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How to stop spam emails
Learn how to reduce the amount of unwanted spam email in your My Virgin Media email account.
What is spam?
Spam is unsolicited junk email sent in bulk. This includes marketing emails and newsletters, which can be annoying but are harmless, as well as the more dangerous malicious spam that can carry malware. Some spam is sent with the purpose of committing some kind of fraud. So, you should always make sure you know what you’re opening. Learn how to prevent scams
Most spam is sent for commercial purposes and come from legitimate businesses and service providers, to encourage you to buy products or service – so email advertising. However, although it can be annoying, we don’t generally treat marketing emails as spam that needs to be blocked.
However, some spam mail can be much more sinister, and it’s this that we do want to block. These are sent by scammers and fraudsters and can contain viruses that hijack a user's computer and mine it for sensitive information, which can then be used to access your online or financial accounts. These viruses can also use your computer to send spam to others whose email addresses it finds in the user's address book, spreading the malware further.
Sometimes you may get emails claiming to come from Virgin Media that are actually phishing attempts. Learn how to avoid phishing.
How does Virgin Media prevent spam?
Virgin Media Mail (our webmail service) has in-built features that can help prevent spam mail – and the scams that frequently come with it. Let’s have a look at these.
Virgin Media Mail has state-of-the-art technology to help protect you by filtering as much suspected spam out of your inbox as possible.
Your filter won’t normally send marketing emails, newsletters and circulars to mailing lists to your Spam Folder – even though they may sometimes be annoying. Most responsible senders allow you to opt out of receiving them if you want.
What your filter will treat as spam are the offensive, or even dangerous emails. These kinds of malicious spam emails often contain viruses that can damage your computer, or malware that can mine sensitive information from your device. When we can identify them, we’ll filter these out to help keep you safe.
The spam filter also checks to make sure any emails you receive have been sent legitimately by sender shown in the email. If we believe an email isn’t actually from who it claims to be from, we’ll place the message into the Spam Folder.
If I don't use webmail, am I still protected from spam?
Yes, it doesn’t matter if you access your Virgin Media Mail emails through Outlook Express or any other email app, we’ll still automatically delete any spam before it reaches your inbox.
Want to change your spam settings or turn off your filter? See section How to manage My Virgin Media email spam settings
What if I have my own spam filtering software?
While our filter does protect you from suspected spam, you may still want to use dedicated mail filtering software as a further line of defence. You can use your own anti-spam software with the Virgin Media spam filter if you like. It will work as normal, simply adding another layer of protection. So, if by chance some spam does get through our filters, your other software should be able to catch it and dispose of it safely.
How do I stop spam emails?
Our state-of-the-art filter will help keep your My Virgin Media email account clear of malicious spam. However, sometimes spam can slip through – or you might pick up malicious spam on another email account. If your device ever becomes infected by malicious spam, there are a few things you can do to protect yourself.
Use your device’s anti-virus software to remove any viruses or malware by running a scan. If you don’t have any security software protecting your device, then try Virgin Media Advanced Security. It offers unlimited online protection for all your devices, and the first 3 months are free.
When the malware has been removed, you should change the passwords for all your online and email accounts.
If a fraudster can get your password using malware, it is highly likely they’ll attempt to use it across as many websites and online services as possible, in the hope that you use the same passwords across your other accounts. That’s what it’s important that you use different passwords for all your online accounts.
When setting your password, you should try your best to pick something that’s difficult to guess. Learn how to create a strong password.
How to manage Virgin Media Mail spam settings
You can change your Virgin Media Mail email spam settings from your desktop or laptop (Spam Settings are not available on a mobile or tablet) by following these steps:
Sign in to Virgin Media Mail
Select the Settings cog in the top right-hand corner
Expand the Email option
Select SPAM Settings
Select the SPAM setting you’d like to use:
Reject All Spam messages
Move message to Spam folder (default)
Flag a message as Spam but deliver to Inbox
Turn off all Spam filtering
To save your settings, simply navigate away from the SPAM Settings page.
If you mark a specific email as spam or not spam, the filter will move that email to the relevant folder. However, your account won’t remember to filter out future messages from that sender.
If you’d like to mark a sender as spam, you can set up a filter to delete any future messages from their email address. Learn how to use filters on your My Virgin Media email account.
If you think a message might be spam, but it hasn’t been sent to your Spam Folder, it’s best to delete it right away. Learn how to delete messages from your .
How to block email addresses in My Virgin Media email
If you’ve been receiving unwanted emails from a particular email address, you can block it. Any email sent to you from a blocked address will automatically go into your spam folder. To block email addresses, you’ll need to set up a blacklist.
To blacklist an email address, do the following:
Select an email from the email address you wish to blacklist.
select the Action icon
Select Blacklist sender
Select Blacklist to confirm
Emails from blacklisted email address will no longer arrive in your inbox.
If you’d like to start receiving emails from an email address you’ve previously blocked, you’ll need to remove it from the blocklist. To do this:
Select the Settings cog in the top right-hand corner
Expand the Email options
Select Blocklist
Select the email address you’d like to remove from the blocklist
Select Delete selected
When you’ve removed an email address from the blocklist, emails sent from that address will go into your inbox.
How to report spam email outside the UK
Organisation: 中国互联网协会反垃圾邮件中心 (China Internet Association Anti-Spam Centre):
Website: anti-spam.cn
Email address: abuse@anti-spam.cn
Organisation: Commission Nationale de l'Informatique et des libertés:
Website: www.cnil.fr
Email address: N/A
Organisation: Nippon Information Communication Association:
Website: www.dekyo.or.jp
Email address: meiwaku@dekyo.or.jp
Organisation: Onafhankelijke Post en Telecommunicatie Autoriteit (OPTA):
Website: www.spamklacht.nl
Email address: N/A (You may use the form on OPTA's website to report spam)
