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You're still getting spam, Jean?

I haven't had a single message since I disabled the email options the other day.

Nor have I. The tip in David's earlier update on spam worked for me.

One option is to set your e-mail program (or server) to only accept e-mails from people in your address book, sending everything else to junk mail.

The reason you are still getting spam is that they now have your address, so the problem won't improve unless you filter incoming e-mails accordingly.

Just to update on this. Our site programmer is looking at the spam plugins that are available for our site software. As soon as he's decided on the most appropriate it will be applied to the site and that should stop bots grabbing our email addresses.

To stop emails from the bots that have all ready got my address I just created a message rule in Outlook express with all the offending words.

You will have to keep adding words to the list from time to time, but it has virtually stopped my spam emails.

That kind of block works, Sue, Greg, but I was hit by over 250 emails and they came with such varied headers and from so many (hijacked?) addresses that I would have spent most of my time adding to the blocked senders list.

The ones I received were linked to Writelink. They were not coming direct. The moment I switched to Hotmail, they appeared there and stopped in Gmail. The moment I suspended email from the the message form on Writelink, they stopped altogether.

It really was the most diverse spam attack I've seen in a long time.

The site-based spam blocker sounds like the way forward. I'm with a number of sites that use them and it's rare that I get any spam, even from places like Facebook, where my email address is available.

After I disabled the emails they did all stop for a time. But today they came back with a vengeance. I've deleted nearly 200 so far. They all carry the following message at the end, so I assume they are still coming through Writelink.

"This message was sent via the messaging system on Writing Articles.
http://www.writelink.co.uk/blogs/articles

You can edit your profile to not reveive mails through a form:
http://www.writelink.co.uk/blogs/articles?disp=profile"

I didn't even know this existed, Jean. Are you subscribed to it? If so, try unsubscribing.

Beyond that, I don't know what to suggest.

I've just taken a look at that blog section so it will be interesting to see whether I start to get the spam again.

"This message was sent via the messaging system on Writing Articles.
http://www.writelink.co.uk/blogs/articles

I've had one of those too, Jean.

To be honest, and considering you are going away, I would be inclined to change your email address, I haven't yet, but I may have to as my email contacts were hijacked and I can't afford to upset some of my more VIP email contacts.

I was advised by David and Trevor (thank you both!) to disable the Writelink messages notification and thank goodness they stopped, but not before receiving hundreds of porn emails that sat in my inmail box - they are now sat in my delete box! Since then I have had notification failures with my email address on, bounce back to me. Obviously these were hijacked and sent to my email list contacts.

This is at the limit of my knowledge. But it seems to me that a spammer might have access to Writelink from inside ...

I don't know how heavy the security is on the site. These spammers can access sites, even if the security measures are of a reasonable standard.

Just an idea. I am really not an expert. Like I said, this is pushing my knowledge of such things now.

It will be a bot, it almost always is. The programmer should be able to put soemthing in the site coding that will stop them gathering addresses.

Just to add, I haven't had one single instance of the spam since I made the change in my profile.

I made the change in my profile and was clear for a while.

Then yesterday a few came back, after I had commented on jak's post. I checked my profile and it had changed back to receive messages again.

I have updated my profile again.

I just rechecked my profile again, and the email boxes are still unchecked.

Overnight I got another 200 or so and they are still dribbling in. The total yesterday was about 500.

I will now change my email address for WL to a yahoo one I never use. But this probably means I won't see anything legit that comes from WL or Sue.

Is the little envelope icon next to a member's name an indication of whether others can see / access our emails. If so, Jean and Marilyn are still open to receiving unwanted mail.

I think you may be right, Mo.

I suddenly had an avalanche of spammail over a year ago, nothing to do with Writelink, and I subscribed to Spamfighter free spam filter. It's a community where if any spams do creep thru' you use your 'Block' button and the offender is put on the block list. You get a spam folder so you can check now and then, if you want, but as I get about a thousand a week!! I don't bother. You can find it on Google and suchlike. But, beware the trick where the spam apparently comes from your own address. Don't block that or will be in trouble! Hope that helps. David.

Hi David. Thanks for that. I already have Spamfighter, and I manage that ok. I usually get over a hundred a day in there. I check them at least twice a day as sometimes important things find their way in. But I haven't managed to get these to go straight there, which is what is causing me the problem. Now they are all going to my yahoo email account and I'll just have to check that as well for anything important.

500 and counting, since 9 am yesterday.