My inbox is freakishly cool by association these days. Thanks (ha) to some random twist of internet fate (ha) one of my e-mail addresses (I have several that all go to one inbox thanks to mac’s sweet e-mail program) is getting a lot of attention. I honestly have no idea how, and there most likely is not an easily explained flow chart answer, but probably some internet phishing done by robots or people that answer those, “work at home” ads on craig’s list.
(and before I dive further into the writing of this post I should let you know that I am not a well rested lady this morning as Captain Adorable decided that 4am was play time. And I forgot to brew my cold brew coffee before I went to bed and instead am enduring some horrible and weak and bitter brew that is more annoying than satisfying. You are what you drink. woo!)
SO back to the post about my e-mail because I imagine that you are totally sucked in right now. It began with one e-mail that was clearly spam/junk/lame and I promptly clicked delete and moved on about my day. Except this was not your normal sort of e-mail. And when other people received it they clicked reply and typed messages that varied from “unsubscribe” to “I don’t know you. Leave me alone.”
The interesting part is that when they clicked reply it automatically went reply ALL. And so it began - the great e-mail mania dance party. Clearly this was some sort of fucked up e-mail dealio and clearly just replying “unsubscribe” was not making things happen. So people started getting creative with their demands for removal from whatever random and phantom list we were all on. It began with a few people going the ALL CAPS route and then slowly morphed into fun with colors and fun with bold and then became details about just how annoying these e-mails were. And then the e-mails started with the logical advice that I had assumed from the get go, “stop replying!”.
The crazy thing is that I started paying attention to the signatures that were attached to these e-mails and I am totally baffled by the wide range of characters that my e-mail joined ranks with. There is a chef, several professors, people in various elements of “the media”, people that work at software companies, for newspapers, and I am guessing regular schmoes like me. But the meltdowns and frustrations vary and are fascinating.The best responses thus far are, “You don’t know who you are fucking with!!” and, “This is a government account. You are in BIG trouble!”
Seems that whatever and whoever set up this e-mail account set it up like a group e-mail. So when one hits reply instead of just going to a person that you believe is e-mailing you it actually e-mails EVERYONE. And no one seems to get this because this morning instead of getting the usual, “unsubscribe me!” e-mails I am now getting the, “Stop hitting reply all you stupid idiots!!!” (um that from a writer from the Chicago Tribune).
Of course if my professional inbox was getting jam packed with some stupid phishing spam I would be pissed off, but instead I am just a random girl with the ability to click delete and my annoyance has morphed into a sort of internet people watching.
And I don’t seem to be the only one fascinated by this weirdness. It seems that some people are now actually making friends with other people on this list. A guy from wired magazine just added a shout out to someone from another geeky magazine (this was below his plea to be removed from “the list”).
I’m sure it will get lame for me soon. Actually just in the amount of time it took me to write this I got over 40 e-mails connected to this mass e-mail spam thing.
Yeah. It’s now officially annoying.
{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
It’s definitely amusing from this vantage point.
It can definitely be amusing to watch people’s responses when they’re getting messages they just don’t want.
As an email admin at my company I’m always educating our users on what to do with spam messages that get through our filters. What many people don’t realize is that spammers buy lists and they don’t know how many of those emails are still valid. So they send out their spam message. By clicking on the unsubscribe link or following their instructions to unsubscribe generally you’re confirming your email to the spammer as legit and possibly opening up yourself to more spam. Generally the best thing when you get obvious spam email is to delete it without even opening it. The only time I recommend that one follow unsubscribe instrutions is if they know the message is from a legitimate source and it’s a newsletter of sorts.
Now in terms of your flood of emails, I’d be surprised if the spammer took the time to put the emails into a distribution list or group. They were more likely all in the To field (although you would know better than I) and most people hit Reply to All without thinking. My users do this all the time when they receive an email that’s been sent to a large group and only the sender needs to know the answer. I hate that! Nothing like knowing that Joe in accounting is going to be attending Jack’s farewell lunch.
ROFL!!! Simple pleasures (and annoyances).
xoxo
I wish I could be a fly on your wall, this cracked me up!
I hate when that happens. I have 4 e-mail accounts (and no, I really don’t NEED four but it is what it is) and I had to shut one of them down for a similiar incident.
Honestly, people crack me up when they get all hot and bothered. It is sort of entertaining in a wicked way.
I used to be an email admin. I swear the two most evil things are: Reply All and Recall Email.
Reading about your experience reminds me of how much I hated my job and the end users with it.
Owww. My work email was masked by a spammer on a Friday night. When I got into work on Monday, I had over 2,000 undeliverable kick back messages from mail administrators saying my email was blocked on their system. I had to wait for all the email to come in so that I could find a message from my boss with whom I was talking on the phone. I got the kick back messages for weeks. I cannot imagine how many email messages were sent out if I got 2000 business’ bouncing back to me.
Wow…. i am so unspeakably confused right now… i wish I knew what you were talking about…dang. i hate being so computer illiterate. But I do so loooove you!
oh gosh–i’ve had to educate a few people at work about how to send mass e-mails to the whole office. because people reply all to ask to be removed from the email, and other people reply all to tell people to stop replying all, and yet other people tell the other people to stop replying all and it’s a vicious cycle that clogs up the email boxes of our entire office. and if you ever have to send email to a huge list, send it to yourself, and put your huge list in the blind cc: field, and you won’t have that problem!
We have emails like this (not so big) sometimes at work. You know, “cake is in the break room” or “do your timesheets.” Irritating! Sometimes I spend an hour doing email before I even start to work.
I love that people are forming friendships over this. It is awesome. You should suggest a reunion.
Just imagine how bad it would be if a few people on that list were out of town and using the out of office assistant. That happened over the holidays at my old job. I was on an email list for used lab equipment and an email went out over the holiday break. Two of the people were using out of office assistants with reply all. There were out of office emails back and forth to thousands of labs in the US. Then people started replying to all to be removed from the list which started the out of office emails up all over again. It eventually filled my inbox and I couldn’t receive any more. It was a mess!
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