Phishing SPAM to one of my unique email addresses

[GGD]

I have my own domain and whenever I need to provide an email address to an online vendor I usually give them something like vendor@mydomain.com and those emails will get to my catch-all email account for my domain.

I've been doing this so that I can pinpoint the source if I start getting SPAM, and also so that I can easily reject mail to that unique address if it becomes a problem

Today I got four identical Phishing SPAMs to one of those email addresses (they're coming about every 10 minutes), the vendor that I had given that address to was PowerBookMedic and looking through my records, I placed one order with them in November 2003 and gave them that address for the order processing, and never ordered from them again.

Has anyone else done the same sort of unique email practice and gotten hits like this years after being used?

[quote SPAM]I am Anatasaia Zagolina, Recruiting agent, eSourcesUK
I just came about your email address through an online email listing
and I would be very interested in offering you apart-time paying job in
which you could earn a lot without quitting your present Job or having problem
with your employers.We are based in UK and Russia, but we have been receiving orders
from Northern America, which we have not been able to process completely
since we do not have a payment personnel in these areas. We are currently
employing new payment co-coordinators in your area and will like to inquire if
you will be interested. These job will not affect you current job.
(PAY IS GOOD)

If interested get back with this information....
FULL NAME :-
ADDRESS (STATE, CITY, ZIP CODE) :-
PHONE NUMBER :-

Best means of communication : Email or Phone ? ...........

[Filliam H. Muffman]

I have never gone to that extent with a retailer but once Macworld/IDG sold/had-stolen a unique email address to spammers within two weeks after I registered for MWSF. I got junk to that address for at least 2 more years after that.

After that much time it might not be the retailer doing it on purpose. It might be someone bought a surplus computer and got the data off an old hard drive. I have heard of people doing that looking for credit card data.

It could also be that someone just came up with a dictionary attack that finally swept up that address. Can you check if other similar email addresses were attempted, or does you spam filter dump them without any record?

[GGD]

I doubt that this was intentional or sold by the retailer, my best guess is that their server got hacked and customer contact info swiped (who knows maybe credit cards too).

I'm certain that the email address wasn't generated by accident, by default I accept all addresses with my domain name and selectively block ones that are a problem so I would have seen any other random attempts.

Filliam H. Muffman wrote:
I have never gone to that extent with a retailer but once Macworld/IDG sold/had-stolen a unique email address to spammers within two weeks after I registered for MWSF. I got junk to that address for at least 2 more years after that.

After that much time it might not be the retailer doing it on purpose. It might be someone bought a surplus computer and got the data off an old hard drive. I have heard of people doing that looking for credit card data.

It could also be that someone just came up with a dictionary attack that finally swept up that address. Can you check if other similar email addresses were attempted, or does you spam filter dump them without any record?

[eburgian]

That's why I like sneakemail. Unique addresses for each vendor/site.

[Joey Cupcakes]

Yup. I do exactly the same thing.

I'm convinced that Bushnell (optical company) either sold their email list or was hacked. I've gotten politacl campaigns and much other spam. I wrot to Bushnell about this and never responded, and I wrote to the politicos who spammed me and said if I ever get another unsolicited email from them they could count on NOT getting my vote (and these were some candidates who I would consider voting for). To their credit, I stopped getting the political SPAM but other spams continued and I now bounce that address.