Re: Starting to get annoyed.

Mike Easter wrote:
> Posted to spamcop & spamcop.mail;  followups to .mail
> 
> Freewheeling wrote:
> 
>>I've whitelisted an academic listserve I've subscribed to for four
>>months, but Spamcop continues to send its emails to "Held Mail."
> 
> 
>  - the spamcop ng is for general SC discussion, as opposed to the ng
> spamcop.mail which is for discussing SC mail accounts and problems
>  - personally, I don't have any experience with a spamcop mail account,
> but I read the faq and the forum and the ng spamcop.mail
>  - sometimes listservs are tricky to whitelist.  It is my understanding
> that SC checks the headers for Return-Path, From, and Sender for
> whitelisted entries
>  - there is also a faq page about how the entries work here
> http://www.spamcop.net/fom-serve/cache/304.html  Some examples of
> whitelist and blacklist matching
> 
> 
>>It
>>only just started doing this extensively, but has been accepting that
>>list email with no problems for months.  What the deuce is the
>>problem?
> 
> 
> Discussing a problem with heldmail is best done by discussing the
> particular SC Xlines which show why it was held.
> 
What the heck is that, and why should it concern me in the least? 
Seriously, if Spamcop can't accomodate my circumstances then I shouldn't 
be paying them anything.

I've had lots of other problems, as well, such as their "bug" that 
identifies my institution's email server as "open transfer" when it's no 
such thing.  This is GMU and they've been trying to get Spamcop to clean 
up their software bugs for ages, to no avail.  They won't even respond. 
  Hell, I'm ready to discontinue the service even though I'm paying for 
it, the technical problems are so unsettling.

Bottom line is that, as yet, 75% of the emails I get in my inbox are 
spam.  The service is crap.  There's just no other way to put it.  My 
fantasy was that the spammers were deliberately targetting Spamcop 
because it was such an effective enemy, but it's been three years with 
no policy changes, and apparently not even any sofware updates.  Pathetic.


> 
>>I'm also more than a little annoyed by the fact that 75% of my email
>>is now spam.  Isn't spamcop supposed to help with this, and why
>>aren't they effective?
> 
> 
> IMO SC spam reporting very very seldom does anything to prevent future
> spam.  The strength of good filtering systems is to prevent spam being
> in the inbox and to prevent any goodmail from being in the spam.  Those
> of us who advocate reporting may report sources thru' SC so as to
> contribute to the SC blocklist to aid in future filtering.  Those who
> like to notify spamveriders - spamvertiser providers - would like to
> believe that might help squash some websites if a white hat provider
> were involved, and that it contributes to the sc-surbl blocklist.
> 
> There's not much about the reporting of today's spam which actually
> causes the securing of spamsources or the dropping of websites, so the
> reporting doesn't actually lead to less spam in the combined inbox and
> heldmail -- just an aid in the filtering process if you are using the SC
> blocklist as one of your filtering aids.

Gawd, I'm being charged $30 for this?  What a load of hooey!
I mean, it has its funny side I guess... because the basic assumption 
was that buying into a spamcop account would have some relatiship to the 
amount of spam I was likely to get (and hopefully a negative 
correlation).  Apparently that was all wishful thinking, but it was 
wishful thinking that Spamcop cultivated so it could rake in the dough$$.

Time to pull the plug on this sucker, I think.  I just renewed, but I'm 
going to tell my bank to demand a refund, because the product was sold 
under fraudulent circumstances.  I'll also post about this on my blog, 
which is reasonably well-read (top 30).  A ripoff is a ripoff.

I'm really angry, and this has been building for some time.  I can't 
actually see any benefit at all to a Spamcop account.  None.  It's all 
hype and wishful thinking.  Heck, they don't even have a customer 
complaint department.  I'm posting this here, because it's the only 
place there is.  These jerks are probably all in Barbados, and for all 
we know they're the ones PRODUCING the Spam!

(Yeah, it's cute.  But not that cute.)


> 
> 
>>I renewed the service recently, but it was
>>probably wasted money given the low level of service and the frequent
>>problems (such as those misidentified posts to the academic list).
> 
> 
> I think it is very very bad if goodmail gets put in with spam.  That
> flaw in the configuration [likely] or execution [unlikely] should
> certainly be corrected.
> 
> 
>>Seriously, how many times do I have to whitelist a sender for it to
>>take?  Is anyone at Spamcop awake?
> 
> 
> My first guess would be that there is something wrong with the/your
> whitelisting configuration.
> 
> 
>>If things don't change this will be the last time I re-up with
>>  Spamcop. They're just not coming through.
> 
>