Reporting to SpamCop Not Working

[spamh8r]

For the past couple months I've been getting bombarded with tons of spam each day from obviously the same source. I've been reporting each and every message to SpamCop as well as to their registrar and hosts, but the same spammer continues with impunity.

This wouldn't be an issue for me if it were to some throwaway yahoo or gmail account, but it's coming to my main personal account on my own domain that I use every day for business.

The registrar is Enom (Namecheap), which of course also owns WhoisGuard, which operates out of Panama, out of reach of US laws.

Enom (Namecheap) keeps replying that they have no way of knowing that the sender is actually spamming, so they say they can't take any action. WhoisGuard never ever responds, and there's no way to talk to anybody there.

Until a week or so ago, the hosts were Serverhub and Serverius. I found the personal email address of the CEO of Serverius and asked him to block the spammer. He actually replied, at first trying to slough off responsibility, but I replied that he is the host. After that, the spam stopped coming from Serverius and came only from Serverhub. Since the reporting goes to spamcop[at]serverhub.com, I gather that Serverhub is ostensibly cooperating with SpamCop, but it seemed as though Serverhub couldn't bother to actually take any action. But finally, the spams stopped from them, too.

Then a few days later, they started up again, this time being hosted by a Russian outfit: realstylenet.ro

I checked to see if this was actually the spammer's server, but it appears to be a legit operation. Now, repeated reportings to them via SpamCop seem to have no affect.

Questions:

• What's the point of reporting to SpamCop if SpamCop takes no action and if the hosts and registrar continue to allow them to spam????

• What action can I take to get Enom and WhoisGuard to comply with international laws and stop coddling this spammer?

• Is there some way to make each and every spam that Enom and WhoisGuard allows a major pain in the ass for them?

• Otherwise, what else can I do to stop getting these???

Thank you!

[turetzsr]

<snip>

Questions:

• What's the point of reporting to SpamCop if SpamCop takes no action and if the hosts and registrar continue to allow them to spam????

...If something gave you the impression that SpamCop is capable of taking any direct action to stop hosts and/ or registrars from allowing spam just from your reporting them, that "something" seriously misled you. Please see SpamCop FAQ (links to which appear near the top left of each SpamCop Forum page) article labeled "How does SpamCop reporting work?"

• What action can I take to get Enom and WhoisGuard to comply with international laws and stop coddling this spammer?

...Unless you have very deep pockets and a great deal of time and patience, there is not likely anything you can do.

• Is there some way to make each and every spam that Enom and WhoisGuard allows a major pain in the ass for them?

...Not that I'm aware.

• Otherwise, what else can I do to stop getting these???

<snip>

...Ask your e-mail or network provider to reject all "handshakes" from these sources or take other measures to stop these spam from reaching your Inbox. If they won't, look for a provider who will (I'm not saying that I know that there is one, just suggesting you look for one).

[rconner]

• What's the point of reporting to SpamCop if SpamCop takes no action and if the hosts and registrar continue to allow them to spam????

SpamCop really doesn't help you very much with your own personal spam problems; what it does is to take the information that you and I and all the other reports provide and put it into a real-time blocking list so that future spamming may be detected and dealt with. As one of our late friends here often said, using SpamCop is a bit altruistic because you are helping others (maybe also yourself) in the future more than getting immediate action now.

SpamCop also forwards reports to the responsible providers that turn up in your reports. They can, if they wish, use this information to deal with the spamming within their domains.

If the providers don't care whether they end up on a blocking list, and don't want to be bothered refusing service to spammers, there isn't that much more that SpamCop can do about it.

You are running into the reality of the spam industry: it is full of crooks who don't care much about complaints until the the complaints start to eat into their bottom line.

• What action can I take to get Enom and WhoisGuard to comply with international laws and stop coddling this spammer?

• Is there some way to make each and every spam that Enom and WhoisGuard allows a major pain in the ass for them?

Outside of complaining to ICANN, I'm not sure. And, we have seen that ICANN can't or won't do anything about crooked registrars except in the most flagrant cases.

• Otherwise, what else can I do to stop getting these???

Unless you know where they live and have some big friends who can help you, I'm not sure. On the other hand, these waves do eventually ebb. If you are just sick of seeing the messages, you may be able to construct a content filter of some sort that can exclude them from your mailbox. I finally did this a couple years back with a particularly persistent spammer.

-- rick

[gnarlymarley]

• What's the point of reporting to SpamCop if SpamCop takes no action and if the hosts and registrar continue to allow them to spam????

SpamCop offers two services, reporting anonymously and blacklisting. That is about all they can do. If the CEO is the actual spammer, now they have a good address they can share with their buddies. Anonymous reporting works by hiding your email address. This way, the spammers get put onto the blocklist and the anonymous munged reports hide most stuff sent back to them.

• What action can I take to get Enom and WhoisGuard to comply with international laws and stop coddling this spammer?

As others have mentioned, you will need deep pockets. Most likely, legal means will not stop a spammer as they always have somewhere else to go.

• Is there some way to make each and every spam that Enom and WhoisGuard allows a major pain in the ass for them?

The only way is to do this is to block their whole IP range with your own blacklist. They will need to change IP ranges and if you are persistent, they will eventually give up. You would need to unblock their networks once they move on just in case a good person acquires the ip range

• Otherwise, what else can I do to stop getting these???

There is not much you can do to stop the spam completely. However, you can slow them down if you can use the blacklist (http://www.spamcop.net/bl.shtml) and report anonymously. Spammers usually send to multiple email address and if everyone reported the spam that they got, it would shutdown the spammers very quickly through the use of the blacklist. The blacklist does have a timeout, so once the spammer gives up with that IP, it is removed off the list. This helps with a poor soul acquires the IP range later on. The blacklist has more benefits than issues and does help a ton.

[petzl]

• What's the point of reporting to SpamCop if SpamCop takes no action and if the hosts and registrar continue to allow them to spam????

• Otherwise, what else can I do to stop getting these???

Thank you!

At lest one sample tracking URL would help give better advice