Spam on your pager?

Do you receive spam at your pager or handheld? I have the Sidekick 2. I have had it for about a month after it was first released, plus two years with the now discontinued black and white Sidekick. Up until 6 months ago, it was sweet sailing. All received emails were from people I knew. Then spam happened.

It started with one. Then once a week. Then it grew to a ridiculous five a day. In the pre-spam days, receiving an email on my Sidekick automatically meant it was from a friend or family. No more. Seeing the flasher going off, I’d scoop up the pager. Spam. Damn. Delete. Scoop. Spam. Damn. Delete!… Getting spam on my regular email, Gmail, is okay. I glance to the left sidebar with my spam folder showing the hundreds of caught spam. I appreciate it, so I put up with an occasional spam in my inbox. But on the pager? No way. Unacceptable.

I called T-mobile, my Sidekick’s carrier, and asked what my options were. The customer service representative responded something to this line, “1) you can change your email address at no charge, or 2) live with it”. I replied, “So… I really have only one option”. I took that only option and changed the email address. Upon restarting the device, I immediately received 10 spam. 10! It was obviously an email address someone had previously owned. I changed it again, and no spam arrived. I kept it and announced the new email address to my friends and family, as much as I hated to bother them with a “change your address book” message.

A week passes. Spam. Spam. Spammmm. SPAM!

Changing my email address clearly did not help. I pondered as my wife’s Sidekick email address was entirely spam-free, as were a friend’s. Not risking re-announcing and re-announcing a new email address, I decided to use one of my domains, ythree.com (on which this blog is based) to handle my email. Here are the steps I took. I called T-mobile and had the email address changed to something extremely long and uncommon. Next, I set my email to automatically forward emails to my Sidekick email account. Finally, on the Sidekick, I changed the From and Reply-To for my T-mobile mail.

This was three days ago. I haven’t gotten a single spam since. Knock on wood. But what about you and your spam? (If you don’t get spam, consider yourself lucky. You may have friends who do.) If you have an email address that supports auto-forwarding, create an new account there. If you do not, use Gmail. Invitations are required to open a Gmail account; let me know if you need an invitation.

Once in Gmail, click “Settings” in the upper right corner. Click the “Forwarding and POP” tab. Next, select “Forward a copy of incoming mail to” and fill in your Sidekick email address. You’re done with Gmail.

And here’s how to change it on your Sidekick so that you’ll receive replies. In the email application, open the menu by pressing the menu button. Choose “Settings” then “Accounts”. Once the Email Accounts screen appears, click the Edit button. On the following screen, fill in your Gmail address in both the “From Address” and “Reply-To Name” fields. This will enable your sent messages to show it came from Gmail, so when folks reply to your messages, it will be sent to your Gmail (which is, in turn, auto-forwarded to your Sidekick).

Still with me? Good luck and let me know if you need further help.