spam filtering turned on without my knowledge

[#1]

Hi
I've just discovered that spam filtering has been turned on on my account - I have not done this, and I know in the past, I have specifically disabled it. As a result, I have been missing important emails.
I only found out because I have been experimenting with IMAP, and a utility called IMAPSize found the spam folder - which was also hidden from me.
Can anyone from PN explain how this might have happened?

[#2]

I think the spam folder is always there, and always hidden unless you turn it on (at least in webmail).  By turn it on I mean turn on being able to view it.  If the Spam folder is empty, it should be an indication your spam filter is turned off.

[#3]

Thanks

But it wasn't empty, and the spam filter was turned on.
EDIT: from the spam record - it looks like it was turned back on at the beginning of april this year.

[#4]

may i join you?  how does one unhide the spam folder?

[#5]

IMAP folders like the Spam folder need to be subscribed to. To do this:
Login to webmail
Click Folders
Click INBOX.Spam in the "subscribe" list, then click Subscribe.
If you don't have a Spam folder I think that implies it's never been needed.

[#6]

bless you for that.  i now discover that i have 25 pages of spam eating up my email allowance.
nice to have access to my spam box.  thanks again.

[#7]

Quote from: tonycollinet

EDIT: from the spam record - it looks like it was turned back on at the beginning of april this year.

I think everyone's spam setting was turned on in April. At the time I raised a ticket complaining and this is a part of the reply I received:
"The reason you may have seen a change in your email spam setup today is because we have
just rolled out our new email configuration service which allows you to have more control over our Postini Spam filtering system. Please bare in mind that this is a new service we have rolled out today and so we appreciate your patience whilst we initial setup our new system and we apologise for the inconvenience this may have caused."
I think is was announced on this forum but not to every user via email - I may be wrong 
Paul

[#8]

Thanks for raising this topic - as a result I've just discovered that my Spam filter has been turned on by somebody without my knowledge.  I turned it off last year and filter all my own mail through my Thunderbird client.  I don't use Squirrel Mail at all.  I've just looked and found 49 emails there in a Spam folder  and NONE OF THEM WERE SPAM!!! 
It accounts for all the problems I've had this summer with missing emails.
I'm furious that PlusNet would turn on this filter without telling me!!!
Thanks to sharp eyed community members for their alertness!

[#9]

Quote from: jazz

I'm furious that PlusNet would turn on this filter without telling me!!!

It might be an idea to raise a ticket to express your feelings - if enough customers do it they might think twice next time they want to make some adjustments.

[#10]

If I remember correctly this happened unintentionally for some users when the improved Manage My Mail tool was rolled out in early March. I believe efforts were made to reset the settings of those affected to "off", but it seems some could have been missed.
The problem was well publicised at the time.

[#11]

@paulgul  - Thanks for suggestion!!  I've now raised a ticket to complain about the matter, though I'm not holding my breath waiting for a response!  I am amazed that they have overridden customer preferences on email settings without saying a word.  Surely someone in the company could have thought of notifying the change in an email?? 
Last year they allowed our email addresses to be hacked - this year they are effectively censoring our emails without telling us!!

[#12]

Quote from: jazz

Last year they allowed our email addresses to be hacked

How exactly did they "allow" our email addresses to be hacked? It's not like people "allow" their car to be stolen or "allow" their house to be burgled - it just happens. It's exactly the same. I am sure that PN took all the precautions they thought necessary at the time, just that in hindsight it wasn't enough.

[#13]

On Wednesday evening, I also noticed that my spam settings had been turned on, so I turned them off (not for the first time). I can recall no 'warning' that this might happen.
Then during Thursday morning, Postini got turned on, so I had to contact CS to get that turned off (again), which happened almost immediately.
If you don't want/need Postini, watch out for that one next.
[Edit:  Arrgh, I see Postini has been put back ON again ]

[#14]

Errr.
I thought the spam settings were the postini settings - where are the postini settings?

[#15]

In the absence of any recent instructions, I think you've got to contact Customer Support (as per February newsletter here).
This was the response I got in to my request in February...
"Apologies for the confusion. Even with the spam filtering disabled via the portal, your email will still be proxied via Postini. This is because Postini is applied on all accounts to block obvious spam before it reaches you.. Before moving to Postini we used a program called Clam and a list of rbls to perform this function. We are still running Clam and the rbls on the old mail platform although it's likely we will be switching these off before long. When we do this, there is a possibility that email that was being blocked before may start to filter through. This is why we don't recommend that you turn the filtering off.
As per your request though, I have removed you from the Postini platform. As this is a DNS change it may take 24-48 hours for your DNS records to fully propagate. This takes slightly longer (up to 7 days) for any additional domains you have hosted on your account."