Comments for Why am I getting spam from myself?

Comment from Barb on 2011-07-21

2011-07-21T13:06:24Z

I setup a message rule to delete messages which come from me, AND which contain certain words in the subject line.

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Comment from Escherichia coli on 2011-07-20

2011-07-20T10:14:41Z

The simplest way to stop spams is delete completely your emails after backing up important emails and contacts. It's not worth to keep the email address if it is affected.

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Comment from Charles on 2011-06-11

2011-06-11T21:23:32Z

That's the wierd thing. The names in the To: did not get any email. As an example, my work email address was in the To: but did not recieve the email.

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Comment from Mark J on 2011-06-11

2011-06-11T21:08:05Z

@Charles
If people in your address book or contact list are getting spam that appears to be from you it's very likely that your email account has been hacked or otherwise compromised.
You'll find more in this article:
http://ask-leo.com/someones_sending_email_that_looks_like_its_from_me_to_my_contacts_what_can_i_do.html

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Comment from Charles on 2011-06-11

2011-06-11T20:44:41Z

Alright. Email looks to have been sent from me, to me and everyone in my address book, including my work email. That is, the address in the from is my personal address, and in the "to" is all my address book contacts, and my work email.

Checked the sent folder to see if it was there, and it was not.

Checked my work email, and my work email did not have the email from my personal email address.

Spoof or Hack? I've changed my password and personal credentials (the people who use this address already know who I am, so no real need for a "profile") just in case, but I'm curious.

Furthermore, it had no subject line, and their was a link in the body of the email. The link went to a numeric IP address.

Your help would be greatly appreciated in understanding what is likely going on here.

Thanks,

Charlie

However,

My work email never got any email

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Comment from Margarita on 2011-02-28

2011-02-28T15:21:19Z

Hello Leo,

I have read your explanation about this happens. However, in my case the name and the e-mail address do match. Also because it is a hotmail account and when I am connected to my webmail it shows whether I am online on messenger/space/profile etc it shows that on the email. I receive spam of myself in the junk folders with my name and email matching. Also, I have blocked emails that came of myself into my junk folder but they keep on coming in my junk on occassions. The way you described spoofing seems like it only happens when they only spoof either the name or the email address? I dont really know what to do and whether I am spamming other people with these spam emails. What would u recommend and what do you think is the problem..
Thank you.

Spammers can certainly spoof both name and email address - it could still be random spam. That being said, ask some of your contacts if they've gotten spam from you. You can also consider changing your password and everything else associated with your account: Is changing my password enough?

28-Feb-2011

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Comment from Amanda on 2011-02-09

2011-02-09T21:31:19Z

If the email goes to my junk mail, but is says it's from my email address and to my email address, could they be sending the same emails (saying it's from my email address) to others in my address book? I've received spam emails from friend's accounts saying that it's from them, but it's trying to sell Viagra or something. Could the same thing be getting sent to my contacts also???

They could certainly be sending to other addresses, but your contacts may or may not be involved at all.

09-Feb-2011

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Comment from Bert on 2010-12-11

2010-12-11T22:21:08Z

After receiving bounce back spoofing email, I contacted everyone in my address book to let them know that any email coming from me soliciting jobs or products are not coming from me.

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Comment from Krla on 2010-09-08

2010-09-08T22:03:32Z

Hi, it's me again :) I want to thank you again for how much you are helping all of us understand how things work and how to solve problems, I love your website! I read all I could in the email category but I can't find what I'm interested in so I think it hasn't been asked before. I might seriously missunderstand how yahoo works but I am extremely allarmed by something. I have myself in my contacts and messenger list and today, when I logged in on the yahoo mail page, I've noticed that, in the "chat & mobile text" box, under the mobile contacts there's my own id followed by my phone number! my phone number which I have never added to my account information, or anywhere else.Why is it there? Can anyone else see it? If my account were to be hacked, the hacker would see it, how do I erase it? I have used the internet from my mobile phone (it must have been a year since then) and I got to the yahoo web page and logged into my internet accounts (I have more then one) but I don't think this is the cause of the problem, or is it? and if so, why doesn't this happen with my other accounts? have you ever heard of this before? Has anyone else in here? Please, share any information you have on the topic. It might be a 'normal' feature that I just don't know about, especially since I'm using yahoo US and things are different there (I'm from Romania), but it's very inconvenient for me and I need to have that phone number erased. I hope I explained the problem clearly. Any help from anyone would be much appreciated. Thank you!

