Emails marked as "Read" when just selected causing even more Spam

[Ultraviolet13]

I'm using webmail via Chrome but this issue seems to happen whatever platform I'm using.

When viewing my Inbox any email I select (click the left hand box, check-mark shows selection) is immediately set as "Read". I haven't open the email or previewed it but it's now marked as having been read.

This in itself is a problem. Why is my message now shown as "Read"? 

Even more concerning is when I review my Spam folder and try and block a Sender or a Domain - as we are instructed to do - the same thing happens; the message is set to "Read" even though I have not opened it.

My understanding is that when you Read / Open a spam email it lets the scammer who sent the message know your email is "active" and therefore even more scam emails are sent to you.

My personal experience confirms this, as when I select a spam email to block the Domain/Sender/View Source this triggers more spam, sometimes within minutes.

Question: Why does the BT email system mark a selected email as Read? Especially when it tells the scammers to send more spam to my address!

Given that BT spam filters can't cope with domains such as AlOkXtZrGwAuYGpKss.uabc.mx where billions of unique addresses can be created all ending in  .uabc.mx  how do customers report & block spammers when each attempt just flags your address as active and a viable target, guaranteeing dozens more spam emails ?

[Lesley_W]

Hi @Ultraviolet13 

Thanks for coming to our community.

I'd recommend checking a couple of things in webmail settings > mail.

You should see 'show first mail in preview pane' and 'view next mail after delete/move'. If you can make sure these are both set to OFF, and let me know if that helps.

Lesley

[Ultraviolet13]

Hi @Lesley_W 

thanks for the reply.
I've just checked my General Settings & can confirm neither of the options you've mentioned have been enabled.
Screenshot added for reference 
Regards,
Ian

[Lesley_W · Accepted solution]

Thanks for trying that @Ultraviolet13 

If those were already off, I'd recommend speaking to our email technical team so they can look into this for you.

Lesley

[andydenyer]

This has been a 'feature' ever since there was a big update to the webmail service a few years ago, and sparked lots of comments on these forums about it but has never been addressed.  The official response from BT was that although they now show as being read, they haven't really been marked as read for sending a response as such back to the sender, but I'm not sure whether anyone really believed that or not.

As for your second question, what you can do is set a rule to discard any emails where the sender's address contains "uabc.mx" for example.  Note: make sure you use 'contains' as I've found that selecting 'ends with' doesn't work even though, logically, it should but must be another 'feature' or bug that just hasn't been addressed!