Well, I had meant to post this about a week ago, but see that Spambouncer beat me to the post. I do however need to add to this situation as
Bass Pro, a large U.S.-based fishing and sporting goods store, is sending bulk email to an email address that was closed in the mid-2000s. Either Bass Pro is mailing an email list that has not been contacted in several years, Bass Pro is accepting unconfirmed web form subscriptions, or Bass Pro purchased a list. The ESP is Cheetahmail, a division of Experian.
Solmicro, a vendor of ERP (enterprise resource planning) management solutions, is sending bulk email to an email address that has never existed except in the fertile mind of a spammer who made it up and put it on a list for sale. Either Solmicro is accepting unconfirmed web form subscriptions (along with the attendant typos and third-party signups), or Solmicro purchased a list. The ESP is Cheetahmail, a division of Experian.
J.C. Penney, a major U.S.-based department store, is sending bulk email to an email address that, when live, was assigned to a role account rather than a real person. This email address did not send email and never subscribed to receive email. J. C. Penney may accept unconfirmed web form subscriptions (guaranteeing typos and bogus subscriptions), or may have purchased a list. The ESP is Cheetahmail, a division of Experian.
Peebles, a U.S.-based retailer of clothing and accessories, is sending bulk email to an email address that has never existed. Peebles may not confirm web form subscriptions (which allows typoed and forged email addresses to be added to its list) or may have purchased a list. The ESP is CheetahMail, a division of Experian.
Air Wick, a subsidiary of U.K.-based multinational home products manufacturer Reckitt Benckiser, is sending bulk email to email addresses that have been closed for many years. None of these email addresses has received marketing emails from Air Wick via any ESP since they finished their timeout period and were re-enabled as spamtraps. Either Air Wick is emailing a list that has not been contacted since before 2008, or Air Wick has purchased one or more lists. The ESP is Cheetahmail, a subsidiary of Experian.
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.
Real Simple magazine is spamming a second spamtrap, advertising a different magazine that I assume is part of the same group of magazines. The ESP, as before, is Cheetahmail, a subsidiary of Experian.
Three weeks later, AT&T spammed the same spamtrap it did earlier again, pushing it to buy AT&T’s U*Verse service. The spamtrap in question is a “pure spamtrap”, that is, an email address that never existed at all. The ESP is still Cheetahmail, a subsidiary of Experian.