Real stories: tired of spam? Here’s how to fight back

The Real Stories blog series features Onerep customers whose privacy was breached and who shared how serious the consequences can be. This story focuses on spam and its harassing nature.

Onerep recently conducted a consumer study to better understand the privacy concerns of our users. Over 18 thousand visitors to Onerep’s website answered 8 privacy-related questions. The survey showed that an astounding 44% of the respondents indicated spam is the greatest threat to their privacy.

Spam – it is a plague of the information age. Spammers attack us through any and every possible channel – snail mail, email, landline phone, and of course, cell phone and text. Can we resist spammers? Can we ignore them? Yes. For example, a lot can be done to stop robocalls. Spam is a form of harassment. Luckily, you don’t have to put up with it. As is often the case, the best cure is prevention, and Onerep is here to help. The best thing you can do to save yourself from spam is to prevent your contact information from getting into spammers’ databases.  

Spammers collect email addresses and build up their databases using such common techniques as:

• Tricking internet users to obtain their data through fake offers
•  Using online programs to harvest email addresses on the web
• Buying lists of email addresses and phone numbers
• Turning to people-search sites where this information is publicly accessible

Many Onerep customers turn to our services to fight spam and robocalls. Mike W. from Alexandria, MN  is one of them. He recently shared his experience with us to warn others about spam risk and the privacy threats it can lead to.

Mike’s story

My story with Onerep has been a pleasant experience even though the reason why I signed up in the first place was quite disturbing. It seems like I’ve always received huge amounts of spam and robocalls. The spammers pretended to offer me great job opportunities, sent out emails promising free prizes and coupons. On top of that, I suffered from never-ending robocalls which literally made every day of my life hell – both at work and at home. It was annoying but still bearable when a robotic voice warned me that my car’s warranty was out of date but the phone calls from the so-called “Social Security” informing me that I owed the IRS money were totally over the limit!

So at a certain point I started to wonder how random emails, junk mail, robocalls, and coupons found me despite the fact that I’m a private person and don’t share much of my personal information online. Deep down I knew I had to do something about it. So I did some research and found out that my emails, phone number, and home address were publicly available online through people-search sites. After that I had no doubt that this was the exact reason why I was flooded with spam.

I looked for a privacy protection company that could help me solve the problem. To be honest, I was very skeptical using services like this. However, I decided to give it a try and chose Onerep over the other companies. The results have exceeded all of my expectations. I’ve noticed robocalls have disappeared. Spam mail and paper mail have significantly reduced. Not only that, but I have had a peace of mind ever since I started using Onerep. I’ve taken a chance on Onerep and it has paid off.

You don’t have to drown in spam

Here are 3 simple tips to fight it:

Tip #1 
Avoid opening spam emails, clicking links, or replying. 

Tip #2
Beware of giving out your primary email address and consider using a disposable email instead.

Tip #3
Delete your personal information from people-search search sites manually or automatically with Onerep. We remove your publicly available records from 212 information brokers so that your email address and other private data wouldn’t fall into the wrong hands.