UKangaroo Marketing, an search engine and social media marketing company, sent bulk email advertisements for their services to a number of spamtraps last night. Some of these spamtraps are pure spamtraps; they never existed at all. This company appears to have spammed a purchased list; with this number of spamtrap hits, other explanations are simply too implausible. The ESP is Sendgrid.
U.S.-based energy market advisor and manager Fellon-McCord is sending bulk email advertisements to a closed role address at an ISP that went out of business in 2002. This spamtrap has also not previously received email from Fellon-McCord. The role address is not one of the standard role addresses used at many sites, which might account for its presence on a large number of lists for sale. It is also unlikely to be result of a typo. The ESP is Sendgrid.
Residential real estate investment firm True Wholesale Houses is sending bulk email advertisements to an email address that was closed in 2003. The firm has a plausible, but incorrect, name associated with the email address, which normally indicates an e-pended list. This email address has also not previously received email from this firm. The ESP is Sendgrid.
Worldhotels, a marketing portal for the hotel industry, is sending bulk email to an email address that, if it ever existed, was closed before 2009. From early 2010 through the mid-2011, the email address rejected all email with a 500-level error. In the months since it was re-enabled and turned into a spamtrap, this email address has not previously received email from this sender. The ESP is Sendgrid.
Accutech Home Inspection, a New Jersey-based company that inspects houses for sale and provides purchasers and lenders with a report on the home’s features and condition, is sending bulk email to an email address that has never existed except in the fertile mind of a spammer some years ago, when he or she created the email address and added it to a list for sale. The presence of this address on Accutech’s list could be due to a typo in a web subscription form combined with failure to confirm web form subscriptions (a foolish error), or to a purchased list. The ESP is Sendgrid.
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.
ChamberOfCommerce.com, a web site/service owned by Hargray, is sending bulk email to several long-closed email addresses. The ESP is Sendgrid.
FictionCity.net, a social networking site for artists, is sending bulk email to a personal email address of mine that has been closed for over nine years, via ESP SendGrid. Since this email address has belonged to me since it was created and never existed prior to that, I *know* that I never requested this email or any email from this site. Somebody (probably not FictionCity.net) scraped the web or old Usenet archives to find this email address. FictionCity.net almost certainly purchased a list.
GolfDealDepot.com, a portal for all things Golf, is spamming a years-dead email address via ESP SendGrid.
Marcus Evans Conferences are spamming addresses they know to be dead as of Aug 31, 2009 via ESP sendgrid.com. They’ve been informed on March 17, 2010 and several times afterwards, most recently on Oct 3, 2011. In response to the latest one, Caroline Nielsen of linguarama.com told me just to unsubscribe on Oct 3, 2011. I have no idea how many of these addresses they have in their files, and in accordance with the Data Protection Act, they have a duty to rid their registers of erroneous and outdated data.