Hit 500 unread emails and realized I was making it worse

I let my inbox pile up to 500 unread messages last week. Turns out, I was clicking links in spam to unsubscribe, which just confirmed my address to scammers. My own inbox cleanout habit was feeding phishing attempts. Anyone else find a better way to deal with junk mail without getting burned?

3 comments

3 Comments

beng515d ago

Wait, you were clicking links in spam emails to unsubscribe? I can't believe that actually worked against you like that. I always thought clicking unsubscribe was safe as long as you avoided the obvious scam ones. I just delete everything from senders I don't recognize without opening them, and for regular junk mail I use the built-in spam filter on my email program. It catches about 95% of it before I even see it.

beng515d ago

Oh man, you just reminded me of something weird. I actually got way more spam after I started using a brand new email address and never gave it to anyone. Like, I think some of those spam filters and automated systems are actually scanning for fresh addresses and then selling them to lists. The paranoid part of me wonders if flagging stuff as spam sometimes gets your address added to more lists rather than blocking them.

paige_bell815d ago

Is 500 really that bad though or just a number we tell ourselves matters more than it does?