MarketTaker: Spamming a Closed Email Address
Stock options mentoring site Market Taker Mentoring LLC is sending bulk email to a long-closed email address. The ESP is Constant Contact.
This issue was previously marked resolved, but in early December 2011 additional spam was sent from a new ESP, IContact. So this sender has not resolved his spam issues after all.
Sending IP: 208.75.123.193
Spam Sample:
Actual Headers:
Received: from ccm33.constantcontact.com (ccm33.constantcontact.com [208.75.123.193])
by <xxx> (Postfix) with ESMTP id <xxx>
for <xxx>; Tue, 25 Oct 2011 12:xx:xx -0500 (CDT)
Received: from p2-<xxx>.ad.prodcc.net (p2-<xxx>.ad.prodcc.net [10.252.0.<xxx>])
by p2-<xxx>.ccm33.constantcontact.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id <xxx>
for <xxx>; Tue, 25 Oct 2011 13:xx:xx -0400 (EDT)
DKIM-Signature: <xxx>
Message-ID: <<xxx>@scheduler>
Date: Tue, 25 Oct 2011 13:xx:xx -0400 (EDT)
From: Market Taker Mentoring LLC <dan@markettaker.com>
Reply-To: dan@markettaker.com
Sender: Market Taker Mentoring LLC <dan@markettaker.ccsend.com>
To: <xxx>
Subject: Timing Is Everything
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
boundary="----=_Part_<xxx>"
X-Mailer: Roving Constant Contact 2009 (http://www.constantcontact.com)
List-Unsubscribe: http://visitor.constantcontact.com/do?<xxx>
X-Return-Path-Hint: <xxx>@in.constantcontact.com
X-Roving-ID: <xxx>
X-Lumos-SenderID: <xxx>
X-Roving-CampaignId: <xxx>
X-Roving-StreamId: <xxx>
Readable Email:
From: Market Taker Mentoring LLC <dan@markettaker.com>
To: <spamtrap>
Subject: Timing Is Everything
Reply-To: dan@markettaker.com
Having trouble viewing this email?
Click here
http://campaign.r20.constantcontact.com/render?<xxx>
Hi, just a reminder that you’re receiving this email because you have expressed an interest in Market Taker Mentoring LLC. Don’t forget to add <xxx> to your address book so we’ll be sure to land in your inbox! You may unsubscribe
http://visitor.constantcontact.com/do?<xxx>
if you no longer wish to receive our emails.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Greetings!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hi Traders, Dan Passarelli here again with Market Taker.
You’re invited to attend a complimentary webinar where I’m going to show you exactly what to look for in the markets when you are searching for your next winning options trades.
Follow this link to reserve your seat [http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?<xxx>
<removed>
Market Taker Mentoring LLC | 301 White Street | Frankfort | IL | 60423
This is my site and my email. I personally sent it out. I am VERY serious about SPAM. I don’t like to get it myself and I DEFINITELY don’t like to send it.
I spent several hours working to rectify the problem you have pointed out here talking with Constant Contact and others. I learned through this experienced to “age my list”, which I did not know to do up to this point. I have purged a very high percentage of my emails, getting rid of the oldest. I do not have, and never did have, any intent on sending emails that could be considered SPAM. My reputation is very important to me. I have many people on my list who are actively engaged readers of my emails and newsletters. I certainly don’t want to bother people who are not interested with unwanted emails. And as you can see I encourage people to opt out if they do not want my emails.
I ask that you please take down this blog post and remove me from any spammer lists, black lists, block lists or whatever else you may have control over. I invite you to monitor my emails as much as you want. I ABSOLUTELY do NOT want to accidentally send SPAMs. I will be sending an email today (within the next hour). Perhaps through your channels you will be able to see that I have removed old emails. If it happens that I have not found the email of concern, I will be very interested in knowing.
I see you have me email. I invite you to contact me directly. My interests are the same as yours.
Thank you,
Dan Passarelli
Hi, Dan. Good to see you here, and even better to see that you’re working on fixing this problem!
Single spamtrap hits, especially on a spamtrap collection the size of mine, don’t prove that you (or anybody else who hits one spamtrap) is a spammer. What they do is show that you probably weren’t verifying subscriptions, didn’t process bounced messages (*very important*), and possibly didn’t know that using third party lists was risky and usually not acceptable. In other words, a report of this sort is intended to provide information that will let you fix a problem. That’s all.
If this gave you the information you needed, and you fix the problem, then that’s exactly what it was for.
You do seem to be a bit confused about what this site is. It’s a blog. It isn’t a blacklist, or a reputation service, or a service that can be used to block any email from anybody ever. We don’t remove blogs or comments; the whole point of making this a blog is to show not just an initial issue but as much of the process of resolving that issue as possible. Anybody who finds the blog also will see your response.
Anybody who sees this thread and then considers you somehow damaged is a moron, and I”ll call them one to their face. I HATE the whole idea that people can’t be allowed to make mistakes and learn from them. It has got to be one of the most corrosive and damaging memes in modern society.
Constant Contact is a good ESP, concerned about spam and concerned about their reputation. I’m glad about that. It also sounds as if they might have spooked you a bit, though — we antispammers can be zealots and zealots can be scary. 😉 Please don’t take this episode as anything but a warning that something needed fixing. When you responded by fixing the problem, you did the right thing. And we recognize that. Thank you! 🙂
Unfortunately, as of early December, this sender is once again hitting the same spamtrap as before, but using a new ESP, IContact. The “Resolved” tag has therefore been removed. :/
Hi Catherine,
I’ve disabled the account following your report of additional spam trap hits at multiple trap networks, and we’re reviewing the account for further action. Thanks again for the heads up.
All the best,
Andrew.
Thanks, Andrew. Just to be clear, I think that I might have misspoken about what I personally saw. Markettaker.com just hit the same spamtrap that it hit in October; they didn’t hit multiple spamtraps here. However, if they are the only sender from this IP, they must have hit some spamtraps at a blocklist that I use, because this IP is listed. The blocklist is automated; it delists any IP that hasn’t sent spam within I think 72 hours. So whatever caused the listing was recent, and wasn’t the hit on my spamtrap. That suggests other problems with the list.