Tinder?

Desert Orchid

Desert Orchid

Senior Jockey
Joined
Aug 2, 2005
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I suspect by posting this I am going to come across as naive in the extreme - which I probably am - but...

How come I get [junk] emails titled "Someone matched with you on Tinder!"? It's now happened twice in the last couple of weeks. It isn't the kind of message I'd open because I suspect I'd be opening a Pandora's Box of some sort. I've heard Tinder mentioned occasionally on US TV programmes and presume it's some kind of iffy dating site but why am I getting them? As far as I know, I don't visit dodgy sites so is it a pure random thing?

I'll try blocking the sender but I'm just curious how these things work.

(And why the exclamation mark?? :lol:)
 
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I've always put that sort of thing down to the world of "spam". Don't click them, don't open the mails. I'm amazed by the number of junk mails I get advising me that I have a parcel waiting for me or that I have won a PS5.

I have, however, found that not deleting them from my junk folder has resulted in a reduction of spam received. They get auto-deleted after 30 days with mine anyway.
 
First off, you can't (normally) activate a virus or anything else undesirable just by opening/reading an email - it's the attachments or clickable links in the mail that are the most dodgy bits to look for.

And you can normally get a very good idea of any malicious intent by looking at who the mail is from. But be careful here, because some undesirables can spoof the appearance of the originating email address. What I do is hover over it, and you should see the underlying address.

For example, you get a mail from (what appears to be) DPD saying they could not deliver a parcel. Click here to rearrange delivery. So, you probably know already it's spam...but if you weren't entirely sure, look at the originating email address....and if it's janetwalker@googlemail.com, you know for sure it has malicious intent of some form. But if it did look to be from services@dpd.co.uk, instead of clicking anything in the mail, you'd sensibly just go straight to dpd.co.uk yourself and contact someone.

As for how the spammers etc get them. There's a whole industry in this. They could have bought a list somewhere, perhaps compiled by hackers getting into a legitimate company database (eg someone you bought something from in the past). You might have inadvertently posted it somewhere, and there are automated tools that just go round scraping forums, websites, social media stuff etc, looking for email addresses. You might have used it as the user login somewhere, and that database got hacked. Plenty more.


"And why the exclamation mark??" I agree, it should be no surprise you handsome bstardo! :-)


PS yes, typically it's random. They'll have a tool that sends hundreds or thousands of emails in one go. They might only need one person to open something.
 
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chaumi said:
First off, you can't (normally) activate a virus or anything else undesirable just by opening/reading an email - it's the attachments or clickable links in the mail that are the most dodgy bits to look for.
Click to expand...

My fear of opening them comes from an issue that happened with a forum I used years ago - it basically got inundated with porn spam - and the moderator found out to his cost that they had refined things so that if you even clicked into the post (not on a link) it infected your P.C.

So I've always used it as best practice since then!!
 
simmo said:
My fear of opening them comes from an issue that happened with a forum I used years ago - it basically got inundated with porn spam - and the moderator found out to his cost that they had refined things so that if you even clicked into the post (not on a link) it infected your P.C.

So I've always used it as best practice since then!!
Click to expand...

Yeah, and nothing wrong with that approach, Simmo.

It's why I said 'normally'. Anti virus software (that everyone using a PC/laptop should have) is much more advanced now. To activate something just by opening a mail, the attacker would have had to hide an automated script in it...and that sort of stuff is handled by good-enough quality anti-virus software.
 
It’s getting be that you can’t trust anything related to the internet. Don’t even know if you are talking to a real person and not some AI robot. You can often tell, but they are getting better all the time. I hope all of you on here are real people :lol:
 
Tom swim in the ocean you have to dip your toes in water first.

If Tinder are emailing you offers to see who likes you or whatever then you have at some point visited the site or a site assocciated with tinder.

They can't just pull your email out of fresh air.

Open nothing bar what you asked for is the best advice but you have to be braindead to open "Cindy sent you some nude pics"
 
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When I retired I decided I wanted to try some totally different job to keep my mind active so sent off my CV to a couple of sites. I just wondered if maybe somewhere down the line they had a link to Tinder and that was what had happened.

No matter really, as I would never open it. Just curious about it.
 
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