SPAM! Is it getting worse?

[Aitch]

I seem to be getting an increase in SPAM email just lately. Like most folk I’m quite cautious when it comes to submitting my email across the net, but sometimes it’s a necessary requirement when joining a site’s membership (like mine) or purchasing products or services online.

Of course, we can only be careful and the only real protection from the Spamsters would be to never leave your email address anywhere with anyone. But hey! Then we wouldn’t be able to function as solopreneurs would we!

I’ve been getting a fair bit of daily Spam from pharmaceutical promotions, including Viagra at discounted prices! Oh oh! Maybe this lot are buying contact details for the over 40’s?

The ‘from’ addresses in the emails are always different, but the names seem to be stolen from real websites e.g. Pharmaceuticals@yourwebsite.com These sites have no idea their names are being used to distribute SPAM as I found out when sending a stern reply to one of them

Anyway, the main reason for this post is to warn you of a recent SPAM used to collect personal information from you.

The method used is requesting the customer fills out a simple questionnaire which is supposedly used by Paypal to help improve its services by:

personalising our content delivery and services to meet your individual needs

I’ve done a Google on it and it appears to be a new Spam technique going around, so be warned, if you receive it, DON’T DO IT, delete the bugger! It starts like this.

On 03/24/2006 I replied to the email message you sent regarding your Paypal account.

As part of PayPal's commitment to excellence, I want to make sure I met your needs in my response.Â* Would you please take a minute to answer a few questions to let me know how I did?

Aitch

[Chris H]

Spam, is it getting worse?

Yes

The internet savviness of your average surfer is pretty low judging by my dealings with friends and colleagues. Unfortunately the pickings for the spammers and phishers is pretty big.

Just deleted a post from my blog whilst going click happy sifting out the spam from the comments in the moderate queue. Still, a sign of success if the spammers want to post on me blog.

Referral spam really gets my goat. Need to start tinkering with the htaccess file if it starts getting too bad though.