Suddenly lots of junk mail

I've never had much of a problem with junk mail, but two weeks ago, I began getting bout 8-10 a day. The are mostly similar--just a line or two of text and a link. Subjects such as DrOz, weight loss, re-fi etc. I think they are sales pitches though I don't click on the link. I set up a junk folder and they stream in there when I open up my Thunderbird mail. I'm wondering what caused it since I don't give out my email, except to reputable sites. Perhaps due to hacking of the site (Steam, Tap-Repeatedly), or maybe a site sold a list of emails? If anyone has a better idea of what is going on, I'd like to hear it.

I don't have that problem with email but certainly DO suffer an inordinate amount of unsolicited postal stuff.

Mainly appeals for money from registered charites - some of which I have supported.

And I'm pretty sure that my having donated is the cause because I know from enquiries I've made myself that charities DO pass details of supporters to each other.

Something of which I totally disapprove

Hacking and selling are pretty much the reasons. My advice would be to create a spare email account and use that when you are signing up to sites. Keep your main one for personal emails (although that one seems to have been compromised by the sounds).

What do you use for an email account? If it's Yahoo, I deal with that all the time on computers I work on. I get virtually no spam, but I use an email client - Windows Live Mail - set up with my ISP which has a very good spam filter.

Pokey,

Sometimes people troll forums and collect email addresses.
Yahoo forums were particularly bad about that back when I was on a couple.
Usually they do it to promote their own interests, like directing you to a site that pitches the benefits of something like organic food or meds, but it's just as possible they are selling those email addresses without caring who they sell them to.

I'll say right here that Gameboomers has never been one of those trolled sites and I'm 100% positive that GB would never sell a list of members.

Linked In is one that drives me nuts.
I get emails asking me to "link" to somebody I've never even heard of and if I'm in a particularly bad mood, I respond by letting them know how much I really want to join their circle of thousands without, however, linking in.

Those reputable sites can lose their rep with me instantly and sometimes do when they presume, on the strength of my visiting often over the years. to send me an email like the ones you describe.
Honestly, either they're suddenly desperate for visitors or they're unaware of how paranoid we've all become about clicking on links that were never solicited.

Gil.

My am using my ISP mail system through Thunderbird. When I sign up at a site and don't want to use that address, I use Hotmail (Windows Live). I know a couple of my favorite sites have been hacked and I don't put it past some commercial sites to sell their collected email addresses. These emails are very different from the occasional spam. They are simplistic text with a link.

I also use Thunderbird, Pokey, but I get very little junk mail. Mine gets filtered out by Yahoo beforehand.

[I do regularly go check on the junk (at Yahoo) to make sure no genuine mail has been filtered, of course.]

When you see those, delete ASAP... 99.9999% of the time those links take you someplace that has nothing to do with the subject of the email. I have gotten them from friends whose email accounts at Yahoo or Hotmail have been hacked too. Normally a change of password fixes that.

You may get them for awhile and they may go away after a couple of weeks. I got slammed by spam about 5 years ago - over 2,000 of them overnight - which were all caught at my ISP spam filter. They helped me get rid of all of them and I never had a problem again.

Thanks, Draclvr. That gives me hope that it likely will end before long. They are going directly into my junk folder to be deleted later. I tried doing it at the ISP, but the only filter available required listing every email identifier individually, and that got tiresome. The junk folder is working well for now once you teach Thunderbird what is junk.

Draclvr, you were right. After getting about ten of these strange emails a day for two weeks, they stopped. Haven't had any for a few days.

I sure hope it stays that way!