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Leaking Cycle Dealer???

by Griff500
Tue, Jun 06, 2017 20:31
3

I guess most people are aware of the current scams involving an invoice or delivery note for unnamed items, from an unnamed company, arriving by email, and asking you to click on a link for details, after which bad things happen to your computer?  Well I just had a worrying variation, where the bogus invoice detailed not only my address, but also my mobile number, and listed a couple of bike parts. Still no company name, but I was asked to click on a link for more detail, and the email address was clearly bogus. So clearly this came from somebody who knows my personal details, and that I buy bike bits, though alarm bells rang when I noticed they were MTB bits not road bike bits.  If I were a betting man, I would say that this information probably came from one of the online retailers I have used.  Does this sound familiar to anybody?

 

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3 comments

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srchar | 7 years ago
1 like

If you have gmail, you can invent new email addresses ad hoc using a plus symbol.  For example:

joe.bloggs [at] gmail.com will also receive email to joe.bloggs+wiggle [at] gmail.com, joe.bloggs+crc [at] gmail.com etc.

You can then use Man of Lard's trick to identify exactly who sold your email address to spammers, as the spam will be sent to e.g. joe.bloggs+wiggle [at] gmail.com.

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Man of Lard | 7 years ago
0 likes

Exactly why I use a different email address for every retailer. When spam arrives, I know which retailer has leaked it and they are contacted to tell them of the compromising of their data. Depending on their reaction, I may continue to use them...

The other side effect is that if spam arrives to the address I gave to "Bob's Bikes" and it's not from Bob's Bikes, I know instantly that it's spam because the only person with that address is Bob's Bikes...

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Drinfinity | 7 years ago
0 likes

Address and phone details could leak from anywhere - assume they are pretty much public domain. Bike bits could be a guess - plenty of people buy them online, so if they phish enough email addresses they will get a bite.

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