Can we talk about how much my inbox changed after I stopped clicking unsubscribe links?

A year ago I clicked 'unsubscribe' on some random spam email and got hit with 50 more phishing attempts in a week. It turned out those links just confirm your email is real to scammers. Has anyone else seen a jump in spam after clicking those buttons?

2 comments

2 Comments

thomas2913d ago

Got a buddy named Carl who kept getting junk emails about weight loss pills. He clicked unsubscribe on every single one for months, thinking he was fighting the good fight. Then one day his inbox exploded with garbage from like 30 different scammers all at once, including one that spoofed his own email address trying to sell him a timeshare. He ended up having to ditch that email entirely and start fresh.

dakota_singh392d ago

Man, I used to be the guy telling everyone to just keep unsubscribing and eventually it would stop. I was dead wrong. Hearing about @thomas291's buddy Carl is exactly what changed my mind. I had a similar thing happen with my old email, I kept unsubscribing from some newsletter and suddenly got hit with a flood of trash from fake payday loan companies. It's like these scammers see you clicking unsubscribe as a signal that you're a real person who reads emails. Your buddy Carl is probably better off starting fresh, I did the same thing and it's way less headache than trying to fight the bots.