Sign-up with Clearwire, sign-up for Spam!
In April I decided to try Clearwire to see if it was a viable solution for my internet. Shortly after, I started receiving spam thanks to them, and it's easy to prove.
I use unique email address aliases for every company and contact I have. Let's say my email address was retailerservices@clearwire.com. It's not, but perhaps that address will get harvested and spammed a million times. My format is more like companyname-somethingunique@oneofmydomains.com. If I ever get spam to companyname-somethingunique@oneofmydomains.com, I know someone has either shared that email address, or a database has been hacked.
I just haven't had time to deal with this stupidity. I was provoked into looking into it today when I received two spam emails to this alias. What really irritates me is that there was never any asking of permission or opt-in (nor opt-out) before giving my email address to spammers. Further, when I first started to talk with the Clearwire person, they denied such a thing was from them, until I said that the email address was unique and only ever given to them. Unfortunately, I hit the wrong keystroke when trying to do a screen capture (I used ALT+Home instead of ALT+FN+Home, with my Home key being shared with Prt Sc), but I did a cut-and-paste of the chat session just before:
Customer Chat
Chat Transcript
Hello Jsason. Please wait while we find a CLEAR specialist to help you.
Your question is: I am getting spam from Clearwire due to Clearwire sharing my email address. How can I stop this from occuring (stop Clearwire from sharing my email address)?
You have been connected to Cassandra James.
Cassandra James: Hello Jsason! I would be happy to assist you today!
Jsason: I have a unique email address that I only ever gave to Clearwire. I am getting Cable TV and now Home Security junk email adds to this email address. How do I stop Clearwire from sharing my email address with other companies?
Cassandra James: Junk mail will be sent to any email address even if you haven't shared it. As long as the email is active you will receive junk mail. There is no way for Clearwire to stop you from receiving it.
Jsason: That is not true. The email address was somethingunique@oneofmydomains.com. No one else ever had this email address and it was never shared with anyone else. I never received a single email (legit or junk) to that account until I gave it to Clearwire.
Jsason: I wish a ticket to be opened and escalated to support regarding this issue.
Cassandra James: One moment while I fix this for you.
Cassandra James: Please note that it will take up to 10 business days for you to stop receiving junk mail.
Cassandra James: Is there anything else I can assist you with today?
Jsason: What was done or changed to my account to stop me from receiving junk mail?
I reconnected after, and the picture to the right is the rest of the chat and the explanation that I was now opted out of their marketing.
I think this is just really low. I have now updated my Clearwire email account on file with they to yet another even more unique address, and will track the progress of getting spam to this new email address. I took the old email address and set it to bounce now in /etc/mail/virtusertable:
companyname-somethingunique@oneofmydomains.com error:nouser No such user here - http://jason.roysdon.net/contact/
I highly recommend having a throw-away email account or two to give to everyone like this. Give the "likely spammer" account to folks like Clearwire, and "less likely to spam" to other folks.
Apparently, I'm not the only one.
