Need to update email settings?
ATTU-verseCare's profile
Community Support

Community Support

 • 

6.7K Messages

Friday, April 14th, 2017 7:12 PM

Closed

EMAIL SPAM - What You Can Do To Stop It!

Learn why you may be getting it, how to avoid it, and protect yourself

Who out there loves to be inundated with unsolicited emails? This digital wasteland of mysterious messages clogging your inbox. Also known as SPAM, appropriately named after that mysterious meat-like substance that most want nothing to do within a nutritional diet. Well, if you like SPAM this article is not for you. If you don’t like SPAM like us here in the community forums this article will help you learn how to block/unblock email by sender.

Why are you getting spam?

  • Signing up for offers
  • Joining mailing lists
  • Randomly guessing email list
  • And more

How to avoid spam

  • Use a different email for online offers
  • Don't use your email ID as your user name in forums or chat
  • Ask how your email will be used when or read the privacy statements
  • Do not reply to spam 
  • Do not visit sites from spam email
  • Check out our How To Avoid Spam section of our spam page for more detailed information 

You can block email messages from an unwanted sender. Messages will automatically delete from your inbox, spam, and trash folders. Unblocking is just as easy.

 

Learn what to look for here.


First, learn how to:

Block an email address

Sometimes it's necessary to block messages from a particular sender. Your AT&T email account makes it easy to block unwanted messages.

 

Follow these steps to block an email address:

 

  1. Log in to your AT&T email account.
  2. Select the gear icon, and then select Settings from the top-right corner of the page.
  3. Select Blocked Addresses from the left-hand menu.
  4. Enter the address you'd like to block in the Add an address field.
  5. Select the Block button and then select Save. This email address is now blocked, and you will not be able to receive email messages from that address.

Now, learn how to:

Unblock an email address


If you change your mind and want to unblock an email address, it's easy.

Follow these steps to remove an email address from your blocked list:

 

  1. Go to the Blocked Addresses page.
  2. Select the email address you'd like to remove from the Blocked Addresses list.
  3. Highlight the address.
  4. Select the Remove button and then select Save. This will remove it from your list of blocked senders, and you can receive email from that address again.

Additional information


Learn more about blocking and unblocking

Have questions or other concerns?


Phone call/robocall fraud
You can report suspicious and unwanted calls to our Fraud Department at https://www.att.com/support/pages/report-call-or-text.


Email scam
Please forward the suspicious email to abuse@att.net. 


Text scam/inappropriate text messages
If you receive a suspicious text message, forward it to us. Get step-by-step instructions to report unwanted text messages at https://about.att.com/pages/cyberaware/ni/blog/forward_7726. 


AT&T account fraud or unknown charges/transactions
If you suspect you are a target of fraud on your AT&T mobile phone account, you can report it to our Fraud team using the form found at https://attfraud.custhelp.com/app/mobility. 


General Scam
We can only assist with things related to your AT&T account. 
For possible fraud on a non-AT&T account, please call the customer service number for that account at the top of your bill.

Thanks

AT&T DavidT, ChrisZ, and JohnCS

*I am an AT&T employee, and the postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent AT&T's position, strategies or opinions.

Still need help? Ask a question! Our 1.4 million members typically respond within 1 hour.

Tutor

 • 

3 Messages

5 years ago

Why can't we block email ALL messages by default and and accept ONLY those domains we specify (.com, .net, etc).  There are now over 1000 valid top-level-domains available and an unlimited number of sub domains for each of these (.gdxwmr.site, etc) so how is it possible to filter against all of these?  It's not...  That's why we must take a different approach to foil the spammers.

Contributor

 • 

3 Messages

5 years ago

Spam can be pretty exasperating. Spam filters aren’t effective all the time, and that’s why judicious use of the Junk Mail box can solve this problem. I realize I don’t know the details of your issue, but a good general rule is to set up the Junk Folder in the client software (in my case, it’s Apple Mail), monitor the email to make sure you’re catching all the Junk emails…and then, once the Junk Mail issue is has been addressed, ignore the Junk Mail entirely.

By concentrating on the client software, you have more flexibility to direct the Junk Mail results.

Keep up the fight!


