Hi, Bob? This is Susan. I haven't received a reply from you regarding
the
email I sent yesterday, did you get it? You didn't? Hmmm. Let me try resending it.
Hi Bob? This is Susan again. Did you get that second email yet? No?! Maybe you should call your ISP to find out why! Yes, I already called mine, they don't have any info, they say the mail server logs show that both the messages were delivered to your ISP.
Hi, Mr. ISP support guy? This is Bob. It seems that I'm not getting all of my email.... ...................... Collateral damage IS a problem, but that's part of why it works to reduce spam.
There are ways to get around this. I participated in a Brightmail beta sponsored by @Home for two of my personal email accounts. All my "filtered mail" was not deleted but moved to some other mailbox. I had the ability of logging in periodically and seeing what mail was caught as spam. False positives were easy to eradicate (a click or two), one mailing list I was on was caught as spam and less than 24 hours after submission, mail was flowing properly again. I post with my personal email address (without modification) on Usenet so I get a fair share of spam (20-30 pieces or more per day among a few of my email accounts). Brightmail was a godsend, I am willing to live with a few false positives and not have to deal with hitting delete 20 times.