How to report spam

Most ISP's, Governments and external blacklists give an opportunity for users to report spam. The characteristics of these messages are then usually analyzed after a complaint is sent to the administrator of the network where the spam originated. As a result, spammers networks may get blacklisted to prevent their messages being delivered. Most administrators will therefore make every effort to prevent spammers utilizing their networks for sending spam.

Spam reporting in MailWasher can be found in Settings>>Spam Tools>>Spam Reporting

Generally speaking, to report spam, you must first sign up to create an account with a provider before you can report to a blacklist.

Spamcop is used as an example of the registration process:

Go to http://www.spamcop.net/anonsignup.shtml and scroll down to "Register for the Free Reporting Service". Enter your name or nickname and email address. Press "Send Authorization Email" to complete the signup process.

Subsequently, SpamCop e-mail sends a confirmation email to the e-mail address you provided. This email contains a username and password. Log in using the username and password you received via mail. After logging in you can then report spam you receive via the website or by using MailWasher. Use the special spam reporting email address given by Spamcop.

Once you've created your Spamcop account, you can continue reporting directly from MailWasher.

First, make sure that the column "Reporting" is visible in MailWashers' inbox. You do this by right clicking on the column headers and in the pop-up list, select the "Reporting" item.

Then go to Settings>> Spam Tools>> Spam Reporting and click 'Add Service'.

In the following screen:

1 - Enter the name of the service (such as SpamCop)

2 - Include the email address you received from the spam service provider.

3 - Choose one of your accounts to send spam reports. You would usually use the same account for which you have signed up to the service.

4 - Edit the properties of the icon for this service, as it will appear in your inbox. You have choices of background color, text color and letter.

Tip: You can pick a unique icon for each service, but if you have multiple services designated with the same letter, these services will be treated by MailWasher as a group. This means with the click of the one icon, a spam report will be sent to all members in this group.

5 - Click Save

You will return to the previous screen.

Now go back to the MailWasher Inbox. Beside each message identified as 'Spam' or 'Neutral', in the 'Reporting' column the icons of one or more services that you have created is shown. When clicking on one or more of these icons, these icons show a check mark and when you 'Wash Mail', these message are sent to the spam reporting service(s).

Important: Please follow the instructions of the service to finalize the report.