Spam, spam and more spam

[matthewshull]

I know this has topic has been beaten to death, but I have a genuine concern with the amount of spam I get everyday. I get more spam here that I do with my Yahoo account

My situation is this: I am getting ready to develop the website for my local Chamber of Commerce, and they have inquired about hostig and email services. I would love to host their site and email, but I am very concerned about the amount of spam they will get. I know they don't get that amount of spam with their current provider.

It will look very unprofessional on my end if I provide this service to such an organization with this much and the kind of spam that goes through these servers. I have never in my life been on a mail server that had this much spam. I had a customer the other day complaining about all the spam he gets. His quote was "my penis is large enough, thank you!"

I just don't know what to do. I think the spam problem is a little excessive, and maybe something should be done. What are the options. What do the other resellers think? I love the service and plans that Matrix provides, but this could be enough of a problem to look elsewhere for me (which I don't want to do).

Please help!

[Vixen]

60% of spam is a lucky guess, as far as the email address goes. The other 40% is someone has picked up your email address somewhere along the way. At least that is how I see it, especially when I get spammed on email addresses I never use.

If you have an email address that begins with info, sales, billing, support, admin, abuse, postmaster, webmaster or a few others I am sure I forgot, you are going to get spammed. Period. End of story. Anyone stumbling around the net and finds a site can tack on any and everyone of those **names** listed above and hit at least 50%.

I get TONS more spam on my AOL account than I do on any of my email accounts on these servers. 90% of the spam I get in my mail on these servers is from someone who sent it to every other **name** they could think of with the domain tacked on the end.

[matthewshull]

Well, I understand we can't completely stop spam. However, I just took a look at my spam folder and all but a few were addressed to my personal account (matt@station3web.com), which I never use to "sign up" for things. The junk email I do use doesn't get as much spam as here.

When I have clients that switch from their ISP or another host to me for hosting, they want to know why they get so much spam now. They usually say "I didn't have this problem with so and so."

What am I to do?

[Brangwyn]

Turn off catchall for starters, if your receiving mail for addresses other than those you have mailboxes created for then not having a catchall will cause them to bounce back instead of being dumped into the catchall account.

[admin]

There is 2 ways to fully stop spam..

1. Turn off the mail servers.. Not a good option..

2. SA, and a bunch of anti-spam lists and a system like http://spamarrest.com ( there system is nice and found one to work with our systems ) but I think 90% of the users here would not like it..

[matthewshull]

Originally Posted by Brangwyn

Turn off catchall for starters, if your receiving mail for addresses other than those you have mailboxes created for then not having a catchall will cause them to bounce back instead of being dumped into the catchall account.

90% or better of my spam goes to legit email addresses.

There is 2 ways to fully stop spam..

Like I said, I know we can't fully stop spam. Just seems really excessive.

I guess what it boils down to is that I'll just have to come up with some explanation for my customers as to why my servers have so much spam, but their previous provider's server didn't. They'll just have to think I am not as good as the others

[Brangwyn]

Well don't assume your customers get the same spam you do, I have vortech accounts/domains that don't get a single piece of spam email.

[matthewshull]

Originally Posted by Brangwyn

Well don't assume your customers get the same spam you do, I have vortech accounts/domains that don't get a single piece of spam email.

And that may be a good point. Maybe I'll add a couple test domains and see what happens. Maybe use one to sign up for things, and one that I never use, and see what the results are.

[newmem]

Originally Posted by matthewshull

And that may be a good point. Maybe I'll add a couple test domains and see what happens. Maybe use one to sign up for things, and one that I never use, and see what the results are.

Don't waste your time........I have already done it

Here's the results:

(1) I have set a domain here that I do not plan to use till 6 months later. It just has an index page which does not publish any of my mails.

(2) I have never used the mail accounts of that domain for anything other than internal testing.

Total Spam Received:

0 - nothing - nil.

(I actually get sad when I get 0 mails in that mail account)

So if any one is getting a lot of spam, then it's not bcos of their site being hosted on vortech, rather it's either random spam based on your site's name, your email address being listed on your website (if you have listed your email address on any webpage anywhere on the net then spam will come), etc. etc.

[mresell]

guessing for email is easy and the more addresses you have the more you get. I have hosted various places since atleast 97 and my spam hasn't gone up anymore here than where I hosted before. I use only host that meet certain technical/ethical criteria etc... So it isn't vortech. Definitely remove email addresses you don't need and pick addresses that can be disposable if need be. Once a spammer locks onto an address they think is usable they NEVER stop sending bounce back or not. They are truly mental, this way. Unless vortech starts actively blocking,which is what some ISP's do, you can't kill it. Personally, I don't mind blocking as long as it is moderate and well balanced, but some people here don't even like filtering so I am sure blocking would send them over the edge.

P.S. Matt I don't want to bust your bubble, but since your domain name list matt@yourdomain.com all they have to do is guess you did it at another domain under your care. My number one address for massive spam is my webmaster address, but since it is public and common anyway I just filter it and move on.