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Ask HN: People who use different emails everywhere, who sold you to spammers?

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Re: Ask HN: People who use different emails everywhere, who sold you to spammers?

#311

Post by rkuska »

dmje wrote: post #216
narag wrote: post #23

I mostly use one single address, but I can tell you exactly where all the spam comes from: idiots whose name is the same as mine. They give my address as if it belonged to them. Probably they created addresses like narag33@server and they believe that it's narag@server instead. So not only I receive all the spam from dubious sites that they suscribed to, but also their legitimate mail from lists and friends. My names…

Quite gratifying to read that I'm not alone in this. I was really early into Gmail so have first.last@ and get a lot of stuff emailed to me that is exactly as you describe - not spam, just mistaken address. Hotel reservations, golf clubs, Republican party bullshit, hilarious copies of order receipts from gun shops... (The last one of the above I replied to - it was an order for a rifle scope. I sent what I thought wa…

Funny how it's always the republicans who can't get their email address right.

I have similar problem, from trump watch newsletters to random local republican party emails, also received few invitations to parties, medical results, private photos from trips and the list continues. Also when the covid started I was cced on some action group that was solving the covid problem in their area. The worst thing is the spam from dating sites that I get.

I think the problem in my case is that the person uses exactly the same handler but at yahoo instead of gmail.

Re: Ask HN: People who use different emails everywhere, who sold you to spammers?

#312

Post by monkeybutton »

invalidusernam3 wrote: post #277
bstpierre wrote: post #272

I used special emails for my kids’ savings accounts at a major brokerage, and then started getting weird emails to one of them. This was on a private domain and the addresses weren’t really guessable, so that’s how I knew they had been breached before they announced it weeks or months later.

Should have shorted their stock if they're public

Sneaky!

Re: Ask HN: People who use different emails everywhere, who sold you to spammers?

#313

Post by Spare_account »

jon-wood wrote: post #255
nicolas_t wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a similar experience, I received emails from his families with children photos, emails from his certification, notices about his internship, etc.. I sent a few emails to his family explaining this, they told me that I was wrong. I gave up and just ignore all of those emails. It's on gmail and I don't use gmail for important things anyway...

> they told me that I was wrong What a bizarre response... somebody who isn't the person you intended to email has replied to you from the address you sent the message to. What could possibly make someone think that the person replying is the one who was wrong?

Some people just don't understand how all this works behind the scenes. It works by 'handy wavey magic' and the messages just arrive.

In their minds, they did email their brother, and the weird guy who replied is wrong. It might be possible, with enough investment of time, to help them understand how/why it went wrong, but as nicolas_t experienced, it is sometimes easier just to block them and move on.

I was lucky, I was a Hotmail early adopter and I regularly receive emails for two namesakes. I was able to figure out their correct email addresses over the years and they are both tech savvy enough to understand the issue. I forward on messages when they come through, and I actually met up with one of them at a house party he was invited to.

When I forwarded the invitation, he suggested coming along as well and I figured why the hell not. It was a fun ice breaker in a room full of strangers.

Re: Ask HN: People who use different emails everywhere, who sold you to spammers?

#314

Post by monkeybutton »

technerder wrote: post #184
athrowaway3z wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

let isAdmin = email.local_part === "zillow" We will fix this in our TOS

I may not be getting the joke, but is that code actually real?

Me thinks its a joke. But one has to wonder what why they block addresses with a specific name, did a lazy developer take a shortcut and use it to indicate admin rights? Testing/QA mode? Triggering extra logging?

Re: Ask HN: People who use different emails everywhere, who sold you to spammers?

#315

Post by BeFlatXIII »

bombcar wrote: post #35
yodon wrote: post #30

When my kids were young, I set them up with two emails addresses: one for emailing friends, the other for emailing businesses. The assumption was this would protect their personal friend emails from spam. The reality was by the time they were older teens almost all the spam they received came in on their personal friend emails and almost none of it came on their commercial-use addresses. My assessment was businesses…

This has been my experience also. Companies do pretty well, random forums get scraped and friends hit “upload my contacts” on every scketchy app they Download.

