TravelSmith, an online travel-related clothing and accessories retailer, has been sending bulk email advertisements for many months (since I first noticed) to an email address that been closed since 2005. The ESP is Cheetahmail, a subsidiary of Experian.
This morning when I logged on and checked my spamtrap, I found over two dozen spams from Turkish Airlines, which I believe is the national airline in Turkey. Somebody — specifically, somebody responsible for Turkish Airlines Iran, if the From addresses are any clue — purchased a very dirty list. I don’t recall ever seeing spam from Turkish Airlines before, so if Turkish Airlines has no idea how this came about, I would recommend investigating the marketing department for somebody who believes in the tooth fairy, responds to 419 Advance Fee Fraud scams, and thinks that there is such a thing as an “opt-in” list for sale. The ESP is Cheetahmail, a subsidiary of Experian.
Homedirectory, a Singapore-based web portal offering deals in home supplies and family products that is part of the Streetdirectory family, just sent their April newsletter to the administration role address for the Usenet newsgroup soc.religion.islam. Either Homedirectory or somebody else scraped this address or purchased a list, because this address does not subscribe to receive any bulk email. The ESP is Cheetahmail, a subsidiary of Experian.
U.S. grocer Safeway is suddenly sending bulk email advertisements to an email address that been closed since at least 2007. This email address has not previously received email from Safeway since it completed its timeout period and was re-enabled as a spamtrap. Either somebody made a typo when subscribing to receive Safeway offers (unlikely in this case), Safeway reactivated a VERY old list that they had not contacted for years, or Safeway purchased a list. The ESP is Cheetahmail, a subsidiary of Experian.
Last November I blogged about a spamtrap hit by Peebles, a U.S.-based retailer of clothing and accessories. Today Peebles hit that spamtrap again with an email that just *might* be an opt-in confirmation, although the language does not make that clear. The ESP is CheetahMail, a division of Experian.
Budget Mobile, a French mobile phone service, today sent a bulk email advertisement to an email address that has not been live for a couple of years. The email appeared to lack an unsubscribe option, although my French is rudimentary and I did not want to retrieve images to check whether it was included in them. The ESP is Cheetahmail, a subsidiary of Experian.
After previously spamming one of my spamtraps, J.C. Penney (a major U.S.-based department store) is sending phony “opt-in” confirmation emails. These emails have a Subject that reads, “Open To Confirm Your Email! EVERYTHING CHANGES 2.1.12”. In other words, anybody who is careless or curious enough to open this email in any normal email program that does not block images is automatically “confirmed” on the J. C. Penney list whether they intended to confirm or not. (“Gotcha!”) :/ The ESP is Cheetahmail, a division of Experian.
Today Ben Isaacson, the deliverability and compliance manager at Cheetahmail, posted a blog on the Cheetahmail web site, “A CheetahMail New Years’ Resolution: Giving Up Email Append”.
High-tech jobs board Dice, an institution in Silicon Valley and other high-tech centers, is sending bulk email advertisements to an email address that has not belonged to a real person since 2005. This email address has not previously received email from Dice since it completed its timeout period and was re-enabled as a spamtrap. Its previous owner also reports that he never posted a resume on Dice nor signed up to receive any sort of email from Dice. Either somebody made a typo or maliciously subscribed this email address on the Dice web site, or Dice purchased a list. The ESP is Cheetahmail, a subsidiary of Experian.