Has Anyone Gotten Weird Emails Since Going on Fodors?
 

A friend to whom I sent the link for my Dordogne trip report told me that she started getting 25 to 30 wierd e-mails per day as compared to the half dozen or so she used to get per month after she started going on Fodor's. Quite a few of them were about travel but most were about other stuff she said. She even changed her email address because of this.

I can't see how this can be other than a coincidence, especially since she didn't even have to register to read my report. Fodors is a legitimate site and not the kind to mess up your system I'm quite sure.

Could someone with expertise about websites please provide an explantion to set her mind at rest so she can finish reading my report?

How do you define wierd?

degas, weird was her word. Let's say excess spam instead. I just want to assure her that it didn't happen because she visited this website.

In the month after I registered on this board, I received several travel related "Spam" messages - but I think this was just coincidental as it did not continue.

It's nothing to do with Fodors. Many spammers now no longer bother 'fishing' for addresses from web sites, they just write a program that automatically generates a huge list of 'email addresses.' Even though the addresses are thus randomly generated, a lot of them correspond to actual addresses, such as yours. If you respond to their emails, the program notes that your email address is a 'live' one - so whatever you do, don't hit reply to any of these junk emails, even to tell them off.

I suspect by 'weird' you mean these spam emails have strange, garbled subject lines and sender's names. These have been deliberately devised to get around email spam filters, which work by scanning for specific words and phrases, or by blocking specific names the account holder has designated as 'spam'.

So, good news is, it's nothing to do with Fodors. Bad news: Until yahoo, hotmail etc. figure out how to filter out this latest round of spam, we are all stuck with these garbage emails.

I use a spam filter and it takes care of 95% of the viagra, penny stock, porno and discount drug junk!

degas, are you willing to name the spam filter you use or is that against Fodors non-advertising rule? I get alot of junk mail going directly to my yahoo Bulk folder and so I followed Yahoo's recommendation to forward the junk to their junkmail department. So, then I started getting mail from the yahoo junk dept telling me they got my forwarded junk. So, instead of just the original j-mail, I got an additional j-mail from yahoo. What a vicious circle!

I don't really know what its called - my whizz kid son set it up for me.

On my yahoo account, I forwarded some a while back and now it directs almost all the weird stuff to the bulk folder. An odd one gets by every once in a while. Fingers-crossed for the future!

Thanks, Sue. Hopefully your input will be enough to convince my friend that visiting Fodors is not the problem.

Willit, I'll mention your experience too.

Degas, this is what my friend said about her spam filter:

"Even though they were all intercepted by our filter system and ended up in our deleted box, they took an hour or more per day to come in (we're still on dial-up)."

WHAT? You mean I didn't win the UK lottery? :-O

What is dial up? Do they live in lower Romania? Fork over a few more bucks and get cable. If I can do it, anybody can.

Whatever it is it's not Fodor's in general as i never get any SPAM e-mails a'tall and i've been on here several years. Or maybe i have some super security aparatus doing it for me.

I get no more weird e-mails than I used to.

Degas, I only have dial-up. The area on my island where I live doesn't have many options. There is high-speed available but according to one neighbor who has it, it's REALLY unreliable & doesn't work more than it does. It's not a case of $$.

I get weird emails now and then but they are from posters on Fodors LOL
((F))

Carrybean, I was just joshing you.

Hi M,

It is highly unlikely that your friend's spam problem has anything to do with you.

I use Spybot, Adaware, Norton's and AVG on my computer.

My ISP has spam filters.

I still get spam.

((I))

PS.

I do not inform yahoo that I have bulk mail in my bulk mail folder. I let them dump it.

Moolyn, we've been using Fodors for four months now and nothing has changed. And I HATE spam so I would be off this site in a second if they did that to me. Highly doubt it is from Fodors. Hope she gets passed it and enjoys Fodors as much as we do.

emh

If you select the "display email address" option in the user profile, you will be visible to spambots. A well-engineered site wouldn't expose addresses, but well...

Speaking of spam, do you ever open them and read some of the gobbledygook nonsensical prose they put in to sneak by the spam filters? Talk about weird. Here's and excerpt from one I just got:

<i>...and trustworthy individual.In this progress of his father young Cowperwood definitely shared. Hewith their children; and so this family, which increased at the rate ofrains; and the sidewalks were of red brick, and always damp and cool. Infour children, was quite an interesting affair when he was ten and they...</i>


Using actual spam messages such as that for the script, here are a couple of little animated movies, which I think are brilliant:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZ0c5F6pFi4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c03b5A_gfIU

Ira and everyone, thanks for the reassurance that I didn't unwittingly expose my good friend to spam!

