I can't stand it anymore lately, i keep getting these emails from people i don't know, they are documents that need to be downloaded. Of course i just trash them but the past 2 weeks i am literally getting about 10 a day. I do not get junk mail at all, i don't give my email address out to sites, so i get maybe one junk mail a month. So i can't figure out why i keep getting this stuff. Today i even got one from a military address. Anyone know how to stop this or find out why i keep getting it. I almost want to open one to see what on earth its about but i don't want a virus. But why would i get SO many viruses a day? My dh is not getting any of this and he gets TONS of junk mail!

By Amy~moderator on Sunday, March 14, 2004 - 04:26 am:

Of course you know, DON'T OPEN IT if you don't know who it is from. It is a good idea to tell everyone you regularly receive email from that if they want to send you an email with an attchement, send you a separate email first letting you know they are going to do so. There are some viruses out there that will come as an attachment in an email that appears to be sent from someone in your address book or someone that has you in their address book.

You can block the email addys that keep sending you these emails. But whatever you do, don't open them. By opening them, you are verifying that your email address is valid. And they will continue to send you these emails, and they may even sell your address to others who will in turn spam you. It's awful, I know.

I suggest having two email addresses. One should be given out ONLY to those you know personally. The other should be used when dealing with businesses or for registering with online companies, etc.

Other than that, I can't think of anything else that you can do in this situation besides not opening these emails and blocking the senders. Hopefully, someone else here at MV may know of something more that you can do. But in the meantime, please don't open them!!!

HTH! And sorry that you are having to deal with this. How annoying!

By Ginny~moderator on Sunday, March 14, 2004 - 06:11 am:

Amy's advice about attachments is right on the money. If I don't get a forewarning email about an attachment from a sender, even family, I email them asking if they DID send an attachment before I open it.

I've been using Internet Explorer Message Blocking (Block Sender) and the other tool, Create Rule for Message.

For Block Sender, simply highlight the nessage in your inbox (which doesn't open it), and click on Block Sender. Microsoft will put up a couple of windows telling you it has done so and asking you to click OK.

For Create Rule for Message, I open the email and scroll down to try to find identifiable terms, like the name of the product or sender - you have to be careful not to pick a term a friend may use in an email at some time. Sometimes this cannot be done as they send it all as a "grapic" rather than text. If there is text like a name or address, I highlight it and copy it, and open the Create Rule window. (One thing, Microsoft has the "Where the from line creates people" always checked - I usually uncheck this and instead check "Where the message body contains specific words".) In the next section, click the "delete" box. In the next section, click on the blue highlighted words "contains specific words". You'll get a window that lets you paste the specific words in a box. Then click ADD, and click OK a couple of times on your way out.

I've been doing this for a few weeks and find that now when I open my email most of the spam emails have already been put in the delete file.

Another thing, I have found that some of these emails, even if I don't open them, want to add cookies to my computer. I have moved my cookie protection up one notch. This is a bit complicated, but here is how it works:
In Tools, Click Internet Options
Click the Privacy tab
Click the Advanced Box
For third party cookies, click "prompt".

What happens is when you visit web page or click on an email and that page or email wants to put a third party cookies (cookies not directly related to that page, and usually advertising) on your computer you will get a popup window advising you. You can choose whether to allow this or not. There is also a little box that says something like remember this the next time - if you are sure you don't want this particular cookie on your computer click that first and then click the "no" box. At first you will get this window poppup up a lot, but after you have told your computer to remember this several times, the frequency cuts way back. (I cannot express how outraged I felt to learn that a spam email wants to put a cookie on my computer. The nerve!)

I am now also trying this for first party cookies, to see how well it works and how much of a nuisance it might be.

By Ladypeacek on Sunday, March 14, 2004 - 07:45 am:

Well i don't think block sender will work cuz its always different [people which is why i find this so weird! I do have seperate emails for friends and family and that is the one getting this stuff thats what i don't understand. I get them ALL day long! The always have: your bill, or: the document you requested, or special pic for you, or personal documents, in the subject. I don't know, its just weird how many i get!!

