People spamming others, using your domain as an email address

[clay]

Hi, we recently bought a popular domain, and with this new domain is a new problem.

The site formerly offered it's users email addresses. However, I guess not everyone has gotten the word that the service is no longer available, including spammers.

Over the past few weeks, we have recieved a ton of spam complaints which appear to be coming from our domain. In the headers, they say "Recieved from mail.domain.com(IP ADDRESS) to mail.otherdomain.com etc"

Well, being my first time having this problem, my immediate thoughts were they were using my server to relay the emails. But, then I took a closer look at the headers and noticed that the IP address wasn't mine. Now, i know to immediately check the ip address when i get these complaints.

I've done tracerts to the ip addresses, and found them to be coming from all over the world. Mostly china and canada. At first, I figured it wouldn't happen very much so didn't do anything about it. However, the problem is much worse than I had thought.

So, I've started doing tracerts on them, and sending in abuse reports to the isps(i just started doing this today). I hope they will cancel their accounts, but i also realize the person could easily get another isp and be right back at it.

Are there any other options available for taking care of these people? From what I can tell, they probably use somekind of program that allows them to put in another domain name and make it look like it's coming from somewhere else.

Seems to me, they are basically hijacking my domain name in order to try and keep there identity hidden. For someone just recieving the email, they wouldn't have any idea it wasn't from us(as I can tell from the emails we get). The only way to tell is to tracert the ip address

Anyone ever dealt with something like this before and have any tips on getting rid of it?

[Rhea]

Hi Clay,

I'm having the same problem with one of my domain names and had the problem a few months back with one of the others. Unfortunately, I don't know of any way to *make* this problem go away. I think the spammers eventually decide to pick on another honest domain name (I doubt they'd do that to one another).

A few thoughts...

1. Don't aggravate these people...it's useless and they'll just find new and inventive ways to make problems for you. If you rely on their decency or scruples you'll be very disappointed. They're probably hosted by folks who are themselves spammers, so there's no point in appealling to them. (Although it wouldn't hurt to check that out, just in case their host is legit.)

2. Send your web host an email explaining what's going on. You don't want them to hear about it first from anyone other than you.

3. Remove all mailto hrefs from your web site to (hopefully) prevent the problem in the future. My web host suggested that I replace them with graphics that display my email addy but don't actually link to it. It's a bit less convenient for people who legitimately want to send an email, but I think it's worth it.

I don't know about you, but this experience has made me feel as if I've been parasitized. My only revenge against spammers is that I never have and never will purchase a single thing from them. So they continue to waste their money spamming me.

[clay]

what I figured. I think we are just going to start sueing them.

[samitra]

Hello,

I just had my Angelfire site removed for spamming. It took forever to find out where to dispute the issue. But they did reply back and that is what I was removed for. I answered back that I have NEVER sent any unsolicated email to anyone and I was being falsely accused and this was affecting my livelyhood and I would never risk it by spamming. They reinstated the site but said if they continued to get complaints they would pull it down again.

Who ever is spamming is not using my email address that was listed on the site because I check it for complaints. It would have been removed. They are using my url (hompage) in their spam.

I have ask Angelfire twice for a copy of the email that is being sent as spam with the headers. So far they have not sent anything. I will once again ask them. I have this feeling that they are just taking people's word for it without any proof. Unless they sent me a copy of the spammed email with headers, that is my feeling. I feel that is very unfair and unethical. I could find my competition and do the same. Just get several people to complain about their url being sent as spam. Of course, I would never do that!

I am trying to write my email again to Angelfire but I am having trouble getting my thoughts together due to CFIDS..chronic fatigue immune dysfunction syndrome. I do not want to accused them. I just want them to send me the proof so I trace down the person and stop them. But I also do not want them jerking down my website again without warning. It does rank high on the search engines. And I believe it may be one of my competitors trying to eliminate me. I have told my merchants about it so they are forwarned. What would you say if this happened to you?

I know some are you are thinking I should just move my own dowmain name. You are probably right. But I need time to move everything and place a url to redirect from Angelfire. And I know the SE's are probably spidering sites now. I did move everything somewhere else quickly when it happened to another place that was ranking high on SE's. But now I have to make so many changes so it doesn't appear as a mirror site. But I afraid to remove it from where it is, in case Angelfire jerks down my site again.

Please give me some advise.

Thank you.

[clay]

With angelfire, it's probably easier on them and less of a hassle for them to just to cancel your account. I'm sure they have lots of legitimate spammers, and they are in a set routine of just taking the person's word for it.

Buying your own domain would be your best bet. You can get your own domain setup with hosting for around $20.

You can get domains for like $8 at godaddy.com, and then you can get your site hosted for about $10 a month at rackshack.net.

You can go over to the hosting section on this forum, and someone may even know ways of getting it cheaper.

Not only should you move to your own domain for issues like these, there are many many other advantages of owner your own domain.

I'd get my own domain if I were you and serious about making money on the internet. You'll have thousands and thousands more opportunities available to you that you just can't get on free hosting.