Is it just me?
Some days, you just wake up and after a quick inbox check, you know it will be a spam day! Well that’s it’s like for me.
Hotmail spam is the worst. The junk mail filter is supposedly advanced and can sort out spam from real email. Not so for me. My hosting company, Whym Web Hosting, seems to have woken up on the wrong side of the spam filter, while annoying ‘confirmation’ emails bypass it on a daily basis. Is it just me, or do other people get these “Please confirm your flight to Hawaii” or emails from the “Confirmation Dept.”
Then come the brand names - spammer think they can win their way into gullible people’s trust by sending emails that look like they are from Marks and Spencer, IKEA, Asda and Apple with subjects like “Playstation 3 offer confirmation”, “Sainsbury’s Grocery Participation Confirmation” and “Get a new wardrobe for Fall at Marks and Spencers”.
Can’t these spammers ever give up? Probably not. If you have a look at the email addresses, these emails are blatantly not official. Furthermore, if you actual look at the email, then you will notice the entire email is a web link and I’m even given a postal address to “send a postcard to” if I wish to unsubscribe! (of course I didn’t subscribe in the first place, at least not knowingly). Why on earth would I want to send a postcard to a spammer though?!
Dear Spammer,
I am writing to inform you that I wish to unsubscribe from an email list that I never signed up to in the first place.
My email address is ************@hotmail.co.uk and I would appreciate that you discontinued your spam siege on this email address and leave me in peace.
I would be very thankful if you would at the very least consider my proposal and I am anxiously waiting for you not to reply to me.
Many thanks,
Daniel Price
I mean what is this? Also, what is the address that the “postcard” (remember, not a letter) should be sent to? Somewhere by the sea?
According to this particular spammy email (one about Marks and Spencers):
Benefits Wizard, 31 Thelma Dr No. 446, Casper, WY 82609
I was half expecting this to be somewhere in the Caribbean!
***&()__&%£&()_*_>”|:”**:>|!!!?
Sadly during the writing of this blog post, Daniel clicked on a link inside a spammy email and was absorbed by a huge tin of spam before being eaten on toast by a giant, and consequently was unable to finish the blog post.
September 7th, 2007 at 10:32 am
I can’t recommend gmail highly enough. They have a spam filter that actually works! In the three years I’ve had an email with them, there have been maybe 5 spam emails delivered to my inbox, and 1 false positive get lost. Right now my spam folder is sitting pretty on about 400 messages I should clear out. It does a friggin’ good job.
I used to write the spammers back myself - tell them if I ever catch them I’ll break their legs with the keyboard I wore out the delete key on from their crud emails. I think that just tells them someone is checking this address, and to send more. Plus, with my luck, some spammer would eventually have me arrested for making threats.
Did you check the address on Google Maps? Not that I’d know from living in Cali, but I never even heard of Casper Wyoming.
September 7th, 2007 at 10:44 am
Lol at your threat to the spammers. I receive so much of this junk these days, that I’d get very tired in returning emails to them.
Also looks like it’s a real place: http://www.casperwyoming.info/
September 9th, 2007 at 5:49 pm
Hey,
Yea you do realise its 99.9999999999999999999% of the time completely pointless to reply because they are “blackhole” or pipe addresses.
Meaning they send.. and thats about it if you send a emial back its just discarded instantly by the server(s)
Anyways, i decided to get a blog too XD and sorry ive nicked your template :p best one i could find i gonna have to look tommorrow
Cya Dan
September 27th, 2007 at 7:58 am
Why don’t you just turn on Spam Assassin in your control panel, then enable the spam box. All will be fixed!
September 27th, 2007 at 8:05 am
Sadly Hotmail, which is the email inbox that I get most of my spam in, doesn’t have Spam Assassin or anything.
The reference to my hosting company was because my hosting IP address has been blacklisted by Hotmail so me, as a legitimate sender, can’t get to the Hotmail inbox, but lots of junk from spammers can!
October 3rd, 2007 at 2:20 pm
Hi Dan.
Just found your blog through google. Whilst searching for… You guessed it. SPAM and “31 Thelma dr” I have had a hotmail account for nigh on 5 years. One of the old hotmail.com addresses. I have VERY carefully looked after it when on the net. And have, up until an hour ago, never received any spam on it!
So why now?
Have I suddenly thrown caution to the wind after 5 years of vigilance? Not flaming likely! The only explanation I can find is facebook. A mate convinced me to join months ago. I soon saw it was crap and didn’t use it. However recently I have had a few friend requests from people (If you don’t know what your doing when you join, facebook mailshots your msn’s contacts, saying so and so says “be my friend”) I have ignored them all.
So in conclsion. The only way Mr or Mrs “Thelma drive” has obtained my email address is from a hacked facebook account? Really seems like the only explanation to me. I would love to track this person/company down and find out how exactly they obtain these emails lists. Off a cyber criminal, on a seedy virtual streetcorner perhaps?
Whats in it for the spammer? Do they get paid by the click from companies they are promoting? Or if someone via his spam link buys something? If so these companies are equally culpable too!
Rant over. I feel slightly better, now where is that junk button on hotmail…..I’ve never had to use it before
October 3rd, 2007 at 3:50 pm
ive just had the questionable joy of recieving some emails from benefits wizard myself.
oddly they appeared in outlook express, but not on the hotmail mail page.
so how on earth did they get in outlook when they were never in my actual email account?
ive just deleted a trojan (ciadoor something)could that have anything to do with it?
(im also a facebook member)
October 4th, 2007 at 3:55 am
Facebook might be the culprit, but spyware is quite possibly the reason for this. Spyware, if it has managed to get its way onto your computer, watches your every move and could potentially steal your credit card info as well.
It’s better to be safe than sorry so I’d advised both of you to install anti-spyware products as well as keyscrambler (written about this in another article on main page).
A trojan wouldn’t cause this itself, but it could allow access to your computer and allow spyware to be installed. For this reason, I recommend installing a firewall as well such as Comodo firewall.
Keep everything up to date and you’ll have reasonable protection against these sorts of things in the future.
Dan
October 4th, 2007 at 11:27 am
ive got spybot s+d ad-aware spywareblaster a-squared free avg anti virus and zonealarm.. i thought that was enough lol
keyscrambler?.. i hadnt heard of that
installed.. thanks
October 4th, 2007 at 3:52 pm
I’ve been getting a lot of these and if you go to the website it has an unsubscribe page only (all domains have been added to block sender anyway)
The domains have been regisitered via http://www.enom.com suggest going there and complaining to them.
Stephen
PS think the facebook application could be the source as they get access to your e-mail address to send you notifications