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My paranoid ass is tingling like a sea urchin with pins and needles

16:35 / 02.05.03

i just recieved this email to my hotmail account, the one i use for signing on to webstuff.

some of you know this address, some of you may even have been given it by me. some of the email is below:

::::::

Word-of-Mouth.Info Report Awareness System

To add this email address to our Do Not Email List click here -
http://[address deleted]

Word-of-Mouth.Info is required by law to inform you via email (if
possible) that a report has just been submitted about the person or
persons associated with this email address (thetoksik@hotmail.com).
*Please find a link to the report below. The Word-of-Mouth.Info Report
Awareness System will continue to inform you when and if reports regarding
this email address are submitted in the future unless you add this email
address to our Do Not Email List and, in doing so, agree to give up any
right you may or may not have to be informed when reports are submitted in
the future.

does anyone know what it all means, and why it is likely to have happened?
would anyone like to come clean and tell me that they have been running background checks on me?
i'm not angry or any of that, just a little confused as to why.

i can apparently converse in secrecy and anonymity with who ever reported me, but i have to join the word-of-mouth site.

Elijah, Freelance Rabbi

17:19 / 02.05.03

hmm, it sounds like it may not be an actual backround check, but one of those "someone has a crush on you" style things designed to piss you off

i wouldnt worry about it

17:23 / 02.05.03

Or to see if your e-mail address is live and therefore ripe for spamming. Ignore it.

17:26 / 02.05.03

yeah. seems about right.
i was thinking it was prolly a spammer, but i wanted to check first for other possibilities.

cheers for the responses.

ONLY NICE THINGS

21:43 / 02.05.03

Anything else you'd like to accuse us of while you're here, toksy?

Word-of-mouth info's home page makes it clear that nobody is running "background checks" on you. Somebody may have submitted a report (i.e. an opinion) on you, or it might just be trying to drum up trade. If you're really bursting to know, I guess you could register a new email address, join and find out.

22:25 / 02.05.03

well, i'll go look at the site again, sir, and i'm sorry to have offended your sensibilities with my accusations.

i did think (curse my reading comprehension if it is not so) that the site was there so that you could check up on folks as well as dish dirt, reading the reports others had posted. that would seem like a great first step if investigating someone, wouldnt it? post and wait, hoping that someone could fill in any blanks and maybe getting some leads you would not otherwise find.

the fact that i got tewo of these mails at the same time suggested to me someone was revisiting the site and posting again, something you would do if you were researching me, but something i wouldnt imagine you doing if you were merely letting the world know about me.(of course it could have been a double post, or even a case of a forgotten snippet of information, but that was what got me so curious.)

regarding accusing anyone of anything, isnt that a bit strong? as i said it didnt make me angry, i was merely curious.

it might be interesting (although i doubt it) to you that i posted the same darned thing on other sites.

00:41 / 03.05.03

most of the reports are probably spam issues. a lot of spam spoofing has been going on lately, so someone may be sending spam emails under your address. I know it happens to me.

01:05 / 03.05.03

i did not know folk did that.

how, exactly?
do they just use your address as a reply address? they cant send it from my account without cracking in, can they?

ONLY NICE THINGS

10:20 / 03.05.03

Sorry, toksy - didn't mean to snark. Let's have a look at it under a false name. Let's!

12:56 / 03.05.03

how, exactly?
do they just use your address as a reply address? they cant send it from my account without cracking in, can they?

They use their own e-mail account but they put your address as a reply-to: address and from: address. These are located in the header of the e-mail message (usually hidden from view) and are just text that could be set to anything. You could do this yourself -- the only thing stopping you is that it's not an option on most e-mail applications.

But I don't think this has happened. If it had, like it did to a friend of mine, you'd have received thousands of messages from people trying to unsubscribe freom "your" mailing list, people telling you what they thought of "your" spam and people who are genuinely interested in "your" providing them with a larger penis, insider info on the art market or whatever.

The Return Of Rothkoid

06:41 / 04.05.03

It's all bullshit, as far as I can tell. I got one myself. And I know I have a background that ain't worth checking. It quickly met a Mailwasher demise.