Are spammers getting more and more clever?

[Eumersian]

OK, this really creeped me out, and was a surprising note on the progression of technology or what-have-you. I received a spam email not too long ago that scared me a little. Usually, I am able to tell right away whether or not an email is spam, as I only get a few of those a month, and they usually have really obvious (or silly) names that I don't recognize. They are usually just ads for really cheap Cialis or Viagra. In fact, I have a compendium of all the ones I've gotten so far because some of them are really funny.

The thing about this one is that the name I did recognize, because the email address had a name that a relative of mine has. The address was as follows:

-My uncle's first initial
followed by
-His last name (the creepiest bit being that is that the spelling of the name is different than the usual pronunciation, and only people who know my family ever spell it correctly, and yet it was spelled perfectly)
[email protected]

I knew my uncle had an email address different than this one, but I assumed that maybe he forgot his password and made a new one, or his account broke and he used another one, or something like that. When I opened it, it was just another link to some really cheap penis-related meds.

This truly does haunt me. How advanced are spambots? Is it a spammer that I have met or possibly wronged? Is it a coincidence? No, the uncannily perfect spelling of the name of my uncle who regularly emails me about totally not penis-related things. There must be something behind this.

Has anybody else encountered this situation?

 

[Julianking93]

I have not. Never heard of that before.

I just get shit that says "[email protected] [No Subject]"

Considering I know no Brian MacCammy and I get the same message at least once a day containing some form of cryptic link to a porn site, I know how to avoid them.

 

[PumpActionJesus]

SO i sign up for one dodgy website and now all i get is porn spam :/

my hotmail has reset itself so many time due to too much mail inbox.

Gmail is awesome for anti spam

 

[VincentX3]

I don't have to worry about spam, since It gets auto-deleted from my hotmail, plus the antivirus will pick it up if not.

 

[oppp7]

The spambots on Warcry are nonstop failure. It's actually funny to see how much they'll mess up the English language.

 

[Lord Mountbatten Reborn]

Just put it into the junk folder and it shan't bother you again. I keep getting offers of webcam sex or actual sex (I know this is spam because this does not happen to me in reality, though I'd be annoyed if it turned out otherwise).

 

[PurpleSky]

The most clever spam is that bloody virus on Yahoo Messenger where you start sending people messages with links without knowing it.

 

[zhoominator]

I haven't noticed. But then, the last spambot I saw on a forum couldn't even post a link properly...

 

[klakkat]

I wouldn't say they are getting smarter. They are as persistent as ever though, and are using a lot more viruses and bots. Since a favorite tactic is to infect an email account and spam everyone on its contact list using that account, I find it best to just never open email unless I'm expecting something, and never open links unless I'm 100% sure of the origin of the email.

 

[sheic99]

Yeah, for about a week I recieved spam from [email protected]. That's right, I received spam from myself. It really freaked me out.

 

[child of lileth]

I get spam with facebook subjects. I've never had any social networking accounts, so I know they are all fake. Or I get Japanese spam with kanji names and subjects, which is even more odd since my account is US and all.

 

[Girl With One Eye]

I once got spam from a company apparently offering me a job; I got freaked out because I had been applying for loads of jobs. But when I read the email it said they wanted a PA/prostitute (didn't actually say that but got the gist of it from the so called job description).

Oh and I got emails asking if I wanted to star in a porn movie...