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A Spammer - I Don't Think So
Hopefully you never get falsely accused
of being a spammer. It is no picnic!
It all started when I started receiving emails (a ton of them) stating
"Mail Delivery Failed". I looked at several of them and realized I
hadn't sent those emails!
Sure enough it had my address as the sender but I knew I didn't send
those emails. The email addresses they were going to were all over the
world and didn't know a single one of people who were to receive them!
First thing I did was change my password for my email account someone
else was using...thinking that would do the trick. Oh No! Wrong answer!
Next morning, I checked my email and guess what! Still more of those
emails - several hundred of them! At that point I didn't know what to do
next. You'd think changing of the password - especially to a much
stronger password would suffice.
You wouldn't believe what I found in my email box next. To back up a
bit...I send out jokes on a daily basis to a list of friends. Sometimes
I'll send 20-30 emails a day depending on how many I receive from my
friends. So naturally I do a lot of sends almost every day to a list of
approximately 75 people plus email updates to various team members.
So I was most surprised when I got an email back from one ISP stating my
email to some of my friends was labeled as SPAM! Just so you know the
ISP was comcast.com. That's when the real "fun" started!
Next thing you know, I received more and more "Mail Delivery Failed"
messages. To my surprise or demise depending on however you wish to
state it, email to my downline members were being blocked - labeled as
SPAM!
YES - I'm labeled as a spammer!
How did I get this issue under control?
1. I submitted a support ticket to get my main password changed for my
domain. Also, I wanted admin staff to verify we were not having any
email security issues that might affect others. At this time, admin
staff is still in the process of security verification.
With the password change, I was sure hoping this would handle the issue.
To my surprise the next morning, I checked my email and all I received
was just a few emails returned - the continuing fallout of some emails
sent earlier.
2. Today I checked my email and all I'm receiving is the emails returned
from ISPs thinking I am a spammer. Still a great hassle but much better
than 1400+ returned emails that I didn't send!
3. Luckily the emails returned to me thinking the emails were spam did
include a link for me to see why the ISP did not deliver the email and
the steps to rectify the situation.
However, this is a long, arduous and time-consuming task. I'm still
waiting on a response from comcast. I know they must make sure this
information is correct and its not a true spammer.
All in all, this is such a mess and getting labeled a spammer on account
of the actions of others is down right ludicrous!
What can you do to make sure your email account is not hijacked and you
labeled as a spammer?
1. Make sure you change your email passwords every 30 days AND don't
make it something simple - make it something classified as strong.
2. What is a strong password? Its a combination of upper and lower case
alphabetic characters; special symbols such as #, @, %,!; along with
numeric characters. Above all, make it at least 8 characters long.
3. How are you going to remember a strong password? There are several
ways to do this but a "black book" such as a small notebook you keep
somewhere other than on your computer.
Yes, you can keep it on your computer but make sure it is protected by a
master password AND preferably stored on an external hard drive which
you do NOT leave connected to your computer. Nice place for backups,
too!
You never know when someone could guess your password and you end up
known as a spammer! Don't let this happen to you.
Stay tuned for the next chapter of this mess. I'm sure this is not over!
© Copyright 2007 All Rights Reserved
For A Spammer - I Don't Think So
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