# Friend's Names- New Spam Technique?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/friends-names-new-spam-technique/88380>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [October 19, 2001, 6:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/friends-names-new-spam-technique/88380 "2001-10-19T06:18:56Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\
**Post date:** [October 19, 2001, 6:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/friends-names-new-spam-technique/88380/1 "2001-10-19T06:18:56Z")

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My SO and I have both noticed that we are getting spam adressed from people with look-alike names as our friends. For example, if I had a friend named “Stephanie Reed”, I might get a spam letter from “Stephanie Reeder”. We are both using different programs to read our email (I use a web-based account, he uses Eudora) and our accounts are through different places (mine is off the web, his is from school).

Is this a new technique, or have we just noticed it? Is it very widespread? Where are they gettting these names from?