327 Palisade St, Merrimac, WI 53561

877-493-9470

608-493-9470

Fax 608-493-9902

office@merr.com

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SPAM BLOCKING

NEW! POSTINI SPAM FILTERING

SPAM sent worldwide has doubled in the last year and SPAMMERS have concocted new ways to beat the spam filters and get through to your email. This is not just a problem with Merr.com but a worldwide problem affecting millions of email customers across many different ISP systems. Although we continue to improve our filtering system it will never be as good as some of the top-of-the-line filtering services. Some of our customers are not bothered by SPAM and don't mind deleting it while others are fed up and do not want to deal with it.

Therefore, we have contracted with one of the top-of-the-line filtering services, Postini, and are offering this Cadillac email service for only $1.25 per month or $12 per year for those of you who wish to have it. Call us at 1-877-493-9470 for more information.

SPAM BLOCKING BY MERR.COM SERVER

Merr.com SPAM blocking software scans all email and blocks mail sent to large groups of customers and uses other techniques to block suspected SPAM deliveries. Our program is set at a relatively low level so as not to block legitimate email.

Unfortunately, many e-mail lists send e-mail that is difficult to differentiate from unwanted bulk e-mail. It is possible that our filters will remove these as unwanted SPAM. 

To turn off SPAM Blocking program for your email account, notify us and we will discontinue scanning your mailbox.

Although the SPAM Blocking program has eliminated most of the unwanted mail, some will still get through. We advise installing your own SPAM Blocking program on your PC like the ones listed below for more control over your email. One of these programs used in conjunction with our email server program should drastically reduce problems with unwanted email.

WHAT YOU CAN DO TO PROTECT YOURSELF

Here are some ways to limit the amount of SPAM you receive in your merr.com email account:

Install anti-spam software. MailWasher is a free download. You can tell MailWasher to delete a message at the server, without downloading it -- or you can bounce an email back to the sender so that it looks as though your address is not valid. SpamKiller by McAfee costs $29.95. SpamKiller blocks specific addresses of known spammers, and also scans the sender's address, message, subject and headers to determine if an email is spam. Spam Buster by Contact Plus costs $19.95 (or is free with a version that includes advertising). Spam Buster compares the email message, header information, sender, and size to the spam settings you've defined to see if the message is spam. Then it checks the sender against a blacklist of known spammers. ChoiceMail by DigiPortal Software costs $29.95. (There is also a 14-day free trial version available.) It requires everyone who emails you to get your permission before their email is delivered to you.

Try a free email alias service. This allows you to give out an email address that is actually an alias for your merr.com email address. One of these services can be found at www.spammotel.com.

Set message rules in your Outlook Express program. You can block messages that are from particular senders, or which contain certain words in the body or subject lines. (Click on Tools > Message > Rules > Mail.)

Never reply to spam. Never follow instructions to "unsubscribe" or "remove" your email address. This only tells the spammer that you have a valid email address.

Report the spam to the spammer's postmaster. Just type "postmaster" before the @  in the spammer's email address to send a complaint to their postmaster.