getting new junk email talking about lawsuits against me and court dates

[huggytree]

im constantly getting odd emails.....BBB alerts, Paypal, IRS, and now im getting multiple emails a day about someone suing me and a court date...luckily they choose a county that I never work in once a year, so I didn't come close to clicking

when I doubt I always think 'why would they email me about this? shouldn't this come in the mail'

[Freelancier]

You should talk to your hoster about getting an anti-spam package installed on your server to eat up most of those spam messages. Postini is awesome if you can get it, and there are a number of others that are very good.

That I have to suggest this to you with how much you're paying for hosting is yet another reason you should get a different hosting company.

[billbenson]

Got an interesting spam today. It said it was from the FBI and had a LONG document that said I had porn on my computer and needed to send them $40 for the fine or I would go to jail. Really well done. I'm sure it fooled some porn surfers out there. It also hijacked my browser so I had to do a reboot.

Anybody know how to close a tab in Firefox on Linux? I just did a reboot, but I lost a bunch of links that I had open. The spam wouldn't allow me to close the browser tab.

[Wozcreative]

Your website is just being combed through by spammers. They can more easily find you with wordpress. You will just have to have the developer put better spamming constraints and also train your own inbox software to mark those as spam automatically.

You will get ALL KINDS of spam.. from wordpress logins to paypal logins... fake FEDEX packages being shipped to you... etc. Unless you are 10000000% sure it is meant for you, don't open it under any circumstances.
Also be aware that if you hit "unsubscribe" to some of these, what will happen is you will get a malware installed on your computer/inbox and it will automatically start spamming all of your clients with viruses.. once your email starts spamming.. the hosting company will block your email from working until you resolve this. To get it back up and running.. well with the way you currently have it setup, you have to go through the developer to fix that—who doesn't reply to your emails. This is another reason why you need to take control of your own hosting account, so if anything happens you get a reliable source to fix it ASAP.

[billbenson]

Huggy, remember that in addition to what Waz said above, the reason WorkPress is a good choice is because it's a good program. Millions of people and businesses use it. That also atracts spam types.

[Wozcreative]

Huggy, remember that in addition to what Waz said above, the reason WorkPress is a good choice is because it's a good program. Millions of people and businesses use it. That also atracts spam types.

No it's not a program.. it's mainly a framework where you can base your design and site on.. all you really have is the admin/backend area. The reason why people use it is because it is simple for them to understand once it's been setup and installed for them.

This does not "attract spam types" in the way you mentioned it here.. what it does is it allows the website to be more easily found with the way the folders and framework is setup through bots and search engines. This just means his basic on-site SEO is working.

[billbenson]

Interesting and thanks for the clarification.

[huggytree]

I am now getting 5+ lawsuit and court date emails a day....every one is from a different city

if it keeps getting worse I will have to do something with the spam filter

[Harold Mansfield]

Your website is just being combed through by spammers. They can more easily find you with wordpress. You will just have to have the developer put better spamming constraints and also train your own inbox software to mark those as spam automatically.

Using WordPress to publish your website really has nothing to do with you getting email spam. If you are using a hosting company, your email is handled by a different server than what your website is hosted on.

If your email address is on your website, or on any other website and is a live link, there's your problem right there.

Bots and harvesters are constantly looking for unprotected email addresses that are just floating out there for anyone to grab. Once you get harvested and added to lists you are screwed and need to up your spam protection either through your hosting company, or on your computer.

I never see this type of spam anymore unless I just happen to look at the junk folder before I empty it. But I know it's out there and I have seen pretty much everything that you've just described including the obligatory "I've just won the Italian Lottery", or "Inherited a bazillion dollars from a long lost oil baron uncle".

The fake Pay Pal ones are also very good, but they are all spam/scams.
Better spam protection should take care it. These are all as old as the internet and email and most basic protections are very good at catching them.

[billbenson]

I am now getting 5+ lawsuit and court date emails a day....every one is from a different city

if it keeps getting worse I will have to do something with the spam filter

On your website activate spam assassin. That catches a lot. On your email program, Outlook or whatever, make sure you mark spam emails you get as spam to train the spam filter. Also look at your junk mailbox to see if there are any emails there that aren't spam and mark them as not spam. It's a question of training the filter on your computer.

I just looked at my spam folder and I had 678 spam emails there. There have been a lot over the holidays. I get 10 or 15 a day that make it into my inbox. I just mark them as spam and delete them. Just make sure you don't fall for any of them.

Frequently, spam emails have a link in them they want you to click. If you hover over the link your computer should show the actual link. If the TLD (the part after the dot ie .com) is for a foreign country don't touch it. You can search for TLD's on Google.

The other thing that will happen is their may be an attachment they want you to open. The most common attachments I have seen in spam are zip files. In other words chasebank.zip. There are valid zip files but only if you are downloading something on purpose in most cases.

[huggytree]

I don't think I have a spam filter or folder....im getting 100% of everything....so there's the problem
ill look for the spam filter

[Brian Altenhofel]

I never see this type of spam anymore unless I just happen to look at the junk folder before I empty it.

Same here. It's why I have most of my email addresses on Google Apps. I get more than 1800 spam emails per day, with my oldest address (from 1996) making up 900 of that. Rarely do I ever see spam in my inbox.

[huggytree]

I checked my email and cant see anything to turn anything on...there's a junk folder w/ nothing in it.....ill have to spend an hour studying it just to figure out how to activate it

[Harold Mansfield]

I checked my email and cant see anything to turn anything on...there's a junk folder w/ nothing in it.....ill have to spend an hour studying it just to figure out how to activate it
No you don't. If you are using company email ( using your own URL) just call your hosting company. They have spam prevention on their servers.
How do you access your email now? Are you using an email client like Thunderbird or Outlook, or are you accessing them directly at the account online?

And are we talking about your own private or company email, or free email like Yahoo, Gmail, Hotmail and so on? It makes a difference.

[CD2Solutions]

I checked my email and cant see anything to turn anything on...there's a junk folder w/ nothing in it.....ill have to spend an hour studying it just to figure out how to activate it


No you don't. If you are using company email ( using your own URL) just call your hosting company. They have spam prevention on their servers.
How do you access your email now? Are you using an email client like Thunderbird or Outlook, or are you accessing them directly at the account online?

And are we talking about your own private or company email, or free email like Yahoo, Gmail, Hotmail and so on? It makes a difference.

this. another reason to switch hosts. if he hasnt sorted this already, and is ignoring your emails, leave.

somebody here can advise a good host for you to use, maybe even offer to help move over.