Spamdex Spam filtering, scam trends and deliverability, decoded.

Spamdex

Spam filtering, scam trends and deliverability, decoded.

Latest Articles

The Inbox Landfill: When a Signup Flood Is the Smokescreen
Scam Watch

The Inbox Landfill: When a Signup Flood Is the Smokescreen

A flood of newsletter signups can be more than annoying — it can be cover for a password reset, invoice or bank alert. Here is how UK recipients, senders and filtering admins can spot a subscription bomb and stop it without making the mess worse.

Your Domain, Their Scam: Cleaning Up After a Joe-Job
Deliverability

Your Domain, Their Scam: Cleaning Up After a Joe-Job

Spammers love a borrowed return address. When your domain gets picked as the fall guy, the bounces and angry replies land in your lap — here’s how to tell a joe-job from a real delivery problem and what actually helps.

The Auto-Reply That RSVPs for You: Auditing Out-of-Office Rules Before They Leak
Deliverability

The Auto-Reply That RSVPs for You: Auditing Out-of-Office Rules Before They Leak

Out-of-office messages are meant to be helpful, but they can also confirm live inboxes, advertise empty desks and generate backscatter that spammers lap up. Here is how UK teams can audit auto-replies, tighten the rules and write safer wording without sounding like a robot.

One Message, Six Verdicts: Inside the UK's Filtering Postcode Lottery
Deliverability

One Message, Six Verdicts: Inside the UK's Filtering Postcode Lottery

Send the identical email to BT, Sky, Virgin Media, TalkTalk, Outlook.com and Gmail and you'll get six different answers — sometimes six different answers on the same afternoon. We built a repeatable test harness to find out which signals each UK provider actually punishes, and what to do when your campaign works everywhere except one ISP.

The Portal That Wasn't: Why 2026's Invoice Emails Want You to Log In
Scam Watch

The Portal That Wasn't: Why 2026's Invoice Emails Want You to Log In

The malicious attachment is largely gone. In its place: a tidy PDF invoice with a single link to a 'supplier portal' that exists to harvest credentials and, eventually, redirect payments. Here's how UK finance teams can spot the mismatches, verify bank-detail changes properly and tune filters without burying genuine invoices.

Every Address Is Valid Until It Isn't: Auditing the Accept-All Signup Form
Deliverability

Every Address Is Valid Until It Isn't: Auditing the Accept-All Signup Form

A catch-all domain feels like good manners — no bounced prospects, no awkward 'that address looks wrong' errors. In practice it quietly fattens your list with junk, muddies your reputation and makes incident response guesswork. Here's the audit UK teams can run this week, plus filter rules that keep the genuine catch-all users and bin the rest.

The Name Says HMRC, the Domain Says Something Else
Scam Watch

The Name Says HMRC, the Domain Says Something Else

A message can pass SPF, DKIM and DMARC with flying colours and still be a fraud, because that trio only proves a domain is authorised to send — not who typed the name on the front. Here's why display-name spoofing keeps landing in UK inboxes, and the habits that close the gap.

Nobody Complains About a Spam Trap — That's Exactly the Problem
Deliverability

Nobody Complains About a Spam Trap — That's Exactly the Problem

The quietest segment on your UK mailing list is often the one doing the most damage. Spam traps never bounce, never reply and never unsubscribe — they just sit there while your sender reputation slides. Here's how to find them, and what to do when you do.

Grey Mail Nation: Why 'Legitimate' Bulk Email Is Making UK Inboxes Numb
Deliverability

Grey Mail Nation: Why 'Legitimate' Bulk Email Is Making UK Inboxes Numb

Opted-in does not automatically mean wanted. Between aggressive retargeting, tired consent and newsletters nobody remembers signing up for, grey mail is teaching UK users to swipe first and think later — and that has consequences for deliverability teams.

Dot-UK Doppelgangers: The Scam Hiding in One Wrong Character
Scam Watch

Dot-UK Doppelgangers: The Scam Hiding in One Wrong Character

Lookalike .uk domains are no longer a niche phishing trick — they are a core part of UK invoice fraud and fake login pages. Here is how to spot the pattern, read the registration clues, and write filters that catch doppelgangers without punishing legitimate British senders.

The Opt-Out Trap: Why Unsubscribe Links Are a Phishing Favourite in 2026
Scam Watch

The Opt-Out Trap: Why Unsubscribe Links Are a Phishing Favourite in 2026

‘Just click unsubscribe’ is becoming bad advice for suspicious email. In 2026, fake opt-out pages, List-Unsubscribe header tricks and reply-to traps are all designed to turn a routine click into a credential harvest or a confirmed live inbox.

Forty Freebies, One Clean Inbox: A 90-Day UK Spam Diary
Deliverability

Forty Freebies, One Clean Inbox: A 90-Day UK Spam Diary

A brand-new UK inbox, 40 sign-ups for samples, discounts and competitions, and three months of watching the junk folder swell. Here is the week-by-week spam timeline — plus the rules I would use before handing over an email address for a freebie.

Deliverability

Your Sender Reputation Is Written in DNS — And Yours Might Be Fibbing

Most UK small-business newsletters don't land in spam because subscribers dislike them. They land there because the SPF, DKIM and DMARC records don't line up, and the receiving filter never got as far as the content. Here's a practical 2026 audit you can run in an afternoon.

The Redelivery Fee That Wasn't: How 2026's Parcel Scams Fool Even Careful Clickers
Scam Watch

The Redelivery Fee That Wasn't: How 2026's Parcel Scams Fool Even Careful Clickers

Parcel smishing has grown up. The 2026 wave borrows real courier branding, freshly registered lookalike domains and clever timing around peak season — and it sails straight past filters trained on old-school spam. Here's the anatomy of the con, plus the rules and reporting routes that actually help UK users.