SPAM EMAILS

[ALF28]

Spam Emails have started again from fikigadgets, frikicars,enjoyfamily, travelwop to my ntlworld.com email.

These may be fake? , although the companies mentioned  do appear to have websites.

These spam emails cover a wide range of subjects such as casino, dating services, and all sorts of services and offers, I suspect they are dangerous as virgin mark then as spam emails

The casino/gambling emails arrive often, several every day and are suspicious.

The same emails occurred in 2023 with a different sender domain, but stopped and now restarted with several new domains, from a  server in Spain but the companies have a UK London address.

The spam emails state that I am subscribed to receive them, so I am not sure who is subscribing me to receive these spam emails, I presume it is due to my old ntlworld.com email being on many data breaches numbering x 16 leaks.

I get at least 4 or more  each day/night, Virgin are marking them as spam so they can be put into the spam folder.

Also unusual my gmail.com   was subscribed to the same  dating service ourtime but with a image that was not me and the location was wrong also, and had been running for a month as a live account and getting contacts, so that was very odd as it requires registration, so they must know my other emails addresses. As it used my gmail, I was able to change the password, login and delete the account, but worrying that someone is messing about with my emails. Also I found out that hackers can set up fake websites which are versions of real websites.

I think virgin should change the policy and allow old legacy email to be deleted, now that they advise using a third party email to login to the VM account and email which I do anyway. Having my old ntlworld.com email just allows scammers to continue to abuse my VM email, at least with my other third party free emails I do have the option to delete and email or change the email address if I need to which I have done in some cases in needed to protect myself,unfortunately VM offer no help to get rid  of these old legacy email that are spammed all the time.

[ALF28]

update-spam email details

The general spam emails to my VM email are  between 8 to 10 each day  and most are tagged as spam by virgin which is good, 2 did get through the spam filter which were different as sent via sparkpost mailer, but most arrive via redestel.net spain.

The spammer uses several email addresses.

Most refer to casino gambling, solar panels,dating,hellofresh,amazon donation scam, nhs, prescription,loans,doorbells,loft insulation,compensation.

Many have a subject but no actual message just a link to click on.

One  fake email was from interpol  USA.

I will continue checking the ntlworld email to ensure my email is not being abused by criminals, bearing in mind one other email I own which is gmail has had 3 incidents of being used to order goods and services including medical equipment, mobile phone and dating services. Just once my VM email in the past was used for ordering tools.

I am not sure why other people use another persons email address, perhaps to hide their own real identity and use a fake identity or the email has been typed incorrectly, many companies still do not verify email addresses, that is what causes the problem.

I will continue to monitor my old legacy ntlworld.com email for security reason even though not used now, but stuck it for now, most of the spam is just rubbish I do ignore.

[Adduxi]

As you are now using alternate emails, why not just get the NTL mailbox deleted.   That's what I did with my 4 NTL mailboxes and never looked back.

[ALF28]

I have tried to delete/remove my primary VM email which is ntlworld.com at least 3 times, both via the forum and by the 150 telephone line and refused each time saying it is not possible to do that, only secondary emails can be removed as there is an option to do that, I have removed my secondary emails.

Only if you cease to be a customer will VM allow deletion of a primary email address, unless the rules have changed recently?. I do now login to VM using am alternative email address for the last few years.

If it can be removed, please advise how you did achieve that and how long ago.

[Adduxi · Accepted solution]

Of course, sorry had a senior moment there.  My NTL mailboxes were from my "closed" account and were still going long, long after the 90 days.  I did return with the newer system of a 3rd party email, but have since left again.  I stopped using my old NTL mailboxes from VM a few years before I left the first time.

Apologies for the misinformation !

[ALF28]

Thanks for the clarification, I have senior moments also.

