Paula Young, a US-based company that sells wigs and hair pieces, is sending bulk email to two email addresses that have not been live since 2008. The presence of two old email addresses on Paula Young’s list suggests one of three things: that this list has not been mailed for several years, that Paula Young ignored bounces in 2008-2010, or that Paula Young purchased a list. The ESP is ExactTarget.
QualityHealth, a web portal with a wide variety of health-related information, is sending bulk email to an email address that cannot have been live after 2008, and probably never existed. The ESP is ExactTarget.
Accutech Home Inspection, a New Jersey-based company that inspects houses for sale and provides purchasers and lenders with a report on the home’s features and condition, is sending bulk email to an email address that has never existed except in the fertile mind of a spammer some years ago, when he or she created the email address and added it to a list for sale. The presence of this address on Accutech’s list could be due to a typo in a web subscription form combined with failure to confirm web form subscriptions (a foolish error), or to a purchased list. The ESP is Sendgrid.
Silicon Valley firm, Serena Software, sent this webcast invitation to a pure spamtrap, ie an email address that has never been used as anything else but a spamtrap. The particular spamtrap normally gets spams advertising fake watches and herbal alternatives to certain blue pills, rather than mainsleaze spams. Makes me wonder how they went about building their list…
The ESP in this case is Marketo.
Printing Industries of America, which describes itself as the world’s largest trade association for graphic arts professionals, is sending bulk email to an email address that was closed in 2007. The ESP is Streamsend.
BrightTALK(tm), a video and web conferencing service based in the U.K., is sending bulk email to an email address that closed in 2007. The ESP is SilverPop.
MacTech Magazine, a long-time and well-known magazine that covers Apple Macintosh issues, is sending bulk email to two email addresses that were last live in the early and mid-2000s. MacTech may be emailing a list that has not been emailed for years or might have ignored bounces for some years in the early and mid-2000s. One of these two email addresses belonged to an avid Macintosh user who almost certainly was a subscriber at some point, so a purchased list although possible is less likely in this case. The ESP is Benchmark Email.
As described here earlier, Canal Plus, a provider of premium TV services, is having a hard time managing bulk email lists of theirs. They’re still at it.
Ford Motor Company is sending bulk email to an email address that last had a real person using it in 2006. It was in timeout from late 2007 through early 2009, and then re-enabled as a spamtrap. Ford may be emailing a list that has not been emailed for years, may have ignored bounces in 2007-2009, or might have purchased a list. The ESP is Responsys.
MAIF, a French insurance company, is spamming an email address that has never existed at all. This email address is present on many lists for sale in countries whose primary languages are French, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish, and receives a good deal of spam from otherwise legitimate companies in those languages. Their ESP is Mail Advantage, a subsidiary of CheetahMail, a subsidiary of Experian.