# Bizarre Emails in Your Mailbox
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bizarre-emails-in-your-mailbox/262226
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [August 30, 2004, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bizarre-emails-in-your-mailbox/262226 "2004-08-30T13:48:59Z")
**Posts on this page:** 4
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)
#### Post date: [August 30, 2004, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bizarre-emails-in-your-mailbox/262226/1 "2004-08-30T13:48:59Z")
For the past month I have been receiving bizaree emails. These usually have a nonsense title…stuff like Poobear Redux…Having A Day, etc. If you open them, they are usually solicitations to buy drugs like “Levitra”, or pirated software (i.e. ADOBE Pagemaker for $30.00).
Obviously, these are generated by a program…but how do they pick up your address?
Oh, and there is now a “Zimbabwean Scam”…I received an email from a displaced white farmer…if I send her my bak account number, I will share in the $2 million she has stashed ina Swiss bank account! :wally
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### Author:  [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)
#### Post date: [August 30, 2004, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bizarre-emails-in-your-mailbox/262226/2 "2004-08-30T16:08:32Z")
There are computer programs that scan pretty much everything on the internet looking for e-mail addresses. They also seem to go through the user lists of free e-mail services like yahoo and msn. Quite a few of the email addresses these programs generate are bogus or no longer in use, so what a lot of them seem to do is send all kinds of random junk to your e-mail just to see if you open any of them. Once you open one, they know you have a valid e-mail address, and then the spam floodgates open. Also, once they know an address is good, it will be placed on a list of known good addresses, which gets sold to other spammers. In fact, some companies do nothing except gather up valid e-mail addresses to sell to spammers.
One thing you can do is set up a “spam catcher” account on any free e-mail service like yahoo or msn. Any time you need to sign up for something online, or in any way give out your e-mail address to someone who isn’t a friend, use this account. This way all of your spam goes to this junk account, and you’re regular e-mail is reserved only for the good stuff.
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### Author:  [@VenusProbe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VenusProbe)
#### Post date: [August 30, 2004, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bizarre-emails-in-your-mailbox/262226/3 "2004-08-30T16:55:00Z")
> [@engineer\_comp\_geek](#):
>
> One thing you can do is set up a “spam catcher” account on any free e-mail service like yahoo or msn. Any time you need to sign up for something online, or in any way give out your e-mail address to someone who isn’t a friend, use this account. This way all of your spam goes to this junk account, and you’re regular e-mail is reserved only for the good stuff.
Unless your stupid little brother, glurg forwarding coaches wife or your wifes barely net literate friend uses the **share this with your friends** link on a web page.
:rolleyes: :smack:
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### Author:  [@Sean\_Factotum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sean_Factotum)
#### Post date: [August 30, 2004, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bizarre-emails-in-your-mailbox/262226/4 "2004-08-30T17:51:32Z")
Right after I became a Doper, I started getting little hi! messages from people with real names at the same account I have listed here in my profile. It was for computer stuff (maybe software - I didn’t look too hard.) My spam-catcher trapped all of them, so I didn’t worry about it. This only happened for about a month.