The reason for this had to have something to do with all of the filters I had set-up. I examined them all, one-by-one, and didn't see anything that should prevent this client from emailing me. But several tests later and it was confirmed — for some inexplicable reason I was unable to receive email from her. I assumed if I couldn't find the filter that was blocking her email, maybe my hosting support team could explain it; perhaps fix the problem. So I emailed them about it.

I don't think they quite understood what I was hoping they would do. I got an email back from them that looked like this:

Hello Steve,

The problem is the filters you have set up. We've removed them. Let us know if you have any more problems.

Each of those filters they deleted had to be individually set up. I spent hours over the course of several months, setting these things up.

Yes... not I could get this particular clients email but the spam gate was wide open. While my filters had offered good protection, other spammers had added me to their list, so this put me up to 500 spam messages every 24 hours.

I decided to try Spam Assassin after trying to sort through tons of email for a few months. I understood I might lose legitimate email, but in my haste to sort through this many messages per day, I was accidentally deleting email that I wanted. I was using a program that allowed me to preview my messages off of the server and delete the ones I didn't want. Sometimes... real emails got deleted.

SpamAssassin incorporates several means of detecting spam. Bayesian-style probabilistic classification is one of them, but not the only one. But it also offers you an interface to "whitelist" your contacts. By setting the software to score at an appropriate level and taking the time to copy and paste the email addresses of everyone who I have been in regular contact with the last six months, I find I am really impressed with the results.

I set up a special spam folder so I could monitor what was being removed from my inbox. In the last two weeks, it hasn't blocked any legitimate email.

I heartily recommend this method of dealing with spam.

Regards,
Steve MacLellan