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Ask HN: Please explain this spam folder weirdness to me like I'm five

I asked in writing to be unsubscribed and this was ignored. So the next time I got email from this thing, I reported the email as spam and Gmail gave me a drop-down menu with the option to "report spam and unsubscribe" so I did that. I got another email from the same thing and again "reported spam and unsubscribed." This morning I decided to check how to report abuse for the service in question. Their instructions said to forward the email in question to their abuse address. I did that with an explanation of the situation. And I promptly got a "support ticket" reply but I couldn't find my sent email in my outbox. I found it in my spam folder and Gmail was telling me I had reported my outgoing email as spam. So I clicked "this is not spam" so I could have a record of the outgoing email. And it removed BOTH emails from my spam folder. This seems not right. I want the incoming email listed as spam because it is. But why would you list my outgoing forwarded email as spam just because I forwarded it from the spam folder? And why can't I uncouple the emails? I don't follow the logic here at all.

new_guy 5y ago
Don't reply to spam mail, it lets them know 1, it's a valid address and 2, you'll engage with them If that fails look up their hosting provider ( https://www.whois.com https://www.whois.com ) and report it directly to them, you can also complain to your equivalent of the ICO ( https://ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint/nuisance-calls-and-messages/spam-emails/ https://ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint/nuisance-calls-and-messa... ) although they're mostly toothless.
- DoreenMichele 5y ago
  They know it's a valid email address. There's a long sordid backstory there and unsubscribing should have been an option via contacting them if they weren't abusive dirtbags. I am only interested in understanding the part where I forwarded the spam email to MailChimp per their instructions and Gmail did not let me keep a record of my "sent" mail because it originated from the spam folder and then unmarking my "sent" email unmarked the original spam email as well.
brudgers 5y ago
There is no logic there…I mean sure there is logic in the sense of computer instructions that don’t appear to crash. But the business logic is a black box. It only aligns to your interests to the absolute minimum necessary. Reverse engineering the black box is completely empirical. Try a set of operations and see what happens. Repeat. It is an ocean. It can’t be boiled.
- DoreenMichele 5y ago
  Thanks.

new_guy 5y ago

Don't reply to spam mail, it lets them know 1, it's a valid address and 2, you'll engage with them If that fails look up their hosting provider ( https://www.whois.com https://www.whois.com ) and report it directly to them, you can also complain to your equivalent of the ICO ( https://ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint/nuisance-calls-and-messages/spam-emails/ https://ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint/nuisance-calls-and-messa... ) although they're mostly toothless.

DoreenMichele 5y ago
They know it's a valid email address. There's a long sordid backstory there and unsubscribing should have been an option via contacting them if they weren't abusive dirtbags. I am only interested in understanding the part where I forwarded the spam email to MailChimp per their instructions and Gmail did not let me keep a record of my "sent" mail because it originated from the spam folder and then unmarking my "sent" email unmarked the original spam email as well.

brudgers 5y ago

There is no logic there…I mean sure there is logic in the sense of computer instructions that don’t appear to crash. But the business logic is a black box. It only aligns to your interests to the absolute minimum necessary. Reverse engineering the black box is completely empirical. Try a set of operations and see what happens. Repeat. It is an ocean. It can’t be boiled.

DoreenMichele 5y ago
Thanks.