Who's Teaching This Separate Email for Spammers Tactic?

Anyone who knows you at all from your discussions here to dealing with you as a member of your lists or as customers knows this is absurd. It would upset me too, but I think you should accept it as one of the bad parts of running business where communication via email is a necessity. Your reputation is flawless. But with success comes added exposure, and every once in a blue moon you're gonna get this kind of thing. Please don't let it change anything you do.

John

Oh I am thick skinned about the fat comment and bad writing (LOL)...I'm just genuinely curious how you get spam if you only sign up with one person. That would make me wonder too!

And thanks John

Spammers (as well as everyone else) can send emails to any other email address, whether it exists or not.

Examples...

firstname.lastname@domain.com, lastname_firstname@domain.com, firstname1@domain.com... and so on...

Unless that guy used a very unique and very random email address, anyone could email him just by guessing his address. Which is what spammers do...

There have been a few posts here in the forum lately about Aweber being compromised and email addresses being leaked.

Not sure that is 100% true, but could be a source. Also hosting companies are also part of the equation of possible leaks.

But I would guess in reality it is as mentioned above, Spammers send a billion variations to all domains and eventually get it right (EX: name@domain.com, name77@domain.com, info@domain.com...etc)

Greg mentioned Aweber being compromised. Here's a thread you might want to check out:

http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...mpromised.html

Cheers,
Becky

If you use Aweber it could have been this: How We've Addressed The Recent Data Compromise

Several of my email addresses were affected, however I haven't received any spam to those addresses in the last few days.

Back in the early days you could put everyone@aol, @geocities, @hotmail...

would send out to everyone that had one of those accounts.

When that got closed they went to "auto-strippers" or "scrapers" programs that would search the web for any email addresses.

As John said, now there are auto-mailers that go through those sequences of combination's.

Seems there are always going to be people that find a way to do this. Even if it means hacking into Aweber.

(Disclaimer: I'm not stating that Aweber was in fact hacked. Just read the same thread here that everyone else did.)

Matt

p.s. I agree with John (Zeuss) anyone that knows you knows you would not have anything to do with anything unethical, or even borderline.

Hi Tiffany

I agree with the others, the spammers obtained your clients e-mail address using one of many techniques described above. It's obvious to anyone who has been on this forum and who knows your reputation that you are an ethical and professional marketer who would never violate your customers confidence by selling e-mail addresses.

I suggest that you reply to these accusations with a standard e-mail message that explains how spammers can obtain e-mail addresses. A good starting point for composing one is this article.

How do spammers harvest email addresses ?

Wishing you the best in the holiday season.

Bill

Hey Bill,

The email message with an explanation is a great idea.

Matt

I'll start up new yahoo accounts for different purposes and before I ever type the new email address ANYWHERE I'll have spam sometimes. It just happens. They could also have a virus on their computer that is causing them to get spam. There's a million ways they could be getting spam.

Now, I will say that I did start a new email account on one of my domains for all the lists of fellow warriors that I get on and that email address is the worst spammed account I have. I know 99% of the warrior's list that I get on are clean, but all it really takes is one bad apple to get your inbox flooded.

I would have a hard time believing you'd ever spam anyone. If it was me I'd reply to them and let them know the situation and that you're looking into it and you'd be more than happy to completely scrub them from your database if that would make them happy.

Sorry you have to deal with this! It stinks when we work so hard to keep a clean reputation (especially as we navigate our way through an industry known for more than its fair show of mud and muck) and despite our best efforts we still come out looking like we have a dirty nose. I would definitely recommend to these people that they run an anti-virus program just to be sure there's not some type of malware on their computer. If they are using a free email program then they just need to get over it, there are only so many combinations of characters to put before @yahoo or @hotmail and even though it is a lot, it's not unthinkable that there are spammers out there with a computer running through these combinations.

If banks and top military arms of the government that spend millions on security can be hacked and what makes anyone think their email address cannot be stolen from any source.
You are right you do not need people like that on your list.

Hello Tiff

I may be completely wrong about this of course, but here's my thinking. I get emails from people asking me all kinds of ridiculous things. I always respond politely and I have a way of doing so (responding) that does not use my primary email address.

Anyway, some of the queries got me thinking: exactly why is this person sending me this mail? Of course, just in case it is genuine, they get a reply, as I said answering their question directly. But I think that many of these mails are simply checking whether or not the reply address is read by a human. Once you confirm that it is, by responding, they can continue to spam your address knowing the mail will reach you.

As I said, I may be completely wrong about this, but that's what I think.

Cheers,

Will