Who spams you?

weegie.geek

Using disposable email addresses means checking them all one at a time, or at least setting up a client to grab from each of them. The disposable ones I've seen expire after a certain amount of time too. Things like emusic and ikea you'd, in theory, want to receive their newsletters in future.

Using a domain and catch-all means I setup one account, once, and then I'm set.

timbim_2

weegie.geek wrote: »

Using a domain and catch-all means I setup one account, once, and then I'm set.

Also opens you up the most incredible torrent of spam as every spambot that finds the domain pings emails off to random addresses.

On a slightly different point, why does anyone ever fall for spam? Why would you think that people who could produce a form of v1agra as effective as they claim to be would need to send emails like that?

weegie.geek

It's easier to setup a rule to catch legit mails than it is to sign up for a new disposable address, check it regularly etc.

Thunderbird is pretty good at filtering out most of the spam anyway.

And god only knows why people fall for it. It's like the thread someone posted where someone from abroad phones you and says your computer has a virus, with the intent of fleecing you for 250 quid to fix it. Why on earth would anyone fall for it?

I guess the viagra thing can be put down to it being black market. The spam emails give a sense of under the counter naughtiness about it.

I can't understand why people fall for some of the spam I've received though.

For example, Email purporting to be from DHL, saying there's been a problem with delivery, open the attachment to sort it out. Attachment is executable. Who on earth falls for it?!

It must be worth doing for them to still be doing it, but anyone falling for it shouldn't be trusted with a computer. Or sharp things.

timbim_2

Some people are extremely gullible. I've heard it's written on the ceiling, even been told that when outside The DHL one I suppose relies on some people being extremely gullible and opening it anyway, and others slightly less gullible having recently ordered something online/mail order, and thinking it's genuine. Thing is with email, it costs literally nothing to send, so anyone on control of a botnet or similar has nothing to lose.

Pound

weegie.geek wrote: »

If I receive an email at [EMAIL="moneysavingexpert@myname.co.uk"]moneysavingexpert@myname.co.uk[/EMAIL] trying to sell me viagra then I know Martin's either sold my details or there's been some security breach. :P

For the record this hasn't happened, so no need to worry.

Actually, this very thing did happen.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/23321861#Comment_23321861

weegie.geek

Definitely, it's a case of throwing enough poop at the wall and hoping some sticks. If you even get one person foolish enough out of a million then you've made a profit.

The first DHL one I got was actually when I was expecting DHL to be contacting me to pick up a couple of laptops to go back to Dell. I opened the email but the broken English didn't particularly reassure me, and a zipped attachment with a .exe in it sealed the deal.

weegie.geek

Pound wrote: »

Actually, this very thing did happen.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/23321861#Comment_23321861

Ah, interesting. These things happen of course, and I can imagine MSE being quite a target for someone spamming/phishing. Not just due to the size of the DB, but the demographic as well. It's a site with members of all ages, a lot of whom have money problems.

Less technically literate people with money problems are probably more likely to fall for money scams, fake debt consolidation etc. Especially if the emails are faked to appear to come from MSE and be endorsed by Martin.

John_Gray

weegie.geek wrote: »

Using disposable email addresses means checking them all one at a time,
or at least setting up a client to grab from each of them.
The disposable ones I've seen expire after a certain amount of time too.

No, No, and No! At least for the one I use.
Emails to whichever of my forwarding emails simply appear in my Inbox. If I get spam from any of them (very rare, usually because the sender's email system has been compromised) I can just turn that email address off, and maybe choose another one if I still wish to deal with that organisation.
It's not free, but I think it's worth the $20-odd a year that it costs.

Chris55_2

How many spam emails do people get? Apart from my Work email address I have an email address that I've used for the last 8 years, that is my main sign-up (including e-music where I've subscribed for 3 or 4 years). It gets maybe 4-5 spam emails per week, mostly caught by the providers spam filter, just a couple have got past so far this year.. I have a gmail address that is just for facebook. That gets spam in surges, maybe 10 - 20 a week. I'm sure that's not facebook specifically, more a random occurrence. 100% catch in the spam directory, except for one occassion when it all came through.

tronator

weegie.geek wrote: »

Like a lot of you I'm sure, I own a few domain names. www.myname.co.uk etc

One of the advantages of this is vanity email addresses. [EMAIL="me@myname.co.uk"]me@myname.co.uk[/EMAIL] for example. Most are setup so you can send to any email address at that domain and it'll go to the same mailbox. Send an email to [EMAIL="dfeggr34tsdg34fsdf@myname.co.uk"]dfeggr34tsdg34fsdf@myname.co.uk[/EMAIL] and I'll receive it in [EMAIL="me@myname.co.uk"]me@myname.co.uk[/EMAIL] but in the email details I'll still be able to see the intended recipient, [EMAIL="dfeggr34tsdg34fsdf@myname.co.uk"]dfeggr34tsdg34fsdf@myname.co.uk[/EMAIL]

That's exactly what I'm doing, but I take it one step further. I use the catchall only on sub domains of my domain. Otherwise you will get much more SPAM as a lot of spammers generate random local parts to send SPAM to it.

To add a website to your list, recently I got SPAM to the email address used at eHow.com. No response to my complaint yet.