Sure you never applied?

Filed in archive Spam News on November 21, 2006

As it turns out, only one slip, one click, one reply, can make you a victim of spam e-mails for years and years to come. Spam and spammers never die, which was proven by Bob Sullivan over at The Red Tape Chronicles:

"Recently, I received yet another solicitation in response to the spam I answered -- a full three years after the fact. In this case, I got a phone call from someone who was half-way around the globe asking if I was interested in refinancing my mortgage.
I knew the Origin of the call because I answered the spam with a special name I'd borrowed by one of my childhood baseball heroes, and entered a rarely used spare phone line as the call-back number. The caller rang this spare line, and asked for my hero."

Bob also found out that spammers are well aware of outsourcing, so they pay $24 for a 'live transfer' phone call, and $4 for your telephone number, name, e-mail address and other information. Those prices can get as high as $100, and all the work digging for your private info is done in India or some other outsourcing country.

So, in times when we were much more innocent, when spam was still a curious piece of canned meat, did you ever give out your info? Did you reply to that visionary offer of free games, fill out any online surveys? If so, your private info might be hidden on some HD, waiting to be rediscovered and used to bombard you with not so innocent today's spam. The only thing to do is to change your e-mail address and phone number, and hope for the best.