# "Re: You're using my old e-mail address." Huh? What's this new devilry?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/re-youre-using-my-old-e-mail-address-huh-whats-this-new-devilry/106066>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [April 28, 2002, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/re-youre-using-my-old-e-mail-address-huh-whats-this-new-devilry/106066 "2002-04-28T05:57:56Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Cisco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ccd318/32.png) [@Cisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cisco)\
**Post date:** [April 28, 2002, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/re-youre-using-my-old-e-mail-address-huh-whats-this-new-devilry/106066/1 "2002-04-28T05:57:56Z")

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I got home from work tonight and had 75 new emails in my box (this is in less than 10 hours) with the subject line “Re: You’re using my old e-mail address.” Most of them were from different people/domains but there were a few repeats. I only opened one and it said something like “I’m not using your old email address, stop emailing me.” I checked my outgoing mail just to make sure someone hadn’t been sending mail from my account and I didn’t see anything unusual. What kind of scam could this possibly be?

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**Author:** ![Anamorphic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/anamorphic/32/3057_2.png) [@Anamorphic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anamorphic)\
**Post date:** [April 28, 2002, 6:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/re-youre-using-my-old-e-mail-address-huh-whats-this-new-devilry/106066/2 "2002-04-28T06:09:44Z")

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I don’t think anyone’s quite sure, but it seems to have something to do with the SDMB. Someone may have been harvesting email addresses from here. A lot of dopers got the same thing. See [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=111995](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=111995)

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**Author:** ![Anamorphic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/anamorphic/32/3057_2.png) [@Anamorphic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anamorphic)\
**Post date:** [April 28, 2002, 6:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/re-youre-using-my-old-e-mail-address-huh-whats-this-new-devilry/106066/3 "2002-04-28T06:11:37Z")

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Er… not to imply that the SDMB has anything to do with the offending emails, just that many people on the board seem to have gotten them. 🙂

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**Author:** ![bibliophage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bibliophage/32/7615_2.png) [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)\
**Post date:** [April 28, 2002, 11:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/re-youre-using-my-old-e-mail-address-huh-whats-this-new-devilry/106066/4 "2002-04-28T11:23:13Z")

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I’ll close this thread since the problem is already being discussed in other threads.