Spam bombing.... help!!!

[ProudGrandma]

Last Thursday I noticed that in my email inbox I had something like 50 weird emails. By weird, I mean from unknown companies and many in a variety of foreign languages. I then checked my spam folder and it was literally full of over 1000 emails just like the ones in my in box.  

I changed my password,  thinking it would help... but here I am over a week later it's not better at all.  I Googled it... and discovered it's called spam bombing,  but I can't really find any ideas on what to do. 

Does anyone here know? It's really annoying. 

Thanks

[popmom]

Yikes! I have never heard of this. Is there a fix?

[Wildcat]

Mine isn't that bad as I 'only' get about 250-300 a day, but I cannot find a fix.

I am *thisclose* to just jettisoning that email address and creating a new one. If google doesn't care enough to enhance and BOUNCE these icky mails (and they are beyond obvious spam and some are borderline x-rated), then they can just darn well pay to store them forever all on their huge servers.

I suspect my mail got on someone's list where all they do is send this spam crap -- lots of those "work from home jobs" are nothing but sending emails. I now know what emails those people are sending. 😡  I think it happened when I started receiving mail from some 'news' site that's seemingly legit and I unsubscribed. I did research them before clicking and they checked out which was the only reason I clicked. The spam bombing began about two weeks later. I figure it's probably a revenge thing since I didn't want to get their daily drivel and fear-mongering, so they sent my email to - whoever - to start spam bombing me. I don't know if that's a thing or not, but it's suspicious timing.

Edited January 20 by Wildcat

[ProudGrandma]

2 minutes ago, Wildcat said:

Mine isn't that bad as I 'only' get about 250-300 a day, but I cannot find a fix.

I am *thisclose* to just jettisoning that email address and creating a new one. If google doesn't care enough to enhance and BOUNCE these icky mails (and they are beyond obvious spam and some are borderline x-rated), then they can just darn well pay to store them forever all on their huge servers. I'd hate to lose it and have to change all the things I use it for but this is ridiculous. When I researched it, I found posts on other forums where people were complaining about the same thing and found no fixes for it.

I suspect my mail got on someone's list where all they do is send this spam crap -- lots of those "work from home jobs" are nothing but sending emails. I now know what emails those people are sending. 😡  I think it happened when I started receiving mail from some 'news' site that's seemingly legit and I unsubscribed. I did research them before clicking and they checked out which was the only reason I clicked. The spam bombing began about two weeks later. I figure it's probably a revenge thing since I didn't want to get their daily drivel and fear-mongering, so they sent my email to - whoever - to start spam bombing me. I don't know if that's a thing or not, but it's suspicious timing.

yeah, this is me....and I am also thinking I am going to have to create a new email....but my current one I have had literally since I got email back in 1997 or something....(it's still AOL....if you even know what that is).....but I can't even imagine how many places I am going to have to contact to have my email changed.  Do you know, is there a way to do something like a "forwarding address" like you do when you move?  That way things still get to you, and then you can make the changes as you get contacts. 

[Wildcat]

3 minutes ago, kfeusse said:

yeah, this is me....and I am also thinking I am going to have to create a new email....but my current one I have had literally since I got email back in 1997 or something....(it's still AOL....if you even know what that is).....but I can't even imagine how many places I am going to have to contact to have my email changed.  Do you know, is there a way to do something like a "forwarding address" like you do when you move?  That way things still get to you, and then you can make the changes as you get contacts. 

Yep totally familiar with AOL -- my gmail name is literally my old AOL account name. It's also my oldest email and tied to everything.

I didn't even think about forwarding! That's a good idea. I know gmail has a rule for that so maybe AOL has one, too. Or, maybe it's a Mac thing. I'll have to ask DH as he has some things set to forward to me.

My plan was more old school where I would just change what I could to the new account, then check periodically to see what's still going to that address, changing those to the new account, and after a year, quit looking.  🤷‍♀️  I'm definitely not tech savvy. I'm not bad, but I tend to do things the hard way if you ask my DH. 

[ProudGrandma]

4 minutes ago, Wildcat said:

Yep totally familiar with AOL -- my gmail name is literally my old AOL account name. It's also my oldest email and tied to everything.

I didn't even think about forwarding! That's a good idea. I know gmail has a rule for that so maybe AOL has one, too. Or, maybe it's a Mac thing. I'll have to ask DH as he has some things set to forward to me.

My plan was more old school where I would just change what I could to the new account, then check periodically to see what's still going to that address, changing those to the new account, and after a year, quit looking.  🤷‍♀️  I'm definitely not tech savvy. I'm not bad, but I tend to do things the hard way if you ask my DH. 

I thought about your plan too....but there will be NO way I would be able to periodically look at my old mail and see if I missed anything as it would literally be buried in thousands of spam emails....and now that I think about it...the forwarding thing won't work as it would also forward all of the spam....UGH!   This is a disaster.  I am so discouraged. sigh!!! 

[Wildcat]

26 minutes ago, kfeusse said:

I thought about your plan too....but there will be NO way I would be able to periodically look at my old mail and see if I missed anything as it would literally be buried in thousands of spam emails....and now that I think about it...the forwarding thing won't work as it would also forward all of the spam....UGH!   This is a disaster.  I am so discouraged. sigh!!! 