Tutor

 • 

3 Messages

5 years ago

Thanks so much for your reply poikkeus...  My issue is directly related to the latest trend unscrupulous spam providers have adopted to thwart standard spam filters by the misuse of valid top-level-domains (and subdomains).
For example, just this morning I received the following messages:
subject  >>>  Claim your free bottle of CBD Hemp Oil
    from  >>>  Healthy Report (5khlPX3KTCTD@bluemoon.pw)

subject  >>>  Learn How a Reverse Mortgage Loan May Help your Credit Card Problems    from  >>>  Get AAG Mortgage (jpakvzmqwn@patchtable.info)

subject  >>>  Selling Your Home? Access Updated 2019 Realtor Rankings
    from  >>>  HomeLight Top Realtors (gazwxilhons@chainsti.works)

subject  >>>  Keith Need to borrow $1,000 - $10,000?    from  >>>  Loan Confirmation (Elizabeth@refracturable.xyz)

subject  >>>  Protect your Home    from  >>>  Vivint Security Provider (izxedvwhmq@wasteejec.mobi)
Every week, or so, these criminals change the domain they use and resend the same ads

And the list goes on...  Every week, or so, these criminals change the domain they use and resend the same ads.  Like I stated previously, there are now over 1000 of these top-level-domains which makes maintaining a filter-list untenable (att.net limits you to 1000 filters) not to mention that it appears that valid domains can be subverted with garbage/invalid subdomains of .com and .net addresses, re: porbbym@xix.net.  Spammer technology has moved up a several notches and the email providers haven't been able/willing to keep up with the problem. The capability to, optionally, filter these expanded domains as a group would help immensely.  I'm so tired of spending ~20% of my time each day maintaining my filter list and I don't want to keep changing my email ID every time another site is hacked.  There has got to be a better way!

Expert

 • 

15K Messages

5 years ago

@KeithBrown said:

Spammer technology has moved up a several notches and the email providers haven't been able/willing to keep up with the problem.

Spammers know the spam fighting limitations of many of the popular free basic email services and construct their emails accordingly.  But not all ESPs are like that.  You just have to find them and usually be willing to pay for the privilege of using them.

 

The capability to, optionally, filter these expanded domains as a group would help immensely.

Last time I looked there were over 1500 gTLD's.  But generally it is not recommended you block a gTLD even if you could since you run the risk (albeit low) of blocking something legitimate.

 

While not perfect yahoo could improve there spam fighting ability with a few simple changes (not sure about their implementation so "simple" might be an exaggeration).  First allow contacts to override the spam filters,  Second, allow user defined filters, with at least their limited pattern matching capability, have precedence over the yahoo spam filters and adding a discard (drop on the floor) option when there is a match.   Blocked addresses then wouldn't be needed at all.  The yahoo user defined filters are not the most general pattern matching in the world (i.e., no globbing or regular expressions)  but it's better than not allowing their use at all for spam fighting.

Contributor

 • 

3 Messages

5 years ago

I initially resisted responding to this thread - if only because every user’s hardware (and software) is going to be quite different. Finding a general, a-purpose solution is unrealistic.

If you’re looking for more specific advice, things like OS, current ways you’re trying to stop spam, and the same of your email software are going to help you come up with a solution. One thing is for sure: relying on AT&T’s webmail software probably won’t solve the problem.

Contributor

 • 

1 Message

5 years ago

Good morning

 

I am inundated with spam from .DE how do you block the  .DE

 

many thanks in advance

 

Expert

 • 

15K Messages

5 years ago

@DRMCDRMC - If the stuff is already going into your spam folder, nothing.  If it's going into your inbox then you could define a filter to match all sender email addresses that ends with .de and send matches to the trash.  Case doesn't matter with email addresses (unless yahoo is that stupid).  Of course if you do this, should you ever have a valid sender in Germany they would be taken out too.

Tutor

 • 

5 Messages

5 years ago

does not work.

Contributor

 • 

3 Messages

4 years ago

no what can i do  so i can check my email on my mobile phone the new email address i created

New Member

 • 

1 Message

4 years ago

I need to figure out how to get my emails to go thru. I am having to work from home and email is my primary source of communication with our customers. Please help. Below is what it sends back when I attempt to send out an email.

host hotmail-com.olc.protection.outlook.com [104.47.57.161]

SMTP error from remote mail server after pipelined sending data block:

550 5.7.1 Unfortunately, messages from [3.224.216.214] weren't sent. Please contact your Internet service provider since part of their network is on our block list (S3140). You can also refer your provider to http://mail.live.com/mail/troubleshooting.aspx#errors. [DM6NAM11FT042.eop-nam11.prod.protection.outlook.com]

Not finding what you're looking for?
New to AT&T Community?
New to the AT&T Community? Start by visiting the Community How-To.
New to the AT&T Community?
Visit the Community How-To.