I had no idea the unsubscribe button posed such a risk (re-posting)
 

I have been diligently trying to keep my emails clear of clutter by unsubscribing to the many many advertisements that find their way into my inbox. Only recently did I notice many of the advertisements are coming from suspicious links. Ug. And now I have learned that there is a scam strategy that is precisely designed to get us to click the unsubscribe. Having done a little digging, I learned it is never a good idea to click the unsubscribe - and it’s likely to be a link that attaches a virus or malware to your computer.

The attached clip from an internet post explains it better than I can.


I am now using care when clearing all the trash from my email. And because of my naivete on the subject, I have a lot of trash.

If anyone finds it helpful, or has other advice, I am grateful.

Good point.

One thing that works is changing your email provider and screen name when the mailbox becomes too clogged. I've done that once already and am looking at doing it again soon: I'd say 95% or more of all my emails are unsolicited advertising, political BS, etc. Doing that does keep things pretty quiet for at least awhile.

I have one Hotmail address that I use for anything that looks as though it might pass my e-mail address on. I can then open anything from that company but ignore the rest of the rubbish that comes in, marking it as Junk.

Last year I entered a competition from my main ISP and received loads of junk from that, which I think is rather shabby as I pay them a monthly access fee!

I agree.
Hotmail is the pits. I only use it for inquiries, and when an email address is needed to continue.
I also have a throwaway gmail account that gets less junk than Hotmail,
I use Yahoo for family,friends, and business. I find it very good.

What I have experience Any site you visit that has terms of agreement most likely sell your address if you click for more information. Good example I was interested in hot tub couple years ago and I responded notify me when available. That site sold my email address on world wide web. Now I get junk/scam emails from all over world. They’re really no way to stop it.

Any free site you sign up for has fine print agreements that basically takes control of you and shares you’re Email address. Once they have it you lost all control. Google good example you search for something they all sudden you get all sorts of advertisements on the subject you searched for.

My suggestion if you don’t want to deal with some spam don’t AGREE to their agreements unless you read the pages of fine print.

Hotmails going away 2024.

I have an email account that I only use for sites that demand an email. I never even check it.

I would not use the unsubscribe button for spam messages. But sometimes I will use it for companies that I have done business with in the past. Some of these companies will flood you with several emails every day. I have never understood if just clicking on a link in an email can actually compromise your computer. If so, why do financial companies, like banks, insurance companies, and investment companies, continue to send emails to you with a link to click on? Many companies also do this to ask you to do a survey. Maybe someone can answer the question:

"Can a single click on an email link create a security issue, as long as you don't do anything else?"

The issue is that scam emails come in and LOOK LIKE legitimate businesses. The scammers are getting very good at this. If you don't want an email from what you think is a legitimate business, click SPAM and it will stop. There is no value to you for using "unsubscribe" and only downside if it's a nefarious link.

If you want emails from businesses you know and like, put their email address in your contacts.

Microsoft says not.

Apple iCloud email is good about not letting you click on external links.

It also allows you to generate random email addresses to give out to shady companies.
The email will come to your main email address but then you can report it as junk and they don't have your main email address to sell to others.

Honestly, you should never click on an external link and just go to the website directly.

I have several email addresses, some were for business, some for family, some for shopping, some for different countries. Instead of changing them, I go through the block function in gmail and other similar functions with other email providers, and add all the words, and addresses etc I don’t want to see. I do this once every 6 months or when I get too much spam.

When I initially contact someone like Walmart etc I tell them right up front, “Don’t send me ads because, I will have to block you. Then when you send a legitimate invoice I won’t get that either.” So far it seems to be working. When I look at my trash file (for blocked email) there is about a 30 to 1 ratio of emails I don’t want to see to emails I do. And as I add more words to block the ratio increases.

Yes

Clicking on a link says, “please go get that information and load it onto my computer.” If that information is actually a small program that does bad things then it could be an issue. Your browser and security tools try to help but if you insist then they will let you do what you want, even if that is bad.

