# about dates on spam

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-dates-on-spam/213762>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [November 17, 2003, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-dates-on-spam/213762 "2003-11-17T20:34:11Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![TV\_time](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f17d59/32.png) [@TV\_time](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TV_time)\
**Post date:** [November 17, 2003, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-dates-on-spam/213762/1 "2003-11-17T20:34:11Z")

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No I’m not talking about putting the fruit of palms on the canned meat – although now that I think of it, it sounds interesting.

In fact, I am getting an increasing number of spam mailings with incorrect dates on them. I wonder why?

Do the spammers know that I have my computer mail listed by date so they put it in the wrong date just to irritate me even more as I dig through my old undeleted message to find the piece of spam? Or was it really sent two years (six months, a year and two months or whatever) ago and just took this long to arrive? Is my computer purposely hiding it on its own because it desires to check out the “Grandma’s Gone Wild spam?”

Enlighten me.

TV

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**Author:** ![Declan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecae2f/32.png) [@Declan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Declan)\
**Post date:** [November 17, 2003, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-dates-on-spam/213762/2 "2003-11-17T23:24:21Z")

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They may be trying to get around spam assasin and the rest of the spam filters. So far I have not noticed a wrong date on the message cause anything that gets through , gets filtered on my email software from the moment i notice it.

but its action/reaction thing that they will do , and someone will counter , spam is spam , no matter the date.

Declan

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**Author:** ![Bumbazine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bumbazine/32/362_2.png) [@Bumbazine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bumbazine)\
**Post date:** [November 18, 2003, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-dates-on-spam/213762/3 "2003-11-18T00:38:51Z")

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I kept getting e-mails from my Mother that had last year’s date on them and it turned out that the system date on her PC was off.  
The spammer may have the wrong date in his/her/its machine.

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**Author:** ![Coffeeguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/958977/32.png) [@Coffeeguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Coffeeguy)\
**Post date:** [November 18, 2003, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-dates-on-spam/213762/4 "2003-11-18T01:21:52Z")

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Warning: Message delivered in future

_Best. Error. Ever._