Spam and auto-responders

virtualsilk · #1 (**permalink**) 09-09-2003, 11:12 PM

I have the luxury of going on an African safari soon. My business is really just me, so I get anything sent to whoever@virtualsilk.com

What should I do about my 150+ daily spams? If I set up an auto-responder the bad guys will know I have a live e-mail address when they try biggerorgan@virtualsilk.com.

Should I just let my in-box crash?

My clients, friends and family know I'm going, so they are not the problem. I'm concerned about the other legitimate but sporadic contacts. I would like to let them know I'll be back.

kjohnson5576 · #2 (**permalink**) 09-10-2003, 05:21 PM

The problem with autoresponders, besides letting spammers know it's a real address is that often times you send a message to another autoresponder, that responds, then your autoresponder responds, and it goes on and on.

I spent a weekend on my boat (Moss Landing by the way) and when I came home, I had about 1000+ emails in my box from one person's autoresponder. We only started doing repetitious autoresponding for about 24 hours. I did away with the autoresponder that day and it hasn't come back.

So what do you do? I would ask a trusted friend to keep an eye on my inbox and filter out spam from legit email. They don't have to log into your computer or anything, just set your email program to forward to the trusted friends mailbox.

virtualsilk · #3 (**permalink**) 09-10-2003, 05:30 PM

Thank you neighbor,

I hadn't thought of that bouncing back and forth problem.

In the past, when I have had Internet access during travel, I have used gotomypc.com. It worked beautifully.

African-Safari · #4 (**permalink**) 03-12-2005, 02:37 AM

Well, I'm sure you've had a life changing African safari experience. I've been researching this spam issue for the same reasons.

It sounds as though you've been pretty much overloaded with spam already. There's an option that your hosting company can usually do, that will filter most of this out. After that is done, you can add people to the "discard" list, and their email will always be deleted.

Ask your hosting company for more information about 'pico access'.

I hope you had a great African Safari. You should check out my safari site sometime.

Regards,
African Safari Guy