Virgin Media Spam filtering?

[Yoji]

So what is the story of VM email spam filtering? It is absolutely shocking...
I have an old @ntlworld.com  email (if that matters).. and I get WAY to much spam getting through. I am talking the most obvious spam you can imagine ... and it gets through, while other legitimate emails, from legitimate people/companies (e.g. Microsoft with updated user terms) and even Virgin Medias own emails (yes.. real genuine ones, not the spams ones (that do get through) )  Get flagged as SPAM and not passed on to my email client (Outlook).
Also, I can blacklist... but cant whitelist... whats with that?
So who do VM contract through to manage their email? is there any chance it will improve? as it is current situation is  appalling. 

[Molly_T]

Hi Yoji 👋 Welcome back to the community forum! Thanks for posting. 

Sorry to hear this feedback about your experience with our email service, and particularly spam filtering. 

There's a handy help page on how to manage SPAM emails via your account here 👉 https://www.virginmedia.com/help/security/how-to-stop-spam-emails or you can find more general information on how to manage your email account here 👉 https://www.virginmedia.com/help/broadband/manage-email-account 

Email is a complimentary service included for customers as part of our broadband service. We changed our terms recently so that new and existing users are unable to create new email addresses, however if you are an existing customer who already has an email address we don't have any plans to phase this out at the moment. It's only 90 days after your services are terminated that an email address would be deleted (this is due to it becoming 'Orphaned' / Not linked to an active 'Parent account')

It would be good to know if you are managing the settings directly through our webmail platform 👉 https://virg.in/webmail or if you are using a 3rd party client mail service. 

If you can also check your current SPAM settings and let us know what your set-up is. Ourselves and members of the community will do our best to offer further advice and support to help. 

Thanks for your patience in the meantime! 🌞

[Yoji]

Thanks for your reply..  but its not really helpful, not answering any of my questions and the links you provide are mostly just bland statements.
Your links try to reassure by saying "Our state-of-the-art filter will help keep your My Virgin Media email account clear of malicious spam" , so how do I end up with the scenarios I describe... i.e. the most obvious spam getting through.. and you blocking genuine emails from Microsoft, and even Virgin medias own emails? For example.. the email I was supposed to get to let me know someone replied to this forum post.... was sent to my spam folder...its so bad, you cant make it up!!! 
Your links talk about how to block people.. but not how to whitelist (as you regularly block emails from my wife).. 

On my PC, I use Outlook... but the spam identification is done by you, and I access via your webmail platform to review any that have not been passed on to my PC client and are stuck in my webmail spam folder.
My Spam settings in my webmail are set to "Move message to SPAM folder". I could obviously pass all through to my PC and try manage via Outlook... but thats not the point.. the point is, you are supposed to have "cutting edge"
tech to protect me.
I dont expect you to catch everything.. but the current level of spam identification accuracy from you is abysmal (both ways.. as I say, let basic rubbish through and block your own emails) 

[coenoby]

@Yoji 

"On my PC, I use Outlook... but the spam identification is done by you,"

For what it's worth, here's my experience:

I used to have Outlook as my email client for many years but gave it  up sometime ago and now use Thunderbird which I find much better for me. However, one thing  I always liked about Outlook was its inbuilt spam filtering.

I have an number of email accounts with several providers but where-ever possible I turned of their spam filters so that Outlook picked up everything and then did its own spam filtering. Personally I found that the ideal solution.

If I remember correctly, Outlook has spam filtering turned off by default but if you turn it on it has (or had)  "low", "high" or "safe list only" spam settings. I think most of the time I used "low".

I must admit I have no experience of the so called "new Outlook" but I would expect it to be the same or very similar.

If you want to try that with your VM emails, sign in to your webmail account and then:

• click on the cog (settings) icon top right of the main email screen
• then click on Emails and then Spam settings in the drop down menu on the left
• then select either the Flag a message as SPAM but deliver to Inbox or Turn off all SPAM filtering setting

Then make sure that spam filtering is turned on in Outlook and see how that goes.

Certainly it should stop you having to, (in your own words)  " access via your webmail platform to review any that have not been passed on to my PC client and are stuck in my webmail spam folder."  😉

All I can say is that worked for me for many years so you might like to try that and see how it goes for you.

Coenoby

[Yoji]

Thanks.. I might try that.. but I dont have such options in Outlook.. (I use Office 365, up to date.. which is using Outlook (classic) , I presume because I am using access as pop3  
In the junk mail options panel.. it just says "Outlook will move messages that appear to be phishing and junk mails into the jusk email folder".. with just one option, to turn on "safe lists only" .
It has tabs for me to specify safe sender... safe recipients... blocked senders... and International (which seems to be for top level domains).. 
So it seems I would have to in effect manage manually, which seems a bit excessive.. which is why I want to use Virgin Medias state of the art filtering.

[coenoby]

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@Yoji wrote:

In the junk mail options panel.. it just says "Outlook will move messages that appear to be phishing and junk mails into the jusk email folder".

