SPAM/Fraud e-mail received

[CarolX]

another odd thing is happening

I don't know how many people use a hotmail account. I do for several reasons.

1. Reduction in spam. Most folks here at work use their regular (employer) e-mail account for everything and they get an average of 150 spams a day. I get MAYBE 10 per week on my "employer" addy, and none on my home account.

2. For some wierd reason (and this applies to alot of areas at my company), the owners get really freaky about anyone knowing about us (heave control issues here, I think). I can't even have sales reps come to see me...wierd, but oh well.

Anyhow...the reason for my ramble here...I am now getting these really wierd spams on my hotmail account. Oh, its for the usually stuff..like increase you reproductive organ size (HELLO...I don't have one of those attached to my body). The wierd thing about them is they aren't caught as spam, becuse they are adressed to myself and 3 or 4 other people with hotmail accounts.

Anyone else with a hotmail account seeing this?

Carol

 

[Claes Gefvenberg]

I am now getting these really wierd spams on my hotmail account. Oh, its for the usually stuff..like increase you reproductive organ size (HELLO... I don't have one of those attached to my body). The wierd thing about them is they aren't caught as spam, becuse they are adressed to myself and 3 or 4 other people with hotmail accounts.

Anyone else with a hotmail account seeing this?

Carol

Do I ever... Yes, I've been using a very widely publicised Hotmail address for many years in order to keep the spammers away from my more private addies... I have set the junk mail filter to the highest level, and that keeps things very quiet. A while back I removed it for 24 hours just to see what happened.... Oh, yes: I recieved 204 spam mails in those 24 hours.

So: Use any and all filters available...

/Claes

 

[CarolX]

i do

Hi Claes,

These are e-mails that are getting through the filters. I, too, have my filters set pretty high. It is being done by only adressing to 3 to 4 people at a time.

204 spams in 24 hours...LOL, that's gotta hurt!

Carol

 

[energy]

Unbelievable

It's surprising to me because something like this relies on bulk e-mail. For someone to register and start e-mailing people 1 by 1... I wouldn't have guessed it would even make sense.

Did anyone see the spelling on the original message? That alone, would scare me.

 

[CarolX]

it did

Looked like it was written by my daughter when she was in second grade.


CarolX

 

[tomvehoski]

One thing I have noticed is if you pick a common name or word for your e-mail you will get more spam than random characters or an unusual name. I manage a website for a friend's restaurant. Within 24 hours of registering the domain and setting up a webmaster@ account, I was getting junkmail - even before a website was up. The hosting company has my "real" e-mail and only sends the occasional update message, so I don't think they were selling addresses. My primary personal account is tvehoski@, and I never get spam. I have registered tom2, tom999, etc. through the same service provider, never posted the account anywhere, and still get spam. I think the bots must try tom1, tom2, tom3, ...

I must have received 30 in the last week with the subject "Service interruption in 24 hours" or something similar to try to get you to read it. Very annoying.

 

[db]

I own 5 different domains that I get email from. I get about 500 emails a day! There may be one or two that are real emails. You can set your message rules to look for things and automatically send them to your deleted folder. I use certain words, like viagra, certain male or female body parts, won, free, and so on. Now I only have to look at about 250. Most are deleted without reading.

The interesting thing is that once, when I renewed my ASQ account, they mis-typed my email. Now, I get a lot of email (average about 5 a day) with the mis-type name (my email will accept any word before the @). Kinda makes me wonder.

 

[CarolX]

Don't!!!!

I must have received 30 in the last week with the subject "Service interruption in 24 hours" or something similar to try to get you to read it. Very annoying.

Tom,

My ISP posted a message on their homepage about this. It is actually a non-destructive virus. One of those that just e-mails from your addy book, but a virus none the less.

Carol

 

[tomvehoski]

I only looked at one which appeard harmless, but did get a dialog box (from outlook) last night asking if I really wanted to cancel a fax (which I never tried to send, phone line not even connected to the PC). A bit strange, but I did not find any unusual behavior. Perhaps it is time to check for virus signature updates and make sure zonealarm is configured properly.

 

[CarolX]

Tom,

Here's a discription of the virus from my anitvirus protector.

(broken link removed)

Lots of luck!

Carol