Huge Increase in the Amount of Spam I'm Receiving

Parent Cafe
1

Just in the last two weeks. Has anyone else noticed this? I wonder if it has to do with the Russians trying to hack the election. :open_mouth:

2

My spam folder seems to get more business than my email inbox.

3

Zero spam in my email inboxes, including the Clutter and Spam folders, but I probably just jinxed my good fortunes. :slight_smile:

4

My yahoo mail account which would normally collect 50 spams a day is now doing only a handful (past week or so)

5

If you use an iPhone/iPad there’s a new spam hack where you get a calendar invite or iCloud photo album invite. When you decline you’re confirming that your account exists so the spammers now know your account is valid for future spams or hacks.

There’s a workaround for the calendar invites but not the calendar invites, so be cautious about automatically hitting “decline” for those things.

6

I don’t think the Russians are after you and me.
Via AOL (laptop,) I can hover over an email, right click and view “message source.” It’s a lot of code but I can see the originator and some words of content, then just X out of that detail box go back and delete the post or send it to spam.

7

^^You can do this operation (view message source) in pretty much every email program.

8

Do you have a spam email address? I have one email that I use for everything important and I have an email that I use if I have to use an email to sign up for something that I don’t actually want notifications from. I have virtually zero spam on my main email because of this.

9

OP here.

I really do think it’s the Russians.

But just today, I got emails allegedly from CVS, Walgreens, Walk-in Bathtub, Credit Score OK, and Dr. Sanjay Gupta talks on CNN about medical marijuana. None of these places should even know what my email is.

And I do know about right-clicking and then clicking on “message source.” It’s tremendously helpful at letting me see what the message really is before I open it.

But, I really do think it’s the Russians. Apparently that’s how John Podesta’s gmail account was hacked.

10

How widely do you google and how often clear the cache?

11

I’m having trouble copying and pasting, but regarding LF’s comment to hover over the email and then view the source, this seems to have disappeared from my yahoo mail options in the last two years for accounts where I have not kept “basic” email.

12

It’s not the Russians. I promise, the Russians are not flooding you with spam.

13

I have to say that since the “IRS headquarters” were busted by the Indian police, I have not received a single call from those spammers pretending to be from the IRS! Before that, I was getting 1 or 2 every day!

14

Not from CVS or those. For the next few days, I’d worry more about mystery, alarmist titles from odd “news” sources or purported “experts.”

One thing I recently learned (trying to cancel the dozens of catalogs my mother was receiving, now sent to my home,) is how many marketing “sources” are linked. On the web, you could look up some med and end up with mail from different pharmacies. Or, I ordered from one online co and got more emails from other similar companies (who turned out to share marketing lists.)

15

They got the IRS spammers? Yay!

16

ML, this one was a big one:

http://money.cnn.com/2016/10/06/news/india-irs-scam-arrests/

17

@BunsenBurner, thanks for the link. This part made me laugh, though: “Singh told CNN the call center workers had been trained to speak with an American accent.” The training wasn’t too good, ha.

18

Funny you tube where a fellow talks to an IRS scammer.

19

Since I started this thread at 12:05 PM today, I’ve gotten five more spam emails:

  1. From !CoSTCo [yeah, sure],
  2. From "get cable service options,"
  3. From "Daily Web Biz" [Subject: Buffett: What Americans Can Do to Protect Themselves],
  4. From "Get Free Samples," and
  5. From "hvacguy" [Subject: Save Over 65% on All Medications].

I used to get one spam email every other day or so. I am finding this very creepy.

I changed my email password just now, but I doubt that has anything to do with it. I will clean my Google cache. I haven’t signed up for anything recently, nor have I started using any new on-line vendors. Well, yes, one, The Company Store. But they seem kosher. Maybe they’ve been hacked??

@romanigypsyeyes: You think I’m being paranoid about the Russians?

20

You know you can usually drop to the bottom of an email and unsubscribe? Usually works for me. Usually, and if it doesn’t, I do it again. Good luck with this.