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General discussion

how do i find out why i am getting spammed

May 19, 2017 11:27AM PDT

as of one week ago i must have done something wrong
i am receiving all types of emails
it may have started with slick deals but i'm not sure
as there a way i can find out where it may have started from and if i can stop them?

Post was last edited on May 19, 2017 1:53 PM PDT

Discussion is locked

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Not to upset you
May 19, 2017 11:49AM PDT

But once it starts, it's game over. There are so many priors to this that I suggest you use your spam button if on Gmail. Other email software? Look at it's spam settings.

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BIG WARNING.
May 21, 2017 3:32PM PDT

I advise folk to never try to find out who is spamming and ask them to stop. Why? Because you just verified your email to a spammer and they will note it and send more plus share with their spammer friends.

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Extremely GOOD point.
May 22, 2017 10:40AM PDT

Yup. That is exactly what it does.

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I've seen that
May 19, 2017 1:11PM PDT

My answer was don't do anything with them other than delete it.
They tend to go away after awhile.

Give it some time but if it persist use a spam filter

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No way to find out
May 20, 2017 2:42PM PDT

There's no way to find out specifically how you ended up on spam lists. The two most common are: 1) Your email address was sold by a company you signed up with. 2) Forwarded emails.

Number one is easy to understand. Number two makes sense once you think about it.

What happens is, someone sends a joke email to you and twenty of your friends. Now, your email address is on twenty computers. Four or five people think it's funny, and they forward it to twenty of their friends. Now, your email address is on around one hundred computers. Notice that you have not done anything. Everything is done by other people. More people forward the email, and by default, most email programs include the entire distribution list each time it's forwarded. Pretty soon, without you doing anything, your email address is on thousands of computers of people you have never heard of.

Eventually, it gets forwarded to a computer that is infected with a virus that sends spam. They harvest your email address, pass it around to other machines on that botnet.

Once the spammers have your email address, there's no way to remove it. They're jerks that way.

Drake Christensen

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There is no way to find out exactly who is spamming you...
May 21, 2017 2:35PM PDT
Why? Because there are many ways that spammers harvest e-mail addresses. Learn how they harvest e-mail addresses here: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=How+do+spammers+get+e-mail+addresses&t=ffsb&ia=web

What can you do about that? Learn about how here: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=How+to+stop+spam&t=ffsb&ia=web

One of the things that some of those site leave out that spammers do to harvest e-mail addresses is called Phishing. Learn about that here: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Phishing&t=ffsb&ia=web

Why did I give you links to searches? Because there is a quit a bit of info to learn and there's not enough room here to put it all. While it's super simple for your e-mail address to get out there in no time at all, it does take time for most of the spam to slow to a trickle once you've started your vigilance against it. You will notice that some of those websites give basically the same info, but they all have tidbits of different info, all of which can help. And you can use what you learn to learn even more. It's a constant learning process because the spammers are constantly creating new methods to get around the barriers that are put up against them.

But, as you will see, once you learn about what every e-mail user on the planet is up against you will see why it takes a LONG time of extreme vigilance to stem the tide. It took 10 years for my Yahoo account to stop getting slammed with spam....that is over 600 spam emails a day at its worst...once it was hacked. I still get spam in that account now, but only a small handful each day. That is all you can hope for. As others have said, once your address gets out there it's there for good.
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Nice long explaination here.
May 22, 2017 11:19AM PDT

Good to read this too!

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one other way to get spam - your smartphone
May 22, 2017 12:36PM PDT

did you know when you install some apps, you are giving them permission to grab yours and any email address stored in your contact list? Guess what they do with those addresses Happy