How Does This Happen?

[Dean Romig]

My son-in-law called me this morning asking if I had any idea why a well-known firearms auction company would send him an email indicating they had several Parkers he would probably be interested in bidding on.

I told him they probably got his email address as one of the email addresses in my addresses file but that was bordering on hacking into my AOL email file. I told him it probably would never happen again... probably just an oddball reach-out.

He called me a half-hour later to tell me the same auction house telephoned him and insisted they had information that said he had an interest in buying Parker shotguns at auction.

At this point he got very rude with the auction house representative and hung up.

My son-in-law has absolutely no interest in firearms. He's not an "anti" - he just has other interests that don't include guns at all.

I think this is an outrage and I wonder how this auction house can be made to stop this tactic!!??






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[birddogdoc]

That's totally annoying and an invasion of his privacy. It would tick me off too!

[Double Lab]

And the auction house is.......? Unfortunately Dean anything we do on the internet is open to these intrusions. Precisely why I'm don't twitter, twang, tweet or facefart.

[Dean Romig]

Right Daryl, but they would have to have actually intruded (hacked) into my private email address file....






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[Richard Flanders]

I think email accounts must be the easiest thing to hack there is. I get a lot of emails, supposedly from people on my list. They're easy to recognize and are always some kind of product ad. I always thought someone had hacked MY list but was told that it was the other persons list that was hacked, which means I have a lot of friends who have been hacked. It's either that or the email providers sell lists. Nothing would surprise me these days. I don't trust any of them. AOL, facebook, google, xxxxx fill in the blanks; they'll all sell lists if someone is willing to pay for them. That's my operating assumption. I'd be pissed too Dean. Getting a phone number is odd. You can barely get that using the people search engines these days unless you pay for it. Used to be you could get everything using the "Free White Pages" engine; now they all want to charge for it.

[Big D]

I'd call the auction house and have a very direct discussion

[OH Osthaus]

Lots of scams and viruses hack into address books.

Outlook was a common one to get into. I have had a couple via AOL- got one once from a friends address that said he was in Scotland and had been robbed and needed me to wire him money.

So I turned and asked. Are you in Scotland?


But. For an otherwise ligitimate business to pull such a stunt is unpardonable

[Kevin McCormack]

Look what happened with Facebook - I think it's rampant in/on 'social media' connections. To me, its scary and dangerous - like "Hal" the computer in '2001, A Space Odyssey', taking over the spacecraft. What's next??

[Kensal Rise]

Originally Posted by Kevin McCormack

... To me, its scary and dangerous - like "Hal" the computer in '2001, A Space Odyssey', taking over the spacecraft. What's next??

I hate to break the news... But "Hal" has been running Spaceship Earth for some years now. Google, Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, et al. The Cloud knows more about you than you'd ever imagine. You'll be lucky to finish your own Odessy and become a star child.

[Bill Murphy]

I can't believe that this week is the first time "you all" have experienced this spreading of advertising material among your computer screens.