No Wildcard use in filters?

[chaos_308]

It appears that the use of wildcard characters doesn't work in filters, or the banned word list files.

Example: I'm getting a LOT of messages with the subject PHAxyzRMA, where xyz is some combination of letters.

These messages are getting placed in the Junk Mail folder, but I'd like to zap them with a pre-download filter if possible.

I've tried using PHA*RMA and PHA???RMA in my filters with no success.

Am I missing something obvious?

While searching, someone asked why any combination of letters present in a banned word file, would be used, rather than the complete word.
Does it really work that way?

example: If the word MONKEY is placed in the banned list, then messgae with any combination of letters used in that word would be filtered:

KEY
ON
MONEY

I just want to make sure I understand how this really works.

Thanks !

[Eric]

It appears that the use of wildcard characters doesn't work in filters, or the banned word list files.

Wildcards aren't used in filters, nor in the word list files.

Example: I'm getting a LOT of messages with the subject PHAxyzRMA, where xyz is some combination of letters.

I get the same at home and at work, but my junkfilter puts them automatically in Junk, like yours does.

These messages are getting placed in the Junk Mail folder, but I'd like to zap them with a pre-download filter if possible.

Be careful by using the pre-download filter with those words.

I've tried using PHA*RMA and PHA???RMA in my filters with no success.

Won't work, as already mentioned above.

Am I missing something obvious?

Did you have a look at the Contents (Press F1).

Matching: selecting all characters will do a traditional match, so that @myworkdomain will match sales@myworkdomain but will not match sales@my.workdomain. Alternatively, you can choose ignore non-text method which would match both entries. This second approach is especially good for matching words in spam messages as they are often concealed with extra characters to fool filters. For example, you may want to filter all messages containing word mortgage to your Junk Mail folder but spammers are using many variations of the word to get around the filter, such as mort_gage or m-o-r-t-g-a-g-e; selecting ignore non-text for this filter would simply ignore all those extra characters and find the intended word. You have to be careful though, as you can also have unintended matches this way: having a filter for word sex with ignore non-text enabled would match a sentence like "He trains extra hard".

While searching, someone asked why any combination of letters present in a banned word file, would be used, rather than the complete word.
Does it really work that way?

Don't use the banned word file, because my junk filter stops everything.

I guess you could be right about that, although I've never tested it.

I just want to make sure I understand how this really works.

Me too, so you're not alone on this.
Maybe you'll find your answer at PocoMail's unofficial FAQ or using a script can help you more.