Author Topic: How are these spammers getting my secret email addresses?  (Read 2280 times)

Offline rbcp

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How are these spammers getting my secret email addresses?
« on: September 24, 2008, 10:37:52 PM »
Whenever a business or website asks for my email address, I give them a custom email address.  For example  Blockbuster Video has me as blockbuster at notla.com and MySpace has me as myspace at notla.com.  This is so if I start getting spam, I know who it's coming from and I can easily block it forever, without getting rid of my email address. 

Yesterday I got a spam email at library at notla.com, which is the email I gave to the public library when I signed up for a card.  Today I got a spam email sent to blockbuster at notla.com.  Both of them were casino emails.  I don't think either of those places would sell my email address, especially the library.  But who knows.  Does anyone have any idea how else they might be getting my secret emails addresses?

The only other thing I can think of is maybe Godaddy is selling them to people.  I don't have to create these mailboxes individually.  Anything at notla.com gets sent to my main account.  But maybe Godaddy can see the email traffic coming in.  The problem with that idea is that I'm pretty sure Blockbuster Video has never emailed me before.  So the first I've ever seen that email address even used is when I got this spam.  Any ideas?

Offline mr_doc

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Re: How are these spammers getting my secret email addresses?
« Reply #1 on: September 24, 2008, 11:00:18 PM »
It's not godaddy. If they were selling your email address to spammers telling them you had a catchall account the emails would be addressed to dghgdhsgdh at notla.com

maybe your email address for the library ended up on some publicly available list. Maybe on the library website there is a list of people who owe fines or have outstanding books or something.

Blockbuster probably sold it. Or gave it to one of their 'affiliates'.

There have been a lot of class action suits against blockbuster about their late fee policies. When they get sued like that they are forced to turn over customer contact info to the lawyers filing the suit so they can contact them to ask in they want to participate in the suit. Maybe they sold your email address.

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Offline Zazen

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Re: How are these spammers getting my secret email addresses?
« Reply #2 on: September 25, 2008, 11:41:31 AM »
The reason is that you described your cool technique using those exact addresses and they got picked up by a bot:

http://www.phonelosers.org/forums/index.php?topic=2868.0

Offline rbcp

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Re: How are these spammers getting my secret email addresses?
« Reply #3 on: September 25, 2008, 01:56:58 PM »
The reason is that you described your cool technique using those exact addresses and they got picked up by a bot:

http://www.phonelosers.org/forums/index.php?topic=2868.0

Hah.  Wow, I'm dumb.  I actually got spam at something at notla.com too.  Guess I need to edit the @ signs from that post now.

Offline ApprenticePhreak

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Re: How are these spammers getting my secret email addresses?
« Reply #4 on: September 25, 2008, 04:33:21 PM »
All three of my emails at gmail are currently being flooded with companies that make replica Rolex watches. It wouldn't be so weird if one of the emails weren't being flooded. I know bots harvest and everything, but it's still annoying.

Offline Magus

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Re: How are these spammers getting my secret email addresses?
« Reply #5 on: September 27, 2008, 05:15:03 PM »