Why Did You Spam Me?

by Liz Miller
EBSTC Member

Liz is the author of "Get Rolling" and "Advanced Inline Skating." She is a certified FIT and Level 2 Inline Skating instructor. See her Web sites at www.GetRolling.com and www.CampRollerblade.com.

We are gathered today to mourn the loss of the e-mail address — and a key part of the Get Rolling brand — Liz at Get Rolling dot com. Notice I don't dare format it like an e-mail!

Never fear, I still own the Getrolling.com domain. When my Web site launched in the mid-90s, I used my ideal e-mail address everywhere. More than 15 years ago, I didn't realize the dangers of displaying it on every Web page. About a year ago, I finally changed it, so that visitors now click an AskLiz link and fill out an e-mail form to communicate with me.

Bad People [-(  

Too late. Bad people continue to use my old address to send spam all over the world. A month ago I got so fed up that I created a Google e-mail account, which I now use exclusively.

But that's not all.

I use PayPal to manage book sales. A month ago, immediately after changing from the old to the new e-mail address, an application that looked exactly like a PayPal page required me to update my account details. In my innocence, I did.

Oops! Turns out that it was a clever phishing scheme piggybacked onto a legitimate PayPal page. The next morning I received an e-mail from my bank's fraud detection service questioning three charges that were made as I slept, immediately after my fateful PayPal update. I called my bank, cancelled my Get Rolling credit card account, and waited a week for my new card.

Bad Timing {-o

My other Web site, CASkating.com, is also a victim in this story, wiped off the face of the Web by my own service provider. A day before that happened, I received the first notification that the site was suspended due to a credit card charge back. (I had to research the meaning of charge back, which is a reversal of a payment card transaction initiated by the consumer.) It was truly a shock when the word deleted appeared in an e-mail a day later-despite the fact that I successfully logged in and changed my auto payment account to the new credit card a month before by following its explicit written instructions. More innocence.

My July credit card statements (one for the old and one for the new) verify my payment of the annual domain hosting fee for CASkating. The old account statement shows that transaction was cancelled and transferred to the new account. My guess is that the timing of the cancelled and transferred payment resulted in the suspension.

Thanks to technology, Liz at Get Rolling dot com will never rest in peace.

So dear reader, I apologize if you have ever received a spam from my beloved old e-mail address, I apologize if you receive a future spam, and I apologize if www.CASkating.com has not been restored to full functionality by the time you read this.

Oh yes, I also apologize for publishing my first rant.

Editor's note: Most credit companies and banks list an e-mail address for their security teams and want to know about these types of activities. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) also has an e-mail address, web site, and toll-free number to which you can report phishing and other scam attempts.

I routinely forward these types of e-mails to both the institution being spoofed and the FTC (spam@uce.gov) when I receive them. Also, see http://www.consumer.gov/idtheft or call 1-877-IDTHEFT for more information from the FTC about this issue.

Associate Editor's note: Origin of the word 'spam' in e-mails? Some say it's from an old Monty Python routine in which customers in a restaurant that serve the mystery meat, Spam, in every dish would call out 'Spam' over and over, drowning out another's customer request for a meal. See Wiki article.