Thanks Sarah. That's a possibility. I expect my details were still present although I left in August 2015.

Even if they weren't transferred to the new system a leak like that could still have disclosed them, and they may be keeping them for seven years anyway.

Though it would add another coincidence. That a Plusnet customer is involved in some way in the scam.

I get no spam to my unlimited email addy paid-for domain but when I was with Freeserve I had an unlimited email addy sub-domain of theirs & got a fair amount of spam to my unique email addys that I gave to various online sites like insurance, comparison sites, �

Once I started receiving spam to a particular email addy of mine, I just coded a filter into my mail client using 2 rules for each occurrence (using your case here):

1. If To: or CC: == Your email addy given to PN Then Continue to next rule.
2. If From: != PN's domain Then Delete from Server.

Thus never even seeing further spam.

Edited by XRaySpeX (Mon 17-Dec-18 13:52:32)

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

My email address used is one I provided to Plusnet on signup to notify me of upcoming Direct Debits and such. Also used for the Community forums. It is unique to Plusnet and never provided to any other contact.

There is the possibility that it was harvested while in transit at some point. Seen that happen.

Also the little f"£$^ers guess stuff, so [email protected] is tried randomly just in case it might work.

Nope. At some point that email was used to send you an email. That email most likely went through a server that was not controlled by either you or plusnet. If that server was compromised then your email address could have been harvested. It could also have been compromised from a plusnet email relay without any other details being compromised.

Blocking that, or any specific, email address isn't the point of this thread. Nor is it difficult - I am not clueless.

It is the fact that my home address may also have been obtained, and the threat of an acid attack with a demand for several thousand dollars in bitcoin is rather more serious that the usual ransomware.

In reply to a post by jabuzzard:

Also the little f"£$^ers guess stuff, so [email protected] is tried randomly just in case it might work.

I am not that stupid. As explained above.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

It is the fact that my home address may also have been obtained, and the threat of an acid attack with a demand for several thousand dollars in bitcoin is rather more serious that the usual ransomware.

One to report to your local constabulary.

Funnily enough Plusnet are changing their Email from POP to IMAP ? https://community.plus.net/t5/Service-Information/We...

In reply to a post by jabuzzard:

Nope. At some point that email was used to send you an email. That email most likely went through a server that was not controlled by either you or plusnet. If that server was compromised then your email address could have been harvested. It could also have been compromised from a plusnet email relay without any other details being compromised.

I think that is far more likely than a Plusnet data breach. The majority of spam I get I believe is due to email addresses having got out "into the wild" in transit rather than through a data breach.

In reply to a post by sneekyhen:

Plusnet are changing their Email from POP to IMAP

Where does it say that? I can see they're going to prevent people from using their own email servers but no mention of POP3/IMAP. Am I looking and simply not seeing (again)?

Edited by longedge (Mon 17-Dec-18 19:16:42)