many others). These types of messages are also commonly used to spread viruses. You may receive an email
that appears to be a notification that you sent a virus to a particular party. However, the message stating you sent a virus is actually the virus itself, or a forged sender actually sent the virus (again this is an example and does not cover every case).
If
this is not something that seems "rampant", you might consider
just deleting or ignoring the emails. If the problem persists and/or
you would like to do all that you can you might consider:
- 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.
- Setup an SPF record. To read more about this topic (documentation
not written or "endorsed" by Pebblehaven), please click
here.
- Email our Hosting Support Team with login information for an email account that contains such messages,
along with the date/time stamps for them. This will allow them to
analyze the message headers and possibly see the origins of the email(s),
etc.
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 hosting
control
panel. 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 hosting
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 hosting
control
panel.
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 hosting
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 x days in my spam folder automatically deleted?
The Hosting 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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