Things have finally died out in my SPAM reply chain. It took two days or more. There have been a few fun updates. When we last left, Steve had sent an email, marked important, that he didn’t understand anything. A few other people responded that they were in the same boat, or more on the “I’m not responsible” bit. Then came this:
Good day Mr. [redacted],
We do apologize for the inconveniences these emails have caused you.
We would like to verify the sort of emails sent to your email box by our email address. Please also confirm if you are a customer of [redacted] Bank and if you are, is it the [redacted] -( electronic notification on each transaction done on your account) that you receive? You can select a limit of the [redacted] you want to receive in your email box.Waiting for your reply.
Kind regards,
[redacted]
So some bank is in on this chain, and is now apologizing for this situation (which isn’t their fault). There were 5 or 6 more “who is doing this” emails, along with another 3 or so “take me off your list” messages. Next, Tim chimed in:
Dear new friends
I feel I have made quite a few this morning, as so many different people unknown to me have joined in this discussion, taking the nuisance value of this silly bit of spam to new heights.
Can I suggest no more replies to this message, tempting though it may be. Each reply is probably being distributed to many other innocent receivers of it. Remember that the original evil sender will be on the mailing list too. Having made up lots of random combinations of email addresses, it is very likely that they are now gathering in the real, working email addresses people are unwittingly give them, for even more targetted spam in the future. Don’t get duped. The age old advice is, if something arrives and it is not for you, bin it and move on.
Tim
Someone has some sense. There were a few other people saying “stop replying, just delete these messages”. Someone explained how this was all going on, one address forwarding to us all. Some, like Reena, were getting pretty upset:
i am being blamed as well for sumthing i havent even done .. my email address is purely for job hunting and i wouldnt send out “smut” to anyone .. i hate the things myself and it is bloody annoying.. i am getting the freefix crap as well .. and i really personally dont want to open another email account .. so whoeva is doing this .. please get a freaking life
Responding to one of the shouting “stop emailing me” messages was Ceejay:
Hello Keith,
Sorry about all these crap coming to your email i think someone might have added all our addresses to a mailing list at [redacted] and the best way out is to report to the persons ISP and get his domain name banned, I get them too but just delete them but I don’t like the fact that you think they are coming from Nigeria. That there are a lot of school gunshots and murders in the USA does not make USA a country labelled for murderers. I don’t like the label you guys always try to apply to our country, there might as well be other countries doing this but hiding under the label of Nigeria just the same way they hide trying to make their smut look like it is coming from our email addresses. I did not want to reply to this list but the moment I saw Nigeria it set me off. Just pray for the best and exercise all best and safe internet practices but leave out the label of fraud and smut from Nigeria. It is not our Label and we would not accept it.Thanks and Good Luck.
Some people take all the fun out of watching a thread like this. Soon someone tried to start an investigation, that was Ken.
I have been deleting this rubbish , but something caught my eye and decided to go through my deleted files. A Paul [redacted] of [redacted] tel [UK phone number redacted] responded to an email from [redacted] regarding a music purchase.
That could be a starting point for those who want start some form legal action.
Then we got another 6 messages of “unsubscribe me”, and things amazingly went quiet.
All in all, there were over 40 messages, not including bounced emails. I was really enjoying watching this.
