Spam

Johnny_L.A · January 21, 2007, 5:16pm

I have an email address I only use ‘professionally’. That is, it’s for applying for jobs and such. The only other thing I’ve used it for has been to sign up for a PhotoBucket account, and to report phishing emails to PayPal, eBay and a couple of banks.

I get my share of bluk emails from ‘potential employers’. I assume they crawl the employment websites to get my address. But I’ve received two ‘Nigerian Scam’ type emails. How did they get my address? (For that matter, how did the phishers get it?) Are they generating lists of every possible address and just throwing them out? Or do the ‘potential employers’ (to whom I never reply) sell lists to them? (The ‘potential employer’ emails came for a long time before the NS ones.) Or is it some other way?

Alive_At_Both_Ends · January 21, 2007, 5:44pm

And there’s your answer. Any email address available on a website will be harvested by spammers.

KlondikeGeoff · January 21, 2007, 5:53pm

My condolences!

I got an email account when signed up with a cable company for broadband. I have never, ever sent an email or used that addres for anything. Yet daily I get a half dozen or so assorted spam messages.

Report them each time as spam, but the number never diminishes. Price we pay for being online, I’m afraid.

Sage_Rat · January 21, 2007, 5:55pm

Yes. Yes. Yes. No.

NurseCarmen · January 21, 2007, 9:39pm

I recommend to all my end users that they set up disposable accounts via gmail, yahoo, hotmail, etc. Once they get too full of crap, you drop them.

Johnny_L.A · January 21, 2007, 10:04pm

Good idea. My new professional email for job searches will be SpankyMonkey at something-or-other.

Sapo · January 22, 2007, 1:05am

Open a gmail or hotmail account and never, ever use it or give it to anyone. You will soon start receiving junk mail.

I believe some people do just that to spot spammers (they call it a honeytrap, IIRC)

Sage_Rat · January 22, 2007, 2:48am

If you have an account name that is at least three words, you don’t seem to get spam.

littlemonkeyfeets@ladeeda

Rick · January 22, 2007, 4:47am

I started a disposable account at Gmail a couple of months back. I have only sent emails to a couple of individuals from it. NO e mails to companies.
I have yet to get a single spam e mail in that account.
Either the Gmail filters are catching all of them or I picked a combo of words that the bots haven’t hit yet. (Rick.otherword@gmail.com) (great now every doper that reads this is going to try and come up with my other e mail )

Other than that I got nothin.