Feels like there are parallels to the big corporation vs. small business discussions that pop up every time labor abuse is discussed here.

Re: Ask HN: People who use different emails everywhere, who sold you to spammers?

#316

Post by jcranberry »

andrewfong wrote: post #85

U.S. political campaigns are by far the worst offender. If you give your real email and phone number to one candidate, twenty unrelated candidates will contact you next cycle.

After you unsubscribe to about 10 different mailing lists it stops coming.

Re: Ask HN: People who use different emails everywhere, who sold you to spammers?

#317

Post by jeffybefffy519 »

neya wrote: post #281

I buy a lot of stuff from AliExpress, eBay and Alibaba, it goes without saying you should use a separate email address for those. My email was not only sold, I started getting malware themed links shared to me as Google Drive files. The moment you click on it (and I did from another test env.) - it straight up runs some clever JS and then downloads a DMG or EXE file which is clearly spyware (multiple flags from AV pr…

Alibaba will also share your phone number with sellers, its super creepy to be messaging someone on there and suddenly get a get a call about the conversation.

Re: Ask HN: People who use different emails everywhere, who sold you to spammers?

#318

Post by Pxtl »

nulbyte wrote: post #265
dmje wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quite gratifying to read that I'm not alone in this. I was really early into Gmail so have first.last@ and get a lot of stuff emailed to me that is exactly as you describe - not spam, just mistaken address. Hotel reservations, golf clubs, Republican party bullshit, hilarious copies of order receipts from gun shops... (The last one of the above I replied to - it was an order for a rifle scope. I sent what I thought wa…

I have the same with Gmail. I get lots of email for firstlast@ because someone can't be bothered to remember the numbers after their username. Then I have also gotten coffee receipts for a cardiologist (he likes Major Dickason's blend), wedding invitations, boating newsletters, and even modeling opportunities in a different country. It amazes me how many people either don't know their email address or can't imagine s…

Relevant xkcd

https://xkcd.com/1279/

Re: Ask HN: People who use different emails everywhere, who sold you to spammers?

#319

Post by [deleted] »

dmje wrote: post #216
narag wrote: post #23

I mostly use one single address, but I can tell you exactly where all the spam comes from: idiots whose name is the same as mine. They give my address as if it belonged to them. Probably they created addresses like narag33@server and they believe that it's narag@server instead. So not only I receive all the spam from dubious sites that they suscribed to, but also their legitimate mail from lists and friends. My names…

Quite gratifying to read that I'm not alone in this. I was really early into Gmail so have first.last@ and get a lot of stuff emailed to me that is exactly as you describe - not spam, just mistaken address. Hotel reservations, golf clubs, Republican party bullshit, hilarious copies of order receipts from gun shops... (The last one of the above I replied to - it was an order for a rifle scope. I sent what I thought wa…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: People who use different emails everywhere, who sold you to spammers?

#320

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

Pxtl wrote: post #318
nulbyte wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have the same with Gmail. I get lots of email for firstlast@ because someone can't be bothered to remember the numbers after their username. Then I have also gotten coffee receipts for a cardiologist (he likes Major Dickason's blend), wedding invitations, boating newsletters, and even modeling opportunities in a different country. It amazes me how many people either don't know their email address or can't imagine s…

Relevant xkcd https://xkcd.com/1279/

I have a goofy/edgy/"I thought it was cool when I signed up for it" address that is NOTHING like anyone's name, but people will absolutely sign up for cell phone plans and stuff with it. What is the plan here people? I could make someone's life utterly miserable if I was so inclined, unless it's a fraudster doing fraud things (I doubt it, the address and name they use has been pretty consistent) I have no idea why you'd put your legitimate information into someone else's hands like that.
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