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.
Family Dollar, a U.S.-based chain that sells basic merchandise at discount prices, last night sent a bulk advertising email to an email address that cannot have been live after 2007 if it ever existed. Family Dollar has not sent any type of email to this spamtrap (or any of my spamtraps) previously. (The stores are located east of the Mississippi; I had to search Google to find out what they were.) The ESP is ExactTarget.
Sugardaddie.com, a dating web site that describes its target market as “successful, attractive, ambitious, confident and experienced” people, is sending bulk email advertisements to an email address that was closed in 2002, ten years ago. The ESP is Pure 360, aka PureSender, which has a poor reputation with the Web-O-Trust but has not been sending any great volumes of spam to my spamtraps.
Global Exchange, an international coordination and support organization for mostly left-leaning activists, is sending bulk emails to an email address that was closed in 2003, which appears to be before this organization existed. The ESP is Salsalabs, the ESP side of liberal U.S. political activist group Wired for Change.
The American Seniors Association (ASA), which describes itself as “the conservative alternative” to the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP), is sending bulk email advertisements to an email address that never existed. The ASA only started spamming this email address last week. The ESP is Streamsend.
Liberty Capital, which provides loans and financing to small businesses with less-than-pristine credit, is sending bulk email to a role address that was closed in 2004. Role addresses rarely send email, and almost never ask to receive bulk email. In addition, this address has not been live for eight years. The ESP is Vertical Response.
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.
U.S. high tech giant Dell Computers is once again sending bulk email advertisements to an email address that didn’t ask to receive them. I am confident that this is the case because I’ve seen spam from Dell Small Business via Reed Business Systems to both personal email addresses and spamtraps for years. Since Dell *is* able to set and enforce marketing policy for its company, I must conclude that it is unwilling to rein in its spamming business unit and marketing partner. The ESP is Epsilon Interactive, via its subsidiary Bigfoot Interactive.
The Israel Ministry of Tourism is sending emailed invitations to an email address that was closed in 2009, and just recently completed its timeout period and was re-enabled as a spamtrap. The ESP is Vertical Response.
IMAX Printing, an online printing services provider, is sending bulk advertising emails to an email address that closed in 2003. The email address has not previously received email from this sender since it exited its timeout period and was re-enabled as a spamtrap. The ESP is Benchmark Email.