Annoying Spammers!
UPDATE: Well after some further investigation, it looks like I was slightly off. The spammers are indeed sending emails pretending to be me, which is resulting in thousands of bounced emails! The spammers are sending emails directly from their computer (IP 213.239.209.78) pretending to be me (making the emails look like they are coming from me). I am NOT sending any spam to anyone! They are NOT coming from me.
Looks like over the weekend my blog FollowSteph.com was targetted by spammers. Normally, this would mean I received an innordinate amount of email, but this time it was the other way. I’m still working with my host to figure out what’s happened, but from my quick initial inspection it appears that thousands of emails were relayed (or made to appear as though they were) through my mailserver with different FollowSteph.com sender and reply email addresses.
This morning I litterally had thousands of bounced emails in my inbox! Hopefully I’ll be able to resolve this issue very shortly.
· October 16th, 2006 · 4:32 pm · Permalink
You’re not alone. This has been happenning to me for the last couple of weeks. The spammers use a fake email address at my domain for the from/reply-to address, and I get all of the boucebacks from their apam. It is really annoying, and I don’t think that there is any way to stop it. Most of them seem to be for stocks that the spammers are pushing.
· October 16th, 2006 · 8:38 pm · Permalink
Hi Sean,
That’s exactly what’s happening! It’s happen with my company LandlordMax.com in the past, but never with this blog. Oh well, I guess it was only a matter of time…
To be honest, now that I think of it, considering the traffic coming here each month, it’s surprising it hasn’t happened sooner (I get in the 5 digits of unique visitors a month).
· October 18th, 2006 · 7:26 am · Permalink
Hi Sean,
Have you found any way to resolve the problem?
I’m afraid about my domains being tagged as a source of spam!
· October 18th, 2006 · 7:29 am · Permalink
ups! I mean Steph!
· October 18th, 2006 · 11:13 am · Permalink
Hi Jag,
I had the exact same worries initially!
From what I understand after several emails with my host provider, you don’t need to worry. What happens is that the spam filters look at the originating IP and block the spam coming from that IP, not just that domain. They do this because this is so prolific online that it’s the only choice!
Just think how many times over PayPal would be banned from everything by now (I get thousands of emails pretending to be from PayPal). Or the banks where spammers try phishing your identity.
· October 18th, 2006 · 12:59 pm · Permalink
Thanks for the info. It makes a lot of sense.
· October 18th, 2006 · 1:50 pm · Permalink
You’re welcome.