Jan
03

Myrtle Beach Golf Courses: Selling Golf Vacations to a Spamtrap

Myrtle Beach Golf Courses, a specialist travel organization offering golf vacations, is sending bulk email to an email address that was closed in 2009. This email address first started to receive bulk email from this sender in late 2011; it had not previously received email from this sender. Myrtle Beach Golf Courses is either mailing a very old list after allowing it to remain uncontacted for years, or Myrtle Beach Golf Courses or their marketing firm Fuel Interactive purchased a list. The sending ESP is ExactTarget.

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Dec
07

Bank of America: Transactional Email to a Spamtrap :(

Bank of America is sending non-bulk transactional emails to an email address that was closed in 2008, and that subsequently rejected all email for a period of over a year before being re-enabled as a spamtrap. The email contains a customer name and the last four digits of a credit card number. :/ This is not spam; the email was not bulk. However, if Bank of America were paying attention to bounces, it should long since have realized that this email address was not receiving its notifications. Bank of America needs to verify its customer list NOW to fix this security breach. The ESP is ExactTarget.

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Dec
04

Just Fabulous: Stylish Shoes for a Spamtrap?

Shoe matching service Just Fabulous is sending bulk email to an email address that has never existed (a pure spamtrap). This particular spamtrap appears to have recently been added to an e-pended list; it has started to receive snowshoe and mainsleaze spam in significant quantities in the past three months, almost all of it using a first name that is a plausible deduction from the spamtrap itself. The ESP is ExactTarget.

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Nov
29

American Heart Association: Emailing a Spamtrap on a “Targeted” List?

U.S. charity American Heart Association is sending bulk email to an email address that was closed in 2008, collecting donations for its childhood obesity initiative. This is the first spam that this email address has received from the American Heart Association since it exited its timeout period in late 2009. This email address receives a great deal of spam from non-profit and political groups, an amount that has been increasing steadily over the past two years. While it is possible that a great many non-profit and political organizations are sending to fallow lists, the increase in spam sent to this email address over the past six months leads me to believe that it is probably on a “targeted” list sold to non-profit and political senders. The ESP is ExactTarget.

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Nov
28

Broderbund: Selling Software to a Spamtrap?

U.S. software maker Broderbund is sending bulk email to an email address that was closed in 2007. The spam to this email address started up two or three weeks ago; it had not previously received email from Broderbund either directly or via an ESP since it completed its timeout period and was reactivated in 2009. The ESP is ExactTarget.

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Nov
18

Celebrity Cruises Still Spamming

Celebrity Cruises still wants my mother to sign up for a cruise. She tells me that she never asked to be on their list. I believe her: she’s afraid of drowning and refuses get on any sort of boat. She’s been receiving these emails for over a year, and has never responded to any of them. The ESP is still ExactTarget.

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Nov
14

Paula Young: Selling Hair Pieces to a Purchased List?

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.

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Nov
14

QualityHealth: Emailing an Old Email Address

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.

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Nov
08

Microsoft Store: Selling Windows & Office to a Spamtrap?

Last week Microsoft Store, a new online and retail outlet for computer giant Microsoft, started sending bulk email to an email address that never existed (a pure spamtrap), at a domain that has never had a legitimate email address. The ESP is ExactTarget.

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Nov
07

Oakley Sign: Emailing a Long-Closed Email Address

Oakley Sign, part of Orlando-based iForia, Inc., is sending bulk email to a long-closed email address. The company web site has an extremely poor rating in the Web-O-Trust, and the WOT page for the domain indicates that SpamCop has seen spam advertising it today. Further, a comment on that page indicates a history of blog comment spam. The ESP is ExactTarget.

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