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Comment from Krla on 2010-09-08

2010-09-08T20:20:09Z

thank you so so much for the information you are giving us. I was so worried because this email adress I have has been hacked a few years ago by someone with whom i've talked and that has given it back ( an explanation is needed: he got my email and password with the help of some virus that i don't have on my computer anymore) meaning that he gave me the password he used so that i could log in and change it after the virus was removed and so i got my adress back. so I'm always concerned that he is trying to steal it again or that he already succeded, so your explanation is very reassuring. but do you think I should still be concerned about the vulnerability of my adress? and sorry if something doesn't really make sense, english is not my native language

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Comment from Mike on 2010-09-02

2010-09-02T22:32:50Z

It isn't so much that MY address book has been hijacked as someone else's address book has been hijacked, and one of the addresses in it happens to be mine.

The issue for me is not how to block spam coming to me from "myself", but when it goes to others. They see it as the spam that it is, and then block me. No problem by itself. But some of those spam blockers utilize an internet database, and so I'm blocked all over the internet.

I do BCC: myself along with all other recipients to ensure that my emails get through. And I'm constantly having to UNspam myself on Gmail.

And it's not just me. I've had to unspam known good emails on Gmail from others who use AOL, Comcast, and SBC email providers. I'm envisioning the day when no legitimate emails get through, and only spammers can get through.

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Comment from Kate in RP on 2010-08-31

2010-08-31T15:43:37Z

I route all mail coming to my name@domain address through SpamCop before it comes to my ISP mail address. That cleans out a lot of junk, including ones spoofing my address. Of course, you have to list with SpamCop ALL the legitimate addresses you have set up in your domain, so it does not report you as a spammer. It knows how to parse the headers to report spammers.

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Comment from andyinamood on 2010-08-21

2010-08-21T09:58:48Z

I have just started to receive emails 'from myself' on a Hotmail account after my first email account with the original provider I joined years ago has had them for ages. Surely other people are getting them as well, and they will think the emails are from me as it's my email address on them? It doesn't matter that they aren't actually coming from me. Recipients will think they are.

If anyone complains, point them at this, or Someone's sending from my email address! How do I stop them?! or any of hundreds of other articles on the internet that describe "From Spoofing" and how you cannot rely on the "From:" line, particularly when it comes to spam.

21-Aug-2010

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Comment from Chell on 2010-08-20

2010-08-20T14:31:30Z

I sent just a quick test return email back to an email that supposedly came from me, and guess what? It sent it to my inbox. So they aren't just spoofing my email address, they're somehow actually using it! I changed my password. Hopefully that will help.

Your test does not indicate that they're using your account. All your test proves is that email you send to your email address ends up in your inbox - as it should.

20-Aug-2010

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Comment from Steve from Montana on 2010-08-07

2010-08-07T12:44:17Z

I solved this problem simply. My email address is all caps and most programs automatically convert to lower case, which works anyway, but spammers use the lower case. I blocked the lower case address and the upper case I use to send memos or information to myself still goes throug just fine. I have AOL and was able to do this very simply by adjusting my email settings. Hope this helps.

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Comment from epale on 2010-08-05

2010-08-05T18:53:18Z

2 - just notices that some of the contacts that were sent the spam were not in my contact list, so does this mean that another contact list (OUTLOOK) may have been breached?

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Comment from epale on 2010-08-05

2010-08-05T18:41:07Z

Recently a bad roommate moved out and sure enough 2 days later I noticed spam going out from one of my e-mail addresses to all MY contacts!! this was horrific... how did this person do this? I was able to change my password and still have my account, when I went into the sent box the messages were there as if they were sent from my account.

