How often do you check your email spam folder?

We represent extremes in our office: I check mine daily, sometimes more. Jerry rarely checks his.

SpamI recommend you consider a compromise, such as once a week. In any case, don’t automatically let what’s in your spam folder be trashed by your email system.

Without a doubt, spam filters make it easier to sort through the flood of electronic messages we receive every day. But occasionally those filters will trap a message you want to read.

Case in point: Our church uses Constant Contact for email to members (and anyone else who wants news from the church). We’ve noticed over the last few weeks that most of the emails sent from the church through Constant Contact were landing in our spam folders. And it was happening to other church members as well—even to the church secretary when she sent a test message of the weekly announcements to herself for proofreading.

I’ve invested more time than I should have trying to figure this out. As best I can determine, the primary email systems—both free and paid—have tightened up their spam filters and are diverting an increasing number of wanted commercial messages to your junk folder. If you don’t periodically check that folder, those messages will eventually be trashed.

image of spam folder

A screen shot of a portion of Jackie's spam folder

Your spam folder will be both entertaining and offensive. You’ve been told this before, but I’ll repeat: Don’t open the messages that are from senders you don’t recognize and be suspicious of odd messages from senders you know. Don’t click on links in an email unless you are absolutely certain it’s legit. Treat all emails that appear to be from the IRS, banks and credit card companies as trash—those entities will contact you by phone or regular mail if there’s an issue with your account.

Every so often, open your spam folder and be sure there’s nothing there you really want. Then delete the rest.

Final note: In case you’re wondering why I check my spam folder so often, it’s because I receive messages sent to us that are addressed to anything @contacttcs.com. It’s a nuisance when a spammer decides to send thousands of messages to made-up addresses at our domain, but this habit lets me catch and respond to messages from people who want to know more about our books and other products but who might misspell my name when they enter my address.

Jacquelyn Lynn
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