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Kristian

18 years ago

I hate mail spam. Good tip.

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jasonl70

18 years ago

Originally Posted by JazzOscar

Hopefully most of us know not to unsubscribe from the mailing lists of spammers. It only tells the spammer that he has found the email address of a real person reading emails.

And hence why we all have to deal with legit opt-ins hitting their 'spam' buttons in their email clients instead of simply unsubscribing

I've always wondered - why would a spammer do this? Simply tracking opens would be a ton more usefull then this. I think this is purely an urban legend..

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JohnMcCabe

18 years ago

Originally Posted by jasonl70

And hence why we all have to deal with legit opt-ins hitting their 'spam' buttons in their email clients instead of simply unsubscribing

I've always wondered - why would a spammer do this? Simply tracking opens would be a ton more usefull then this. I think this is purely an urban legend..

They do it because a confirmed "live" email address is worth about ten times what an unconfirmed one will bring when they sell the list on.

Like some parts of the magazine world, the money truly is in the list - as in list rentals, sales of '99 million leads for $10' discs and CPM email deals done for other spammers.

Even in the legitimate list rental business, compiled lists are worth less than inquiry lists, which in turn are worth less than buyer lists, which are less than the Holy Grail- multiple-time buyer lists.

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jasonl70

18 years ago

Originally Posted by JohnMcCabe

They do it because a confirmed "live" email address is worth about ten times what an unconfirmed one will bring when they sell the list on.

Like some parts of the magazine world, the money truly is in the list - as in list rentals, sales of '99 million leads for $10' discs and CPM email deals done for other spammers.

Even in the legitimate list rental business, compiled lists are worth less than inquiry lists, which in turn are worth less than buyer lists, which are less than the Holy Grail- multiple-time buyer lists.

But this is probably the worse way to do this.. tracking the opens would give you much better numbers, as a lot more people are opening vs trying to unsub.

If I were a spammer trying to prune a list (and I question whether they would do this beyond just clearing out bounces), I would much rather track the individual opens with uniquely tagged tracking images, rather then the unsubs.

Let's pretend I am selling a list to a spammer for $1,000. I start off with a list of 100k email addy's.

Which would you (the spammer) prefer:

1) all 100k
2) same 100k, but with bounces removed.
3) only the emails from that 100k with confirmed opens.
4) only the emails from that 100k that tried to unsub.
5) list #2, with the unsubs REMOVED.
6) list #3, with the unsubs REMOVED.

I personaly do not think list #4 would be the best.

Liek I said - I think it's a myth, as it just doesn't seem to stand up to logic.

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JohnMcCabe

18 years ago

Originally Posted by jasonl70

But this is probably the worse way to do this.. tracking the opens would give you much better numbers, as a lot more people are opening vs trying to unsub.

If I were a spammer trying to prune a list (and I question whether they would do this beyond just clearing out bounces), I would much rather track the individual opens with uniquely tagged tracking images, rather then the unsubs.

Let's pretend I am selling a list to a spammer for $1,000. I start off with a list of 100k email addy's.

Which would you (the spammer) prefer:

1) all 100k
2) same 100k, but with bounces removed.
3) only the emails from that 100k with confirmed opens.
4) only the emails from that 100k that tried to unsub.
5) list #2, with the unsubs REMOVED.
6) list #3, with the unsubs REMOVED.

I personaly do not think list #4 would be the best.

Liek I said - I think it's a myth, as it just doesn't seem to stand up to logic.

Put that way, if I were a serious spammer, I would want to run #3 and #4 together and remove the dupes.

Many people run their email clients with image loading turned off. They may see the email, but no tracking image would be loaded, so no open would be confirmed.

It's not ideal, no, but more of a 'belt and suspenders' thing.

And if I were really nasty, that unsub link would trigger a trojan or keystroke logger or both for any poor soul naive enough to believe they don't need protection.

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JazzOscar

18 years ago

Originally Posted by jasonl70

But this is probably the worse way to do this.. tracking the opens would give you much better numbers, as a lot more people are opening vs trying to unsub.

If I were a spammer trying to prune a list (and I question whether they would do this beyond just clearing out bounces), I would much rather track the individual opens with uniquely tagged tracking images, rather then the unsubs.

..........

