Why am I getting spam at one of my Mailshell addresses? You said I wouldn't get any!

Whenever you give out an email address--even a Mailshell address--spammers can find ways to get it and send you unwanted email. Fortunately, by using Mailshell addresses, your private email address has remained safe, and you can easily increase your Spam Catcher strength or delete the disposable address receiving the unwanted email to take care of the problem.

What should I do if I start getting spam?

If you begin receiving spam at one of your Mailshell addresses, you can do three things:

• If the unwanted email is coming from one sender, you can simply block the sender. Most spammers use different email addresses for different mailings, however, so if you are on a spammer's list, this will probably not stop the spam.



• You can increase your Spam Catcher strength to a higher level. Be sure to continue keeping your Approved Senders and Address Book contacts current to ensure that email you want isn't inadvertently caught by higher settings.



• If the unwanted email is coming to a disposable address, you can delete that address. All email coming to the address will bounce back to the sender as undeliverable. If you have used the address to sign up with a website and want to continue receiving mailings from that site, you will need to either change the address associated with your account at that site or sign up for an entirely new account at that site using a new address.

If you wish, you can also use a service like SpamCop to automatically report your spam to the appropriate network administrators, who can often shut down accounts that are sending spam.

I set up an existing email account to be cleaned, but it's not working. How come?

There are several reasons why Mailshell may run into problems retrieving your messages after the initial setup is done:

• Some accounts may require you to activate POP or IMAP access before Mailshell can retrieve messages; check with your email provider if you are not sure whether you need to do this. (Note that, although Yahoo! requires you to pay a fee for POP access, Mailshell doesn't use POP to retrieve messages from their accounts. You do not need to activate POP access to clean a Yahoo! account.)



• If you have changed your password for an account, Mailshell will not be able to access your messages. You will need to update the password for that account with Mailshell.



• If the mail servers for an account are experiencing problems or downtime, Mailshell may not be able to connect properly.



• If the mail servers for an account have been place behind a firewall that was not previously there, Mailshell may also not be able to connect properly.



• If you are using another email client and downloading messages from the same account, Mailshell may not be able to get messages retrieved by that other client.



• If your account has been deactivated or deleted, Mailshell will not be able to retrieve messages. Be aware if your email provider has any policies regarding accounts that haven't been signed in to in a while.

If Mailshell has repeated problems accessing your messages, the account may be disabled.

Why are legitimate messages being filtered as junk?

Depending on your Spam Catcher strength, some legitimate messages may occasionally be filtered as junk even though they aren't. This is especially true of newsletters and other commercial email, which often share many characteristics with true spam.

If you have this problem, there are several things you can do:

• Decrease your Spam Catcher strength. This may mean that fewer legitimate messages are caught, but more spam may be allowed through.



• If you are delivering caught spam to your Junk folder, select those messages and click the "Not Junk" button. They will be moved to your Inbox and the sender(s) will be added to your Approved Senders list.



• Add the senders to either your Approved Senders list or your Address Book contacts. This will ensure that future messages from those senders are not filtered as junk.

The window that explains the Spam Catcher settings isn't working. Why not?

The window function uses JavaScript; if you do not have JavaScript enabled in your browser, the button will not function properly. Different browsers use JavaScript in different ways, but here's how to check your settings in three of the most common browsers:

• In Internet Explorer 5 or 6, go to Tools > Internet Options, click the "Security" tab, and click the "Custom Level" button. Scroll down and make sure "Active Scripting" is enabled.



• In Netscape 6, go to Edit > Preferences and double-click on "Advanced." Make sure that "Enable JavaScript for Navigator" is selected.



• In AOL 6.0, go to Settings > Preferences, click "Internet Properties," click the "Security" tab, and click the "Custom Level" button. Scroll down and make sure "Active Scripting" is enabled.