MainSleaze

RedPlum, a coupon and deals portal, is sending bulk email to an email address that has not existed since 2007. Nonetheless, the attached spam states that the email address “recently registered with a partner site to receive special offers”, and the email associates a name with the email address that never belonged to it. It is possible that Red Plum is simply including a misleading and inaccurate statement in its bulk email to head off spam complaints, but the long-closed email address and the bogus name taken together strongly suggest that Red Plum is using a recently purchased e-pended list. :/ The ESP is Yesmail, a division of InfoGroup.

In addition to providing marginally legitimate ESP services, InfoGroup under other names sells lists and provides e-pending services. I consider companies that sell lists and/or provide e-pending services to be providing spam support, which makes them spammers in my view. In light of this and the quantities of spam that I see from IPs that I know to belong to InfoGroup, I do not expect Yesmail or other parts of InfoGroup to quit spamming. I therefore recommend blocking them.

However, this blog is not primarily about ESPs. It is primarily about companies that spam. Yesmail’s customers include legitimate companies who may not be aware of all the services that Yesmail or its parent company InfoGroup provides, nor that some of those services are widely considered to be spam support by email receivers. For the present I am therefore continuing to blog about spam sent by legitimate companies via Yesmail.

Sending IP: 204.92.133.56

Spam Sample:

Actual Headers:

Received: from smtp.marketsourceinfo.com (smtp.marketsourceinfo.com [204.92.133.56])
        by <xxx> (Postfix) with ESMTP id <xxx>
        for <xxx>; Mon, 14 Nov 2011 16:xx:xx -0600 (CST)
DKIM-Signature: <xxx>
DomainKey-Signature: <xxx>
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
Message-ID: <xxx>
Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="_----------=<xxx>"
MIME-Version: 1.0
X-Mailer: MIME::<xxx>
Date: Mon, 14 Nov 2011 22:xx:xx UT
To: <xxx>
From: "RedPlum Coupons" <IG@marketsourceinfo.com>
Reply-To: IG@marketsourceinfo.com
Subject: Black Friday Coupons and Deals from Macy's, Bath & Body Works
X-Campid: <xxx>
List-Unsubscribe: <mailto:unsubscribe-cid=<xxx>@marketsourceinfo.com>
X-Pviq: <xxx>
Sender: "RedPlum Coupons" <IG@marketsourceinfo.com>
X-Eid: <xxx>

Readable Email:

From: RedPlum Coupons <IG@marketsourceinfo.com>
To: <spamtrap>
Subject: Black Friday Coupons and Deals from Macy’s, Bath & Body Works
Reply-To: IG@marketsourceinfo.com

You recently registered with a partner site to receive special offers. To no longer receive this mailing, unsubscribe here: http://marketsourceinfo.com/webforms/unsub/index.jsp?<xxx>

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
RedPlum brings you PlumValues
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Black Friday Deals: Macy’s, Anna’s Linens, Bath & Body Works Black Friday Deals brought to you by PlumValues

——————

Hi <e-pended name>,

Whether you are the type of shopper that sits outside appliance stores overnight or the type that shops from the comfort of home, one thing is for sure. You ARE a Black Friday shopper! Our PlumValues flip book of savings gives you early-bird access to deals and savings from stores like Macy’s, Bed, Bath & Beyond and Dollar Tree. How you want to use this information is entirely up to you.

http://ct.marketsourceinfo.com/rd/cts?<xxx>

<removed>

RedPlum.com:
Coupons, deals, savings tips and more.
http://ct.marketsourceinfo.com/rd/cts?<xxx>

==========

67 S. Bedford Street | Suite 100E, 1st Floor | Burlington, MA | 01803 | USA

If you no longer wish to receive PlumValues, click to unsubscribe: http://marketsourceinfo.com/webforms/unsub/index.jsp?<xxx>