I have found a good web site that can be used to easily check if a company website is trustworthy and found most of the companies in some spam emails are discontinued websites of low trust rating, and used for sending spam emails that may be phishing and after bank details etc.

see-

ScamAdviser.com | Check a website for risk | Check if fraudulent | Website trust reviews |Check webs...

This is a quick method to verify the  websites, but wise not to click on any links  in spam emails because  they may just be fake websites, so always use actual websites rather than clicking on links in emails.

[ALF28]

I did some checks on spam emails and one good way is to see if the company's sending the spam  emails are listed in companies house, I receive spam claiming to be from companies based in London, but they do not exist so are fake companies. As the IP address indicates the source is  in Spain I also looked for the companies there but they do not seem to be listed.

The emails are often tagged as spam emails. So it is  wise to ignore these unknown unsolicited emails and not provide them with any bank/card details as they are not genuine companies, and only shop via real genuine trusted websites regularly used. They may link to fake websites.

[ALF28]

Update-

Spam emails to my VM email are approx 10 per day, most to get tagged as spam but some are not.

They mainly originate from Spain and repeat the same service every day such as loans, casino, solar panels, dating etc. As they are so frequent and also during night time, they are probably automated robot emails.

I few unusual emails relate to antivirus and use words such as danger and identity theft and originate from France and not tagged as spam. They have links to click on in the email to unknown websites which may lead to fraud or computer virus.

The sender name and address changes each time  so the sender could be anyone.

Good job I no longer use this email, as it gets so much unsolicited spam email of unknown origin.

The only way to get rid of this ntlworld.com primary email is to change provider?

I do get spam on other emails such as Yahoo so the spam/scam  email problem is is world wide, and also my gmail has been used for identity fraud attempts  several times, so email is never very secure or safe unless you check each email.

[ALF28]

My email "spam filtering" went haywire and filtered emails  were going to the inbox wrongly, however I revised my filters removing the subsequent ticks, I think the filters get confused if there are too many options or duplicated options  caused by subsequent being switched on in the filters and the filters glitch and puts filtered emails  to the inbox. Also if a filter action destination folder name has been changed or deleted, the filters may be upset and put emails to the inbox, so I checked all the filter action destination folders were correct and not blank.

Having simplified the filters , removing subsequent tick when not required, I did a re-test and have fixed the problem, the filters now are working. overcomplicating or duplicating can cause issues, so each filter is set to go go to a specific folder(s) with no subsequent  action, this then works.

This problem was not down to the spam setting which I tried on different settings, but I tag as spam and deliver to inbox, thus avoiding any lost emails to the spam folder.

Another issue I have noticed, is that if you log out of all devices in the VM account, it does not log out the VM email, so that has to log out as well separately.

[ALF28]

email client-

I had difficulty logging into an email client to view my VM email so updated my email app password which is 4 x English dictionary words, I could then login OK. The pass phrase is lower case, so I may have wrongly used upper case.

spam folder/setting-

I do not use the spam folder,  as the emails delete after 30 days so direct spam to the inbox in spam settings.

imap settings-

These can be useful to prevent some my "own folders:" from showing in my email, I do this to hide folders  that are used for spam type emails which I filter and so I do wish not see the spam folders, but the folder can be switched back on with a tick if needed, this tidies up my email and I just display folders I need set up for genuine emails. The standard  folders like inbox and  spam are always visible.

I find this good to control regular spam emails by filtering to switched off folders. This minimises the danger of opening dangerous spam emails which are from unknown senders usually in europe but also USA and Asia and a few from the UK. The spam filters need updating for any new spam email senders.

This method means I have cleaner email by using email filters effectively and only displaying some folders that I use regularly and the spam just accumulates in specific  named  folders that I switch off.

Note that not all spam is picked up by VM spam filtering, in some cases spam email gets through  untagged so all emails  should be checked as some spam looks genuine.

Some spam emails, although delivered to the inbox may cause issues if you do anything with them as the VM system may prevent actions in some cases such as preventing forwarding etc, and view them as a threat.