sudden influx of Virgin email spam

soolin

I use a Virgin.net email account, have done since it launched and I get the usual bits of spam but nothing I can't deal with. My email is downloaded to my PC or my phone.

This morning in the space of a couple of hours I'm getting loads, it just keeps arriving, a lot of it with Chinese character , some which appears to be European and some English and well written. I have looked at a couple just in the viewing frame and also checked the originating emails and they don't appear to have anything in common. I've gone online to Virgin to see if anything is going on there with my spam filter- but after reporting a few as spam I'm getting error messages and please try again notices.

My question is , is there anyone else using Virgin and seeing this issue- or has my email just suddenly popped up to the top of a sold list to be used? I'm inclined towards it being a Virgin issue as I am reporting each of them as spam to try and reset my spam filter, and Virgin are responding to about every 10th message  saying this is a newsletter subscription so I can instead just unsubscribe if I want.

Obviously none of it is being opened and I'm running scans and nothing is showing up as an issue. 

EDIT just noticed that the recent influx has a lot from various wordpress accounts, I'm not entirely sure what wordpress is so will do a google search.

soolin

I am on the chat with Virgin and just to show how bad this company is, this is their suggestion

'I am sorry to know that. Please open one of the emails and scroll down and choose unsubscribe option. You can subscribe back after 24 hours, so you can receive other emails'

It's over 1000 emails now in an hour and the Virgin advice is still to open and try and unsubscribe to them.....I'm not techie but that seems awfully bad advice. 

flaneurs_lobster

Are you a Virgin Media customer? I ask because elsewhere it is being reported that VM are having a purge of virgin.net email accounts where the owner does not use VM.

This would cure your spam problem but perhaps not in the most user-friendly manner.

soolin

flaneurs_lobster said:

Are you a Virgin Media customer? I ask because elsewhere it is being reported that VM are having a purge of virgin.net email accounts where the owner does not use VM.

This would cure your spam problem but perhaps not in the most user-friendly manner.

Yes I use Virgin broadband and have a Virgin email account.

I have been removed from live chat as I will not follow their suggestion to open and contact the sender of every bit of junk mail to ask them to remove my address from their company. Apparently if I won't do that the they can't help me at all.

marcia_

 It's actually bad advice to click the unsubscribe link in a spam emails. All it does it lets the sender know it is a live email address they can continue spamming. 

 Can you set up rules on the virgin settings? I set them up on yahoo to block spam with specific words etc 

soolin

marcia_ said:

 It's actually bad advice to click the unsubscribe link in a spam emails. All it does it lets the sender know it is a live email address they can continue spamming. 

 Can you set up rules on the virgin settings? I set them up on yahoo to block spam with specific words etc 

Everything has been over ruled - I have had this account for decades and never had this issue before. A lot though are using a Far east alphabet or what looks like Cyrillic  so I'm  blocking anything like that. 

I obviously refused to follow their advice to open any emails and politely ask the sender not to send any more, and when I asked the rep whether they thought this was actually good advice as it was laughably atrocious- I got cut off again.

When I log back into the Virgin page I now get warnings that the site is insecure , so I told the next rep that and he said they were fine. He then told me to send each email to the Virgin phishing email address, but most refused to go as they said they detected malicious content - but the rep said to keep trying. 

Apparently it's gone to tech now and I should hear back in around 72 hours.

I'm blocking everything I can. adding whole domains to my blocked list and I'm done from around 1100 emails an hour to around 6 a minute, and I think it's even slowing down as I speak. 

I suspect Virgin may have an isolated issue as my scans are showing nothing up at my end. 

twopenny

The characters you describe in the emails sound familiar.

There's been a massive global spam attack using these characters on the TripAdvisor site. They've had spam well and truely dealt with for a few years now but this got through.

Does it look like this - ЛучШие КАЗИНО ОНЛайн 2024: 24+ Проверенных САйтОв - I've made some alterations so it's not transferable.

I tried an English translation but it won't.

Both Hotmail and Yahoo have a block sender using a right click. Does Virgin have this?

soolin

twopenny said:

The characters you describe in the emails sound familiar.

There's been a massive global spam attack using these characters on the TripAdvisor site. They've had spam well and truely dealt with for a few years now but this got through.

Does it look like this - ЛучШие КАЗИНО ОНЛайн 2024: 24+ Проверенных САйтОв - I've made some alterations so it's not transferable.

I tried an English translation but it won't.

Both Hotmail and Yahoo have a block sender using a right click. Does Virgin have this?

Some of mine look like that, they seem to come in batches. I'll get 40-50 that looks like that - but not identical, then I'll get 30 thanking me for signing up to a news letter or other site. Then I'll get 80 or so that I can't make heads nor tail of , I can't quite work out the language. Then I'll get a batch of 100 all connected to religion, so thanking me for showing interest in the Church of the latter Day saints, or the Muslim network or asking me for donations to a monastery in Columbia. 

These are all interspersed with hundreds of emails originating from Wordpress - either asking me to confirm I want to sign up to a news letter on something strange, or thanking me for asking for info on bear hunting or fishing.

I've been doing a lot of research and it has been suggested that my email was compromised in a recent data breach through a theatre going site I occasionally use. I followed some suggestions and started blocking emails, then I ran a sweep of my inbox and every single email still in my inbox on line was deleted, plus everything downloaded but not moved to a sub folder was also deleted. Which is a real pain.

If my email has been compromised then I am not sure what to do as I can't change it as I have issues with work not allowing me to do so.

I do have the right click 'block sender' option in my email folder online but apparently I have exceeded the number of addresses I can add, and cannot add any more. 

Some of the emails look dodgy, but they aren't the usual really spammy ones - sorry I can't explain what I mean but they aren't !!!!!! or those 'girls want to meet you' ones. The current batch seem to be coming from an Arizona address using variations of ''andar.com' ' thanking me for showing interest in the hiking trails and hunting knives.. I've had Canadian ones, Colombian ones, ones I cannot read due to language but it looks like my email address is being spammed everywhere.

Another suggestion someone made was have I really really upset someone recently who has used my email in one of those email harvest sites which has signed me up for every newsletter, every shop and more? I honestly can't think of anyone who would do that though. 

I'm down to about  80 an hour now, so maybe it is dying down.

soolin

They have moved onto Dubai now, this is the latest'

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twopenny

"I have exceeded the number of addresses I can add, and cannot add any more. " Blimey!

When I searched for you yesterday Virgin forums seem to be full of problems with the email like you have and those were recent.

Something is going on because this is happening to major sites too.

Used to be Bots, I wonder if there's any connection with AI...much to early to say.

I can only wish you luck and glad it's slowing down

onomatopoeia99

soolin said:

If my email has been compromised then I am not sure what to do as I can't change it as I have issues with work not allowing me to do so.

"work" need to get their act together in IT terms, because that restriction is not reasonable.  If (say) VM withdrew the domain from email, which they are entitled to do, and gave everyone 30 days notice to get a new email address, what would your work do?