The best approach is to only click links from legitimate sources and then only when absolutely necessary. My email tool is even set to not load images unless I specifically ask for them.

Yes. If you click on an email link that will take you to a website, that if not reputable or is reputable but has been compromised, can install code on your computer that could cause a security issue. Hackers are looking to exploit vulnerabilities, legitimate companies are looking to close up vulnerabilities.

I was shown some examples of how it takes only one letter in a different font, or an extra dot to make what seems a legitimate address a scam one.
I could not see the difference until it was pointed out.
The boogers are very clever

I have found that clicking on SPAM is not very effective. That will only stop emails from one name and one address. But, scammers use multiple names and email addresses.

I agree. I get regular emails from Vanguard Investments and Fidelity Investments, and they almost always have a link to connect to something. It seems as though financial companies should stop including these links in their emails.

I block a general word like “sale” or “cruise” as I don’t go on any yet. Everything that has that word gets blocked so I chose a whole phrase sometimes.

I have 8 e-mail addresses. They each have different purposes. One is primarily for retail companies where I do my shopping. That way all my rewards program freebies go to one place. I get a lot of spam in that e-mail address too but most of it goes into the spam box. Google is great with that, it automatically deletes anything in the spam box older than 30 days. That way - just in case one of them isn't really spam, I have 30 days to take a peek. I caught a Moe's free birthday burrito in there last year right before it expired.

I check my spam box every few weeks but very rarely is there anything I'd care to open and read.

On the other e-mail addresses - three I never get any spam at all, or any e-mail from any companies, ever. Those are my gaming e-mail addresses. Another is for doctors and other medical stuff. Another is for a club I'm in. No spam to that one either, ever.

The last one is actually my oldest one, which I used when I lived up north. It's linked to my old xfinity account, which I no longer have. But I still use the e-mail for a couple of random things. It forwards to my primary google account, so I never have to check it separately anyway.

I have a computer that I ONLY use for banking and important functions. I never even check email on that computer. The current one is a used Microsoft Surface tablet which makes it easy to take along when traveling.

Hotmail is the worse for letting in spam. I finally stopped using it. Gmail is much better.

unsubscribe button
 

Thanks - good advice.

I have a better one - the other day I was seeking to purchase a small safe for my home. As I was surfing the web I also ran across an ad on how to put out a kitchen fire on the stove with a throw fire retardant blanket. I did not purchase anything. Three days later I was watching a streaming service that required free tv ads. As I was watching - a commercial came up for the exact same safe I was looking for on line and the very next commercial an ad for the fire protection blanket. They are watching everything we are doing on line! It was funny and scary at the same time.

Thank you!

I've found that if my wife and I talk about a product we start getting ads for that product on our Facebook and on google searches.

I redirect the junk to my junk mail then delete them all at one time once a week

I find that if I do not open those junk emails and drag them into the junk folder my computer learns to send them to junk for me.

Go Apple
 

Go Apple, problem solved. If you don’t like emails, hit reply without opening, copy the sender address and block it. Done deal

Creating email filters
 

Depending on your email client, there may be another way to combat this. Many allow you to create email "filters". It might be under "settings". For example, if you are getting multiple emails from the same domain like XXX.com, you can create a filter that trashes any email coming from that domain. I find it very effective. Some spam emails have no return address. You can also filter that too.

Most filters allow you to create a setting that says "if the email contains (or does not contain) XXX) send it to the trash." You can create multiple filters for many instances.
I know roadrunner email has this feature and also yahoo does. Just google search "can I create filters in my xxx/com email?
Good luck!

Another reason not to click unsubscribe is that they harvest your email and tag it as reaching a real person, who takes the time to read their ad. Bingo - A LIVE ONE
They will unsubscribe you from that spam message, but then sell your information to 1000 other spammers. Net effect is spammer makes big $$ and you get slammed with lots more spam.

General safety: Never click on any link sent to your email. If you think it's legit, and want to see what is being referenced, open your password manager (like Keepass) and independently go to the web site URL you know is accurate.
General safety: Do not use your computer for day-to-day things using an administrator level account.
General safety: For PCs, leave UAC enabled. Yes, it's a pain, but could save you from installing something you don't want.

