Advice sought on touchy email

mutepointe · Post by **mutepointe** » Tue Mar 11, 2008 3:37 pm

s1m0n wrote:Wow. I must be a lot more intolerant. I tell people like that that I do not want their crap, and that if they refuse to stop sending it to me, I will block everything they send. And then I do it. Life is WAY too short to deal with that kind of passive aggressive behavior.

I tried to talk with him about this several years ago but his take was "I've just got you on my distribution list; if you don't want to read it, then just ignore it."
I'd have stopped him right here, and said "I have no interest in being on any distribution list that contains this kind of material, and it is far simpler for you to delete my name ONCE from your list, than for me to delete your messages over and over and over. If you cannot use my email address responsibly, I will take steps to ensure that you cannot abuse my patience any further."

I'm impressed.

gonzo914 · Post by **gonzo914** » Tue Mar 11, 2008 3:40 pm

One would almost think, James, from reading your post, that you do not want to know that Jesus loves you, and that if your forward that prayer, good things will happen to you, and that when there was only one set of footprints, Jesus was carrying you.

Post the guy's email here for all the spam bots to find. And maybe someone can find the time to sign the fellow up for some interesting websites.

peeplj · Post by **peeplj** » Tue Mar 11, 2008 3:45 pm

gonzo914 wrote:One would almost think, James, from reading your post, that you do not want to know that Jesus loves you, and that if your forward that prayer, good things will happen to you, and that when there was only one set of footprints, Jesus was carrying you.

That's pretty mild by comparison to most of the stuff he sends...he's more of a "Clinton is the Antichrist and Hilary is his Pitchfork" kind of guy.

I took s1m0n's good advice, sent him an email to let him know he's setting off our new ISP's spam filters and that he's about to get blocked, and added him to the blocked senders' list.

And it felt good.

--James

Aanvil · Post by **Aanvil** » Tue Mar 11, 2008 4:10 pm

gonzo914 wrote:One would almost think, James, from reading your post, that you do not want to know that Jesus loves you, and that if your forward that prayer, good things will happen to you, and that when there was only one set of footprints, Jesus was carrying you.

Post the guy's email here for all the spam bots to find. And maybe someone can find the time to sign the fellow up for some interesting websites.

Classic!

I would have blocked him long ago.

Oh, and I don't by that "you marry the family" slosh. If someone is an a-hole they get treated accordingly.

Life is way too short to suck it up and take it.

Oh... and if Jesus wants to love me he'll have to ask me out for an expensive meal give me flowers first.

Denny · Post by **Denny** » Tue Mar 11, 2008 4:16 pm

Aanvil wrote:Oh... and if Jesus wants to love me he'll have to ask me out for an expensive meal give me flowers first.

not cheap....but reasonable!

rhulsey · Post by **rhulsey** » Tue Mar 11, 2008 4:37 pm

My sister-in-law used to send me more crap than you can shake a stick at, and when applicable, I did a little bit of research (usually it took just a few minutes) on some of the junk to show that it wasn't "true" or "factual" and sent the proof back to her, with a simple message like "If you are going to send this stuff out, at least verify it before emailing everyone you know".

It stopped dead in its tracks, and I've not gotten another. I think she got the message, though not particularly subtle.

sbfluter · Post by **sbfluter** » Tue Mar 11, 2008 4:49 pm

Why don't you just tell him one more time to stop or else you will block all email communications. Then do exactly that and tell him to phone you if there's anything important.

WyoBadger · Post by **WyoBadger** » Tue Mar 11, 2008 9:06 pm

gonzo914 wrote:One would almost think, James, from reading your post, that you do not want to know that Jesus loves you, and that if your forward that prayer, good things will happen to you, and that when there was only one set of footprints, Jesus was carrying you.

I dunno, I was pretty happy to find out that all I had to do to be a real Christian was forward a bunch of angel pictures to at least 50 people in the next ten minutes.

Click, click, click. Salvation is assured. Life is good.

