spam Archives - Carl Setzer

Death By A Thousand Cuts, Er, Text Messages

May 8, 2026May 8, 2026 Carl Setzer

close up of scalpel blades on rough surface

There’s an adage about “death by a thousand paper cuts”. Well, that’s akin to what I’ve been dealing with for some time now. The GOP (ostensibly) has been burying me in a barrage of texts. Here’s one from today that’s pretty amusing, actually.

I mean, in order to fix the fact YOU are sending me “too many messages”, I NEED to click on a link from a spammer/scammer? Um, no. There is no way in hell I’m clicking on a link from these folks. Jeez!

What might not be clear is that I never signed up for these. They’re often addressed to “friend”, and sometimes reference a zip code that’s in the greater Seattle area, but is not close to mine. This is the last org I want anything to do with. When they first started coming in, I did what the message says and replied “stop”. That only increased the message count. Currently, I’m averaging between 30 (the exact number from yesterday) and 50. To say 900-1,000 text messages a month is disruptive is quite the understatement. I’m glad that I have unlimited texts.

At first, I assumed that it was a mistake. That “friend” had signed up but mistyped their phone number. But, really, would you blast someone you liked like this? Or maybe someone thought this would be funny, someone who knows me. However, this has started to feel more like harassment. It’s surreal to get so many MAGA messages. Even if I were aligned with them, exploding my phone seems counterproductive. If I were pro-Trump, I would imagine getting a spam message every couple of minutes would cause me to rethink that. As it is, it is growing my dislike for the Republican Party.

What’s weirder is that bulk SMS isn’t free. I mark them as spam and block each one, and my spam filter is doing a modest job blocking them. Yet, since each one comes from a different phone number, lots slip through. Ugh!

I’m unsure what I want to do going forward. I guess, in the end, it’s a first-world problem. Though it’s annoying, it’s not like I’m getting direct, threatening messages. It’s annoying and disruptive. I am missing important messages that get buried in the sea of garbage. I am going to explore options, but am not likely to contact an attorney or law enforcement, as I see there’s a high likelihood that it’s NOT the formal GOP establishment. I mean, it’s a dumb way to spend money. But, man, I really hope these people go out of business soon.

Phishing Calendar Invites

October 30, 2025October 30, 2025 Carl Setzer1 Comment

Well, it’s been an interesting few days in the land of spam and phishing. Yesterday I wrote about a spam email I received, along with dozens of others that’s gotten a bit silly. Today I noticed an invite in one of my company calendars, “Your order Estimate OYYE03661 has been queued”:

I’ve seen these before, but not in MY calendar.

So, my first thought was “when did my calendar get changed to “add invitations to my calendar” to “From Everyone”. Needless to say, that should NOT be the default. EVER!

So, if you need to know how to change this in Google, here you go:

Go the gear icon at the top-right of your calendar:

Then click “settings”

Scroll down to Event Settings, the “Add invitations to my calendar”

Then change to “When I respond to the invitation in email”

I’m also going to recommend unchecking the “Show events automatically created by Gmail in my calendar”

Anyway, we need to stay vigilant against fraudsters. This is one annoying game of whack-a-mole.

Fraud, Spam, Bulk Email, and Other Joys

October 29, 2025October 29, 2025 Carl Setzer4 Comments

Less than 1/2 hour ago, I received a mess in my inbox. Someone sent an email out to an unknown quantity of email recipients with no subject and the message body stating “Who are you”. To me, this screams phishing. Well, to (currently) 11 people, it didn’t. There were silly responses (“I contain mutitudes”) to “Take me off this email”. One person did reply stating “you are all replying to a fraud email…stop replying…” Which is the most useful message on there. But, really, not that helpful. So, just mark them as spam and move along. Replying lets the scammers know that a) this email is valid and b) you are somewhat gullible and, therefore, more susceptible to phishing scams. And, of course, replying all to these sorts of things floods other people’s inboxes.

So, please, just don’t. I guess if you feel called to troll scammers, just reply to the original sender. I’ve got other things to do than manage this junk in my inbox.