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Phone and email spam

Posted: Tue Feb 18, 2020 7:39am
13 replies120 views4 members subscribed
Movingon

Movingon

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We all hate it and thankfully I don't get a lot but nevertheless I happened on 

Lista Robinson

and signed up to it. 

Once signed up you can add phone numbers and email addresses so the one A/C can serve a number of people. 

May be other similar sites, don't know. 

jimtaylor

Posted: Tue Feb 18, 2020 12:19pm

jimtaylor

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Web Designer Guy

Posted: Tue Feb 18, 2020 1:39pm

Web Designer Guy

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Posted: Tue Feb 18, 2020 1:39pm

I haven't checked the sites listed, so this is not a direct comment on those, but a lot of similar sites are at best useless and worst, part of a scam!

99% of spam comes from unknown origins, or origins outside of most regulation, ie. in the EU, US, UK etc. So, any "delisting" service in these territories means nothing. Then you have the fact that 99% of spammers even if based in a regulated territory ignore the rules. The ICO for instance, the UK body charged with enforcing the new(ish) GDPR regs have thus far prosecuted zero companies for repeated violation of the rules. In the run-up to GDPR being rolled out the ICO were all over the place explaining how they were on top of things. Two weeks before the role-out they announced they were taking the new regs so seriously they were increasing their staffing levels by several hundred percent. 

Which really means they were woefully ill-prepared and understaffed in the first place and only realised at almost the very moment GDPR came into force, and then started to panic. It's a similar story around the EU, where GDPR in meant to be in force.

The other thing to bear in mind is loads of "de-listing" sites are actually scam sites, designed to get live email addresses, which are then... You've guessed it, sold to spammers!

The best way to avoid spam is to use a fresh email address and NEVER put it anywhere in open. NEVER put it on a forum, or a for-sale site, or anywhere it's open to the public. Spammers use very advanced software "scrape" the internet looking for unprotected email address. When it finds one it lifts it and performs a simple "ping" test to check if it's real. If it is, it goes on a spammers list and get sold.

And don't bother doing the old "me at gmail dot com" thing either, scapers will quickly turn this back into a correctly formatted email address. 

If you want to use an email address that is "out-there" then get a good spam guide in place, and remember to check your spam box regularly, as it will tag good emails as spam.

Sadly, spam has killed the reliability of email.

jimtaylor

Posted: Tue Feb 18, 2020 2:10pm

jimtaylor

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Posted: Tue Feb 18, 2020 2:10pm

I totally agree, and thanks.

Before signing up for the service myself, I did check if it was run by a reputable company, and it is - The Asociación Española de Economía Digital.

I used to receive a lot of time-wasting phone calls, with the main culprits being Orange and other phone/internet providers. After signing up to the service, it took a few weeks and possibly months to become effective, but it certainly did.

I now (touch wood) only receive unwanted calls from:

Brits wanting to sell me a funeral plan.

and, of course,

Microsoft support telling me I've got a problem with my computer. My normal response is two words, with the second being 'off', but I sometimes waste their time and let them tell me all about TeamViewer before I tell them where to go.

Web Designer Guy

Posted: Tue Feb 18, 2020 2:38pm

Web Designer Guy

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Posted: Tue Feb 18, 2020 2:38pm

Ya, everything I put above, know and understand is regarding email, not phone. I'm clueless about phone spam as it's not an area I have to deal with. I run an email marketing business and for two years more or less lived GDPR. it wasn't fun.

I should add, my email marketing business DOESN'T work with spammers! Only 100% double opt-in subscribers for specific clients. Saying that before I get abuse ;-)

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MeathMaria

Posted: Tue Feb 18, 2020 2:56pm

MeathMaria

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Posted: Tue Feb 18, 2020 2:56pm

Web Designer Guy wrote on Tue Feb 18, 2020 2:38pm:

Ya, everything I put above, know and understand is regarding email, not phone. I'm clueless about phone spam as it's not an area I have to deal with. I run an email marketing business and for two years more or less lived GDPR. it wasn't fun.

I should add, my email marketing business DOESN'T work with spammers! Only 100% double opt-in subscribers for specific clients. Saying that before I get abuse ;-)...

...

Hi 

No abuse I promise as I’d first need to understand what you are saying 😅😅

You said  

“Spammers use very advanced software "scrape" the internet looking for unprotected email address. When it finds one it lifts it and performs a simple "ping" test to check if it's real. If it is, it goes on a spammers list and get sold.”

How do we keep protecting email address?  Change passwords,  address itself?  Gmail being attached to google etc

Maria

Web Designer Guy

Posted: Tue Feb 18, 2020 3:14pm

Web Designer Guy

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Posted: Tue Feb 18, 2020 3:14pm

If you've ever put your email address in plain text format on a forum, or for sale advert, or anywhere that anyone can look at, that email is now on spammers lists. Once on these lists you can't remove it. All you can do is change your email address and not publish it anywhere going forward.

Or, as I say, just use a good spam filter, but accept that these will often mark good mail as spam, so you need to check the spam box regularly.

Gmail has good spam filters, I use Gmail for most things, personal and business. Google are a pretty evil service, but as yet they haven't started to sell Gmail addresses to spammers. Yet ;-)

jimtaylor

Posted: Tue Feb 18, 2020 3:45pm

jimtaylor

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Posted: Tue Feb 18, 2020 3:45pm

Drifting off thread a bit, letting your email address be available publicly is inviting people to try and hack into your email account. Having done so, they then have access to all your contacts. All those contacts then go on the spammers list and, even worse, the phishers list. What happens then is that emails purporting to be from the holder of the hacked account go out to all their contacts, invariably containing a link to click on. Because most people don't look, they believe it's an email from their friend, and unwittingly click on the link. The result is at least an annoyance, but can also be costly if it asks someone to log into their 'bank account' etc.

There are two means of protecting an email account, the first of which is to use a strong password.

The second is even better - two-tier authentication, of which there are various types. Having enabled that then, when you next try to log into your account, you will receive either an email with a link on which you have to click, or an SMS containing a code which you have to enter on the log-in screen. At that point you should be able to tick a box saying you want the device on which you are logging in to be remembered, so you won't have to go through the two step log in again on that device.

Setting up two-tier authentication only takes a few minutes, and it vastly increases account security.

Web Designer Guy

Posted: Tue Feb 18, 2020 4:03pm

Web Designer Guy

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Posted: Tue Feb 18, 2020 4:03pm

"Drifting off thread a bit"

Yes, that's my fault, apologies. And again, yes on the password thing: You'd be surprised, or maybe not, at the number of people who still use "password" as the password! I shall stop taking this off topic now, and get back to work! :-)

jimtaylor

Posted: Tue Feb 18, 2020 4:15pm

jimtaylor

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Posted: Tue Feb 18, 2020 4:15pm

Having read that, I'll get back to bringing some logs in, and then pour an alcoholic beverage!

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