Flooded with spam emails all of a sudden

Just means your email ended up on some SPAM list. Report those emails to spamcop.net & if you are using GMail, mark them as SPAM. The spamcop report really works and will send abuse emails to the infra provider. As some one who has worked for a WebHost dealing with Security/Malware, I can assure you, we take them seriously.

kramer1 wrote: ↑ Just means your email ended up on some SPAM list. Report those emails to spamcop.net & if you are using GMail, mark them as SPAM. The spamcop report really works and will send abuse emails to the infra provider. As some one who has worked for a WebHost dealing with Security/Malware, I can assure you, we take them seriously.

Just weird why got 50 at one time versus 1-2 at a time.

They all came to spam folder.

For spamcop... do I need to open up spam emails [which do not want to do] in order to report?

Well if they automatically end up in the SPAM folder, then you should be good to ignore them. I would only do this for the ones that come into the Inbox. To ensure that the "spam emails" don't "report" back, just turn off Image Loading, and then you should be safe to open them. Spamcop will want the Raw Email, and you will need to use the "Show Original" option in GMail to get that. Other providers should also have an option for this

You got them, coz someone sold your email ID. Wether it was a site you used recently, or some new SPAM provider picking up your email from an old list, is harder to determine

kramer1 wrote: ↑ Well if they automatically end up in the SPAM folder, then you should be good to ignore them. I would only do this for the ones that come into the Inbox. To ensure that the "spam emails" don't "report" back, just turn off Image Loading, and then you should be safe to open them. Spamcop will want the Raw Email, and you will need to use the "Show Original" option in GMail to get that. Other providers should also have an option for this

You got them, coz someone sold your email ID. Wether it was a site you used recently, or some new SPAM provider picking up your email from an old list, is harder to determine

Ahh, that makes sense about spam emails being in Inbox.

Just hope not some type of ID theft... do have 3rd party accounts where they report any credit inquiry.

If you're curious if your email was leaked in a major data breach, you can plug your email into: https://haveibeenpwned.com/
Of course, this involves submitting your email to the website so don't do it if you're uncomfortable with it.
The site has been running for 7 years and used by many people to check where their credentials have been leaked.

WTF!!

Got same 50 spam emails again in spam folder... all within one minute of each other.

All to same email address, none to other email address I'm logged into on same computer.

zerod wrote: ↑ If you're curious if your email was leaked in a major data breach, you can plug your email into: https://haveibeenpwned.com/
Of course, this involves submitting your email to the website so don't do it if you're uncomfortable with it.
The site has been running for 7 years and used by many people to check where their credentials have been leaked.

Came back as "Good news — no pwnage found!"

But got same 50 spam emails in spam folder twice today.

Probably just regular spam then, or from a breach not on that site.

I sometimes see several of the same spam content emails, usually with the weird fonts and emojis in the subject.
That one comes and goes, but usually less than 10 a day, not 50.
Those ones go straight to my main gmail account, which I don't usually use for signing up, so no idea where they got my address.

Not that this will help your current situation now but this is partly why I use email aliases.

You can do it if you have your own domain or use a service like anonaddy or firefox relay. You create an alias such as "[email protected]" and use that to sign up to whatever random services you're signing up for. That alias forwards the email to the real email of your choosing. If you find out that alias is getting spam delivered to it or you no longer need it anymore, you just delete the alias and you stop getting that spam.

It's also good for security as you're not using your main email everywhere. If a site or service has a data breach, only the alias will be leaked, not your email so it can't be tied to any of your other accounts. Of course, you should be using unique passwords as well.

Marking them SPAM or PHISHING on GMail does NOTHING. I've reported the same emails from the same place for the past 2yrs+ and I still get them daily...

Got another batch of 50 this morning... same as before.

Guess I'll just ignore spam folder while it has messages in multiples of 50.
Maybe by emptying spam folder I'm sending info to spammer and therefore they're being sent again??

Was worried about virus or similar on computer but then would have expected similar spam on other email accounts that are open on same computer.

Guess same idiot/bot is sending these 50 at a time??

I had over 500 waiting for me this morning. Marked them as spam in bellmail, so hopefully that will work.

BE VERY CAREFUL! This is a way of masking fraudulent banking/PayPal transactions. The last time we had this happen, someone hacked our banking and PayPal accounts and banking accounts. They made transactions, and they hope to buy more time by flooding your emails. So if you have notifications enabled, they mix with the rest of the emails. Check your transactions asap, and make sure you enable 2FA!

Unfortunately it appears your email made it to a spam list. This can happen many ways, most likely a business or webform you used sold your email or they were breached - keep in mind if there was a breach you likely would not have been told about it, probably because they are oblivious to the breach in the first place.

Your employer and government services are also not immune from this, also not immune from human incompetence or negligence whether it be from losing laptops, lazy admins, or tight IT budgets. Also plenty of people that are clueless when it comes to tech/computers. Funny story: my employer has CC'd everybody's supposedly "confidential" email addresses by accident due to some old lady not knowing about BCC vs CC when emailing out employee schedules. After that I noticed a swift uptick in spam, I assume someone's device or accounts were compromised and all their contacts were harvested.

Just like telemarketers with auto-dialers you might also just be unlucky and they randomly guessed your mail. Had it happen with an account that was never used for anything, just sitting parked it began getting spam!

Over 200 now however all appeared in Spam folder and not in Inbox so hopefully that means that not someone trying to hide legit email notifications by flooding Inbox.

Was manually emptying Spam folder but have just left as is for past day. No spam emails in Inbox.

Worried that infection on computer however multiple scans were ok and other email accounts logged in on same computer got no spam.

georvu wrote: ↑ Over 200 now however all appeared in Spam folder and not in Inbox so hopefully that means that not someone trying to hide legit email notifications by flooding Inbox.

Was manually emptying Spam folder but have just left as is for past day. No spam emails in Inbox.

Worried that infection on computer however multiple scans were ok and other email accounts logged in on same computer got no spam.

Getting spam isn't usually an indication of an infection.
If you were getting failed email delivery notices or angry people cursing at you for spamming them, then you can worry about infections or compromised emails, but even then it could just be spoofed.

In the last couple of months I’ve gone from rarely getting spam to getting a couple a day. I’m bored, I copy the spam link in the email, find out who the registrar is via Whois and file off a complaint with the text of the spam email.

Namecheap is the worst by far.

FrostyWinnipeg wrote: ↑In the last couple of months I’ve gone from rarely getting spam to getting a couple a day.

Same. I rarely get spam but lately I'm getting a couple a day.

Mostly it's fake emails about winning a prize from "tim horton", shoppers drug mart, costco.

CaptainD wrote: ↑ Same. I rarely get spam but lately I'm getting a couple a day.

Mostly it's fake emails about winning a prize from "tim horton", shoppers drug mart, costco.

Least yours are Canadian, mine are mainly USA companies.