My brother told me to never click 'unsubscribe' on spam emails, and he was right about one thing but wrong about another.

4 comments

4 Comments

My friend Mark clicked unsubscribe on a sketchy fitness email last year. A week later, his inbox got flooded with like ten times more junk from new senders. I mean, it totally confirmed the list-selling thing. But he never got any of those scary revenge viruses people talk about, so I guess that part is a myth.

stone.lisa2mo ago

Oh man, @the_jana, that's the classic "unsubscribe" trap (it's like telling a telemarketer you're definitely home). They see that click as proof your email is a live person, so they sell the address to every other shady list out there. The virus thing is mostly an old wives' tale to scare people, but the spam flood is totally real. Your friend Mark basically turned on a firehose of junk mail by trying to turn off a faucet.

miller.rowan2mo ago

Ugh, that's the worst. I had a student's parent fall for that last semester. They clicked unsubscribe on a fake "school fundraiser" email. Their work inbox got absolutely buried in junk after that. It's such a sneaky trick.

oliverhernandez1mo ago

Feel you on that. My grandma fell for the same thing with a fake Amazon phishing email that looked legit. She clicked the link just to see what the deal was and her inbox went from like 10 messages a day to a hundred easy. Now I gotta help her sort through all that garbage every time I visit.