How can I get rid of a spammer? (1 Viewer)

[Tim Markley]

A spammer is sending me at least one email message a day with attachments. I'm managed to get his email address and ip address. His isp is Charter.net (or charter.com). I've tried sending him an email but (surprise) his email box is full. I've tried forwarding the spam to [email protected] with warnings about his spamming telling them to stop him/her, warning of legal action, etc. but they haven't done anything. How can I stop this? Any ideas are appreciated.

 

[Kevin P]

Most spam doesn't have attachments in my experience. What type of files are being attached? It may be someone who has a virus, not a spammer.

If you could post subject lines, body text snippets, and attachment file names I could help you determine if it's spam or a virus infected PC sending out infected emails.

KJP

 

[Thom B]

What's your mail client? You should be able to set up a rule to automatically delete all mail from the address. If you're using Outlook this can be done under Tools->Rules Wizard.

 

[Dave F]

Did you try the Charter webpage? http://abuse.charter.net/ It looks like a thorough form, so maybe they will actually take action.

Good luck-

-Dave

 

[Chris*Liberti]

try emailing abuse@domain name. in theis example [email protected] and make sure to copy the entire header of the email

 

[Tim Markley]

Yes, it's SPAM, quite possibly a virus. All of the attachments are *.exe files and I'm not about to run them on my computer. Setting up a rule to delete the SPAM isn't a possibility because he/she uses a fake From address every time.

Thanks for the pointer to the Charter webpage. That looks like a good place to start. Also thanks for suggesting emailing to [email protected]. I knew that there was another email address to use for an isp but I couldn't remember what it was.

 

[Kevin P]

It's more likely a virus than spam. Do you have example subject lines?

 

[Tim Markley]

Here's some of the subject lines:
Cellspacing
The Garden of Eden
Re:honey
A very nice game
A very funny website
Darling
PLUGINSPACE

Don't know if that will tell you anything.

 

[Gabriel_Lam]

Those are viruses, or at least the majority of em.

 

[nolesrule]

Not only are they viruses, but it is very possible that they are not coming from a computer with the email address that they say they are coming from.

Many of them not only send to every email address they find in the address book, inbox and webpage cache, but they also pick one of those addresses and put it as the send-from address.

 

[Dave F]

Good ol' Klez. Man, that one sucks.

-Dave

 

[Kevin P]

Those subject lines definitely look like Klez.

What email client are you running? If you're running Outlook or Outlook Express with IE 5.0 or 5.5 you run the risk of being infected by previewing or opening the emails, unless you install the security patch or IE 5.5 SP2. Are you running an anti-virus program?

If you look at the headers in the emails, in particular look for Return-Path, X-Apparently-From or SMTPOriginator, the actual sender's email address will be in this header if it is Klez you are receiving, which it looks like it is. The process for doing this depends on what email client you're using. If it's Outlook Express, proceed with caution due to the bug I mentioned above.

KJP

 

[Tim Markley]

I mainly use Outlook Express and have the latest version of IE with all of the security patches installed. I'm also running McAfee. My computer has not been infected with the virus. Now that I know it's a virus sending me the email, I am proceeding on getting it taken care of through Charter.net. Thanks for all of the help!

 

[Freddie A]

The Screensavers on TechTV did a segment last light.

Kill Spam Dead

 

[Kevin P]

Tim - if you right-click on the message in the inbox, and select Properties, then click the Details tab. The headers will appear in the box, and you should see the actual sender's email address in the Return-Path header.

But then it sounds like you did this already if you know who's sending them.

The sender's email box is probably full because he infected all his buddies and Klez emails eat up 100K plus each, and as you know, one infected machine can send the message out to a given recipient a multitude of times.

Hopefully you'll get some results with Charter. If the sender is notified that he's infected, and he cleans his system, you'll stop getting the messages (from him anyway). As long as he doesn't get re-infected!

KJP