Tom

s1m0n · Post by **s1m0n** » Tue Mar 11, 2008 9:11 pm

peeplj wrote: And it felt good.

Glad to be of service.

Walden · Post by **Walden** » Tue Mar 11, 2008 10:06 pm

I had a person who kept sending me huge amounts of forwards. I set the filter to automatically send anything from that person with the word forward in the subject line to the spam folder.

It worked.

Doc Jones · Post by **Doc Jones** » Tue Mar 11, 2008 11:01 pm

Don't forget to call your sister once a week or so James. Sorry she's sick.

Doc

amar · Post by **amar** » Wed Mar 12, 2008 2:59 am

Dear 'brother-in-law'
How are things going? It's really too bad we live so far away from each other, would be great if our two little families could meet every now and then. You know, in the past I've asked you, even told you, not to send me all those mails with all those attachments, it's really just not my kind of thing. You told me I shouldn't read them if I don't like them. Still, they do fill up my mailbox in no time, and I've really grown tired of sifting through them, perhaps trying to find 'for me useful' information.
I've talked with my wife about this and we both really don't want to block your emails for this matter, you know, we're family and all, but nonetheless, I'm asking you one more time to remove me from your distribution list (it's done in 5 seconds), that way I'll only get mails from you when they are important, and my inbox won't fill up so quickly, and of course, we won't get all those mails anymore, which really aren't up our humor-alley.
Brother-in-law, I personally see no other way than to block your email, if you don't remove me from your distribution list, hopefully something we can avoid.
Take good care, and give my sister a kiss.

Best, James.

would that work?

fyffer · Post by **fyffer** » Wed Mar 12, 2008 6:51 am

One additional suggestion, which I think is slightly less rude, is to set up a Rule (really easy in Outlook, details below), which does an auto-reply-then-delete for any incoming email with your BIL as the sender. That way, if he gets the auto-reply, he knows your mailbox got the mail, but he also knows you didn't read it. If it's something really important he needs to tell you, hopefully, he will then have the presence of mind to use some archaic means of communication (aka "the telephone") to contact you.

Rules in Outlook:
Go to Tools menu->Rules and Alerts ...
Select "New Rule"
Select "Start from Blank Rule"
In Step 1: Select "Check messages when they arrive" (should be default), Click Next.
Check "from people or distribution list"
In Step 2: click the "people or distribution list" and find your BIL's email, select and OK.
Click Next.
In Step 1: Check the box "have server reply using a specific message" and the box "delete it"
In Step 2: click "a specfic message" and in the mail window, type what you'd like to reply with.
Click Next.
In Step 1: This is where you can get "real" email from your BIL, if you check the box "except if sent only to me". This will avoid all those "distribution list" emails.
Click Next.
Name your rule, and make sure it's turned on, then Finish.

Tyler · Post by **Tyler** » Wed Mar 12, 2008 9:58 am

rhulsey wrote:My sister-in-law used to send me more crap than you can shake a stick at, and when applicable, I did a little bit of research (usually it took just a few minutes) on some of the junk to show that it wasn't "true" or "factual" and sent the proof back to her, with a simple message like "If you are going to send this stuff out, at least verify it before emailing everyone you know".

It stopped dead in its tracks, and I've not gotten another. I think she got the message, though not particularly subtle.

My dad used to do the exact same thing to me; i used to get all sorts of nut-job email forwards that were quite easily debunked...
I kept responding saying the likes of, "why do you send me this crap?" and he'd respond with "Well, I thought you might be able to debunk it for me..." which wasn't exactly true; for years my dad was the Rush Limbaugh-listening hyper-conservative type who would believe anything he was told, as long it was about "teh libruls!"
So, I did as he requested and debunked his gunk...
Then I did one better and sent my debunking to the entire forward/distribution list

Got a lot of hate mail from other people for a while, but that soon blew over once people got a little wind out of their sails.
Now I don't get sh*t from my dad anymore, just normal email and the occasional funny forward.