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How to avoid SPAM mail and protect ourselves against fraud? Step by step guide

How to avoid SPAM mail and protect ourselves against fraud? Step by step guide

Who will not have cursed the moment he subscribed, go to know when, to that forum bulletin he consulted 10 years ago? Surely, if that is the case, more than once you have wondered how to avoid SPAM mail .

This is the correspondence we receive and that we consider rubbish , that is, that it is not, at all, of our interest, that it is not part of a conversation and that, in most of the cases, you don’t want to continue receiving.

If this is your case, know that in this post we precisely address this issue and we teach you to manage junk mail so as not to fall into fraud or have your trays saturated with useless content .

But … What is really the SPAM mail that arrives at our trays entry?

We have all heard, on occasion, of SPAM, and not necessarily in the context of emails. It is simply the correspondence that comes to our email address (in this case) and that we do not want , which is why it is also known as junk mail or trash. It is usually massive and from unknown senders , with whom we do not correspond.

Limpiar el SPAM del correo electronico

This comes to us in two different ways:

  • We have not asked for it: In this case, our address has gone to the hands of a company for a reason that we have not consented. There are people who are specifically dedicated to collecting addresses, either through chains, in surveys … Then, databases that someone has previously collected are purchased and used to carry out marketing campaigns without the consent of the recipient, who is rarely interested in what is shown in the messages.
  • We asked for it : Yes, you may have requested that those messages be sent to you. In general, the ways to do this are:
    • Subscription to a newsletter: Now it is fashionable to receive any file or a discount for subscribing to the newsletter of a site; We do it, we receive the gift and they already have a tacit way to make us participate in their email marketing campaigns. You can also subscribe for years, for interest, and remember or no longer enjoy that correspondence.
    • Subscription to forum notifications .
    • Profile creation: On many occasions, if not all, when creating a user on a site we are given the option of accepting communication with us for one purpose or another.
    • Participation in competitions: The method is the same; you give your email to participate but, in one or another site, it is indicated that you are giving your consent to be informed of offers, promotions, changes and others. Sometimes you cannot uncheck this option, participation implies acceptance.

The best, directly, is to eliminate junk mail, so that you do not suffer the possible damages that can occur and that are:

  • Loss of space in the account.
  • Difficulty checking the correspondence that interests us.
  • Possibility of deleting messages that we do want to keep .
  • Infection of our accounts or computers by introducing malware.
  • Bandwidth consumption .

Steps to protect us and block SPAM in Gmail or Outlook mail

Now we just have to see what we can do so that does not get too much Trash mail to our address and, in any case, to manage it effectively.

In Google Gmail

The well-known email provider offers some options to detect spam and remove it easily.

Mark as SPAM

This option is very easy:

Marcar correo como Spam en Gmail

  • Log in to the Gmail email account in question.
  • Now open a received email that might be suspected of spam.
  • >

  • In the upper area of ​​the panel you will find several icons . One of them is an octagon with a closed exclamation. Press it and you will immediately return to your inbox (or to the folder where you were) and you will see that the email has disappeared (it is in the corresponding SPAM folder).
  • If the email corresponds to a newsletter to which You are subscribed, when you click on the icon, a window will appear to ask if you also want to cancel the subscription.
    • You have a button just to mark as SPAM.
    • Another to also cancel this subscription.
  • If you really have no interest in this content, we advise you to press the latter.

SPAM folder

In this you will find both the email that you yourself have sent and the one that the provider considers as unwanted.

Cancelar correo Spam en Gmail

You can access it by clicking on the folder column on the left, in which you see «SPAM» and it has the same icon as we have already mentioned.

Delete automatically: The first thing you will see will be a warning that the 30-day-old messages will be deleted from the folder automatically.

Eliminar todos los mensajes carpeta Spam en Gmail

Mark as non-SPAM

If you got confused and sent something that does not apply here:

In Microsoft Outlook.com (formerly Hotmail)

Outlook, which in addition to being an email provider has its client version, also offers some interesting options to help us avoid SPAM on the Internet and, of course, to manage it effectively.

Clean

The clean option allows us to handle the messages of a sender according to different options that we can choose.

Spam

It appears, having entered the screen of the mail in question, next to the previous option, the cleaning one, in the top bar.

Marca correo no deseado Outlook

By clicking on this button you can:

  • Unwanted . Identify that email as Unwanted:
    • By clicking on the button that indicates it. It will move quickly to the spam folder.
  • Impersonation . By clicking on this option you are giving the notice that you have received, from that address, a message in which someone pretends to be someone else to cheat you.
    • Click on the option.
    • A window will appear thanking you for the information and confirming that you give that notice.
    • Click on « Inform » to finish.
  • Block . With this option, you will stop receiving emails from this sender.
    • Press the « Block « button.
    • In the window that appears you are asked if you want to block to the sender.
    • Click on « Accept «.

Move: You can move to the corresponding SPAM folder the emails you want, one by one or selecting several at the same time. There are two ways to do it; Of course, this does not help Outlook work to consider senders, in the future, as such, you just move them easily.

  • Go to your inbox .
  • Select, by clicking on the little dot to the left of each email , to select all Those who wish to move to the spam folder.
  • Once chosen, you have two ways to proceed:
    • Click on one of them, keeping the click, and dragging to the folder in question (in the column on the left). You will see that they disappear from the main tray and, if you check it, they will have appeared in the destination folder.
    • Click on the top bar, “ Move to “. There you will find the folders you use the most (you can use a search engine to find the one you want or simply click on « All folders » to be displayed without exception).

Extra tips and tricks to clean your inbox junk mail

Other tips we give you to better manage the junk mail you receive are:

  • Use different accounts . Have a personal account that you only use for your efforts and to communicate with acquaintances and create another one that you use to create users and profiles, participate in questionnaires and contests, etc. Thus, this last account will receive the garbage and your usual mail will remain clean.
  • Pass an Antispam program . There are softwares that analyze your mail and classify them by consulting the RBL blocks, which inform you about the name of the servers that send these SPAM messages.
  • Unsubscribe from newsletters . The newsletters you receive give you the option to unsubscribe. They usually do it in small print and at the end of the content, where the option is not too visible. You just have to click and, depending on the site, you will not have to do anything else to confirm, you may be taken to a small form, etc. But, come on, you have the option.

And, if you can’t find it, you can always go to the company’s website from where the emails are sent and there you just have to find a contact form to ask how and to whom it may apply, unsubscribe.

  • Do not accept corporate communications . When you participate in contests or simply when creating a profile on a website you have the option of not accepting communications. Be careful because the option must be in sight either of not accepting them or of doing so (it is usually pre-marked for, if you are not advised, to give your consent when accepting).
  • Do not participate in chains They are no longer in fashion but we can still see them and their only objective is to capture addresses (which appear when resending) to create a database, sell it and use it so that the person who buys it sends these emails that we do not wish to receive. / li>