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Comment from Briuan Bickell on 2010-05-21

2010-05-22T01:19:23Z

I have to disagree with you Leo, my tecnique works 100% of the time.
The easiest way to fix this is to use OUTLOOK Rules and Alerts. You want it to look for the sending email address is the same as your email address. If so DELETE it.
You can also use Rules and Alerts to check for specific words like Sex, Porn, Erotic, Pharmacy, Pfizer, Viagra, watches, Replica etc. Note you may have to enter some twice because the case (upper or lower) makes a difference. After 45 years in the computer industry I am very familiar with most of the techniques these people use. However I still check with Leo first in case it is something I have not come across before.

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Comment from Samir on 2010-04-15

2010-04-15T09:48:40Z

Hi, I am Samir from http://www.indianetcraft.com
I am regularly getting spams from my own email id, it may possible they can send email to others as well from my email. Is it possible that my email got listed as spam origin? If yes it will be a real disaster for my business. Please let me know if I can do something to stop them.

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Comment from Robert Baker on 2010-03-15

2010-03-15T19:13:25Z

Today I received a message which was supposedly "from" my brother Philip, telling me all about the wonderful new phone he's bought and the online store he got it from. The only problem with this is, I know Philip was found dead two months ago! (And the spammer who's hijacked his account and address book had the usual poor spammer English; another patent giveaway.)

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Comment from Nick Daniels on 2010-02-22

2010-02-22T19:55:08Z

I get spam "from myself" too. And, unfortunately they're sending it to people in my address book. How did they accomplish that? Is my address book compromised too? I use AOL.

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Comment from Marcin on 2010-02-18

2010-02-18T22:56:05Z

So why isn't there a way to report IP addresses (those are not as easy to fake) and/or domains from which the spoof emails are coming from.

Someone needs to put this in place so that people can get this [edited] to stop. It's irritating.

There have been blacklists - both for IP addresses and domains - for years. They're decreasing in effectiveness, as botnets - which use hunreds of thousands of computers spread out around the world - now distriubute the task of sending spam. Block those IP addresses and you could well be blocking your friends or even yourself as IP addresses get reassigned to various users.

19-Feb-2010

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Comment from Jim Houghton on 2009-12-07

2009-12-07T19:05:33Z

Please explain why blocking mail from my own address will prevent me from receiving legitimate emails. I don't get that -- I never send myself mail, the only mail I get with my email in the "from" is from spoofers.

It varies based on how people use emails, but for example people often "CC:" themselves on messages that they want to somehow see or act on again later from their inbox. For some people "blocking yourself" might be OK. Also realize that the display name might be your email address, but the email address actually being used (in < >) might be someone else - in which case blocking yourself won't work.

08-Dec-2009

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Comment from Tracy on 2009-11-16

2009-11-16T11:32:44Z

it is so frustrating to me as it has now happened twice via my hotmail address - spam being sent to me and all my adressees - some of my addressees have warned me and I have profusely apologised, but am afraid I will be blacklisted. How can I stop the spam from reaching those on my addressee list? I dont care about myself. It is just embarrassing - particularly to those I have subscribed to their newsletters....

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Comment from bluebellsofs on 2009-11-06

2009-11-06T08:23:33Z

I get tons of spam "from" myself, thankfully my email filters it out very effectively. My question is whether or not the spammers are able to send these spoof emails to OTHERS with MY email address in the "from" field. Are they able to spam others and make it look as if the spam was sent from my address?

Yep.

06-Nov-2009

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Comment from Blushin on 2009-10-13

2009-10-13T19:47:38Z

I think most of the problem occurs with the fact that when sending mail to ourselves the sender is labeled " me " If Gmail would allow us to change this ( and not just when sending to someone else ) then the spam wouldn't irritate us so much. If I sent a mail to myself and it said " blushin " on it, I'd know it was from me, when I recieve one that says from " me " I would block it. But Gmail makes it impossible to do this.

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Comment from Lou on 2009-08-10

2009-08-11T01:36:19Z

Is there a way of blocking e-mails that contain a keyword in the body of the e-mail? e.g. Viagra. I notice that most of these spams never mention the word in the header.

That depends entirely on the services your email provider includes, and what specific email program you use.

11-Aug-2009

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Comment from Alan on 2009-06-25

2009-06-25T13:58:41Z

Is the fact that my email address is in the FROM box going to get me added to a SPAM Blacklist?

Best I can say is "maybe". There are SO MANY blacklists, and they all follow different rules. Hopefully most realize that the from address is a bad way to determine what is and is not spam, but still ... I'm sure some do.

