How are they getting it?

Question

In the last few months I have had people getting my email address for msn, and i don't know how they are getting it. The most recent one told me he got it from something called The Market, but won't tell me what that is. Anyone know what it is or how they can get my email address? I don't give out my email address to people, and the people are asking personla information. Anyone help?

Anonymous · Accepted Answer

There are basically 3 ways the scammers and the spammers get our e-mail addresses.

Once your email address is on a spammers list it is almost impossible to get it off. Right now, your e-mail address (along with millions of others) is on a CD being sold from the back rooms of software shops from Bangladesh to Botswanna and from Norway to the Netherlands.

Method #1--The spam-industry has programs that are continusously crawling the web looking for the "@" symbol which is a sure sign the the word before it and the domain name after it is an e-mail address! Therefore, one should never post there e-mail address on any sort of website or webpage including guestbooks, forums, or user profiles such as Yahoo's.

Method #2--The spam-industry uses programs that try sending e-mail to all known domain names. Example: a program might start trying to send out e-mails to everyone starting with aaaaa@INVALID.com and continue down to zzzzz@INVALID.com. Using a longer e-mail address will make this harder to do.

Method #3-- The spammers and scammers purchase e-mail addresses from disreputable websites that require you to enter your e-mail address. The biggest offenders are sites that claim they are giving away "this and that" for free often require that you enter your e mail address in a web form. Guess where that address ends up? Yup, it is sold to the spammers!

Good luck.

Anonymous · Answer

could be your email selling your address to other companies

How are they getting it?

2 Answers