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[Semper Vaporo]

I just received an email with a subject line of:

"TRAINS Magazine April 2008 Issue Survey"

that says it is from:

"TrainsMagazine ([e-mail])"

with a Reply To address of:

[e-mail]

It invites me to take a survey by clicking on a link in the body of the e-mail.  It also has three other embedded links, one at the top to see graphics that might not get displayed, one at the bottom to Unsubscribe to Trains Newsletters and another at the bottom for the "Customer Service Center".

When I hover my mouse arrow over these links all of them show the SAME address in the Status line at the bottom of my e-mail program and that address is NOT "Trains.com".  It is, rather:

http://links.mkt746.com/cttk......"

I truncated the value since I don't want to type the whole thing and it is mostly gibberish and could possibly contain information that identifies ME individually.  There are slight differences in the gibberish that follows the "cttk".

Here's the thing... EVERY anti-phishing/anti-virus/anti-spam web site and missive I have ever read say specifically that you should NOT (as in NEVER EVER) click on a link in an e-mail if you cannot verify the address the link is tied to.  "From" and "Reply To" addresses are easily spoofed (set to values that do not represent the actual sender) so I cannot trust the values shown.

"links.mkt746.com" is NOT "Trains.com" and I have no way to verify that it is in any way actually associated with Trains magazine, Trains.com or Kalmbach Publishing.

I would not mind partaking in a Trains Survey, but I will NOT click any of the links in the e-mail.

Any comments from Trains.com or Trains Magazine or Kalmbach Publishing is hereby solicited... care to explain this?

[arkansasrailfan]

I checked that website you mentioned and it is a software solutions website and I noted that they have survey services. I think the survey is authentic, because I have goten surveys from MR and GR

[Noah Hofrichter]

I've gotten surveys in the past from TRAINS that were legit. I checked the email address of one of them I still have in my inbox, and it is the exact same as the one you list above. So I'd say you got one of the legit emails from Kalmbach that they do each month for a survey of their magazine.

Noah

[arkansasrailfan]

good, so that means that the survey is authentic

[nanaimo73]

I did that survey about two weeks ago, and nothing untoward has happened. I believe "links.mkt746.com" is related to one of the staff that participates in the weekly Trains photo contests. I've seen that address come up in one of the photo links. Which one of them is the MKT fan?

[arkansasrailfan]

nope, that website has nothing to do with trains. It is a internet services company

[trainboyH16-44]

You know you're a foamer when you see reporting marks everywhere...

[Poppa_Zit]

If it's not from Kalmbach, who else has your email address and how did they get it?

[Semper Vaporo]

I keep my e-mail address rather tightly controlled and I NEVER post it in forums (like this one and all the others), and I won't join a forum or divulge my e-mail address to any web site unless they guarantee that e-mail addresses are kept confidential.

But that doesn't mean that someone that I know will not forward an e-mail I send to them on to someone else, who then might forward it to yet another batch of unknowns who then also forward it on to yet more.  Have you not received one of these interminable "FW:"'s that have hundreds of embedded e-mail addresses in them?

All it then takes is one IDIOT to decide to harvest those addresses to a database and ALL of the people in the list are then the addressee of SPAM and all kinds of phishing and illicit garbage.

For this reason, when "I" forward an e-mail, I delete all the previous addresses and I ask others to do the same.

I do not at present get much of this garbage, but in the past my address as been given to the scum that produce the garbage and I have had to change my business e-mail address to get rid of it.  If this present missive proves to be illicit I will be changing it again.

I gave Kalmbach permission to send me e-mails and I would not mind responding to a bonified survey they might set up, but without a strong feeling of legitimatacy to this, I will not click on the supplied links.  WAY TOO MANY PHISHING SITES OUT THERE!  The links in the e-mail are not in my computer's list of permitted web addresses and giving my computer permission to access a web site is bypassing the firewall that is trying to keep the stupids out.

I will never understand the companies that send e-mails that say to never click on a link in an e-mail as it could be it is not from them, and then they send e-mails that have links in them to be clicked to access their web site.  E-bay and PayPal do this all the time... even the e-mail that they send telling me to never click on a link in an e-mail contains a link to click to get more information!!!!! A lot of people do not understand how to hover the mouse arrow over the link and then look at the status line to verify the address, but in this instance the address that shows is not Trains . com and that is a red flag.  I asked here to see if maybe Kalmbach has hired another company to do the survey and if so to let it be know here who it is.  Ideally they would set up a link on a TRAINS . COM address that links automatically to the other company, but in this instance they didn't do that.

 

I would not be so paranoid if everybody wasn't out to get me!

 

 

[Bergie]

Hi guys,

We (Kalmbach) use a hosted service (an e-mail service provider, or ESP) to transmit our e-mail newsletters, e-mail promotions (book offers, etc.), and surveys that are e-mailed. The url you are seeing is from that provider, and they are extremely uptight about both security and spam. Since every message that they transmit through the likes of AOL, Yahoo, Microsoft, Google, and Earthlink reflects on them, they assure that we are on the up and up. (I could type for hours about this, but I won't bore you.)

So, yes, it is indeed us, and it is secure.

No, the site isn't related to one individual Kalmbach employee (after all, I don't think there are any Katy fans around here).

Bergie

[Bergie]

Any comments from Trains.com or Trains Magazine or Kalmbach Publishing is hereby solicited... care to explain this?

 

One other thing... If you want a prompt response from someone here, posting a question in the forum is never the way to get it. With so many posts, it's easy for the question to become buried. (I didn't learn about this post until a different member tipped me off to it.) It's impossible for us to see every single post around here.

Please, in the future, either send a direct e-mail to me or [e-mail] or tip me off to a question that you've posted within the forums.

Thanks,
Bergie

[blade]

i also took trains surveys and it went to the trains.com link i find it strange that when you took the survey that instead of it going to the trains.com link it went some other link very odd indeed.

[videomaker]

  Bergie,

Im a Katy fan,but I havent chkd the link...