Spam in my gmail account

[Nix]

I use my gmail address for the contact address for VDr and eBay.

Suddenly as of the 1st March I am suddenly receiving spam to the address.

I comunicated with a seller for a purchased item the day before that so I can only presume that they have sold me out / added me to a mailing list of some sort as I don't think VDr, eBay or Google would have done it ?

[fink]

Can't speak for ebay or google but I know VRDR certainly doesn't give out email addresses.

I've never gotten one piece of spam for the email acc't I use here and it's the only place I use that specific account. Whenever I make up a name for an email account now I use things that an email spam dictionary wouldn't have... like instead of johndoe@ whatever I'd use j.doe.3 or something like that. It's a little bit more work for someone to remember it but worth it in the long run.

[Welshjim]

Nix--This will not help the past, but for the future, I have heard that when giving out a GMail email address, you can do it like this--if you are entering the info on Ebay, for example-- [email protected]. If you get any mail to that address that is spam you will know who sold you out.

[usil]

Oddly enough, I started getting spam to my Gmail account about two weeks ago. Hadn't gotten a thing before that. Someone has sold us out Nix.

[jslater25]

Of course following the recommendations of Welsh Jim means that I would have roughly 30 email accounts! Eek! That sounds a little overwhelming.

Surely there is another solution? Recently I was able to determine that Cox Communications sold my email address with them (they are my ISP and i have never sent an email from that account, nor have I given it out to anyone). I contacted and confronted Cox, and they claim to have removed me from whatever list I was placed on.

[Welshjim]

Nix--My understanding is that the +Ebay part of the address is ignored by GMail, so you will still only have the one GMail address, e.g. [email protected]. But you can see from the header what address the sender used and identify if a "+Ebay" was included.

[EARLE]

Originally posted by Welshjim
Nix--My understanding is that the +Ebay part of the address is ignored by GMail, so you will still only have the one GMail address, e.g. [email protected]. But you can see from the header what address the sender used and identify if a "+Ebay" was included.

1st:
create a "label" AND a filter to match.
like i have:
rwarrior+windows at gmail dot com set up in my addressbook to send my self windows type tips.
it hits gmail
gmail sees the +windows
scans to choose the windows "label"
places the +windows e-mail in the windows "label"

below is a test e-mail i sent myself
so you CAN use ANY address/name and add it to your gmail address as above and previously stated to track who's sending crap to you.

Subj: test
Date: Fri, Mar 4, 2005 at 7:12PM
From: rwarrior+earleajr at gmail dot com [edited]
----------------------------------------------------------------
test

[DanC]

Welshjim, thanks for that tip on using +something. I'll be using and also sharing that one.

[Welshjim]

DanC--You are welcome.
jslater25 --It works as I mentioned. You do not create multiple Gmail accounts, but the header will tell you if the sender used one to which you added "+Ebay", etc., so you will know who passed on your email address.

[Steve R Jones]

Also, never ever post your email address anywhere in public.

But if you must, post it like:

Nix@(removethissection)gmail.com

The automated web crawlers that harvest addresses will have a hard time with it. The human beings reading it should know how to read it.

[jslater25]

jslater25 --It works as I mentioned. You do not create multiple Gmail accounts, but the header will tell you if the sender used one to which you added "+Ebay", etc., so you will know who passed on your email address.

That is good informatin to know. I misunderstood the original suggestion as I do not use Gmail, and I don't <i>think</i> hotmail will do this. So, I was under the impression I would have to set up multiple accounts in order to have a seperate extension for each type (Microsoft newsgroup, VDr, etc.). Perhaps this Gmail is something I should look into further...

[Welshjim]

jslater25--I tried it on one of my other email programs (a POP3). It did not work. I do not know what programs it works with other than GMail.