The messages I received went directly into my spam folder. They were neither previewed nor opened and was deleted by selecting all messages with Ctrl-A and then pressing the Delete button.

So, if I had not answered No to the requested confirmation, the spammer would actually have gotten a confirmation that I had received an email that I had neither opened nor previewed.

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Joni

18 years ago

I actually didn't know that , maybe cause I don't get much spam... great tip. Thanks.

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Chris Lockwood

18 years ago

Originally Posted by JazzOscar

Amongst those emails two of the senders had used the possibility to ask for a notification when the mail was deleted. This is a smart one that I don't think I've seen before. Maybe once.

How do they do that?

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JazzOscar

18 years ago

Originally Posted by Chris Lockwood

How do they do that?

I'm not quite sure how they can ask for a confirmation on deletion, but confirmation on delivery and confirmation on reading both can be asked for when you write an email in Outlook. Just select the "Options" menu in the message window and you'll find choices or checkboxes for those functions.

Maybe the confirmation on deletion question is just Outlooks way of asking for a confirmation on reading when you delete a message with a confirmation question attached to it without reading it first.

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Chris Lockwood

18 years ago

Originally Posted by JazzOscar

I'm not quite sure how they can ask for a confirmation on deletion, but confirmation on delivery and confirmation on reading both can be asked for when you write an email in Outlook. Just select the "Options" menu in the message window and you'll find choices or checkboxes for those functions.

I'm aware of those, but never heard of one for deletion.

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JazzOscar 18 years ago

Originally Posted by Chris Lockwood

I'm aware of those, but never heard of one for deletion.

I tested out my theory from an earlier post by sending an email from one to another of my own accounts. I asked for a confirmation on reading.

When the email got back to me, I first deleted it from my Inbox, then went to my Deleted Items folder and deleted it from there. As I suspected, even though I had asked for a confirmation on reading, Outlook now asked me for a confirmation on deletion.

To see how this turned out on the original sender side, I answered Yes to the confirmation on deletion question.

The account I used to send the test message with the confirmation question received an email with the following content;

In the subject line:
Not read: Test message

In the body:
Your message

To: xxxx@xxxxxxxx.xx
Subject: Test message
Sent: 22.09.2008 11:24

was deleted on 22.09.2008 11:26.

The above is translated from the Norwegian version of Outlook, so it may not look exactly like this in the english version.
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- JazzOscar 18 years ago
  
  Just a little update;
  
  Up until now, when met with the confirm on deletion message when deleting a group of spam messages, I've just clicked the No to all button.
  
  I got the idea that I would try to see how many messages had such a confirmation request attached to them, so I started to click No to the confirmation for one message at a time.
  
  What I found was that these confirmation requests, which I hardly saw up until a couple of days ago, now seems to be attached to about
  
  15%
  
  of all the spam messages.
  
  Thanks
  
  1 reply
  
  Signature
  
  Oscar Toft
  
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  JazzOscar 18 years ago
  
  Just another little update;
  
  During the week that has passed since my last update, the rate of spam mails that has asked for a confirmation has been between 5% and 15%.
  
  Then suddenly, I think it must have started yesterday, there are no more confirmation requests.
  
  Is this what everyone else is experiencing too?
  
  Thanks
  
  Signature
  
  Oscar Toft
  
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Scott Burton

18 years ago

Originally Posted by JazzOscar

I'm not quite sure how they can ask for a confirmation on deletion, but confirmation on delivery and confirmation on reading both can be asked for when you write an email in Outlook. Just select the "Options" menu in the message window and you'll find choices or checkboxes for those functions.

Maybe the confirmation on deletion question is just Outlooks way of asking for a confirmation on reading when you delete a message with a confirmation question attached to it without reading it first.

It is really the basic return receipt request functionality of Outlook and some other mail clients.

If the person reading the message or deleting it is using a mail client which recognizes and processes this request (which is embedded in information that accompanies the email), then it will either generate the receipt, or prompt the user as to whether to process the receipt.

This option should ALWAYS be set to either never send return receipts, or to PROMPT. If your client is set to always process the return receipts/read receipts, then you will be sending a receipt to the sender without you even knowing.

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pmore

18 years ago

Nice tip - I didn't know that. I need all the help I can avoiding more SPAM.