By Carolk on Sunday, March 14, 2004 - 08:30 am:

Like everyone else said, don't open them. I get about 1-3 emails a day that are from different people that I don't know(questionable files). They are most likely viruses. My husband works on computers and right now the viruses going around are emails with an attachment, usually a zip or exe. file. They might have like one line of text in the actual message space(ex. I've been missing you) or something to that extent. Anything really that might peak your curiosity enough to get you to open it. Like Ginny, we use internet explorer message blocking. It automatically sends questionable emails to the junk box and it won't allow access to the file to download it. We also have Norton AntiVirus to help detect viruses.

My SIL brought her laptop over to have my DH look at it, it was automatically shutting down on her after 10 minutes. DH knew right away she had a virus because of what her computer was doing. Anyway, I think she had 2 nasty viruses on her computer. DH fixed it.

By Carolk on Sunday, March 14, 2004 - 08:36 am:

I just thought of something else. The reason you are getting them when you hardly have any junk mail at all: it's likely that one of your friends or relatives computer got infected with a virus. The viruse will attack your hard drive and your email address book is obviously on the hard drive, lol, so.....it will send infected email to all people in the address book and if they open it, it will infect their computer and send to all the people in their email address books and so on. A chain reaction or domino effect happens.

By Carolk on Sunday, March 14, 2004 - 08:43 am:

Oh gosh you're going to be sick of me, but I forgot one thing again. If it is an infected computer of your friends or relatives, the emails you receive won't show that they are from them. It will most likely be from someone else in their address book. Okay, I promise I'm done now. LOL

By Ladypeacek on Sunday, March 14, 2004 - 11:11 am:

Thanks everyone, i guess i will just keep on trashing them. I have never opened them since i got infected with a virus many years ago that shut my computer down too every few minutes. I just thought maybe it was something else. Thanks everyone!!

By Dawnk777 on Sunday, March 14, 2004 - 06:25 pm:

Ladypeacek, I keep getting those, too. I just delete them. Not sure if I could set up a rule for them. I think they are always different.

By Amy~moderator on Sunday, March 14, 2004 - 06:53 pm:

Have you run a system scan to detect viruses? You may have one like Carol suggested. If so, you should try to repair or quarantine it immediately.

By Carolk on Sunday, March 14, 2004 - 09:21 pm:

Just to clarify, Kenna, I don't think you have a virus. I think that the emails that you're getting may contain a virus and you are doing the right thing by deleting them. But you might want to run a system scan like Amy suggested, just in case. We always run a system scan periodically just to make sure everything's working right.

By Ginny~moderator on Sunday, March 14, 2004 - 09:23 pm:

I would also run disk cleanup (accessories, system tools). Get rid of all of your temporary internet files - you really don't need them. Then, check your cookies (Windows - cookies). You may find lots of advertising cookies like double-click that are attracting these emails.

I run Adaware (caution - Adware is not the same thing as Adaware - Adaware comes from the Lavasoft web site) and Spybot regularly because they remove a lot of this spyware -cookies that attract advertisers and advertising emails because they report back when you are on the internet. You find Spybot by just typing Spybot in Google - I find the best place to download it is from the Internet, but then I go to Kolla's website to download the updates because for some reason that works better for me than using the download utility in the Spybot program. Both are free. Also, Zonealarm is a free download firewall. If you are on a modem you should use it. If you are on cable or DSL, ask your Internet Service Provider if you have a firewall and, if not, can you use Zonealarm without messing up your connection.

By Carolk on Sunday, March 14, 2004 - 09:32 pm:

Ginny makes a great point. Spyware can really slow your computer down. There could be spyware on your computer just from downloading a screen saver. My mom recently bought a Dell and my DH was checking her old computer to get all of her documents and stored information to transfer to the Dell. While he had it on, he checked her computer and said she had tons of spyware on her computer. She was always complaining about how slow her computer would run. Anyway, I agree with Ginny that you should look into Spybot and Adaware.

By Ginny~moderator on Monday, March 15, 2004 - 06:05 am:

Oh yeah - screensavers, mouse image programs like Comet Cursor, smilies - almost all have spyware. One of the favorites is Gator. And those little popups that say something is wrong with your PC and click here for a free scan - Virtual Bouncer comes with many of them and is spyware. Another is something called, I think, Adblaster, which is supposed to get rid of popups but is actually a direct PC marketing tool if you check on Google.

By Ginny~moderator on Monday, March 15, 2004 - 06:06 am:

Oh, and I once played a game on Shockwave that required a "temporary" download, and it had Gator attached to it. I told Shockwave in no uncertain terms what I thought of that!