Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Scam and Spam

My Hotmail account ia a junk mail account (even though I actually use it for real things, too) that I use to sign up for websites that require it. Over the past week I have received two scams on that email telling me I need to authenticate my account or it will be deleted. They have been made to look like they are coming from Windows Live Hotmail Team, but that's easy enough to do. They wanted my account name, paassword, date of birth, and something else I don't remember right now. I deleted the first one without seeing more than the request for my birthdate. When I got the second one I actually read through it and saw what a poor job they did trying to fake it. I was irritated that someone was trying this.

Then I saw something.

The email address of the person who sent the scam.

What to do, what to do? I probably should have just reported them, but I didn't want to research how. I probably will still do that, just in case other people don't recognize it for what it is. In the meantime I went to the Publishers Clearing House website and used that email address to sign up. If you ever make the mistake of signing up, they never stop sending you things. Ever. I used a street address that doesn't exist and their real email address to sign up for every email newsletter they offer (at least 25 of them). The name of the recipient? Email Spammer. It may or may not do any good, but I certainly feel better. The only part I would have changed is creating a password required for unsubscribing, but they don't offer that. Dang.

**UPDATE**
I just finished reporting both of the people who sent me the scam. It was easier than I thought. Figuring out how to report them took me all of 30 seconds. Signing the scammer up for the emails took a minimum of 30 minutes, but it was much more satisfying.

2 comments:

Abbie said...

Ha ha! I love it!! Way to go. I just hope no one ever signs me up on that website!

Della Hill said...

That's awesome.
Good job recognizing the scam. There must be tons of people who fall for it.
-Della