Do you get Stock Spam?

[tofu]

We've had a couple of spam threads around here so I've been taking a closer look at messages that I normally just delete without even thinkng about them. I hadn't noticed it before, but it seems that a lot of the spam I get is promoting some company's stock.

When you think about it, this is a great scam. First, it plays into the fantasy of the lowly average day-trader. It makes them think that they have some kind of inside information. And these stocks are always very cheap, less than a cent per share, so why not buy a few dozen shares? The spammer has already bought shares, so after the spam email goes out, the spammer just waits a while and then sells.

I found a website that keeps track of this stuff, and you can actually see exactly how many idiots fall for the scam:

http://www.crummy.com/features/StockSpam/

lovely, isn't it?

[Celestial Mechanic]

Do bears poo in the woods?

I'll have to do a count on the spam I receive, but I'm sure this type is consistently in first or second place, in alternation with the "pharmacy" sites. I also get the usual phishing attempts (at banks and on-line services that I have never dealt with) and salacious ads. I cherish the occasional 419 scam e-mail before I delete it (of course).

If I read any of this garbage I always do so off-line. That and the use of Mozilla for OS/2 keeps me reasonably safe. [CM crosses fingers.]

[ToSeek]

I get plenty of stock spam. They also seem to be pioneers in the relatively new technique of sending their text as an image, so it's harder for the anti-spam software to parse it. And, as you say, they only need a few people to bite for their "pump-and-dump" approach to work.

[Duane]

Tons! Tons and tons even. I let my Yahoo spam file build to around 7000 (took all of 3 or 4 mnths!) and when I skimmed it, I guessed it to be 35% porn, 25% pills to increase your length/girth/production etc, 10% other pharmacy, 15% stock quotes, 10% dating sites and the last 5% a variety of other things.

[Ronald Brak]

I think the best way to avoid this sort of thing is to get a Nigerian email address.

[Moose]

Oh yeah. Most of mine is stock pumping. Even more than knock-off viagra.

[Casus_belli]

Every time I open my e-mail in-box a certain Monty Python song starts.

[Gillianren]

Again, mostly requests for Bibles these days--at least so far as I can tell from the subject line. There's a few things I've just never switched over to my inbox, because I don't need to read the whole e-mail, and this way, it automatically gets deleted and I don't have to deal with it. (My Netflix account, for example, and my Rotten Tomatoes Journal digest--and these days, all the comments are from one guy who's just trying to make me miserable.) To my knowledge, I haven't gotten stock tips, or if I have, either you can't tell from the subject line or it's been a while and I don't remember.

[Trebuchet]

I feel left out! I get NO spam at all -- obviously I don't use my e-mail enough or send anything to the right (wrong) people.

My wife gets quite a bit, nearly all of which is filtered out by the ISP. I review her "suspect e-mail" folder periodically just to make sure something legit isn't being caught and most of the messages have nonsensical subjects made up of random words. Lately some have been pulling text out of news reports or other sources -- one time there were about twenty different ones with lines from Longfellow's Hiawatha. But I can't tell what they're selling. Are you guys actually OPENING this junk?

[TrAI]

I feel left out! I get NO spam at all -- obviously I don't use my e-mail enough or send anything to the right (wrong) people.

My wife gets quite a bit, nearly all of which is filtered out by the ISP. I review her "suspect e-mail" folder periodically just to make sure something legit isn't being caught and most of the messages have nonsensical subjects made up of random words. Lately some have been pulling text out of news reports or other sources -- one time there were about twenty different ones with lines from Longfellow's Hiawatha. But I can't tell what they're selling. Are you guys actually OPENING this junk?

Hehe, extracts from some text file is rather common, it is just there to trick certain types of spamfilters. You say you can't see what they are selling, I expect the actual information is was on a picture that was sent with the mail, that you do not see it is probably a result of how the ISP saves the suspect mails, probably drops attached files to save room on the server.

[cjl]

I get about 1-2 spam a month of all types. I'd say about 1/2 is stock.

[Trebuchet]

Hehe, extracts from some text file is rather common, it is just there to trick certain types of spamfilters. You say you can't see what they are selling, I expect the actual information is was on a picture that was sent with the mail, that you do not see it is probably a result of how the ISP saves the suspect mails, probably drops attached files to save room on the server.

You misunderstand. I can't see what they're selling because I don't look. I NEVER open this stuff. I can't imagine why anyone would.

And I leave the Outlook preview window off, by the way.

[Celestial Mechanic]

[Snip!] And I leave the Outlook preview window off, by the way.

A good idea. It's unfortunate that we live in a cyberspace where that's necessary.

[jrkeller]

Again, mostly requests for Bibles these days--at least so far as I can tell from the subject line.

I don't think I've ever got one of those. I do get stock spam, about 1 in 20. My most frequent spam topic is home refinancing, followed by some sort of foreign banking scam (send us 5K and will send you 10K).

Most favorite spam was, beautiful, educated single Russian women looking for US husbands. It was really tempting considering I received these shortly after I got divorced.

[Ronald Brak]

Most favorite spam was, beautiful, educated single Russian women looking for US husbands. It was really tempting considering I received these shortly after I got divorced.

