Unsolicited e-mails

[bonzoe]

I keep getting e-mails to "buisinesslist@ntlworld.com" about cheap phone calls, the last from "Simply-call.com" <scallersite@lycos.com> as I expect many are doing. They are just a small nuisance at the mo, but I thought that sending spam was illegal now. I am loathe to use the unsubscribe address for this low life, who do i report them to, any ideas? I seem to think there is some regulatory body who will fine them.

Thanks

[Matt D]

Don't use the unsubscribe address.

Have a read of these threads...

http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/sh...ad.php?t=10441

http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/sh...ad.php?t=14026

There are also many other spam related threads available via a search.

[bonzoe]

Thanks for that.

A bit technical, think that it may have come from korea? However, I have added it to my filters to delete from server.

The same lowlife have appeared in other forms offering similar services in the UK

[El Diablo]

Originally Posted by bonzoe

Thanks for that.

A bit technical, think that it may have come from korea? However, I have added it to my filters to delete from server.

<snip>

Okay, try these guys: POBOX

... some useful advice and guidance... and not too technical either

[Gareth]

another piece of advice... I'd edit your original message and remove your email address if I was you. There are tools that spider the web (kinda like serach engines do) and harvest any email addresses they find in order to spam you.

[El Diablo]

Originally Posted by Gareth

another piece of advice... I'd edit your original message and remove your email address if I was you. There are tools that spider the web (kinda like serach engines do) and harvest any email addresses they find in order to spam you.

True... I prefer to not use mailto: tags and simply provide mail addresses in a .jpg file within the web page... the e-mail bandits can't get you then, well, not by any means of automation.

[bonzoe]

Originally Posted by Gareth

another piece of advice... I'd edit your original message and remove your email address if I was you. There are tools that spider the web (kinda like serach engines do) and harvest any email addresses they find in order to spam you.

Good advice, they'll also get the simply call addy, if it's genuine

I imagine the ntlworld list is freely available to these low life, where else did they get it?

[willie]

Originally Posted by bonzoe

Good advice, they'll also get the simply call addy, if it's genuine

I imagine the ntlworld list is freely available to these low life, where else did they get it?

A favourite trick of these scumbags is to use a popular/unpopular isp in this case ntl then they just use a program to generate 1000's of likely names for each letter of the alphabet in the hope that they get a few live ones, which can be verified when the recipient is foolish enough to use an unsubscribe link

[El Diablo]

Originally Posted by Web Junkie

A favourite trick of these scumbags is to use a popular/unpopular isp in this case ntl then they just use a program to generate 1000's of likely names for each letter of the alphabet in the hope that they get a few live ones, which can be verified when the recipient is foolish enough to use an unsubscribe link

Agreed... However, you don't even have to reply to the e-mail for them to receive confirmation that their spam arrived safely in your mailbox. There's also a method whereby a 'beacon' is embedded within the body of an html email. 'beacons' are often used on web pages and are typically transparent .gif images embedded within the web page [or email] HTML code. Because the image is so small and transparent, you wouldn't even notice that it's thre. Web authors tend to use these to search web server logs for the beacon and count how many times a page has been requested. However, scumbag spammers use this technique to embed beacons in email messages and then use the <IMG> tag to reference a script on their web server. When the recipient then opens the message, the [HTML-capable] email client processes the URL, opens an HTTP connection to the web server and passes a parameter that identifies the message recipient to the script. This parameter specifies the user's email address or even a database key that links to personal or profile data.

A typical example of the spam beacon html code would be:

<img src="http://redirect.virtumundo.com/
bt?m=77103" height="1" width="1" border="0">

<img src="http://qualityemail.com:8080/clickopen?
msgid=74002&email=7dUiLB9ohLwDHwLxImUmUA">

So how's about that? My work email address and that of colleague's and some customers were retrieved /confirmed this way. However, eventually, a rather stern telephone conversation between myself and the President of the particular 'Marketing' company in the US [that were supposed to be can spam complient] [0] resulted in the reported addresses being removed completely from their databases, along with all addresses within the same company domain and also all addresses within the domains [~10,000] that we manage... which was a nice result... I even got him to admit that they probably were 'confirmed' using the beacon method but he blamed a third party company for acting in a bad way.

As it is, I get too much spam to deal with them all this way, but this was just a particularly bad situation and therefore needed to take more action than we would do normally... and I suspect that we only got such a result because the customer of the marketing company were particularly annoyed at this practice as the company had seemed otherwise a legitimate firm - which I'm sure they are... no, really, I do!!!!



[0] long story behind this part!!