Jan
09

IKEA US: Spamming a Role Address With No Pretense of Opt-In

The United States branch of Swedish home furnishings company IKEA is sending spam to a role email address, an email address that never sent mail or signed onto bulk email lists, advertising furniture and home products. The advertising email states that the spammed email address “recently registered with a network website to receive special online offers”. This is not true. Other language in the spam invites the spam victim to sign up for their list, which appears to acknowledge that IKEA knows that the owner of this email address did not in fact ask for email from IKEA. In short, IKEA appears to have purchased a list and to make no effort to hide that fact. The ESP is Yesmail, a division of InfoGroup.

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Jan
08

Your-marketing-solution.com / directmarketingco.com: Spamming about spam to outdated and partially nonexistent addresses

This is so spammy it can hardly qualify as mainsleaze. But it keeps being sent from the same IP address and it openly mentions the domain names of the sender and/or beneficiary (your-marketing-solution.com, directmarketingco.com) in both the headers and the message body, so at least it isn’t botspam.

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Jan
07

Chase Bank: Including Customer Information in Marketing Email Sent to Spamtraps

Months after I first blogged about Chase Bank sending marketing emails to an email address that had been closed for many years via Acxiom Digital, and after I added a comment to that blog indicating that Chase was sending marketing emails to a different email address via Epsilon Interactive (Bigfoot Interactive), this second email address is *still* receiving the same bulk emails. Worse, they STILL contain the customer’s name and the last four digits of the customer’s credit card number, although the customer has not owned this email address for years!

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Jan
07

MyEquipmentDealer.com: Advertising Used Equipment to a Spamtrap

MyEquipmentDealer.com, a web site where people and companies post classified advertisements to sell (mostly-used) tools and equipment, is sending bulk email advertisements to a role email address, an address that never sent email and never subscribed to receive bulk email of any kind. Since the spamtrap has not previously received email from this company, it appears that a typo or malicious subscription in a web form or a purchased list caused this. The sending ESP is Vertical Response.

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Jan
07

Green’s Toyota of Lexington: Just *Where* Did That Email Address Come From?

Green’s Toyota of Lexington, a Kentucky automobile dealer with an online sales portal, is sending bulk email advertisements to an email address that was closed in 2007. That email address had not previously received email from this company after it was re-enabled in 2009. Either Green’s Toyota has emailed a very old list that was left uncontacted for years, or Green’s Toyota purchased a list. The ESP is Constant Contact.

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Jan
07

House Party: Why Reactivating Old Lists is a BAAAAAADDD Idea

House Party, a US-based organizer of “sales parties” in which individuals invite friends and family into their homes and try to sell them stuff, is sending bulk email to an email address that was closed in 2008. In this case, the spam apparently occurred because the sender had a fallow list of email addresses for people who at one time were involved with them, or (more likely) obtained a list (or lists) of email addresses from one or more of the companies for which they arrange “house parties”. In either case, they acted with reckless disregard of the near-certainty than some of the email addresses were long-closed, or no longer interested in hearing from them. The sending ESP is PulsePoint.

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Jan
06

Nordic Business Forum 2012: bordering on garden variety spam

A party that is determined to remain anonymous is spamming for Nordic Business Forum 2012. The event itself is legitimate as far as I can tell, and the message hints at an advertising agency that one would usually consider legitimate. The methods leave a lot to be desired, unfortunately.

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Jan
05

Boston Cleaning Company: Offering Cleaning Services to a Spamtrap

Boston Cleaning Company, a Boston, Massachusetts-based commercial janitorial service, is sending bulk email to an email address that was closed in 2008. The email address in question has not previously received bulk email from this company, so an unconfirmed web form signup (either typoed or malicious), or a purchased list seem to be the only reasonable explanations. The sending ESP is IContact.

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Jan
05

Martha White: Spamming an Email Address that Never Existed

Martha White, a US-based seller of baking products, is sending bulk email to an email address that has never existed (also called a pure spamtrap) advertising Smuckers products. (Smuckers is a household name in the US, mostly known for its jams and preserves.) Martha White might possibly have failed to confirm a typoed web subscription, but the email address in question is not one that would easily be typoed, so a purchased list seems likely. The sending ESP is Silverpop.

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Jan
05

(Mostly resolved) Thought Leader Global: Mailing a pure spamtrap – smells of Marcus Evans

Thought Leader Global started spamming an address that is a dead giveaway for Marcus Evans-ness. The ESP is emailIQ, a service of Kinexus Internet.

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