MainSleaze

Verizon, one of the largest telecommunication companies in America, has sent email to several of my spamtraps in the past few weeks. These emails solicit the business of companies that are not associated with those spamtraps, but whose company names might plausibly belong to the email addresses that received the spam. No ESP was involved; Verizon sent this email from their own IPs.

A spam to a decade-closed email address at a domain that I registered in the 1990s and have been the registered owner of ever since brought my attention to this spam run. I then went looking through my spamtrap server, and found several other examples of similar spam involving different spamtrap email addresses at different domains. In each case, the spam addresses a company by name on the Subject line, a company that is not and never had been associated with the spamtrap. In each case, however, the company name was similar to either the login or the domain portion of the spamtrap email address.

Although the email volume from the Verizon IPs that sent these emails was fairly low, I have enough spam samples that match this pattern that I cannot believe this was a simple error. Somebody matched business names scraped from the Internet or another public source with an unrelated list of email addresses — in other words, performed an email append — and Verizon sent bulk marketing emails to that appended list. I do not know whether Verizon authorized the use of this email appended list, or an employee violated company policy.

This is spam as certainly as botnet emails urging the recipient to enlarge an organ or *Make*Money*Fast* is spam. Until Verizon deals with this issue and ensures that they will not spam an appended list again, I will be extremely hesitant to give them my business and would not share an email address with them.

Sending IPs: 140.108.22.0/26

Spam Sample:

Actual Headers:

Received: from dcfdpe20.verizon.com (dcfdpe20.verizon.com [140.108.22.32])
	by <xxx> (Postfix) with ESMTP id <xxx>
	for <xxx>; Thu, 13 Aug 2015 08:##:## -0500 (CDT)
DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=simple/simple;
  d=verizon.com; i=@verizon.com; q=dns/txt; s=corp;
  t=<xxx>; x=<xxx>;
  h=from:to:message-id:subject:mime-version:
   content-transfer-encoding:date;
  bh=<xxx>=;
  b=<xxx>=;
Received: from unknown (HELO pnpfdp02) ([172.16.0.223])
  by dcfdpe20.verizon.com with ESMTP; 13 Aug 2015 09:##:## -0400
Date: 13 Aug 2015 09:##:## -0400
From: Verizon Services <verizon-services@verizon.com>
To: <xxx>
Subject: =?UTF-8?Q?<xxx>,_Toda?=
 =?UTF-8?Q?y=E2=80=99s_Technology_for_tomorrow=E2=80=99s_growth?=
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/html;charset=UTF-8
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
EcrmHeader: <EcrmHeader><TxId><xxx></TxId><TransDate>8/13/15 9:## AM</TransDate><ToEmailAddress><xxx></ToEmailAddress></EcrmHeader>
Message-ID: <<xxx>.JavaMail.weblogic@dcfdpi02.verizon.com>

Readable Email:

From: Verizon Services <verizon-services@verizon.com>
To: <spamtrap>
Subject: <xxx>: Today’s Technology for tomorrow’s growth

Get 100% fiber optic technology for your business with a 2-year agreement that auto-renews AND get a $300 Visa® prepaid card*. And get free activation because you are already wired!

Click here to Order
or call 1.888.313.8037

<removed>

*Verizon Visa prepaid card issued by MetaBank®, Member FDIC, pursuant to a license from Visa U.S.A. Inc. Use anywhere Visa debit cards are accepted. Must keep qualifying Verizon service for 60 days with no past-due balance. Card mailed within 90 days of install date. Offer requires two year agreement. Limit one card per account. Other card terms and conditions apply.

Offers available to new FiOS Internet and Phone business customers in select areas only, subject to credit review. Early termination fees for a 2 year contract: 35% of base monthly charges for unexpired term. 2 year term automatically renews at then-current term rates unless cancelled within 30 days prior to or 60 days after term is renewed. Promotional offers do not apply to service ordered for temporary, short term or special events. Battery backup for standard fiber-based voice service & E911 (but not VOIP) for up to 8 hours. Firm Price Quote is valid for 5 business days and is an estimate based on current pricing, promotions and taxes that are subject to change. Quote does not include additional charges for nonstandard installations. Online discount of $10/mo. applies for 24 months with 2 Year Contract on select packages, fulfilled via bill credit starting 1-3 mos. after service provisions. Offers end 9/19/15.

ADVERTISEMENT. Please do not reply to this email as this mailbox is not monitored. If you would like to be excluded from future email communications, please click here [https://econtact.verizon.com/ecrm/includes/html/vzfwd.html?<xxx>] to opt out. Allow up to 10-days for Verizon to process your request. Verizon respects your privacy. For a complete description of our privacy policy, click here. This commercial email is being sent by the Verizon Online Marketing Team, 821 1st Ave., N. St. Petersburg, FL 33701. ©2015 Verizon. All Rights Reserved.

VZ-<xxx>-<xxx>-FiOS