SPAM (Continued)

Seems I'm not the first (by a LONG shot) to ask why SPAM email is seldom if ever stopped although we are using the "Mark as SPAM" button and offensive email is going to the SPAM folder. Some background: after receiving hundreds and I do mean HUNDREDS of SPAM emails I finally opted to establish filters to hopefully eradicate this junk. Well seems that somehow one or more of these filters began interfering with my email and I didn't receive any emails for several days. I contacted Cox tech support and spoke to a lady who was quite helpful or so I thought. She felt that possibly my email account had been somehow hacked (?) and asked if she could change my password to see if that would help. She changed my password with no change. I had already explained to her about the huge amount of SPAM I was receiving and that I had created filters to eliminate much of it. She said there was a possibility that something in one or more of these filters was fouling up my email access. At her suggestion I began deleting the filters and lo and behold my email started working correctly and I began receiving that days emails. Everything prior to that was lost but since I don't do a lot of emailing I didn't figure I had lost much of anything important. Anyway, she told me what I SHOULD be doing is using the "Mark as SPAM" button because the filters COULD create issues which might be what had happened to me. I told her I had used the button before but I still received SPAM from the EXACT SAME sender over and over again. No response to that statement was forthcoming. At any rate, I asked her if I used the "Mark as SPAM" button did the SPAM emails have to remain in the SPAM folder for any length of time before deleting them. She said no that I could delete them at any time but that they would auto delete after 30 days. So I started using the "Mark as SPAM" button and even kept each SPAM email a minimum of 5 days before deleting. Since I receive 40 to 60 SPAM emails in a 5 days period I did not want the SPAM folder loaded to the gills sand deleting after 5 days. OK, so now I STILL receive SPAM email from the very same senders I had already identified using the "Mark as SPAM" button and even receive 2 to 3 from the SAME sender in the SAME DAY and this SAME SPAM is already in the SPAM folder. So what the hell gives here? What good is a "Mark as SPAM" button if the SPAM is going to continue unabated?! I have come to the conclussion that maybe I should simply dump Cox and gor for Microsoft Mail, Outlook or ANYTHING that will actually BLOCK SPAM.