- Leo
25-Jun-2009

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Comment from Spamhater on 2009-06-04

2009-06-04T07:51:26Z

Well Firstly I have to disagree. I understand the spoofing, but in general, when you start getting spam from you own *account*@hostname.com the chances of a bug/hijack application is pretty high. That's something you can check out.

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Comment from Doug on 2009-05-26

2009-05-26T17:27:27Z

Here's my Thunderbird filter
Set to require 'all' lines
1. From - contains - my_real_email_address
2. To - contains - my_real_email_address
3. Subject - does not contain - test

Do this: mark as Junk

The third requirement allows me to send myself
a test message, if I think there is some problem
with the email service.

I don't automatically delete junk.

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Comment from Ireene on 2009-05-07

2009-05-07T15:33:33Z

Would ithelp if I changed my email address? Or are the spammers working with other parameters over which I have no control?

Changing your email address may help for a short while, but the spam "from" yourself will return at your new address as well. I wouldn't bother.

- Leo
08-May-2009

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Comment from Andrea on 2009-03-02

2009-03-02T11:24:28Z

I can't block my own email address, as on my website I have a booking form which sends to my email from my email (well that is what it looks like)...I know that booking forms will appear the way they do, but I still get other companies, ie drugs, insurance, etc cloning my email address to spam me.

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Comment from Richard Barnes on 2009-02-03

2009-02-03T15:00:12Z

Using Spamassasin there a few rules that deal with self signed or spoofed emails. We have put rules in place that people on a specific list can send emails (the white list). They can send mails to others on the domain, only if the mail originates from our Exchange server. The spamassasin rule blocks all email from outside from anybody on the white list. The fallout from this is that if someone wants to send email outside the domain to an email address in the domain they have to use the Exchange web client to send it for it must originate from inside the network.

My personal belief is that until there is a financial cost associated with email we will never get rid of SPAM. I would pay 1 or 2 cents an email. It would amount to a small amount for most of us. That one or two cents though would be hundreds of thousands of dollars for a spammer thus making the marketing ploy not cost effective.

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Comment from maria on 2009-01-13

2009-01-13T16:50:26Z

I understood from the article that the spoof emails are not actually from me... but I replied to one of them just to make sure, and the reply showed up instantly in my inbox. It seems that it really is me.

It is not you. The spoof makes it look like it came from you, and that also fakes out your mailer when you try to reply.

- Leo
14-Jan-2009

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Comment from Steph on 2009-01-11

2009-01-12T02:24:08Z

I have all my email accounts hooked up through gmail, and there is an aggressive spoof spammer sending messages to one of the accounts i have linked under my domain. If i click "report spam", will gmail think that my domain is a spam domain and block us? They are sending spam to me from my business, and i dont want to accidentally blacklist myself!

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Comment from Phillip on 2009-01-09

2009-01-09T19:46:58Z

One can set a "filter" in the Thunderbird email client to divert this kind of message into your junk folder.

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Comment from Clare on 2008-12-30

2008-12-30T21:34:24Z

One day someone will invent a requirement that IP addresses are required to send email. That should take care of it - only being able to send emails from IP to IP.

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Comment from Chris Robertson on 2008-12-16

2008-12-16T20:32:39Z

Just a side note. Here are the top money makers;
*Pills (viagra, cialis etc)
*Gambeling
*Porn
*email address collection so they can send you the above.

Spammers love chain letters. They can get one email from one person, (from a hijacked computer) and it is lible to have 100 email addresses!!!
So from now on, repeat after me, "I will learn to use the BCC button". Why? It hides everyone's email address in the body of the email.
From this last chain email I got, I could make 100 dollars from selling YOUR email addresses.

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Comment from Chris Robertson on 2008-12-16

2008-12-16T20:28:52Z

There are some things you can do. There is a little program called Xxxxbully (xx out because we don't want to advertise for anyone) that will elimininate most spam, even those with your own name on it. This is if you don't "whitelist" yourself. (Not always desired though). Most email failures will come from your isp server, "service@youisp.com"
Now for users with Outlook or outlook express, you have a pop&smtp account. Contact your isp about secure SMTP server. This requires you to have a username and password to send email OUT. The account information you put in originally was only for RECEIVING your email. Anyone can send our your email server.
Now if your a yahoo or hotmail user, you just gotta lie there an take it. Many have a premium email feature that allows you to whitelist and create filters too.

