Nov
17

Brakes Plus: Offering to Repair a Spamtrap’s Car?

Brakes Plus, a U.S.-based auto service chain, is sending bulk email to an email address that was closed many years ago. The email indicates that this email address “recently registered with a network website to receive special online offers”. This is not true for any reasonable definition of “recently”. Either Brakes Plus is allowing users to subscribe via a web form and is not confirming subscriptions (a foolish error), or Brakes Plus purchased a list. The ESP is Yesmail, a division of InfoGroup.

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Nov
17

Air Wick: Selling Air Freshener to Spamtraps

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.

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Nov
15

Red Plum: Emailing a Purchased List?

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.

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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
09

BrightTALK: Advertising Web Conferencing Services to a Spamtrap

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.

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Nov
08

MAIF: Mailing a Pure Spamtrap :(

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.

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Nov
07

Hunter Mountain: Purchasing a List?

New York ski resort Hunter Mountain is sending bulk email to a long-closed email address. The email address was last “live” in 2007. The ESP is BlueHornet, a division of Digital River.

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Nov
04

Military Industrial Buyers Guide: Spamming a Receive-Only Role Address

The Military Industrial Buyer’s Guide, a portal for military and government purchasers, is sending bulk email to a long-closed role address. This role address never sent any email, and never received email except to contact the former domain owner about issues with the company web site. There is absolutely NO way that this address ever requested this or any other bulk email. Either Military Industrial Buyer’s Guide accepts unverified subscriptions and somebody typoed an email address and domain, or Military Industrial Buyer’s Guide purchased a list. The ESP is SendGrid.

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Nov
04

PrintCountry: Still Spamming Purchased Lists :/

A few weeks ago I blogged about a spamtrap hit by PrintCountry, an online printer ink and printing supplies seller. PrintCountry is still sending bulk email to the same long-closed email address, and is now hitting an additional email address that as far as I know has never existed at all. The email states that both email addresses was added to the system a short time ago. This is not possible; neither email address has been live since 2006, so there was nobody who could have subscribed that email address to any list in the past few weeks.

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