Spam - where did they get your email address?

[Mark5000]

I have several email accounts, some free like yahoo, mail.com and some on my own domain. Each has varying amounts of spam. It seems that my address I use for Ebay has the most spam. Other family members that get large amounts of spam probably at some time or other used the blue mountain greeting ecard site.

Question: If you receive large amounts of spam, where did they harvest your email from?

 

[kranky]

A lot of times they just guess at email addresses. Spammers don't care, they get to send emails for free. I bet email addresses like 4r32b35ttz@domain.com get very little spam.

 

[guyver01]

most spam isn't from a person, but a program which takes legitimate domain names, like anandtech.com, and generates EVERY possible combination of email addresses.... some will be bound to hit.

 

[Garet Jax]

If you want to make sure you stop getting spam, respond to every spam message and ask politely if they could remove your address.

 

[Encryptic]

There's plenty of ways to get your email address, although the majority of the email I get is to the tech support email in-box at work, which they probably obtained by crawling the company website.

 

[Ameesh]

many of them guess or run through all permutations

 

[Kaervak]

The majority of mine is from having my e-mail visible in my AT profile. Soon as I sell off my Xbox back to disabled it goes.

 

[Mr N8]

It was harvested (guessed), but due to some great software, I'm able to spoof a lot of spammers into thinking that its now a dead address.

 

[slycat]

u gave it out

 

[simms]

Originally posted by: Kaervak
The majority of mine is from having my e-mail visible in my AT profile. Soon as I sell off my Xbox back to disabled it goes.

I've had my email on my profile for almost 2 years now and they've done nothing - and it is my main email address at that. Same with Heatware.

 

[Special K]

Originally posted by: MogulMonster
It was harvested (guessed), but due to some great software, I'm able to spoof a lot of spammers into thinking that its now a dead address.

Which software is that? I once used a freeware program called mailwasher that would let you look at your mail before it reached your inbox and it flagged mail that was likely to be spam. You then had the option of deleting it and sending an email back to the sender that made it appear as if your address did not exist. The problem is that you can just reply to a spam message because they fake return addresses, so I eventually quit using that program, as everytime I would try to send such an email, I would get an email saying the address did not exist.

 

[fastz28]

I'm getting 10-15 a day at my work address. The ONLY time I gave this one to unrelated people is when I ordered from Officedepot and Officemax (for work stuff of course).

So, draw your own conclusions. :|

 

[yakko]

Ebay. I figured it out when I switched to an email address that got almost no spam due to it being a pay service that not everyone would know about. I now get at least 50 a day at that address.

 

[DnetMHZ]

I get about 20-30 to webmaster@mydomain.com offering penis enlargement.. I think I'm developing a complex!

 

[Derango]

WHOIS database I'm guessing, since I never got any spam before I got a domain, and the email address thats getting spammed is the one I used to register the domain.

 

[TheBullGod]

Just checked my email today for the first time in who knows how long.....1032 New emails. I had sh*t from 2001. Mostly porn, home loans, and get rich quick stuff. But mostly porn:disgust:

 

[Miramonti]

I have 1 yahoo address that I only use for family and friends that I only get 1 spam a month, if that.

I don't expect that to last forever tho...