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Help! My email is getting bombed!

KhunJay

KhunJay

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Sep 16, 2013
502
218
Woke up today to spam 1532 emails, 287 of which had leaked into my Yahoo Inbox.

First time its ever happened. Some reddit research tells me that scammers flood your inbox
in this fashion when they don't want you to see one transaction that they have made
using your stolen card or banking details.

I practise very stringent password protocols and NEVER store my CC details on any site.
Neither do I use online banking , so Im confused as to what's the game here.
Ive written to yahoo support but haven't heard back yet. The email in question is a compromised
one, I know this from a while back since I checked on haveibeenpwned website.

Can anyone advise if there are any steps I can take at my end to stop this onslaught? Does it stop
in a few days or are there things I can do to mitigate the severity?

Thanks!
 
Sounds like Yahoo's filters are crap. If you never do online banking / use cards online why are you worried? Just add some custom filters to get rid of the spam. I wouldn't be too worried in your case.
 
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VitoBotta said:
Sounds like Yahoo's filters are crap. If you never do online banking / use cards online why are you worried? Just add some custom filters to get rid of the spam. I wouldn't be too worried in your case.
Click to expand...
Cards are stolen in meatspace all the time, certainly in the US where they use prehistoric methods like swiping. Just because they aren’t using it online is no guarantee.
 
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My cards are secure as are all banking details and PayPal. No info is stored anywhere.
The cards are also de-activated for international use (magnetic stripe), so cloning won't work.

I have changed my email pw to something far more complex, and activated 2FA via an authenticator app.

That's all I can do...yahoo got back to me with some explanation that looked like a cut and paste
from their faq....the severity of email bombing has reduced quite a bit...hopefully it dies down soon.

Looking at the content of most of the emails, it appears my email addy has been signed up to
many sites for membership and newsletter subscriptions...who the f would do something so churlish?
With absolutely no $$$ to be made? Puzzling.
 
barbu said:
Cards are stolen in meatspace all the time, certainly in the US where they use prehistoric methods like swiping. Just because they aren’t using it online is no guarantee.
Click to expand...
I can attest to that. We used our debit card at Food City for groceries once (this was several years ago). They had a hack of their systems after that. We don't shop there much, but it was enough. Our card number got ran at some gas station on the east coast (we live in Arizona) for $35.

But our bank is very good and called us to verify. We've also had to call them and they've been great at reversing charges.
 
barbu said:
Call the number on the back of your card and ask about recent transactions.
Click to expand...
Where did the OP say anything about his credit card getting compromised? I understood it as just getting a zillion e-mails from spammers. I figure that's a Yahoo filtering issue. S
 
HDFan said:
Huh? Swiping went away sometime ago.

You can use a spam blocker such as SpamSieve to trash the incoming mail.
Click to expand...

no swiping didn't go away, unfortunately.......I regularly encounter stores where the card reader refuses to read anything but the old fashioned swipe..... it happens randomly but frequently at places such as Target, Trader Joe's, CVS
 
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Macky-Mac said:
I regularly encounter stores where the card reader refuses to read anything but the old fashioned swipe.....
Click to expand...

Stand corrected. I vaguely remember a deadline sometime last year for payment terminals having to support cards with chips. Remember it because one store I use said "no way" but a few months later had one.

I see that Mastercard won't be phasing them out until 2033. Every store in my area has chip enabled card readers, although they sometimes don't work which is another issue. Maybe that is what you are experiencing?
 
People need to remember, getting email spammed does not necessarliy mean your email has been comprimised due to something you've done. Friends, relatives, work mates, basically anyone you've given your email too can get compromised meaning their contact addresses which contains your email address gets in the hands of hackers and the hackers will sell those addresses to spammers who work on behave of unscrupulous advertisers.

It is more than likely that someone the OP knows has had their account compromised and everyone in that account list is getting email spammed. This is why it is important to maintain numerous email accounts, a private one used for immediate family, a second one for the rest of the family, a third one for social media usage and a forth for business use (online banking, online shopping). That way when you start seeing one of the accounts getting email spammed you'll have some idea as to who's be compromised.
 
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HDFan said:
Stand corrected. I vaguely remember a deadline sometime last year for payment terminals having to support cards with chips. Remember it because one store I use said "no way" but a few months later had one.

I see that Mastercard won't be phasing them out until 2033. Every store in my area has chip enabled card readers, although they sometimes don't work which is another issue. Maybe that is what you are experiencing?
Click to expand...

it's definitely an issue of chip readers failing to read the chip. It varies from store to store, and it's a "usually fails" in some stores vs "sometimes fails" in other stores. And of course there are places where the chip reader works all the time.

I've been told that it's a matter with of keeping the chip and/or the chip reader device clean.....but I don't know if that's true
 
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