SC Fuels: Purchased List? Sure Looks Like It….
SC Fuels, a national distributor of automotive fuel and home heating oil, is spamming an email address that was closed in 2002, at least a year before its own domain was registered. I see no way that an email address closed in 2002 and not re-enabled as a spamtrap til 2005 could be on this sender’s list except because of a typo combined with failure to confirm subscriptions, or a purchased list. The ESP is Constant Contact.
Sending IP: 208.75.123.135
Spam Sample:
Actual Headers:
Received: from ccm135.constantcontact.com (ccm135.constantcontact.com [208.75.123.135])
by <xxx> (Postfix) with ESMTP id <xxx>
for <xxx>; Tue, 1 Nov 2011 13:xx:xx -0500 (CDT)
Received: from <xxx> (<xxx>.prodcc.net [10.252.<xxx>.<xxx>])
by <xxx>.constantcontact.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id <xxx>
for <xxx>; Tue, 1 Nov 2011 14:xx:xx -0400 (EDT)
DKIM-Signature: <xxx>
Message-ID: <xxx>
Date: Tue, 1 Nov 2011 14:xx:xx -0400 (EDT)
From: SC Fuels <heatingoil@scfuels.com>
Reply-To: heatingoil@scfuels.com
To: <xxx>
Subject: Free Heating Oil? You must be kidding...
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-Roving-ID: <xxx>
X-Lumos-SenderID: <xxx>
X-Roving-CampaignId: <xxx>
X-Roving-StreamId: <xxx>
Readable Email:
From: SC Fuels <heatingoil@scfuels.com>
To: <spamtrap>
Subject: Free Heating Oil? You must be kidding…
Reply-To: heatingoil@scfuels.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 SC Fuels. Don’t forget to add heatingoil@scfuels.com 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.
<removed>
This email was sent to <xxx> by heatingoil@scfuels.com.
Update Profile/Email Address
http://visitor.constantcontact.com/do?<xxx>
Instant removal with SafeUnsubscribe(TM)
http://visitor.constantcontact.com/do?<xxx>
Privacy Policy:
http://ui.constantcontact.com/roving/CCPrivacyPolicy.jsp
Online Marketing by
Constant Contact(R)
www.constantcontact.com
SC Fuels | 1702 Pennsylvania Ave | Bremerton | WA | 98337
Thank you for bringing this to our attention. This sender is no longer a customer of our service.
Good to know, and that definitely ends Constant Comments’ responsibility for this spam.
Unfortunately, it also means that SC Fuels may move to another ESP and spam the same list again. Of course, they may have learned their lesson and got rid of the purchased list, but until I see evidence of that in the form of lack of new spams, I won’t mark this blog post resolved. The main focus of the MainSleaze blog is not on ESPs but on companies that spam. Until we know that the company has stopped spamming, not just left a particular ESP or ISP, the problem remains.
We have looked into this issue and are working on resolving it. We think the issue comes from the fact that we have customers in our database that haven’t ordered from us in over three years. We don’t have any type of purchased list but a lot of our contact information is outdated and not current.
We removed close to 500 email addresses of individuals from our database that haven’t ordered or contacted us in the last 3 to 7 years. That is close to 25% of our total email list.
We are trying to alleviate any problems and ensure that we are maintaining best email practices.
That will help fix things. You might have more recent problems, though, and the lack of bounce processing (removing email addresses that were not deliverable) will be a huge ongoing issue if you do not fix it. *Anybody* who has not responded to an email at least once in the past year could no long er be using that email address. Also, somebody who has bought from you directly but not via email might have changed their email address and not told you about it. That means they could be a customer in good standing, but the email address could still be a spamtrap.
I will watch my spamtrap collection over the next few weeks and post here about what I see. Hopefully your measures will fix the problem. 🙂