I think we all agree that my friend would not be exposed to spam fronm visiting this website. But is it at all possible that her email address would be given to travel companies or others if she registers with Fodors? Just checking before I send this info to her.

There has been a definate increase in the amount of spam recently - my web account automatically dumps 99% of it in a junk mail folder - I used to get up to 30 a day and recently that has increased to around 100. A techie friend said he'd read an article saying that it was due to &quot;Russion bot herders&quot; - the mind boggles...

I know, Degas but I still want high-speed. :((

I've heard that another way to get a lot of spam is that the free greeting card sites sell the addresses. Don't know if this is true or not but it makes sense.

I checked the privacy agreement for Fodor's and discovered that my friend may have been deluged with spam because she inadvertently opted-in to receive unsolicited email:

&quot;Fodors.com provides its users the opportunity to receive promotional information from it, its parent companies, subsidiaries and affiliates, as well as third party vendors. Such vendors include businesses offering special travel services and discounts. In such instances, Fodor's will always provide an opt-in function when users submit personally identifiable information for such site activities as bulletin boards, newsletters, surveys, contests, sweepstakes, etc. You will not receive unsolicited emails from us or from third parties unless you specifically give us permission to do so via the opt-in function. You can tell us not to share this information at any time by clicking here.&quot;

Hi M,

&gt;because she inadvertently opted-in to receive unsolicited email:&lt;

That's why you are supposed to read the contract before signing it. :)

((I))

I never use my regular e-mail address to subscribe to websites or forums. I have a junk mail address for that - and I only ever log into that account if I need to click on a link to activate an account. That way I seem to avoid lots of spam.

cailin, thanks! I really like your idea. I'll suggest it to my friend and I think I'll even start doing this myself.

I post my e-mail address only on Fodor's (it's a secondary address) and immediately started receiving junk mail. My regular address, which is not posted on any public site, has not received any junk mail since I started using it 6 months ago.

&gt;I post my e-mail address only on Fodor's...&lt;

If you post your address on any forum it will start getting spam. It needs only one person to spot it.

((I))

Well yes, you DO need to check the &quot;no thanks no spam&quot; box when you sign up at various websites. The fault is your friend's, not Fodors.

And if you choose to show an email address, anyone can grab it. Can't blame Fodors for that either.

Yes, Ido get a lot of spam. No, I do not want to enlarge anything except my income...

What is considered ' a lot of SPAM' or junk emails?
Like Ira, I too have things like Norton, SpyDoctor, AVG, &amp; Symantec.
My bulk folder receives anything between 5-20 emails a day and around 3-6 spam emails get through.

Thanks everyone! I'm pretty sure that my friend's increase in spam was because she inadvertently authorized it, not simply for visiting Fodors. Sometimes you click to authorize third party email and sometimes you click not to so it was an honest mistake. No need for any more comments. Just let this sink now, please.

Moolyn,

Do you really think that by asking us to &quot;let it sink&quot; taht it will? :)

((I))

I've had my business email address posted on my web site for 11 years and never received a single spam. It's cloaked by being encrypted in a Javascript applet. Spambots can't see it, but people can.

I think the idea that there are people manually scanning the web for addresses is nonsense.

And just exactly why are junk Emails named after a fine, tasty product (little tabasco, served with eggs and rice...100% Moke, mon) from those good folks at Hormel?

Jeffrey, I love Spam, I love eggs, I love rice and I love Tabasco sauce. Thanks for the great idea..from Hawaii I assume although never had that exact dish when I have been there. I will fix that one morning.

&quot;What is dial up? Do they live in lower Romania? Fork over a few more bucks and get cable. If I can do it, anybody can.&quot;

This is pure technical imperialism, not all the world lives in areas where cable and/or DSL is available, not just in lower Romania, wherever that is, but in many rural areas so called first world countries and most of the developing world. So please spare a though for all us us who like to love in beautiful places but there is too low a population density to justify broadband commercially.

Spam is a major problem of the internet, since I stopped subscribing to an expensive anti-spam SW, my spam input is huge, but mostly its so easy to tell which mail is spam and hit delete en masse, so I can't say whether Fodors is responsible for leaks or not. However I have moticed about a month ago a huge resurgence of Spam, maybe there is new spamming sofware out there. Too bad you can't just put it in yor fireplace like junk mail. I would like to put spammers in the fireplace too.

Degas was just kidding about the dial-up. :)

After being beseiged by hundreds of complaints from angry residents of Lower Romania, I retract my statement about getting cable. Gee, who would have known they could read and write?