HN Explorer

Ask HN: Is Gmail spam out of control for everyone else too?

71 points by agency ↗ HN
I’ve been seeing steadily more spam in my Gmail inbox for a long time now but the past couple weeks it has been on another level completely. At least 3 or 4 emails a day going to my inbox that follow the same pattern of gibberish subject line with a PDF attachment. I asked some coworkers and I don’t think it’s just me. Is there some subtlety to this situation or has Google just completely dropped the ball here? How are emails from strangers with PDF attachments not subject to a level of scrutiny that would catch this easily?

54 comments

[ 3.8 ms ] story [ 122 ms ] thread
vpt
Looking through my spam box for the ones I had to manually report it looks like maybe close to one a week, and they tend to be very similar, usually wrapped around a popular pharmacy store chain (no attachments). I also have noticed they tend to be sent from gmail.com addresses, which may suggest why they're not getting trapped by the spam filter.
butz
Yes, same thing started happening here about two weeks ago. No idea if something has changed on Gmail side, like spam filter update, but reporting such messages as spam does nothing. I also fear that legit email messages containing important attachments from gmail.com domain might end up in spam after spam filter learns that "attachment = bad". Tried reporting few as phishing in hopes to get some attention, but that probably ain't doing anything at all.
[deleted]
(comment deleted)
spxd
Same for me, at least for one month. I remove all manually. Its time to drop Gmail and use something else.
rurban
Nope. No changes to the worse for me. Happy for decades, compared to previous solutions
taubek
No, no spam in Inbox on free and on Workspace account.
PascLeRasc
No, I haven't had a problem with it. I also haven't had a problem with Fastmail's spam filter, it works fine. And their search is fine too.
hedora
I have a gmail account that forwards to my fastmail account.

The only problem I've had is that gmail routinely sends non spam messages to my spam folder.

You can't actually disable gmail's spam filter, but it's possible to trick it, rendering it ineffective. (There are many guides available online.)

addingnumbers
Yes, right this minute the most recent three messages in my Gmail inbox are extremely obvious spam with titles like "YourCVSrewards HavejustArrived" and one is full of white-on-white text, which I thought was an easy giveaway for their detection systems.
umtksa
Nope, no spam in Inbox using free and paid accounts
soared
Reporting these as spam does actually help and will solve the problem over time.
jfoster
We're coming up to Gmail's 18th birthday.
988747
I received one email that I had to manually mark as spam recently. It was probably the first one in the past 10 years.
andrewmcwatters
Yes. Something has changed internally allowing for some obvious spam to get past their filters.
tomudding
It has been an issue since September/October last year, but occasionally it seems to get worse (and then suddenly no spam mails).
cryoz
It's time to drop GMail.
thawaya3113
Yes. Absolutely.

And the worst part is that the spam I’m getting are emails that are almost exactly the same. I have no idea how the GMail spam detector is unable to filter these out.

nemetroid
I have also been receiving a lot of these to my inbox lately. Usually the sender is a creative version of some common name. Some examples from the last three days:

Mariya

Lorreyn

Kerol

Medison

Silviya

Primrouz

xsc
Yes. Seems like a lot of it is coming from outlook.com
xsc
Also seems that messages land in the inbox first, and then are sometimes filtered, making the gmail web ui jump around as whatever filtering mechanism catches up.
secondcoming
Spam is one thing, but the amount of email I receive that's intended for other people is very worrying. I think it has to do with gmail ignoring periods in the username. It's definitely not spam or phishing either, it's really genuine emails that have either been sent to the wrong account or multiple accounts.

I've received a draft divorce settlement of an apparently high-profile NY couple, police reports, US Sea Cadet itineraries, bills among other things. I worry about emails intended for me being sent/copied to other people.

It's a definite GDPR violation at least.

morsch
I'm confused, how is it a definite violation of GDPR and who do you think is doing the violating? How would the handling of periods be relevant? Why wouldn't it just be user error? People send emails to the wrong address all the time. They'll keep doing it, unless you tell them, which you may or may not want to, because they might be embarrased or angry.

Here's Google's relevant support page: https://support.google.com/mail/answer/10313

secondcoming
I'm in the EU and it's GDPR violation to send someone else's personal info to a third party without permission.

Regarding the usernames, for example gmail seems to treat 'firstname.lastname@gmail.com' as being the same as 'firstnamelastname@gmail.com'

Further than that I don't know. All I do know is that I occasionally get legitimate emails intended for other people, and I suspect others may be getting mine.

drc500free
Yes, gmail treats those the same. Which means there is no valid email address belonging to someone else that is the same as yours other than periods. People are just mistyping email addresses, it happens all the time.
Tagbert
Yes, I get mail all the time for people with similar name Who register for services using my email address. I’m sure that they want dinner of those accounts but it is lost to carelessness
stevage
I virtually never see spam in Gmail, and this is no exception. Had my account since the start, my email is used in many places, easy to find, etc.

To me, Gmail's spam filtering is nothing short of magical. Weird that it isn't the same for everyone.

haswell
I got my address in the invite only days, and historically, what you describe was true for me. Almost magical.

But recently (~3 months?), I’ve been experiencing something very similar to what the OP described.

warrenm
Anyone else remember going to the GMail homepage and watching your available storage climb upwards like the national debt clock?
sylware
Strange, because gmail is still putting in the spam box the emails from my custom and own email server (a rasberry pi sitting next to my IAP modem)... and ppl removing them from their spam box does not seem to have any impact.
MerelyMortal
On average I get one or two spams per day that make it to my Gmail inbox, consisting of: those PDF spams, or emails with subject lines misspelled or spelled with numbers, or obvious spam for dating stuff.

On average once a month, a legitimate email will be in the spam folder.

For me, Gmail's spam filtering is somewhat helpful and thus decent, but I would not consider it good.

MerelyMortal
In case anyone is still reading this:

I just received an email from the sender name of "L0an C0nfirmati0n" with a subject of "**_ C0nfirm Y0ur Request: $9,525 L0an °®° ..."

There are images which by default are not displayed, Gmail thinks it's in French and is offering to translate the message.

The visible message says ".time is running out - get your $10k"

How the F is that not recognized as spam? Beats me…

4oo4
In case this is partially my fault:

I started using Tutanota as my primary email provider a long time ago and just let Gmail fill up with garbage that I'm too lazy to delete (and also in hopes that all the garbage/spam messes with the email scanning that Google does, and wasting their storage space out of spite). There might be others like me that have similar Gmail inboxes, that may be due to making it so hard to bulk delete emails in the app.

So I'm sorry, maybe?

1_player
I certainly receive a lot of spam _from_ gmail accounts. 99% of the spam I see has a gmail.com address.
moralestapia
Mine is backwards, literally.

Almost all my legitimate email goes to spam, while hyper-obvious 2000s type of spam "Hello sir, I want to send you 20,000,000 dollars" is common on my inbox. I now have the habit to check my Spam folder first.

It has become so stupid that even emails from THEIR OWN DAMN SERVICES, like transactional messages from GCP, go to Spam.

bamboozled
You don’t k know this yet, but the Google AI has foreseen all of this and is trying to get you to click on the emails you need to click on, the ones it knows are good for you.
mimsee
Yes! I get these messages as a notification to my phone.

The message body of the email seems to contain some messages normally sent to people that they really expect, like a github password reset, an email verification link, or a university email directed towards students [0][1].

[0]: https://pastebin.com/kfWTLMjz

[1]: https://pastebin.com/NmPK2dVY

Edit: found a second email