peggy8080's profile

peggy8080

Contributor

 • 

80 Messages

Closed

Signed up to multiple email subscriptions

A few days ago I started getting thousands of emails. Someone used my email address to sign up to newsletters and subscriptions. How does something like this happen? I would get around 20 per minute for hours, from all over the world in all different languages. I have spent the last few days marking them as spam (doesn't work in most cases) and unsubscribing. This is incredibly annoying.Is there any way to stop this from happening again? I changed my password but I had never heard of an attack like this before

Discussions

 • 

Updated 

2.2K

1

0

0

B

Becky

+2 more

Moderator

 • 

4.3K Messages

Hi Peggy8080, several years ago, I heard about a scam where a hacker somehow gets hold of your credit card information and fraudulently orders high-cost items online. The hacker would then inundate your Inbox with thousands of newsletters and subscriptions in the hope of hiding the "thank you for your purchase" email sent to you by the retailer. There isn't any way to stop this flood of email, unfortunately, outside of deleting your email address completely. I suggest keeping an eye out for order confirmation emails. If you have made online purchases that are linked to this email address, you may want to log into each company's website, check for recent orders, and delete your payment information. If you find any recent orders that were not made by you, report the fraud to the retailer, the police, and the FTC. -Becky, Cox Support Forums Moderator

2

0

P
peggy8080

Contributor

 • 

80 Messages

This is exactly what happened! There was a Wayfair order for an $800 faucet. I did catch it, because I get Wayfair texts, and they used my phone number and name. I was first alerted when I got a text asking to confirm I no longer wanted text updates from wayfair. I selected "resume" so I could continue to get the updates. When I got home I saw the thousands of emails and sure enough one from Wayfair confirming my order. I immediately called wayfair and told them the order was fraudulent, and had them remove my credit card number from saved numbers. I logged into my credit card account and the wayfair one was the only charge. I've kept a very close eye on my CC statements and no other charges have appeared. I called police and gave them the address the hacker used to deliver the faucet. They took a report but I doubt they followed up. I had to call wayfair back 5 times to get my refund and stop the order. They eve n shipped it after I told them it was fraudulent, and did not stop the shipment. I got another text saying "your order is out for delivery" after multiple calls I believe I stopped the crook from getting the $800 faucet but it was way too much work on my part. Wayfair should have done a better job of stopping it.  

So anyway, I don't know if they hacked into my wayfair account or hacked into my email. Either way I've changed all passwords and continue to check daily my statements. Now I just need to deal with the constant barrage of emails from all the places I "subscribed" to. The biggest problem is I continue to mark them as spam yet I still get them, like the system is not detecting they are spam. 

Like

Reply

0

P
Phuhque

New Contributor

 • 

19 Messages

It also be a smokescreen for identity theft.

https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!msg/gmail/66Oxsj17tUU/izWuvWx0CQAJ

https://www.csoonline.com/article/2132829/access-control/flood-of-spam-email--it-may-be-a-screen-for-fraud.html

https://www.csoonline.com/article/2133689/social-engineering/spam-blizzards-used-to-hide-malicious-activities.html

Anytime a flood of "Thank you for signing up" messages come in, it is time to call everywhere you have money and get cards reissued, passwords reset, re-review all creditcard purchases.

Marking them as spam won't help because they are valid messages.  If you do not issue a response to them, they may be removed due to lack of action, but again, may not.

Like

Reply

0

Related Content

Recent Discussions