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[US] Has anyone else gotten emails out of the blue from random members of Congress that sound like replies to something you sent in? (lemmy.zip)

submitted 1 year ago by Technus@lemmy.zip to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world

14 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Over the past couple weeks I've gotten emails from both Senators and a House Rep from the State of Minnesota. All three emails have been concerning the Israel/Palestine conflict, and are worded as replies to a some message I sent them.

I've never set foot in the state, let alone lived there (I'm on the other side of the country). I've never sent messages to any of those members of Congress, and I've never signed any petition giving any group the right to contact Congress about this matter.

I suspect my name and email address might have been used in some sort of astroturfing campaign targeting Congress. Or these might be spam emails impersonating the members of Congress for some reason. I noticed the House rep and one of the Senators is up for re-election this year.

Has anyone else gotten emails like this?

I've tried to send messages back to these people but the forms on their websites require submitting an address in their state/district, so I'm not sure what to do. The From: addresses seem like they might have been faked, or they're no-reply addresses, so I wasn't sure about just replying to the emails.

I also thought about calling their offices but I wasn't sure if this was something important enough to bother their staff about, and they're two hours ahead of me so their offices are closed by the time I get off work anyway.

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[–] FartsWithAnAccent@kbin.social 16 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Nope. Sounds like someone used your address.

[+] beckerist@lemmy.world 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

[deleted]

[–] Technus@lemmy.zip 9 points 1 year ago (2 children)

They don't read like phishing emails. They're not asking for donations or information or giving a link to click on or anything. They're the exact kind of reply you'd expect to get when messaging a Senator or Representative about an issue: a boilerplate response summarizing the issue, stating their position and thanking me for writing in.

I just never sent any message, nor did I give anyone permission to send one on my behalf.

What's the scam? Baiting me into replying in order to reel me in? Checking if there's a human on the other end? Trying to sway public opinion ahead of an election?

[–] FireTower@lemmy.world 10 points 1 year ago

They're not asking for donations

This is suspicious. Reach out to their office. Maybe it is a mistake maybe it was malicious.

[–] Technus@lemmy.zip 4 points 1 year ago

And that's the other thing, why Minnesota? They have my name and email, that's not too surprising: I'm well aware of how easy that information is to come by. But they couldn't be bothered to look up what state I live in and realize that it would be a waste of time to target me?

Sending emails isn't free, even if you have a mail server or a botnet to do it for you, it still takes time and computing power and bandwidth. So why wouldn't you try to whittle down the list as much as possible?

It seems more likely that the replies might be genuine, but the message that prompted them wasn't.

It's a safe bet that the staff at these offices wouldn't have the time to verify that the message actually came from one of their constituents, especially if they're receiving them in bulk. I'd expect the replies to be mostly automated anyway, but the messages would still affect their internal statistics.

If someone's using a mass email campaign to try to sway members of Congress, that's really fucking concerning to me.

[–] Lath@kbin.social 6 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Consider that the majority of personal emails are compromised in some way.
I have an email that had been used over the years to rent cars, stay at Airbnbs, make an Instagram account, subscribe to various websites etc all over the US and I'm halfway across the world.
So it's quite likely that your email is also being used randomly.

I think there are sites where you can check if your email has been compromised, but I'm not sure which ones are scams.

[–] sanguinepar@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Have I Been Pwnd is one I use for this, as far as I know it's legit.

[–] Caaaaarrrrlll@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 year ago

Troy Hunt is a good person

[+] Kalkaline@leminal.space 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

[removed by mod]

[–] huginn@feddit.it 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

They can be used without access.

Plenty of forms let you insert any email without requiring proof that you own it.

This means you can send your complaint/comment/concern without any issues.

[–] feminalpanda@lemmings.world 4 points 1 year ago

Same with physical addresses.

[–] Technus@lemmy.zip 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm not surprised by that part at all.

It's that it seems to involve members of Congress and an issue which is likely to be important in the coming election, which seems like more than a simple scam.

I'm also asking if anyone else has had a similar experience so I can get an idea of the scale of this. I'm also trying to figure out if it's specifically Minnesota or if members of Congress from other states have also been targeted.

It also turns out that I also got a couple of Senator Smith's email newsletters, probably because I was automatically added to her mailing list, so now I'm fairly certain the message from her office was genuine.

For what it's worth, I did try to reply to the email but it was bounced back so it was definitely a no-reply address. I'm tempted to call her office tomorrow.

[–] Dark_Arc@social.packetloss.gg 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I would.

[–] Technus@lemmy.zip 1 points 1 year ago

I also tried replying to Senator Klobuchar's email, which didn't bounce so hopefully her staff will see it and get back to me.