Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with spam and spoof

Zero zero zero, zero zero zero zero! (Jenny)

Geckwoistmeinauto — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 08:45:16 -0800

Within the past few weeks, I've been receiving phone calls on my cell phone every day at 9am and 5pm like clockwork from the number (000) 000-0000. How do I make these bastards go away and leave me alone? I do not answer numbers that I don't recognize -- if it's important, they'll leave a message. Recently, some entity has taken it upon themselves to begin harassing me twice a day on my cell phone. Obviously, the number is not a valid number and indeed spoofed Caller ID. Twice a day at the same exact time each day, I get a mysterious phone call from (000) 000-0000. I have never answered these calls. I do not intend to answer these calls, as I don't want the entity to think they have a 'lead', and to increase the volume or frequency of calls.

Interestingly enough, the calls do take off weekends and holidays, which makes me think they're some sort of debt collection entity. I have no debt, nor have I ever had any outstanding or uncollected debt. My number is on the do-not-call list.

Up until maybe this summer, I never received any unsolicited calls on my cell phone. Since then, it seems as though I get from two to five calls a week. Some times from spoofed numbers -- callbacks to the caller ID number reveals disconnected or otherwise out of service -- some times from established businesses.

I've contacted my wireless provider, and they are set on selling me a $5 service that I can use to block a limited number of numbers. This is not appealing to me, I do not want to spend money on this problem. I have filed FCC complaints. I also wrote a letter complaining to the CEO of AT&T, and I plan to copy this letter to my legislators. I also complained to my wireless provider's twitter account, and they are just as useless as the phone support reps.

What else can I do to make these calls go away? Are there any regulatory avenues that I'm missing? Caller ID spoofing is illegal, who is tasked with enforcing this law?

I have an iPhone 4S, but there seems to be no way to reject calls by number or contact on the iPhone 4S like I could on my android device. I do not plan to jailbreak my phone, so please do not offer solutions that require that.

Any SMTP email providers which allow for a low volume of legitimate 'spoofed' email?

cowbellemoo — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 12:59:13 -0800

Are there any low-volume SMTP email relay services which allow the sending of 'spoofed' emails for valid site purposes (like a 'forward to a friend' feature)? The site I just inherited is now hosted on AWS' EC2, which is understandably strict about outgoing SMTP traffic. However, even their add-on email service requires verification of any "from" address used in an email. The site's "forward to a friend" feature sends spoofed emails through a website form, so when the recipient replies to the message, it goes to the address that the forwarder gave to the web form. I figure my options are:

1. Find a less-restrictive SMTP provider that allows for a low volume (a few dozen a day) of legitimate spoofed emails.

2. Re-implement the feature using a static site-specific address (friend-forwards@mysite.com).

I'm sorry some jerk is sending you emails from me

Guy Smiley — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 23:17:05 -0800

Some spammer is spoofing my gmail account out into the world. What consequences should I be concerned about?

Spam No More! How do I convince gmail of this?

darth_tedious — Fri, 01 May 2009 20:53:39 -0800

How Do I Get Hosts to Stop Labeling My Email As Spam? For the last five years or so, spammers have been systematically spoofing my domains, and sending out the usual Viagra and whatnot emails under my name. I finally asked my hosting service the right question, in the right way, and they finally uncovered the misconfiguration that apparently allowed this to happen. Since my domain name rep is now so shredded that even my actual emails to myself get automatically routed into my Spam Box, I'm curious: How do I go about reversing this, so that my actual emails get sent to my customers' inboxes, instead of their spam boxes?

Email Spoofers

grumblebee — Wed, 19 May 2004 09:31:50 -0800

Someone is spoofing email -- making it look like it's coming from me -- and offering to sell people computer equipment. It looks like this is a scam to collect ebay ids. I know about this because one of the guy's emails was returned to me (it couldn't get through to the person he was sending it to). I have his email address. Can I do anything? [more inside.] About a month ago, I got an email from ebay saying my account was suspended because they believed someone had broken into it. I've been busy, and I haven't had time to re-instate my account (I have to fax all sorts of stuff to ebay).

In any case, here is the email that this guy is sending people:

======
Dear _______________,

Dear eBay Member, I am a reseller of electronics and we have items such as Sony Vaio Laptops, PDAs, MP3 players and Digital Cameras I know there may be a lot of people sending email offers and disappearing with the money but I am not such a person. I can send you the item in advance and you can send me the payment after you check it out. Let me know, you have got nothing to lose. Email me at fordsprairie@earthlink.net with your eBay id so that I can check feedbacks before trusting for a transaction.

Thank you,
mgeduld

========================

mgeduld is MY ebay username. I have already forwarded this to ebay, but I was wondering if there was anything else I could do.

I was wondering if someone here with a valid ebay account would be into emailing him/her and asking for more info about the laptops, etc. To see if he'll be stupid enough to give away any info about himself.