You mean those are spam? And I thought beautiful, educated, single Russian women were reading my posts on this forum and falling in love with me. (It can happen so easily.)

[Tog]

I get a total of one. I've gotten it about 4 times in 2 years. It's for viagra, cialis, and about dozen other pills that claim to perform similarly. A few years ago I did get an offer from a Nigerian Price though...

When I was on AOL, many years a go, Version 4.0, I used to get about 10 a day. Some of them had titles that can't even be hinted at here. This was AFTER AOL became commited to reducing spam.

A friend of mine got a new version of the Nigerian prince one. This is by a US Marine in Iraq who found a few crates containing a number of guns, a nuclear bomb, and $15 million in US cash. He just needed som help getting it out of the country on the sly, so he sent it to some random Navy guy. I actually still have it on my home computer. It was good for a laugh.

[Serenitude]

I get about a Nigerian scam/day, maybe 20-25 stock/investment scams/day, 20 or so "cheap medicine" spams/day, but I get none of the good stuff. I have no idea why

Also, speaking of spam - don't ever sign up for anything at care2.com - I thought of using them as a spam account since every email helps their causes, and I'm left enough to make Chomsky look like Limbaugh, but even I can't take the amount of crap they bombard me with daily, at my "primary" email adress, and thier "unsubscribe" system doesn't appear to actually "unsubscribe" you from anything. Again - not a complaint about their causes - I support them - but they FLOOD you...

[Tunga]

I receive about 20 spams a day, all types. One of the more numerous is the business scams. A company (generally in China) sends an email requesting you act as a U.S. distributor for their product or company or act as a go-between. They then request you fill out a short resume to assess your qualifications.

[ToSeek]

I feel left out! I get NO spam at all -- obviously I don't use my e-mail enough or send anything to the right (wrong) people.

There are two reasons why I get spam:

- I have to provide an email address for a website I support.
- Back in the innocent days of Usenet (before spam), I would post using my actual email address. Google, of course, still has these in its archive.

[Larry Jacks]

Earthlink blocks all of the spam from getting into my inbox. Spam from known sources is completely blocked. All I get is a running total of the blocked messages for the last 2 weeks (as of right now, the count is 285 since October 13th.)

Messages from unverified sources are placed into a Suspect Email folder. These are sometimes legitimate emails but they're blocked because they're not in my address book. Most of them are spam. I just cleaned out 32 emails from the suspect folder. Only 3 were even remotely legitimate. I reported them to Earthlink, so I'm hoping future emails from those spam addresses will be completely blocked.

I've seen quite a few stock related spam messages. All of them are scams. I remember reading an article a week or two ago that analyzed the one year track record of stocks advocated in those spam messages. Every single one went down in value. Unless you hope to buy money by selling short, you'd be foolish to invest in any stock pushed in a spam message.

[tofu]

I remember reading an article a week or two ago that analyzed the one year track record of stocks advocated in those spam messages. Every single one went down in value.

One year track record? That's way too long of a timeframe!

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.c...ract_id=897431

This study, by researchers at Dresden and Mannheim university found that there was *always* a short-term upturn in a stock after it is mentioned in spam. These are small upturns. The total volume of trades is only a few thousand. And the stocks often start at a fraction of a cent per share and rarely get above 1 cent.

The point is, the spammers bought the stock the day before and they sell on the day that the spam goes out. So the spammers always get their profit, however small it might be. A year later the scam is long over and forgotten.

[mugaliens]

Actually, I do not get stock spam.

My spam is custom-made, from the finest ingredients, including salt, water, beef, and beef by-products.

[Gillianren]

Actually, I do not get stock spam.

My spam is custom-made, from the finest ingredients, including salt, water, beef, and beef by-products.

Sounds like beef stock spam, then.

[Doodler]

Unfortunately, the blocker at work does incredibly well on porn filtration, so none of the interesting spam emails ever get through.

At the rate I get IPO stock announcements, you'd think it was 1999.

[mugaliens]

Sounds like beef stock spam, then.

But it's not. It is custom-made, so it's not "stock" spam.

[Gillianren]

But it's not. It is custom-made, so it's not "stock" spam.

"Stock" also means "broth prepared with meat and bones."

[mickal555]

Hence "beef stock" "chicken stock".

Seems like you don't eat enough 2min noodles.

[Fazor]

Every day when I get to work there's one or two of these stock announcement spams faxed to my fax machine. It drives me nuts because not only does it have all the annoyingness of spam, but also rather quickly uses up our fax machine's ink ribbon.

About once a month there's also a phishing scam fax, always from some desperate "albainian, african, or other country we know american's know little about" buisnessman who desperately needs a bank account he can dump his 15.7 million rupples in. BAH! of course they're smart enough to block thier origonating phone number. which sucks 'caus i want to fax them 10000 fliers for insurance and see if they actually buy any...

[ToSeek]

'Pump-and-Dump' Spam Surge Linked to Russian Bot Herders

According to data from Barracuda Networks, an enterprise security appliance vendor in Mountain View, Calif., there has been a 67 percent increase in overall spam volume and a 500 percent increase in image spam since Aug. 2006.

[tofu]

Yep. I knew it was bots. These people are sociopaths aren't they