In gmail, DH uses a forward rule for certain things. I think he goes in and says 'mail coming from XX address always forward to YY address". So, you'd just have to do that for each mail you really want to receive. That won't help for any new things you sign up for, so you'd just have to start giving out that new address for those. Again, I don't know if AOL has that feature since they're so old, but it's worth a look.

If they don't have the pick and choose feature, maybe set up a gmail with the same name as your AOL account (for simplicity, if it's available), forward *everything* to that new mail, then have that gmail forward only the things you want to the new, permanent mail? Again, I might be making things difficult, but it's a thought since I know gmail does have forwarding for individual mails/senders.

You definitely have it worse than me with the sheer amount of spam you're getting.  I hate that we have to be so creative and go through so much to get away from all of this crap. It's beyond frustrating and very time-consuming.

If they would allow us to create a whitelist of senders we WANT to hear from and just bounce the rest, it would solve the problem.

[ProudGrandma]

24 minutes ago, Wildcat said:

 

If they would allow us to create a whitelist of senders we WANT to hear from and just bounce the rest, it would solve the problem.

that is a fantastic idea!!!

 

[gardenmom5]

have you checked your junk email settings?
you can block domains (just plug in @badmaildomain) and it will block everything from that domain.   

 

[Wildcat]

9 minutes ago, gardenmom5 said:

have you checked your junk email settings?
you can block domains (just plug in @badmaildomain) and it will block everything from that domain.   

 

I've done something similar. Well, Dh did it for me since he's super tech savvy. I have everything blocked ten ways to Sunday and all it does is send things to my junk file.

I've not tried the badmaildomain that you mentioned. It's new to me so, I'll have to check on that. DH set a rule for each and every sender from a domain, to block mail with emojis in the subject line, block mail from certain senders' names, etc, and it just goes into junk as opposed to blocking it. He's totally perplexed. I'm not sure that will work, though, as these people are spoofing emails the way they do with caller ID so I rarely get mail from the same domain.

@kfeusse, I did a search and AOL has a feature to forward all mail or select mail. It's a bit like creating our own whitelist. I think I'm going to try this and see how it goes while looking into the thing @gardenmom5 suggested. Maybe I'll do both.

[ProudGrandma]

I did find in my settings that I can block everything that doesn't come from a person in my contact list...so I might try that...unless someone here thinks that isn't a good idea for some reason.  

[gardenmom5]

2 hours ago, Wildcat said:

I've done something similar. Well, Dh did it for me since he's super tech savvy. I have everything blocked ten ways to Sunday and all it does is send things to my junk file.

I've not tried the badmaildomain that you mentioned. It's new to me so, I'll have to check on that. DH set a rule for each and every sender from a domain, to block mail with emojis in the subject line, block mail from certain senders' names, etc, and it just goes into junk as opposed to blocking it. He's totally perplexed. I'm not sure that will work, though, as these people are spoofing emails the way they do with caller ID so I rarely get mail from the same domain.

@kfeusse, I did a search and AOL has a feature to forward all mail or select mail. It's a bit like creating our own whitelist. I think I'm going to try this and see how it goes while looking into the thing @gardenmom5 suggested. Maybe I'll do both.

then the domain name is not blocked.  I block them, and I never see those domains.
He may be blocking the entire line, not just the domain. e.g. i'maspammy at baddomain dot com. (they constantly change those emails)  as opposed to just "baddomain dot com".
The biggest issue is the spammers keep coming up with new names.  It may only be one digit different - but that's all it takes to get through the blocks.

[ProudGrandma]

I just spoke to my brother, who checked with his IT guy and he suggested that I get a gmail email account and close down the AOL account.  He said AOL is so old that the security isn't want it needs to be compared to the hackers out there now and that I was an easy target.   So, I am making a list of all of the people, websites and accounts that I will need to contact in order to make this change.  I also have emails that I want to keep, so I need to find out how to move those over.  SIGH...this is going to be a HUGE job I fear. 

[Wildcat]

4 hours ago, gardenmom5 said:

then the domain name is not blocked.  I block them, and I never see those domains.
He may be blocking the entire line, not just the domain. e.g. i'maspammy at baddomain dot com. (they constantly change those emails)  as opposed to just "baddomain dot com".
The biggest issue is the spammers keep coming up with new names.  It may only be one digit different - but that's all it takes to get through the blocks.

I asked DH what he did and he said he did block the domain as well as trying some other things. He said that's why he was perplexed as to why it wasn't working.

4 hours ago, kfeusse said:

I just spoke to my brother, who checked with his IT guy and he suggested that I get a gmail email account and close down the AOL account.  He said AOL is so old that the security isn't want it needs to be compared to the hackers out there now and that I was an easy target.   So, I am making a list of all of the people, websites and accounts that I will need to contact in order to make this change.  I also have emails that I want to keep, so I need to find out how to move those over.  SIGH...this is going to be a HUGE job I fear. 

That's a good point about AOL's security. I'm sorry this will be such a big job for you, but ultimately, you'll be better off without all that spam. I don't believe you were hacked, though, as they'd be doing other things in there. You probably just got on some spammer's website where they get paid to send x emails per day in the hopes someone will click on just one of them and then they "have a live one" to scam for money.

Now, I have to figure out what I'm going to do with my email....

[gardenmom5]

1 hour ago, Wildcat said:

 

That's a good point about AOL's security. 

AOL is still around?  who knew.