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tj

18 years ago

Originally Posted by JazzOscar

Hopefully most of us know not to unsubscribe from the mailing lists of spammers. It only tells the spammer that he has found the email address of a real person reading emails.

The last 24 hours I've had close to 300 emails put into my spam folder. That is normal.

Amongst those emails two of the senders had used the possibility to ask for a notification when the mail was deleted. This is a smart one that I don't think I've seen before. Maybe once.

Answering yes to the notification question is as bad as trying to unsubscribe from the spammers list. You confirm your existence.

So, look out for this trick. It may be a new trend.

Spammers know already from your existence if the mail does not bounce back - I use Mailwasher to get rid of the Spam.

Timo

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GrantFreeman

18 years ago

This is good information about how to handle spam. For years, I tried all kinds of tricks to bounce back emails, how to read the headers to figure out how to report the spammers, but it turned out, for the most part, to be a big waste of time.

I still don't understand email headers, still get spam, but I found that I get much less if I leave it unread, and delete it.

There are a few that I really have to think about because the subject line is very questionable. At that point, I open it in total defiance..like being at a roulette table and betting it all on red.

One time, some unread spam was in my spam folder, and I accidently marked all mail in that folder as read. The next day, I get more spam than I did the whole damn week

Great post, Oscar.

Grant

PS. Has anyone told you, you kind of look like Joe Satriani?

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JazzOscar 18 years ago

Originally Posted by GrantFreeman

-----

Great post, Oscar.

Grant

PS. Has anyone told you, you kind of look like Joe Satriani?

Thank you, Grant!

And no, nobody has told me that I look like Joe Satriani.
Looked him up on Wikipedia and YouTube, and I must say that I have to agree. But, if we should be compared in whole figure, I think I would have to not only buy and read, but also take action on one of those weight loss products to be found out there.
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- macki 18 years ago
  
  I think the same thing goes for unwanted faxes. Some of them say "Call xxx-xxx-xxxx if you feel you've received this fax in error"
  Call the number and they know they've reached someone.
  
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Deepak Raj

18 years ago

Sending an email does not cost anything. If a spammer sends 100k mails, he does not care whether there is 100, 1000, or 10k for real.

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coachtraffic 18 years ago

Never really thought of it that way, but you are right. I have done this and it then gets to the point the e-mail address is nearly worthless and you have to create another one.
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rocker123

18 years ago

yeah spams really makes me sick.

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Fendi Salim

18 years ago

If there exists an update email notification and an unsubscribe notification, i'd usually update my email on the list to their own email.

Never got another email again ever...

Beats unsubscribing.

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Terry Crim

18 years ago

Yeah, I also do not like when they forge my email in the reply address of their spam. I get lots of people pissed thinking it is me who is sending out the spam but it is not.

It is a form of attack, usually from china and other parts of asia and a few other places. So if you get a lot of unsubscribe or bounces on spam or phishing emails check the headers and see if the original emails were from your hosting account OR just a spoofing of your email address.

- Terry

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ThomM 18 years ago

I've been getting a lot lately asking my to confirm that I received the email.
Every one from a different email addy, yet every one for Viagra.
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lennelljones

18 years ago

I have received several emails like that over the past few days. It is getting a bit annoying when trying to delete the spam, but I never confirm receipt.

LJ

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Dixiebelle 18 years ago

Never, never unsubscribe from spam email. Your email address will go through an autoresponder to a list of addresses of people who actually opened the email, and took the time to unsubscribe rather than hitting the spam button.

What really ticks me off is subscribing to someone's blog or newsletter, and suddenly getting a lot of spam email - almost instantly. If you go to whois.net and check out some of those domains, you will, most of the time, find that they are owned by the same person or company whose blog or newsletter you just subscribed to.

If I subscribe to your blog or newsletter, it doesn't mean that I also want to see all of your spammy niche offers too.

So in retrospect, just be careful who you give your email address to.

Dixie
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seasoned

18 years ago

It's an OLD trend! THAT is one reason so many will IGNORE such things. Frankly, spam is spam, and there is NO SUCH THING as OPT OUT! It is supposed to be OPT IN!!!!!!

Steve

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idogi

18 years ago

Wow!!

Awesome tip!!!

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