I posted this on Reddit, but I'm hoping I can get some help here too:

I live in the U.S. and have a Skype partner in Japan with whom I do language exchange conversation every week. A number of months ago, someone hacked my Yahoo email account and began to spam a bunch of my friends from it. I changed my password, but the perps seem to have sold my contact list to other spammers and now my Skype partner receives occasional spam emails on her cellphone. She says sometimes she receives them on her Yahoo account in the wee hours of the morning.

When accessing email through a desktop browser, it's very simple to mark an email as spam so that every subsequent email by that sender goes straight to the spam folder, and thus doesn't really bother you. However, I'm not sure how this works for emails sent to a typical Japanese flip phone (not a smartphone). I tried to walk her through it but my Japanese isn't good enough, and neither is her English.

Does anyone have experience with marking email as spam on a Japanese flip phone? If so, could you provide the general steps to do so in Japanese? I hope you guys can help. Thanks!

In my limited experience, the spam filters for phone email accounts in Japan are not controlled by the application they are controlled by settings found in the account settings on the phone company website. They would have to log into the website, maybe using the email software on the phone (this was the easiest way with Docomo) or through another app.

Here's the thing though, in my experience, cell phone operators have crap spam filters; they pale in comparison to the likes of Yahoo or Gmail. For many people in Japan, once an account has been listed for spam and they are receiving it, the only options that I've seen people take that actually work to stop spam are either A) Set the spam settings to only accept email from people in your contacts or people you have already emailed before or B) Get a new email. Most people opt for option B; as I've gotten many emails from people I know saying "The spam has gotten out of control, I have changed my email, here is my new one, please update accordingly."

Getting a new email is something that is done through the phone account site as well.

Thanks, vix86. Bad news, I guess, but good to know.

If the hacked Yahoo email account have your friends' contact list where both the phone number and their email address and/or (kei-tai) mail are being stored, then it would be better for your Japanese friend to change the phone number and the kei-tai mail as well. The spamming will only escalate and it won't stop.

Docomo 迷惑メール対策の設定一覧
https://www.nttdocomo.co.jp/info/spam_mail/measure/

【auケータイ】迷惑メールフィルターの設定方法（オススメ設定）が知りたい
http://csqa.kddi.com/posts/view/qid/k1112050092

Softbank 迷惑メールブロック設定方法
http://www.softbank.jp/mobile/support/an.../settings/

It is possible to change the setting on the ガラケー (flip-phone), but a lot of them don't know how to do it. So the "easiest" way out is to make a trip to the phone company to request for the changes to be made, and pay for the services.

The same thing happened to me on my old flip phone in Japan. I got spam until the day I switched my e-mail. The spam filters are indeed crap.

eslang Wrote:If the hacked Yahoo email account have your friends' contact list where both the phone number and their email address and/or (kei-tai) mail are being stored, then it would be better for your Japanese friend to change the phone number and the kei-tai mail as well. The spamming will only escalate and it won't stop.

Fortunately, I don't have her phone number, so it wasn't hacked. Thank you for the info!

Tzadeck Wrote:The same thing happened to me on my old flip phone in Japan. I got spam until the day I switched my e-mail. The spam filters are indeed crap.

That's the impression I'm getting :[