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Comment from Rathi on 2008-12-09

2008-12-09T14:59:48Z

So, i get that there isnt anything that anyone can do about this, but let me get this straight, i'm sending a bunch of people mail from my address, right? can't i ask my mail provider to monitor my account activity or something? I'm a little more concerned that i'm sending a bunch of people dumb stuff.

No. You are not sending anything. Spammers are sending things from wherever they send things that look like you, but are not you.

- Leo
09-Dec-2008

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Comment from js on 2008-12-07

2008-12-07T18:04:59Z

How often you will send an email to yourself, I keep my sent emails in my sent folder for records, I never cc myself, so, why not just block the email sent from myself?

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Comment from Nelson on 2008-12-01

2008-12-01T17:09:05Z

Good article. I have a Gmail account and I think that they do a great job of preventing spam, but I also get annoyed by the e-mails from myself, that are really not from myself.

This is even doubly annoying, because sometimes I do send myself. Like sending myself an attachment at work, so that when I get home I can quickly download it. Gmail is simple to use because they give you up to 20MB for an attachment.

But Google also added a cool little feature that may be beneficial here. You can add a "+" and any verbiage after the "+" as a tag to your e-mail address. In other words, you can address an e-mail to a gmail user like this: user+thisisatag@gmail.com. How this can be used is to send e-mails to yourself by addressing it as self+fromself@gmail.com. When you register your id at a site, register the e-mail address of self+ebay@gmail.com. This address will appear in the "to" field and you can easily create a filter to grab these and labels to them. Anything sent to you that doesn't have a label will either be caught by your spam filter or end up in your inbox and easily spotted.

The other option would be your own domain and creating "forwarding" e-mail addresses that you would register in much the same way as i described above. In other words, ebay@mydomain.com or paypal@mydomain.com or any other site you subscribe to. This will help you to quickly separate the legit e-mails from the false one's. It's tedious but stops all the guessing. The key is switching all of your existing accounts.

Just my 2-cents.

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A comment on: Why am I getting spam from myself?

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Comment from Dave on 2008-11-10

2008-11-10T12:46:14Z

Why not have a do not e-mail list much like the do not call list? Most of the opt out options in e-mails don't work,they just bring me to a blank page.I am wondering why more of us (people on the net) don't get together and push for something more to be done.I mean my ISP has already blocked my account once for spamming and I knew nothing about it until I tried to get online and was blocked.I had to call them just to get my internet back and was told if it happens again my account will be canceled.I mean all this has gotten way out of hand and no one even wants to try to do something about it!!!
Dave

Spammers would simply ignore a "do not email" list. And by clicking on "opt out" links in spam, you're likely getting MORE spam as a result.

- Leo
10-Nov-2008

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Comment from Bisser on 2008-09-08

2008-09-08T18:32:22Z

It is harmless until Yahoo cancels your email account for "SPAM Abuse" because somebody was spoofing your email address....which happened to me.

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Comment from catmoves on 2007-09-02

2007-09-02T19:30:06Z

You might suggest to J. Haring that he/she get a gmail address from Google. Google email has an automatic spam drop that works well. It also learns from the user's actions which additional email is classified as spam. Works great for me.

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A comment on: Why am I getting spam from myself?

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Comment from Renato Morbach on 2007-08-31

2007-09-01T01:43:08Z

There's one way to redirect those messages to the SPAM folder, as long as you use Outlook 2007. Create a RULE to apply on messages arriving. The rule is messages from myname@myDomain and sent to myname@myDomain move to SPAM. You may choose to delete, instead of moving to SPAM, but I like to double check.

Atleast they are not within the valid messages anymore.

renato

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Comment from J.Haring on 2007-08-28

2007-08-28T21:11:02Z

Leo,
Thank you for responding to my question. I wish we could do something about this, but now I know that it isn't unusual or serious. Maybe one day hotmail will be able and willing to do something about this problem. J. Haring

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A comment on: Why am I getting spam from myself?

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