---

I still have Microsoft 365 Classic Outlook installed and following your latest post I have just fired it up for the first time in many months.

Yes, I now see the same spam setting you have quoted above. There did use to be levels of severity of spam filtering (Low and High) that you could set. My thought is that MS have now replaced that with a single spam setting. A classic case of Microsoft tinkering with their product and not improving it in any way. Personally, I would not bother with the "safety list" option, it's a bit over the top in my view.

Despite the change in Outlook it still might be an idea changing the spam setting in VM and as I outlined in my other post and experiment with just using the standard Outlook spam setting. You will soon see how Outlook performs these days when it comes to spam filtering - it did use to be pretty good.

At the very least it would mean that you will be able to manage all your incoming VM emails, including any spam emails, from within Outlook and not have to bother constantly checking your VM webmail account to deal with any emails that VM have flagged as to spam unnecessarily.

I note that you use POP3.  For completeness, I will just add that one advantage of switching to IMAP is that IMAP will download any incoming emails in your VM spam account. to Outlook.

IMAP synchronises all your email folders (so Spam, Junk, Sent  and any personal folders you have created) across your VM webmail account and Outlook. VM recommends that their customers use IMAP rather than POP3 but at the end of the day that's completely your choice.

Coenoby

[Yoji]

Thanks again for your reply.. 
I originally didnt like IMAP as I wanted my main PC to be "master" of emails.. so if I deleted an email on my phone (for space .. at the time I was very tight on space on my phone (and I did want local copy so I could ref if I in blind spot network)) I would still be able to keep/save it on my PC.
Anyway - things moved on now.. much more space on phone (and I dont really use email on phone anyway.. hate the poxy screens).
Your proposal would solve the need to check spam on VM... but re your point of  seeing how default spam works in Outlook, I am in effect doing that for all the stuff that does come through.. and so its also failing on the "most basic SPAM still gets through" complaint I originally made.. as it is not putting any of it in junk. From experience... it does zero SPAM checking and has never put something in junk unless I have manually added a block email address or something. 
I assume MS has moved all its spam checking server side.. and thats why the options have changed in the classic client. I guess that means if you use IMAP on a non MS service, you are in effect using the IMAP service spam filter.. but what do I know :?
Of course.. all this should be moot, if VM just delivered on their "cutting edge" service promise. 

 

[coenoby]

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@Yoji wrote:

I guess that means if you use IMAP on a non MS service, you are in effect using the IMAP service spam filter.

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IMAP is just a standard protocol supported by all email apps and email service providers to enable email apps to retrieve and synchronise email messages from, and with, an email provider's mail server.

IMAP itself has no facility for spam filtering. That can only be done by the mail service provider  (such as Virgin Media) as incoming emails arrive in their server or by a spam filter operated as part of the email app or client (such as Outlook) as emails arrive in the email app.

There are some interesting spam filtering products such as Mailwasher https://www.mailwasher.net/ which work alongside email apps including Outlook. I used Mailwasher for several years, there is a free option. You might like to take a look at that if spam is a big issue for you.

" if VM just delivered on their "cutting edge" service promise"

 Of course, it's worth bearing in mind that VM stopped issuing new email accounts in May 2022. Since then new VM customers have not had the option of using the VM email service and existing customers can no longer create new secondary VM email accounts.

Also, 90 days after an existing VM customer switches to another broadband provider VM are meant to delete any email accounts linked to the broadband account.  So, with the inevitable ongoing reduction in the number of VM email accounts the longer term future of the VM email service is uncertain at best.

In the last year or so VM have made some major changes to the security of their email accounts but it would seem that they do not see the provision of an email service as a key part of their business model going forward. Make of that what you will.😉

Coenoby

[Yoji]

Yes.. I think the last couple of paragraphs of your reply are Key.. and the VM talk of "cutting edge tech"  is just corporate BS.. if anything they are actively trying to push people away from using their services as its just a pain for them to manage now and not part of their business vision.. we are just an inconvenience to them.

May be its about time to move... but I have SO MANY services linked to my ntlworld.com email (i.e. everything that needs an email... which is everything these days), moving them over will be a right royal PITA.
but may be its time for me to do what I did with my wife... create a new email.. forward all my VM emails to new service and gradually chip away and changing services to directly use the new email.

Another reason to do this is that it would break link to VM.. and allow me to leave VM much more easily, without the threat of "if I leave.. I have to change everything within 90 days".

[coenoby · Accepted solution]

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@Yoji wrote:

... create a new email.. forward all my VM emails to new service and gradually chip away and changing services to directly use the new email.

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That's the answer.

It is what I did a few years ago when I retired and shifted away from the (non VM) email address I had been using as my email account for all my personal and business affairs for many years.

As an aside, when I did that I realised just how many online accounts I had not used for years and had forgotten about. So it provided a good opportunity to close those down. I suspect you might find that as well.

Switching to a new email account will also cut the number of spam emails you get down to zero, for a while at least. So it will actually solve the problem that caused you to post here  in the first place.  A win - win all round I'd say.😊

Coenoby