Pianotech

Hello all,

I'm sorry to post this here. I recently got an email from a company that I buy identity theft insurance from, saying my email address has appeared on the dark web. I've already started getting spoof emails sent to myself, demanding I pay the spammers money.

I've confirmed they do not have control of my email, and I do not believe they have accessed any passwords, contacts, or other personal information.

However, where they got my email address from and what they plan to do with it is unknown. To that end, if anyone receives a suspicious, weird, threatening, or generally unpleasant email from me, PLEASE DISREGARD IT. It is apparently easy to spoof an email address, which means to make a fake email look like it came from a legitimate source. I do not engage in that kind of behavior and would not send those kinds of emails, nor would I contact you asking for gift cards, bitcoin, cash, etc.

Most likely the spammers will move on within a couple weeks. However, if anyone noticessuspicious activity that appears  to come from me, please call me and let me know. Thank you!

Benjamin

I feel your pain. 

Unfortunately this is the world in which we live in. There are many breeches of personal, and especially business information. ATT was one of many that info was compromised. I believe most business email address, as well as many personal address are on the dark web. Spam with email and telephone numbers is at an all time high. I don't know anyone that is free of spam. In my opinion, as long as your financial and other personal information, such as passwords, bank accounts, etc. are safe, that is the best to hope for.

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Greg Junker RPT
Greg Junker's Piano Shoppe, LLC
Belleville IL
(618) 971-9595
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Benjamin, Greg,

Yes, I have received these ransom notes, but there is another depth to this problem – those who have been hacked. A year ago, my email address was "hacked" and the person(s) who hacked it used my domain name to send thousands and thousands of spam emails throughout the world. This caused my domain name to be placed on a blacklist. A blacklist is what email service providers, such as gmail, comcast, hotmail, yahoo, etc., employ to reduce spam. If these servers detect massive emails sent from a particular domain name, they block that domain name from reaching their customers. Although you can request these servers to remove you from their blacklist they may or may not choose to do so. If you've sent an email to a person and they claim to have not received it, you may be on their server's blacklist and not know it.

The only way to reliably clear up the problem is to change your email domain name such as: rogerpianoservice.com to rogerspianosevice.com

 Google "email blacklist" to see if your domain name shows up.