Anyone using GMail for dummy accounts, you need to log on to them periodically. They are removing accounts that have not been accessed in a while. Just in case you expect a "verification" message occasionally.

If using Yahoo mail, you can create 500 additional email address. Each one is in the format of [YourOwnKeyword]-[SomethingUnique] AT yahoo DOT com
So you can give YourOwnKeyword-ShopSuperSite20231220router to only them.
So you can give YourOwnKeyword-CableTvCompany20190501movies to only them.
So you can give YourOwnKeyword-SiriusXM19980704goose to only them.
Note the year/month/day (that's when you gave it to them) and the random extra word (for preventing a skilled spammer from guessing your pattern and guessing you have other address at large companies. Generating 10000000 messages trying to get one to you.)
When they sell your email, it will be very obvious where that spam originated. If it's from somewhere you have a valid subscription, you can confront their security department and get compensation (free service for life, huge bill credit, cash compensation, OR all three things). Plus you can disable that one email and kill all that spam without making any rules. Or you can make one rule to trash the [SomethingUnique] email coming from everyone else except who you want it from. Really powerful.

and
 

And do not click on a link emailed to you even if you have an account - look it up on your own

Extremely helpful, thank you.

Is it a good idea to click on the email address sent from the scammer and then block it and send to junk ? Like advise

There is too much misinformation in this post.

The typical top-level domains (TLDs) are .com, .edu, .org, and .mil. Then there are the country TLD, such as .us, .tv, and various miscellaneous ones such as .xxx

The next part to the left is the domain of an organization, e.g. "talkofthevillages". Anything to the left of that are subdomains of the organization.

So the first thing to look at is the domain structure of the uniform resource locator (URL) to determine the organization - everything after "https://" up to and including the TLD.

If the organization is one that you trust don't be rude and mark the email as spam. They are politely offering you an easy way to unsubscribe. They also don't want their communications to be labeled as spam. You probably signed up with them. If you no longer want messages from them, unsubscribe at least twice over a month or two. That is sufficient time for them to remove you as a subscriber.

Marking as spam - at least with gmail - is a serious thing that should only be used for unsolicited emails or organizations that fail to unsubscribe you (they are required by US federal law to honor your request).
Major internet service providers (ISPs) and mail services take blocking spam seriously. GMail blocks senders very aggressively from broadcasting too many emails and emails that appear to them to be spam - even when they were honest communications between a company and registered customers.

Before clicking on a link, hover the mouse over it. That should show you the URL. If you don't trust it, just don't click on it at all. Just mark it as spam. Services that allow you to mark things as spam use that and artificial intelligence (AI) to improve their spam blockers. They are pretty darn good. Almost no spam gets through in practice. They may falsely label a legitimate email as spam (false positive), but the false negative of allowing spam into your inbox is very rare.

Finally, clicking on a link will not by itself install software on your computer. If it would then your computer is probably too ancient to even run it. Modern operating systems (OSes) will download a file, but it won't be opened without the permission of the owner of the computer.

Finally, do yourself a favor - google phishing - and read a few articles to understand what it is and how it works. Basically, it relies on you clicking on some link and actually doing something beyond that.

I’ve only for about 15 emails saying it is from MS saying switch to outlook.

Apple has implemented new features to take of this a couple years ago. It works great. If you use this feature, it doesn’t matter if the vendor sells your email. I manage my 60+ aliases very easy and with 1 command I can get rid of an alias and never get another email from the companies that I joined with this alias.

Yep. But your Hotmail account stays.

I would just mark the email as SPAM. The scammers use many different email addresses. and I feel it's impossible to keep up. I am no expert. Just know that clicking unsubscribe sent me to the Geek squad at Best Buy to have my computer cleaned up from a lot of malware.

Thanks! I was just thinking about the last few weeks. It seems the more I click unsubscribe the more emails I get. I was going to quit clicking unsubscribe.i will no