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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?

#41

Post by CamperBob2 »

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…

Same here. I thought I was lucky when I snagged one of the first GMail invites and was able to pick a 5-letter user name. Oops: https://i.imgur.com/Y5c1iIt.png

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

#42

Post by skielight »

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…

I have the exact same issue. My name is quite common and I registered my email address more than 15 years ago, so it looks something like @.

Now I get phone bills, internet bills, promo emails, subscription emails, two factor emails, and sometimes even bank related emails addressed to someone who shares their first name with me.

It's been years now. I've reported the emails, but neither the intended recipients, not the sending organizations seem to care.

I agree, my namesakes are idiots too and so are the companies who don't have a simple email verification system. :(

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

#43

Post by gaetgu »

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…

This is one hundred percent the problem. I got my address back when gmail was invite-only (so its super simple), so I get tons of emails meant for other people.

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

#44

Post by ascar »

jawns wrote: post #13

It happens about once a year for the 15 years I've had my emails set up that way, and as far as I can tell, 90% of it has been hacked systems rather than sales. The worst was when spammers got ahold of my email from a hotel chain and would add random letters to the username. So, for instance, the email address I provided to the hotel chain was something like hotelchain-jawns@example.com, and the spammers would send t…

Sounds like pattern based blocking would have been a nice feature in that case.

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

#46

Post by shiftpgdn »

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…

Any time I can I login to their accounts and update the email to null@void.com .

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

#47

Post by ascar »

neogodless wrote: post #22

The list is long and I'm on my phone. Several were from breaches like Adobe.com and Park mobile. MyFitnessPal. Cadillac (used email for a free brochure). I think the real worst offender is LinkedIn. I put one email on my resume and a different one for logging in to LinkedIn that should not be public. And yet I get direct recruiter spam there all the time.

Linkedin in forwards a recruiter messages to your email. Are you really getting emails without a message in your linkedin inbox? I get quite some recruiter spam, but always via a LinkedIn message.

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

#48

Post by hateful »

mynegation wrote: post #39

Ah, finally, my time to shine. Amazingly - not too many, given that I use hundreds of unique emails. Tbh this confuses the hell out of people when I give a CSR at AcmeBoutique the address AcmeBoutique@myowndomain.com The offenders that I remember: - Men’s Health magazine - local gym - online flower shop - agency that at the time handled visa applications for a local Indian consulate - couple of infoproducts from Prod…

I gave my email to a gym once to go in as a guest with a friend/coworker. I fully regret it because every time I get spam, it's from blink@[mydomain].

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

#49

Post by linsomniac »

mynegation wrote: post #39

Ah, finally, my time to shine. Amazingly - not too many, given that I use hundreds of unique emails. Tbh this confuses the hell out of people when I give a CSR at AcmeBoutique the address AcmeBoutique@myowndomain.com The offenders that I remember: - Men’s Health magazine - local gym - online flower shop - agency that at the time handled visa applications for a local Indian consulate - couple of infoproducts from Prod…

I once had a irate business owner call me after I placed an order, demanding to know why their business name was in my e-mail address. After I explained it: "That's pretty clever."

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

#50

Post by crossroadsguy »

Netflix, Uber, Airtel, Reliance Jio, Paytm, Swiggy, almost every bank and neo bank (India) I’ve tried, hospitals and diagnostic centres (I’ll be shocked and devastated if they’re not selling my health data to everybody who’s willing to pay a paisa or more), insurance provider, Coinbase, PayPal, TrueCaller, Facebook, Dell, Amazon, LinkedIn, Amex etc are few I remember.

And the great people who think it’s okay to use the most natural sounding email address as per their name while filing forms (including banks and cards) and moron corporations like banks, telcos, Amazon Business etc who think it’s perfectly fine to not verify emails.

And my personal@my-domain that I use to communicate with friends etc. So apparently my friends aren’t lesser idiots - they think their phone and gmail contacts are to be shared with the world. So maybe use a unique email for every friend and personal contact? :D

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