Spam tsunami

[#1]

You've published your email address on this public forum (on how many others?)
NO,  Email was stolen in a hack on an enterprise
You've been complaining about receiving email spam
Yes
You've been complaining about Greenby not stopping spam (despite seemingly not having a Greenby account)
Yes as it goes through their email servers as Plusnet points already to Greenby as MX record

dig mx XX.plus.com

; <<>> DiG 9.18.33 <<>> mx moeller.plus.com
;; global options: +cmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 18902
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 1

;; OPT PSEUDOSECTION:
; EDNS: version: 0, flags:; udp: 1232
; COOKIE: 94188821e193d45b010000006a38c7b06d6bd48417802480 (good)
;; QUESTION SECTION:
;moeller.plus.com. IN MX

;; ANSWER SECTION:
XX.plus.com. 300 IN MX 10 mx.enmail.co.

;; Query time: 23 msec
;; SERVER: 127.0.0.1#53(127.0.0.1) (UDP)
;; WHEN: Mon Jun 22 06:27:12 BST 2026
;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 101

Now 'they' are stopping spam (from your email address) you are complaining 'they' are stopping your emails, from your spam generated email address
Yes Plusnet stops me sending

[#2]

Did you read the header in post #29 ?

It is littered with all the clues that we use in an Outlook Rule to move a message like this to the spam / scam folder.

[#3]

---

@M-M wrote:

You've published your email address on this public forum (on how many others?)
NO,  Email was stolen in a hack on an enterprise

---

"NO"? But how come I could post your personal email right here? But I won't, because that's the wrong thing to do.

So which one of the following is true:

1. I am lying - I don't know your email address
2. I am the enterprise whom your email was stolen from
3. I am the hacker who hacked the enterprise your email was stolen from
4. I am the spammer who is spamming you 
5. What you say above is false

"Email was stolen in a hack on an enterprise"

How do you know your email address was stolen from an enterprise? Can you name them (without legal problems)? Have you spoken to them? Look, this does happen, and is one cause behind spam lists. Obviously.

My own experience: At a previous email address I was spammed over a couple of years. What happened was somebody at a respectable enterprise was tasked with sending out a legitimate advert email to all their subscribers. Due to some innocent mistake or malfunction the emails went out to all the subscribers with the body of the text not containing the ad but instead the full email list of all the company's subscribers. These things can happen. Unsurprisingly, as I expected, I subsequently received spam emails over the following couple of years or so.

So what did I do? By and large nothing - certainly not reply directly to any of the emails or tap on any "I Do Not Want to Receive Further Emails" buttons in the spam emails. Just move to spam and or delete.

In some cases, where they were fraudulent and posing as legitimate organisations, I would forward the email to abuse@company.concerned. Over time they diminished, I took more direct action with persistent offenders, looked up the domain controller of the (apparently) originating spammer's IP and emailed the domain controllers directly at abuse@domain, or postmaster@domain. In the end, with only one remaining, seemingly coming from a solicitor's office (somebody with a 'side hustle'?) I emailed the solicitors concerned directly.

Did I ever get a reply? No. Did any of that (apart from doing nothing) have any effect? I don't know. But, eventually, slowly, I ended up receiving no spam emails, without even changing my email address.

Many people say "SPAM is inevitable. It cannot be stopped. It's part of having an email address."

All I know is: that isn't my experience.

[#4]

I am many years with Plusnet and impacted by this:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/mobile/technology/6676819.stm

It was not an issue until now i.e. it seems spammers re-discovered the list.

I guess people complain here may have been also long with Plusnet.

If I have now accidentally posted here my email , then fair enough my mistake. But it is not the reason for getting the Spam and getting incorrectly blocked.

[#5]

@M-M 

"I am many years with Plusnet and impacted by this:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/mobile/technology/6676819.stm

It was not an issue until now i.e. it seems spammers re-discovered the list.

I guess people complain here may have been also long with Plusnet."

From your link:

Spammers plunder Plusnet e-mail
22 May 07 11:21

Mark Jackson, editor-in-chief of ISP Review, said of the incident: "Some people have taken it surprisingly well, while many others have been furious to see their once quiet mail folders flooded with junk."

He added: "However, the annoyance seems tempered by the fact that spam remains a huge problem for most surfers."

Indeed before my time at Plusnet - but I am, loosely, aware of it.

It does seem strange that this has resurfaced after all these years - but there are several puzzles with spam.

My, largely uninformed guess, is there has been a recent upsurge in spam generally, affecting more than just Plusnet. Looking on the Internet seems to readily confirm this - as you can see, there is a likely reason for the increase. AI has been causing problems on many websites, apart from spam.

The last six months shows a 341% increase in malicious emails

https://www.securitymagazine.com/articles/100687-the-last-six-months-shows-a-341-increase-in-malicio...

"A report by SlashNext reveals an increase in malicious emails by 341% in the past six months. This includes a rise in BEC, phishing and other message-based attacks driven by generative AI."

Email Spam Statistics 2026: Shocking Insights and Real Risks

https://sqmagazine.co.uk/spam-statistics/

"Email, text, and call spam remain major threats nowadays. Nearly half of all daily emails are unwanted, with users worldwide encountering boosted volumes of phishing and scam content."

[#6]

yes that is a problem I am only asking for ISPs to use well established blacklists to minimise the Spam impact to their customers and NOT block their customers to send email instead.

I opened a case with Plusnet which will take at least 5  days to "figure" it out.

[#7]

So here's a plausible scenario...

Lot's of 'dead' email spammer lists floating about on the Interwebz (even the Dark Web?) - from the past and long since abandoned by human spammers - are now being harvested by AI bots for a new generation of spammers and phishers, probably using automated AI Agent bots.

I think we're all going to have to learn to cope with and live with these things from now on. They have already been causing serious problems with many websites over the past year or so. And much new business for Cloudflare!

[#8]

No need for the historic stuff, Companies are literally giving away their customer databases and mailing lists everyday due to a lack of interest and / or  investment in securing their business. Every day millions of emails address are 'obtained' from not too secure systems.

[#9]

@Champnet 

"Every day millions of emails address are 'obtained' from not too secure systems."

And now, that is being turbo-charged using AI tech.

A further thought occurs...

With AI bots on the job, perhaps - apart from not posting your email address - it might be best to not even admit, on a public BB, to receiving spam, if you are? Or indeed, vice versa? 😟