Funny Pharmacy emails? A worm, trojan or what?

[reflexboy]

I keep getting emails with the title 'Pharmacy' or with a letter in the word 'pharmacy' changed. They all come from different email addresses and don't contain anything of any interest. My Dad, whom is with tiscali, and a couple of friends get these too. Im with BT Internet. Is this some sort of trojan or something, and does anyone else get this too? I 'block sender' on each one, but as they are all from different addresses this is having no effect. Techies, your comment pleeeeese.

 

[pammy]

I think it's just the usual cycle of spam mail. They do the rounds and depending which web-sites you use and give your email addy too will dictate if you get them or not. Ebay can be a bit of a pain

Fortunately the porn ones don't seem to be doing the rounds of late, just the pharmacy ones.

 

[neilrr]

About three years ago I listed a car for sale on a free MB site (gone now I think) & foolishly put my email address in the contact details. I IMMEDIATLY started receiving junk emails - pharmacy, penny stock, bigger willy, etc, etc, etc.

It got so bad I had to pretty much dump that email address and get another, which I'm more careful about. I still use the original email box for things I don't give a damn about and now get about 30-40 spam emails a day. They're filtered and, after a quick scan of the sender's name, get dumped en masse, unopened.

 

[masqueraid]

Yes more spam I'm afraid As a general rule for 'trojans & worms' only get seriously concerned about the emails you receive with attachments. As you've already identified your name has been lifted from a commercially available 'Spam' mailing list

Instead of blocking them by address see if your filter will allow you to block them by words used in the content of the body of the email, blocking keywords such as "Cialis", "Online pharmacy" and/or "pharmacy site" should help in dumping them before they reach your Inbox.

Finally if your spam filters allow you to bounce emails - please don't - the sender's address is invariably spoofed and either doesn't exisit or is lifted from a spam list like yours. Bouncing emails to the sender's address just adds to the junk mail struggling through the ether and is no help as the person who receives the bounced email will almost cetainly have no idea why they are getting it.

Also - Never (ever) reply to unsolicited emails asking to be removed from a mailing list - this just confirms that your email address is live - and if you are previewing emails make sure you do in a way that displays only the text. Downloading an image file within an email can also confirm to the sender that the email has been opened and your address can be resold at a premium as 'live'.